The Elusive Doctor Read online

  ‘I’ll pay for dry-cleaning, or a new suit if necessary,’ he offered in a low voice as she turned to face him, and added, with a smile that had more warmth in it than those he’d been displaying downstairs, ‘I never can resist slapping a bit of paint on when the opportunity presents itself. It has much less chance of backfiring on one than treating the sick.’

  Still with her snappy answer-back technique on hold, Nina smiled back. ‘Thank you for the offer, Dr Carslake.’ And with a swish of paint-daubed skirt and her high heels clicking noisily on the stone path outside the practice, she made her departure.

  ‘So how did it go?’ her father wanted to know the minute she stepped over the threshold, ‘and whatever possessed you to go looking like that?’

  His glance was on the white splashes and she sighed. ‘In answer to your first question…not very well, I feel, and with regard to the second, I didn’t go looking like this. The senior partner threw a can of paint over me.’

  ‘Threw a can of paint over you!’ he repeated, his jaw dropping. ‘Good grief!’

  ‘Well, maybe “knocked” would be a better description.’

  ‘Don’t tell me the fellow’s doing his own decorating!’ he growled. ‘I’m aware that the place is being done up. Old Battersby, who ruled the roost before, has retired and Carslake’s taken over as senior partner. There is a lot that needs doing, but decorating the place himself…!’

  ‘He wasn’t. Merely doing a bit of touching up.’

  Peter Lombard frowned. ‘I hope I understand that comment correctly.’

  Nina laughed. It wasn’t like her father to crack a joke, but if his expression was anything to go by he wasn’t aware that he had.

  ‘Where’s Eloise?’ she asked, bringing her mind to bear on what really mattered.

  ‘Having a rest upstairs. She was feeling tired and nauseous.’

  ‘Poor love. I’ll go to her,’ she said, and as he nodded in sombre agreement she went slowly upstairs.

  Up to this point there had been no mention of a mastectomy for Eloise. The initial lump, having been found to be malignant, had been promptly removed and now she was enduring chemotherapy.

  So far there were no signs that the cancer had spread but, on the dark side of it, both her mother and elder sister had died from the illness, which did make it more likely that her problems could be just beginning.

  Of the three of them in the Lombard household the patient herself was the one least overwrought, and when Nina went into the sunlit bedroom where Eloise was resting the only emotions mirrored in her eyes were those of pleasure and affection.

  ‘So tell me all about it,’ she said as her stepdaughter perched on the edge of the bed.

  ‘There isn’t much to tell,’ Nina confessed. ‘Except that I said all the wrong things and got in the way of a would-be decorator.’

  Eloise’s pale face crumpled into laughter. ‘I’m not sure whether I should pursue the matter on the strength of those admissions.’

  ‘Tell me about Robert Carslake,’ Nina said casually. ‘Who is he? Where does he live, and so on?’

  ‘He’s thirty-five years old, recently promoted, senior partner of the village practice.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘At the moment he’s living in a flat above the surgery. Regarding the “and so on” part of your question, I’m taking it that you want to know if he’s spoken for?’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘’Fraid so,’ Eloise said sympathetically. ‘The man is engaged to one of the doctors in the practice.’

  ‘And as they consist of a middle-aged man, a blonde stripling of the same sex and a sexy brunette with curves in all the right places, it isn’t hard to guess which of them is wearing his ring,’ Nina said ruefully. ‘And as I’m not going to get the job…what does it matter?’

  Eloise pushed a strand of gold hair, which was fast thinning, off her forehead, and patted her stepdaughter’s hand gently. ‘What will you do if you don’t? You know that I don’t want you to change all your plans because of me.’

  ‘I know that,’ Nina said softly, ‘but charity begins at home, and even if my aspirations aren’t in this place it’s here that my heart is.’

  A single tear rolled down her stepmother’s hollow cheek. ‘Bless you, darling Nina,’ she said, and as the two women stayed silent, each with their own thoughts, the girl with the sad green eyes vowed that she would be prepared to wash dishes in the hotel kitchen if no other work were available, just as long as she could be with Eloise…and didn’t have to be supported financially by her father.

