LITMIR.BIZ

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‘Oh, I don’t think we’ve met, dear. Where is Tiggy?’ She glanced around the room as if she might find her hiding somewhere.

      ‘She’s had to go away for a bit,’ Rose said. The dog looked up at her with a distinctly unimpressed air. Rose was worried that he’d take a snap at her and she looked him firmly in the eye. She was used to dogs. Her parents had always had one when she had been growing up. You had to show them who was boss straight away. The dog whimpered and relaxed in her arms. She looked over to the desk for the chocolates. Her cheeks burned as she realised that she’d scoffed the lot. She should have known better than to leave the bowl in a place where her fingers could wander of their own accord. To her huge relief, Mrs Hilton didn’t seem to notice the now empty bowl.

      ‘Mr Chips likes you,’ Mrs Hilton said approvingly. ‘He doesn’t usually take to strangers. And certainly not when he’s grumpy.’

      ‘If you could just take a seat, Mrs Hilton, I’ll let the doctor know you’re here. Then I’ll see what I can find for Mr Chips. Can I get you something? A cup of tea, coffee?’

      Mrs Hilton sat down on one of the chairs and picked up a magazine. ‘No, thank you. Too much caffeine isn’t good for my arthritis and…’ she eyed Rose severely ‘…don’t you know it’s terribly bad for the skin? Like chocolates.’ Her eyes flickered to the empty bowl and Rose felt her cheeks grow warmer. ‘Although it seems you have good skin. Good girl. Most girls don’t think about their skin until they reach my age and by then it’s far too late to do anything about it. At least—’ her eyes twinkled ‘—without the expertise of a good surgeon.’

      Rose couldn’t work out whether she was annoyed or flattered by Mrs Hilton’s personal comments. But the gleam in older woman’s eye made her go with the latter. She meant no harm.

      Rose buzzed through to Jonathan to let him know Mrs Hilton had arrived.

      ‘It’s Lady Hilton,’ he corrected mildly. ‘I’ll come out.’

      The door opened almost before Rose had time to replace the handset. Jonathan paused in the door way and his mouth twitched as he noticed Rose trying to juggle Mr Chips with one arm while she searched for Mrs Hilton’s notes with the other.

      ‘Sophia,’ he said, striding towards the older woman. ‘How lovely to see you.’

      Lady Hilton raised her face to his and Jonathan kissed her on both cheeks.

      ‘You know I would have come to the house to see you? It would have saved you a journey into town,’ he said.

      ‘I had to come in anyway. I needed to do some shopping. And I wanted to talk to you about Giles—away from the house. He doesn’t know I’ve been feeling poorly. And…’ she looked at Jonathan sternly ‘…he’s not to know.’

      ‘Sophia, everything that you tell me is always in complete confidence,’ Jonathan said firmly. He placed an arm under her elbow and without appearing to add any pressure, eased her to her feet. Despite the look of resolve on the older woman’s face, Rose could tell the movement caused her some discomfort. Probably arthritis. Or something like it.

      ‘Do you mind awfully keeping Mr Chips while I’m in with the doctor? He gets so restless if I don’t pay him my full attention,’ Lady Hilton asked Rose.

      It wasn’t really a question. Dog-sitting hadn’t been in the job description. But, hey, it wasn’t as if she was overrun with work, and he seemed to have gone to sleep in her arms.

      Rose smiled. ‘Don’t worry. He’ll be fine with me. If he wakes up and starts looking for you, I’ll bring him in.’

      While Rose waited for the next patient to arrive, she looked around for something to do. She liked to keep busy. Not that she could do much with a dog asleep in her arms. Spotting her discarded cardigan hanging on the back of the chair, she used one hand to form it into a little bed on the floor under her desk. She placed the sleeping dog on top. He looked at her with one eye, then gave a contented sigh and settled back down to sleep. Okay, what next? Perhaps she should ask Jonathan whether he would mind if she brought in some textbooks and did some revision in between patients? She couldn’t see why he’d object. Unless she had more to occupy her, she’d go mad with boredom.

      Her glance fell on the pile of magazines Lady Hilton had picked up in the short time she’d been in the waiting room. They were a mix of high-fashion glossies and society-gossip magazines, the type Rose never ever looked through—or at least never bought. She had to admit taking a sneaky look once or twice when she was at the hairdressers, but that wasn’t the same as buying them. Other people’s lives didn’t really interest her, not unless they were doing something remarkable, like climbing Everest or walking unaccompanied to the South Pole. Now, those were people with intriguing lives, not folk who were famous, well, because they were married to a footballer or had a rich father.

      Casually she flicked through the first magazine she picked up, curious despite herself. She came to a few pages near the middle, which had photographs of celebrities out on the town. Suddenly she stopped. Staring out at her, his arm around the waist of a woman with long wavy red hair, a figure to die for and a dress that would have cost Rose a year’s salary, was Jonathan. He was dressed in a dinner jacket and a white shirt and appeared relaxed and at ease. Rose peered closer. Although he was smiling, there was something in his eyes that suggested he wasn’t best pleased to be photographed. The caption underneath read ‘The Honourable Jonathan Cavendish and his girlfriend, actress Jessamine Goldsmith, at the premiere of her film One Night In Heaven.’

      Rose was having a hard time getting her head around it. He was an honourable, the son of a lord, his girlfriend was a movie star. And he was her boss. A GP. She felt her lips curl in disapproval. That wasn’t the kind of doctor she approved of. People should go into medicine to help others, not to finance some gad-about lifestyle. However, it was nothing to do with her. She was here to do a job and as long as her new boss didn’t actually go around killing his patients with his incompetence, who was she to judge?

      The door swished open and she dropped the magazine as if it were a hot potato.

      A woman with short curly hair and a look of panic rushed into the room. She ran past Rose without saying anything, heading straight for the staff bathroom. Once again, Rose was bemused. It was beginning to feel as if she had walked in to a madhouse. Who on earth was that? She hadn’t rung the doorbell so she must have a key. And she knew exactly where the staff bathroom was. Could this be the missing Nurse Vicki?

      A few minutes later, the woman reappeared. Although she still looked pale, some colour had returned to her cheeks.

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said collapsing into a chair. ‘You must be the temp covering for Tiggy. She phoned me on Saturday to let me know she was going to be away and there would be a temp filling in.’ She took a shuddering breath. ‘You must think me incredibly rude, rushing in like that without so much as a good morning.’

      Rose crossed to the woman’s side. ‘Are you all right?’

      ‘Not really.’ She grimaced before holding out a hand to Rose. ‘I’m Victoria, my friends call me Vicki. I’ve just been terribly sick. Thank God I made it here in time. It would have been too embarrassing throwing up in public.’

      ‘Should you be at work?’ Rose said. ‘Couldn’t you have taken the day off?’

      ‘I would have. If I hadn’t known Tiggy was off. Or if I’d known I was going to feel this bad. I felt okay until I got off the tube, then I just started to feel worse and worse.’

      ‘Dr Cavendish is in with a patient. Should I call him?’ Vicki did look awful. There was no way she should stay at work. Rose watched in alarm as the colour drained from the nurse’s cheeks again.

      ‘Oh, no, sorry.’ Vicki clamped a hand across her mouth and bolted for the bathroom.

      While she waited for Vicki to re-emerge, Rose switched the kettle on again and finding some peppermint tea set about making a pot. She hoped the drink would help settle Vicki’s stomach. There

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