LITMIR.BIZ

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‘engaged’ to him.

      The ring was still on her finger. Touching it, Charlotte found she could twist it more easily now. Because she was away from the efficient central heating of the Orient Express and in a huge, chilly ancestral home?

      Or was it because she felt so cold inside? So bleak…

      Whatever. She couldn’t take it off yet, could she? Not on Christmas Day, when it would be the first thing Gran would notice. She would have to find a solution to this situation but not today.

      And she couldn’t let Gran see how miserable she was either. Pasting what she hoped was a bright smile on her face, Charlotte walked past the Christmas tree and went down the long hallway to the kitchen.

      Betty was basting an enormous turkey. Her husband, John, was polishing silver serviette rings over newspaper spread on one end of the kitchen table. Her daughter was peeling Brussels sprouts and scoring an X into the stalks.

      ‘I was just about to put some breakfast on trays and bring it up,’ Betty said after Christmas greetings had been exchanged. ‘I was getting worried.’

      ‘Has Gran not been down yet?’

      ‘Not a peep from her. And she’s always the first up on Christmas Day.’

      ‘I’ll take her up a cup of tea,’ Charlotte said. She was worried herself now. ‘I expect she’s just tired out after her big adventure.’

      ‘You look a bit peaky yourself, pet.’ Betty and her family had been a part of Highton Hall for as long as Charlotte could remember. They were more like relatives than staff. Family. Charlotte’s smile was genuine this time.

      ‘I’m fine, Betty. I just need a cup of tea, too.’

      Betty had been patting her hand. Her jaw dropped.

      ‘Oh…my… . Is that what I think it is?’

      Charlotte held up her hand and the diamond flashed as it caught the light. Her heart sank. The game had to go on a little longer no matter how much worse it was going to make her feel.

      ‘I guess I had a bit of an adventure myself, Betty. You’ll hear all about it as soon as Gran’s up, I’m sure.’

      ‘I’d better.’ Betty busied herself with a teapot and a china cup and saucer. She added a couple of tiny gingerbread stars to the saucer. ‘Go on…tell Lady G that we’re waiting to hear all about it.’

      Her grandmother’s bedroom was still dark.

      ‘You awake, Gran? I’ve got a cup of tea for you.’ Charlotte balanced the cup in one hand as she drew back the heavy drapes to let the bright, mid-morning light into the room.

      And then she turned, and didn’t notice how much tea she was spilling on the Persian carpet as she raced to her grandmother’s bedside and dropped the cup and saucer on the bedside table. Gingerbread stars floated in a saucer full of tea.

       ‘Gran…’

      Lady Geraldine was lying with her knees pulled up and the bedcover gripped between clenched fists. Her face was white with a sheen of perspiration on her forehead. Her pulse was racing. And weak. Her abdomen was swollen and hard to the touch. And it only took the lightest touch to make her cry out in agony.

      ‘Oh…God…’ Charlotte picked up the phone beside the half-empty cup of tea. She dialled only three numbers.

      ‘I need an ambulance,’ she said crisply as soon as her call was answered. ‘It’s urgent.’

      Emergencies like heart attacks and strokes were no respecters of what day it happened to be.

      Extreme weather was more of a problem on days when people simply had to be somewhere else for an important occasion and the number of accidents rose.

      And there were plenty of people like him who had no family to be with and no desire to celebrate Christmas and carried on with stupid behaviour like getting into fights and getting beaten up or stabbed.

      Worst of all, there were the people who found the season too much of a reminder of what they didn’t have so the rate of attempted suicides always went up, too.

      It was not a good day to be in charge of an emergency department but the staff always did their absolute best to make it as cheerful as possible, and Nico had always managed to join in and encourage them.

      Why was it so hard this year?

      Why did he feel so…bleak?

      So…empty?

      It was ridicolo. Ridiculous.

      He had his life back the way he wanted it to be. Needed it to be.

      So why did he feel so off-kilter? So perduto, almost?

      And why was it always Italian words that came into his head when something stirred him deeply? The past was behind him and best forgotten. Even dredging up happy memories, such as the favourite Christmas he’d shared with Charlotte, was not a good thing to do. No wonder he couldn’t settle into doing what he most loved to do and lose himself in the demands of his work.

      He would go and do another thorough neurological check on the elderly gentleman in cubicle three who had fallen when he’d gone outside to sweep snow off the steps in preparation for his family arriving. He’d hit his head hard enough to need a period of observation before they could consider letting him go home to his Christmas dinner. Maybe it hadn’t just been the slippery steps and the fall responsible for him losing consciousness either. Perhaps a more thorough cardiovascular work-up would be justified.

      Imagine what would have happened in Venice if Charlotte hadn’t been there to see beyond what others had seen?

      ‘Incoming, Dr Moretti,’ a nurse told him as she hurried past. ‘Eighty-something-year-old female with an abdominal mass and acute bowel obstruction. She’s tachycardic, short of breath and vomiting. GCS of thirteen.’

      Dio… An elderly woman with a bowel obstruction that could potentially be due to a tumour? Was everything today going to remind him of either Charlotte or her nonna? They were probably sitting in front of an open fire right now. Drinking mulled wine Or eggnog, perhaps and listening to Christmas carols. Maybe there was a piano and Charlotte would be playing carols. Or maybe they were opening their gifts to each other.

      Or…maybe something terrible had happened. Nico could see the ambulance team coming through the doors of his department now. He couldn’t see much of the figure on the stretcher because she was bundled up in warm blankets and her face was covered by an oxygen mask. The person holding the bag of IV fluids aloft wasn’t part of the paramedic crew, however.

      It was Charlotte.

      No. Could this be the beginning of the end for Jendi? Surely not today, of all days…

      ‘Resus One,’ Nico ordered, before the triage nurse had a chance to consider priority. ‘And get a surgical consult down here stat.’

      He ushered the entourage into the resus area reserved for major cases. There was no time for any more than brief eye contact with Charlotte as Nico listened to the handover from the paramedics and prepared to launch an investigative and stabilisation protocol that could deal with this emergency. There was no way he was going to let Lady Geraldine Highton die in his department on Christmas Day.

      As awful as it was, this was just the kind of challenge he’d needed. That disturbing, empty feeling had completely vanished and Nico had never felt more in control. Or more determined to do his absolute best for his patient. And her family.

      The waiting was the worst.

      At least all the tension and drama and fear since the moment she’d found Gran in such a dreadful state had been balanced by the swiftness of action and the company of others. The paramedics had been brilliant, using a four-wheel-drive vehicle to get to the estate and then transferring Gran to a faster ambulance to get her into the

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