  ‘What have you done about the skirt?’ a voice asked from behind Nina as she queued for stamps in the village post office the following morning.

  When she swung round Robert Carslake was there. This time he was in the relaxed guise of the countryman, in a fine checked shirt, open at the neck to display a strong, tanned neck, corduroy trousers, sitting snugly on trim hips, and a pair of soft leather boots on his feet.

  ‘You’re not treating the sick…or decorating this morning, then?’ she enquired innocently as their glances held for a moment.

  ‘No. It’s my day off,’ he replied blandly. ‘We’re going into town to do some shopping.’

  She sighed melodramatically. ‘Lucky you. How I long for the carbon-monoxide fumes, the grind of the traffic, the summer sales…I could go on for ever!’

  ‘Really?’ he commented with raised eyebrows. ‘So, as you were at pains to point out yesterday, you’re not impressed with our beautiful village?’

  ‘I can live with it…or in it, I should say,’ she said hurriedly, wishing once again that she’d kept quiet. ‘If you don’t give me a job in the practice, I’ll find something else to do. I saw in the parish magazine last night that they’re advertising for a verger,’ she added, her green eyes dancing.

  He shuddered. ‘Maybe we’d better give you a job, then. I’d hate church services to have to suffer because we weren’t prepared to.’

  ‘What—suffer?’

  He was looking her over, his brown eyes taking in her tight black pants, the skimpy halter top covering high-thrusting breasts and the narrow waist that he could have almost spanned with his two hands.

  The thought of having this pert young trainee as part of his team was crazy, and yet he was prepared to risk it. He wasn’t going to ask his colleagues to change their minds about the decision they’d made after she’d left the previous day.

  What mattered was how good a doctor she was. Her views on everyday matters didn’t count. As long as she pulled her weight in the practice and knew what she was about, he would be satisfied.

  As a graduate she would be answerable to one of them as her trainer and, though Gavin Shawcross had been champing at the bit to volunteer for the duty, for some reason he’d found himself informing them that he was going to take her under his wing.

  Gavin had given in with reasonably good grace, Vikram had nodded his smiling agreement and Bettine’s mouth had tightened angrily for some reason or other, but it had made no odds.

  For good or bad, they were going to take Nina Lombard on, and maybe when she’d had a taste of village life she would stop beefing about this heavenly corner of the Cheshire countryside.

  ‘So when will I know if I’m to be taken off the list of the nation’s unemployed?’ she was asking.

  He could have told her there and then, but the crowded post office was hardly the place to discuss practice matters. So, keeping to the arrangement he’d intended, Rob Carslake said smoothly, ‘I’ll pop round this evening to give you our decision.’

  It would do this extremely confident young madam no harm to stew for a few hours, he thought as he made his way to where a still displeased Bettine was waiting for him.

  The trip into town hadn’t been a success. For one thing, Bettine should have been on duty. But because it was his day off she’d insisted on coming with him, and although he’d finally given in to her wheedling he hadn’t been happy to think that she was trying
to pull rank because they were engaged.

  And on the heels of that thought had come another. Why hadn’t she wanted them to take on another doctor? They had seven thousand patients registered with them. Renowned for its excellence, the practice served other nearby villages and even borderline parts of the town.

  That meant that the workload was heavy, the paperwork vast, hence the computer room downstairs. Unless they were making an error of judgement, Nina Lombard’s addition to the team could only ease the burden.

  The two previous times Rob had seen her she’d been wearing black, a colour greatly favoured by the young female of the species, he’d thought. Having expected a repetition, he was surprised to find her in a yellow sundress and strappy sandals to match when he called at the Lombard house early that evening.

  As he pulled up on the drive Rob saw a flash of gold in the shrubbery and, knowing that he had business with both the women of the house, he went to find out which of them it was standing silently, gazing into space across the green meadows that encircled the village.

