Kitabı oku: «An Enticing Proposal»

CHAPTER ONE

‘I CAN arrange for Dougal to see Dr Barclay this afternoon, Mrs Dean, but I know he won’t prescribe antibiotics for Dougal’s cold so it would be a waste of your time, coming back again.’

Paige sighed inwardly, wondering why she bothered to waste breath in an argument she was certain to lose.

‘All I want is some more of the pink medicine,’ Mrs Dean whined. ‘Dr Graham let me have some and it fixed Darryl’s nose so why can’t I have the same for Dougal?’

Forcing back the urge to scream and rant and rave at the woman, Paige explained, for the fourth time in ten minutes, the difference between sinusitis and the common cold, pointed out that the viruses causing the cold would be unaffected by the pink medicine and tried to convince Mrs Dean that rest and a diet including plenty of fluids would soon have young Dougal on the mend.

Young Dougal in the meantime, bored with the conversation, had hooked his thumbs into the corners of his mouth, set his forefingers against his temples and was now contorting his face into various gargoyle shapes which he directed at Paige. If anything, she decided as she listened to Mrs Dean’s praise for pink medicine, it improved the looks of a child with a white pudgy face and small raisin eyes, liberally decorated at the moment with the inevitable nasal effusion of the so-called ‘common’ cold.

A commotion in the waiting room beyond her door suggested restlessness among the natives, so she turned her attention from Dougal’s antics and tried once again to prevent an incursion into Ken Barclay’s freely given but limited time.

‘Look, Mrs Dean, you can ask Carole if Dr Barclay has an appointment available this afternoon, but, believe me, Dougal’s cold will run its course and he’s better off without unnecessary antibiotics.’

The ‘noises off’, as script writers might describe the raised voices outside, were increasing so Paige, with a final smile of appreciation for Dougal’s facial contortions, stood up to show the visit was at an end. Mrs Dean took the hint, rising laboriously to her feet, grumbling under her breath about no-good nurses and services that were supposed to help the needy, not send them away empty handed.

Having heard it all before, Paige ignored the barbed comments, holding out her hand to offer support to the hugely pregnant woman, wondering idly what the Deans would call the new baby, should it be a girl. Darlene? Dorothy? Diana? After Darryl, Denzil, David, Dennis and Dougal, maybe they would change the initial letter.

‘And by the sound of things you’ve got men in the place.’ The grumbling became audible and Paige realised her patient was right. There was at least one man in the waiting room—and not a very happy man at that, if his tone of voice was any indication.

‘Supposed to be for women, Tuesdays!’ Mrs Dean griped, resisting Paige’s attempts to hustle her out the door and calmly rearranging multitudinous layers of clothes around her bulk.

Paige opened the door, more anxious now to discover what was going on than to be free of Mrs Dean. The waiting room was in its usual state of chaos. Children crawled around the floor or fought over the small collection of toys and books she’d managed to accumulate. Their mothers sat on hard plastic chairs, exchanging news and gossip in a desultory fashion, their attention focussed on the confrontation taking place at the reception desk. Some were waiting to see her, but others would have appointments with Sue Chalmers, an occupational therapist who volunteered her time on Tuesday mornings to run a small toy library.

Carole Benn, the community service’s receptionist, was in place behind the high counter, which provided her with little protection from the man who was leaning across it, waggling his finger in her face and growling threateningly at her.

A second man stood slightly behind this aggressive type, looking remote and disinterested, seemingly oblivious to the noise and activity all around him. His colour was bad—olive overlaid with grey. An illness perhaps. Had the pair strayed in here, thinking it was a medical practice? She studied the silent man covertly—from a female not a nursing point of view this time. Bad colour did little to diminish the magnetism of a face which could have been carved from mountain rock—like the heads of presidents somewhere in the United States.

The wayward thought flitted through Paige’s mind as she ushered Mrs Dean towards the counter and raised her eyebrows at Carole. Carole lifted one hand and made an almost imperceptible shooing movement with her fingers but the irate man observed the motion and spun immediately towards Paige.

‘So you are Paige Morgan!’ he said in accusatory tones. ‘This woman tries to tell me you are not available. I am Benelli and this is Prince Alessandro Francesco Marcus Alberici.’

To the astonishment of Paige, and all the occupants of the waiting room, the younger man came to attention and all but clicked his heels together as he indicated the second man with a wild flourish of one hand and a movement of his body that suggested obeisance.

‘Ah, at last my prince has come.’ Paige clasped her hands theatrically in front of her chest and raised her eyes to the ceiling. Then she grinned at Carole. ‘Wouldn’t you know he’d arrive on a Tuesday when I’m too busy for a coronation.’

Inside, she wasn’t quite so light-hearted as bits of her fizzed and squished in a most unseemly manner—the result of another quick appraisal of the second man’s bone structure.

Lust at first sight?

With a determined effort, she turned away, concentrating on the underling, hoping to surprise a smile in his eyes, some confirmation he wasn’t serious.

‘Am I supposed to guess something—or answer a question and get a prize?’ she hazarded. ‘Is it a joke of some kind, or a new form of fund-raising? I’m afraid my sense of humour’s a bit dulled this morning and, as for money, this place takes every penny I can scrounge up.’

