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bed bath. Then Dr Stellingworth will be coming to see you. All right?’

      He gave her the glimmer of a smile. Claire gulped nervously. He looked terribly ill, and what was she supposed to do about his oxygen mask while she was washing his face?

      As if sensing her hesitation, Sister Thompson said softly:

      ‘Don’t worry—Mr Lucas is able to do without his mask for short periods. I’d really liked to have stayed and helped you with him, but we’re so desperately short-staffed this week. Come with me and I’ll show you where we keep the bowls.’

      Claire filled a plastic bowl with warm water and drew the curtains around the cubicle, as she had been taught by Mrs Haynes.

      It was certainly easier to bath the life-sized plastic doll in the School of Nursing than a real person, she thought, as she gently patted her patient’s face dry. She sensed that Mr Lucas was too breathless to want to chat, so she went about her work gently and silently. She changed the water in the bowl several times, and when she had finished washing him Sister came in and helped change his pyjamas and make the bed.

      ‘I’d like you to go to coffee with Nurse Hunter when you’ve finished here,’ said Sister.

      Claire nodded—she was dying for a cup of coffee, but already she felt twice as confident as she had done when she’d walked on to the ward that morning. She had given her first blanket bath and the patient had come through unscathed!

      It was while she was finishing off Mr Lucas’s chin with the electric shaver that she heard a male voice echoing outside the cubicle.

      ‘Come on, Sister. I haven’t got time to dawdle while you fuss around powdering your nose!’

      ‘That’ll be the day,’ retorted Sister goodhumouredly, pulling back the curtain. ‘You can go to coffee now, Nurse Scott. Dr Stellingworth is waiting to examine Mr Lucas.’

      Luke Hayward, standing by the notes trolley with his house officer, senior house officer and a whole clutch of medical students, heard the name and started involuntarily. Surely it couldn’t be the same Scott?

      But then he saw her, coming out of the cubicle, looking like a sweet, seductive angel, her eyes sparkling like jewels and her cheeks pink from her exertions. A single red-gold curl lay on her cheek like a sculpture. She had done it—she had taken his advice!

      Claire, carrying a basin full of soapy water, was mortified to see Luke Hayward standing there, surrounded by a crowd of other doctors, and her colour heightened even more.

      She walked towards the sluice-room and you could have heard a pin drop. Then the silence was broken by Dr Stellingworth demanding, ‘Where’s the admitting houseman who wrote these appalling notes?’ He strode behind the curtains, followed by a terrified-looking young doctor.

      Pulling his stethoscope out of his white coat, Luke watched out of the corner of his eye as she and another nurse collected their cloaks and left the ward. He’d seen literally thousands of girls in uniform over the years, but he had never seen anyone wear it quite like Claire.

      Bill Dixon, his SHO, also stood there, his eyes frankly appraising. He made a soft sound. ‘Wow!’ he said. ‘It looks like the décor of the ward has been a hundred per cent improved!’

      ‘I see that there’s been no peak flow reading done on Mr Lucas since the time of his admission,’ interrupted Luke coldly.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ the other replied, slightly taken aback. ‘I’ve done two, actually—it’s just that I haven’t written them in the notes yet.’

      ‘Really, Bill,’ said Luke sarcastically. ‘If you used just one quarter of the enthusiasm in your work that you display whenever a pretty nurse is around, then you’d be a far better doctor, in my opinion.’

      Scowling, he pushed back the curtains to join the consultant and Bill Dixon was left standing there, feeling rather bewildered. It was not like his boss to be so snappy. They’d both often commented on good-looking nurses before. He raised his eyebrows at one of the medical students who had overheard the proceedings and grimaced, then began to write the peak flow results down.

      Forcing himself to concentrate on a discussion with Dr Stellingworth about the various options open for treating Mr Lucas, Luke was himself surprised at his behaviour. Bill hadn’t acted so appallingly, had he? Of course he hadn’t. But he wanted to protect the girl from the men like Bill who would all be flocking round her like wasps round a jamjar. He felt responsible for her, that was all. If it hadn’t been for his suggestion, then she most probably would never have come here to St Anthony’s.

      She was so heartbreakingly young—far too young for him. And far too young for every stag of a houseman to be pursuing her, he thought grimly.

      Nevertheless, when the consultant’s round finished and they all adjourned to Sister’s office for coffee, he found himself loitering by the notice board until he found the nurses’ off-duty list and could see when she would be there next.

CHAPTER TWO

      AND ALL Claire could think about as she and Anna pushed open the ward doors was that day on Primrose Hill . . . a cold sunny March morning which was to change her life.

      She remembered deciding to travel to North London for a change—she wanted to pay a visit to a little shop she knew in Primrose Hill. It was in a small parade just yards from Regent’s Park Zoo and sold delicate antique lace and dresses. It was not far from the restaurant which Simon had taken her to a fortnight earlier, where she had seen the man with the enigmatic eyes, whose one brief glance had seemed to startle her out of her boredom and complacency.

      Was that why she had come here today? Was she perhaps hoping to see him again? an inner voice asked her. But she told the voice to be quiet; London was a huge city and she would probably never see him again.

      She took a bus all the way, and it was packed with people, but once beyond Marble Arch the crowds thinned away and she was able to sit and think in peace.

      There had been a letter from her mother that morning, gaily telling her that she was planning an extended trip to America with her new husband.

      Claire couldn’t help but give a small sigh. She had tried so hard to like Ian McGregor, tried for her mother’s sake as well as his. But she couldn’t shake off her initial impression that he was a poor replacement for her father. Perhaps it was fortuitous, then, that the new husband should have taken his wife to live in New Zealand, and that all three were to be spared the confirmation of an uneasy relationship.

      The bus stopped and Claire stepped out on to the pavement just below the Hill itself. It was a perfect spring morning, with a sky the colour of a bird’s egg. Although the sun shone, the air was sharp and tangy and the first purple and white crocuses were beginning to peep out from beneath the bases of the trees.

      She hoped that a shopping trip and a change of scene might dispel some of the niggling gloom which had recently threatened to envelop her. And yet there was no real reason for despondency—she was nineteen years old, a successful model earning a very creditable salary, with her own flat in the centre of London. What more could she possibly want?

      She didn’t know, but she felt as though a better life could be within her reach, if only she knew how to go about grasping it.

      Success had come to her early—she had been living on her own since she was sixteen, and she had had to learn to protect herself from the men who seemed hell-bent on seduction. She had been teased for being standoffish by the wine-swilling account executives and the braying immature city stockbrokers whom she met. But their wild, drunken parties had held not the slightest attraction for her—she preferred solitary evenings in front of the television to the forced jollity of the crowd’s ‘high jinks’.

      She gave her shoulders a little shake, and mentally chided herself. It was pointless feeling sorry for herself—it was a glorious spring morning, she had a free day ahead of her, and she

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