  It only needed a glance to tell him that it was the younger of the Lombard women that he was approaching, and until a twig snapped beneath his feet, bringing her round to face him, he could have been forgiven for thinking her a statue.

  So she was capable of stillness, he thought illogically. Nina Lombard wasn’t always restless and questioning. Was her reverie one of boredom, or loneliness, or grief maybe? That emotion might be something that the future held for the autocratic ex-soldier and the confident young trainee he was shortly going to be working with.

  Whatever she’d been ruminating on, it was the girl who’d dodged the paint can who was observing him now, and there was no mistaking the question in her eyes.

  ‘The job is yours if you want it, Nina,’ he said quietly. ‘So what do you say?’

  She smiled. ‘I say, yes, please…er, Dr Carslake.’

  ‘Good. That’s settled, then. If you’d like to come in to see me tomorrow, we’ll discuss salary and a starting date. And now I’d like to see your mother. It’s not an official visit, but as I’m here already I’d like a quick chat, just to see how she’s coping with the chemotherapy.’

  ‘Yes, of course. And Eloise is my stepmother…although she’s always been like a mother to me.’

  He smiled and she thought crazily that he had a lovely mouth. At least it was when he wasn’t putting her in her place, and she wondered how many times he was going to have to do that in the near future.

  ‘So you’re taking my daughter into the camp,’ her father said with gruff gratification when they went into the house. ‘You’ll find she’s a chip off the old block.’

  ‘And what exactly does that mean, sir?’ Robert Carslake enquired blandly with an amused glance at Nina’s grim expression.

  ‘Ready to take orders. Keeps her kit in good condition. Not frightened of a bit of footslog, and there’s plenty of that to be had amongst these hills and dales.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right,’ the other man agreed in the same smooth tone, ‘and we shall look forward to having her with us. Now maybe I could have a word with your wife. Is she around?’

  ‘Of course she’s around,’ he barked. ‘Where would you expect her to be with what she’s got? Feels sick all the time and hasn’t any energy.’

  Robert Carslake watched Nina turn away. So that was the way of it. This lively young woman was here to support the sick—not just in her stepmother’s illness but also as a buffer against this old martinet’s insensitivity. He’d probably never had a day’s illness in his life and didn’t know how to cope with someone who had.

  When Nina saw him to the door he paused on the point of leaving. Anxious to take away the mortification showing so clearly in the beautiful green eyes, Rob said jokingly, ‘I’ll believe it when I see you taking orders, and as for your kit, it’s not everyone who walks about covered in paint, but the best bit was the footslog. I thought you townies just jumped out of one taxi into another. Or do you have a car?’

  ‘Yes, I have a car,’ she replied. ‘A red Mini.’

  ‘So with a bit of luck we won’t lose you when we send you out into the backwoods?’

  ‘Don’t bank on it,’ she said flatly, her father’s humiliating commendation still rankling.

  CHAPTER TWO

  WHEN her father called upstairs at half past eight the next morning Nina buried her head in the pillow. She’d been up most of the night with Eloise. It had only been when the older woman’s discomfort had at last lessened, and she’d drifted off to sleep on the sofa in the lounge, that Nina had crept upstairs as the summer dawn had been breaking.

  ‘Come along, lazybones,’ he was calling. ‘Dr Carslake is on the phone for you.’

  ‘All right! All right!’ she grumbled as she picked up the bedside phone.

  ‘Robert Carslake here, Nina,’ his voice said in her ear. ‘Can you come in to see me about twelvish? That’s the best time for me, between the end of surgery and starting my rounds.’

  ‘Yes,’ she mumbled.

  There was a moment’s silence and then he asked, ‘Have I got you out of bed?’

  ‘No,’ she informed him with drowsy honesty. ‘I’m still in it.’

  ‘I see. Well, that will soon be changing, I’m afraid.’

  She stifled a yawn. ‘Yes, I suppose so, but the reason for me still being half-asleep at this hour won’t.’

  ‘Eloise had a bad night?’

  ‘Mmm. I’m afraid we were burning the midnight oil just a bit.’

  ‘And your father, too?’

  ‘No, not Dad. If he’d had a broken night he might have slept through reveille and that would never have done.’

  She had a feeling that he was smiling at the other end of the phone and, instead of feeling gratified, she felt guilty. Her father couldn’t help the way he was.

  ‘So I’ll see you, then,’ Robert Carslake said in a voice that showed that he was well and truly awake.

  ‘Yes, sir!’ she said, and sank back against the pillows.

  Nina’s second visit to the surgery was by no means as depressing as the first. This time a different receptionist showed her to a consulting room on the ground floor, and when she knocked on the door and ushered Nina inside Robert Carslake was sitting behind the desk. Today he was dressed in a smart grey suit and looking just as easy on the eye.

  If he thought the same about her he gave no sign, merely enquiring if she was now fully awake.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ she told him briskly, ‘and raring to go.’

  Where to she wasn’t quite sure, but if it boosted his confidence in her the comment would have been worth it.

  When they’d finished discussing the details of her employment Robert Carslake said, ‘You met my partners yesterday, and I’m sure that you’ll get along with all three. Dr Raju is a very pleasant man and will be only too pleased to help should you experience difficulties of any kind. So also will Gavin Shawcross. Bettine Baker is also a very competent doctor.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure she is,’ Nina murmured, noting that he hadn’t included his fiancée amongst those who would be happy to assist her. Neither had he explained their relationship. But why should he? The man’s private life was his own affair, she supposed.

  ‘And as for myself,’ he went on calmly, ‘you might feel that you have me at your elbow more than you would like as I’ll be in charge of your training here.

  ‘Whenever we employ someone like you, which we frequently do, it’s an extra role that I take on. I’m perfectly qualified to do so.’ He was smiling and she thought again what an attractive mouth he had. ‘And I hope that you’ll find your time here interesting and profitable.’ The smile was widening. ‘In spite of your aversion to the countryside.’

  ‘I’d like to start as soon as possible,’ she said, not rising to the bait. ‘Dad is there for Eloise during the day so it will pose no problem. It’s during the night that she needs me the most.’

  ‘There could be o
thers who’ll need you during those hours also,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Yes, I do know that, and I can manage without sleep. You just caught me at a drowsy moment this morning. Probably the change of air or sleeping in a strange bed.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, absently drumming his fingers on the desktop. ‘But in any case, in the beginning I’ll accompany you on any night calls that the emergency help line has to pass on to us.

  ‘So, would you like to start tomorrow? As far as the practice is concerned, there’s no reason why not, if you’re as keen to get settled in as you say.’

  It wasn’t that she was keen, Nina thought. It was more a situation of having to swallow a pill and knowing that delaying the moment would solve nothing.

  The fact that this particular pill was offering a very pleasant coating in the form of the man who was going to be her trainer had to be an unexpected bonus.

  ‘Had you visualised starting your work as a doctor in a rural practice?’ he asked curiously when they’d confirmed that she would report for duty at eight o’clock the following morning.

  ‘Not exactly,’ she said evasively.

  If he were to discover just how much she’d wanted to go overseas he might feel that he ought to look elsewhere for someone more enthusiastically inclined towards working in Stepping Dearsley’s group practice, and if he did that what would she do?

  Whether she liked it or not, here she was to stay—at least for the time being. Maybe one day, if and when Eloise had fought off the silent killer, she would realise her dream.

  A knock on the door broke into the moment, and the willowy Dr Baker came in. She gave Nina a vague sort of smile and then, as if that had dealt with her presence, said, ‘Are we lunching together, Rob?’

  He frowned. ‘I doubt it. I’ve got a lot of calls on my list.’

  She tapped her foot irritably. ‘What about Gavin and Vikram? Can’t they take some of them?’

  No mention of easing the burden herself, Nina noted.

  He shook his head. ‘’Fraid not. They’ve enough on their hands as it is. It’s this summer flu bug that’s going around.’