Mr Benelli turned an unattractive shade of puce—now she had two bad-complexioned strangers in her waiting room! He jumped up and down—or rose on his toes to give that impression—and began waggling his forefinger at her.

‘This is no joke! He is a prince, a real prince, and he does not want money.’

‘Well, that’s a change,’ Paige replied, risking a swift glance towards the ‘real prince’ and catching what appeared to be a glint of humour in his black eyes. Black eyes? Did eyes come in black? Not that she could see them closely enough to judge eye colour accurately. ‘What does he want?’

She shook her head as she heard her own question. Why the hell was she carrying on this conversation through an intermediary?

‘He wishes to speak with you on a matter of extreme urgency,’ Mr Benelli informed her, and for the first time Paige caught the hint of a foreign accent in his properly worded and pronounced English and realised that he, too, had the dark hair and olive complexion of his companion, a colouring she associated with Mediterranean origins.

Surely it couldn’t be…Her heart skittered at the half-formed thought.

‘I’ll be free at twelve,’ she said crisply, hoping her rising anxiety wasn’t apparent in the words. ‘Perhaps you could both come back then.’ She glanced again towards the second man, realised the grey colour was probably fatigue and added, ‘Or you could wait here if you prefer.’

The offer failed to please Benelli, who all but exploded on the spot as he poured out his indignation.

‘This is urgent, he must see you now. The car waits outside to drive him back to Sydney. He is busy man. Important. Not to be—’

Paige missed the end of the sentence, too intent on trying to settle the new upheaval within her—one that had nothing to do with lust. Perhaps it was a joke, she hoped desperately. Hadn’t she glimpsed a gleam of humour in the dark eyes? And why didn’t the second man speak if it was his errand—his urgency?

He answered the second question almost as she thought it.

‘We will wait, Benelli,’ he said, in a voice that vibrated across Paige’s skin like a bow drawn across violin strings.

Shivering at the effect, she pulled a file from the holder on her office door and called the name of the next patient, seeing Benelli offer the newly vacated chair to the ‘prince’, the man refusing it and propping himself on the window-ledge as her father had done during her childhood when this had been their living room, not a place for those who could not afford other services to wait—and hope.

Her father had been a tall man—a little over six feet—and the window-ledge had been comfortable for him. But she’d never found it anything but awkward to perch there, although at five feet eight she wasn’t a short woman.

And why you’re thinking about how tall you are is beyond me, she admonished herself silently, leading Mabel Kruger into the room, then closing the door firmly on the unwelcome visitors.

‘’Andsome enough to be a prince,’ Mabel remarked, settling into the visitor’s chair and lifting her leg onto the stool Paige had pulled towards her.

‘Why should we expect princes to be handsomer than ordinary mortals?’ she asked crossly, peeling dressings off Mabel’s ulcer as gently and carefully as she could.

‘They are in books,’ Mabel pointed out. ‘And, apart from that Charles, the Queen’s lads are good-looking.’

‘Well, I’m sure she’d be pleased to hear you say so,’ Paige responded, talking to distract Mabel’s attention as she debrided dead tissue, cleaning out the gaping hole and wondering if a skin graft might eventually be necessary or if they were winning the battle against infection. ‘Though I think I prefer blond men. Why are princes always depicted as dark?’

They chatted on, and she knew she was diverting herself as well as Mabel. Not wanting to think about the phone call she’d made, about betrayal—and being caught out. No, the two couldn’t be connected. A simple phone call in return was all she’d expected—wanted.

So why did she feel sick with apprehension? Why was she harbouring a grim foreknowledge that the strangers in her waiting room were connected with Lucia?

She set aside unanswerable questions. Mabel was explaining, with minimal use of the letter ‘h’, about the beauty of the princes she’d encountered in the fairytale books of her youth. She then moved on to wonder about the reliability or otherwise of princes, given the unreliability of men in general. Paige let her talk and concentrated all her attention on her task, peeling the protective backing off the new dressing, then pressing it firmly in place.

‘Now, leave it there all week unless your leg swells or you notice any unusual redness or feel extra pain,’ she told her patient. ‘And rest with your leg up whenever you can—’

‘So I don’t ’ave to go to ’ospital and get a graft!’

Mabel repeated the usual ending to this warning, then she patted Paige—who was still kneeling on the floor, pulling Mabel’s sock up over the dressing—on the head and said, ‘Not that you don’t deserve a prince, girl.’

Paige looked up at her and smiled.

‘Don’t wish that on me. I don’t want any man—let alone a princely one,’ she teased, using the back of Mabel’s chair to lever herself up to her feet.

‘You mightn’t want one,’ Mabel argued, ‘but you’re the kind of girl as needs a man about the place—well, not needs, maybe, but should ’ave. I see your eyes when you look at those kids sometimes, and the babies. That fancy doctor did you no favour, getting you all interested in things like marriage then taking off with that floozy.’

Well, that’s a different take on my break-up with James, Paige thought as she helped Mabel to her feet. Was that how all her patients viewed the nine-day wonder of it all? How her friends saw it?

‘Not all men are the same,’ Mabel declared with as much authority as if she’d made that notable discovery herself.

Paige grinned at the pronouncement. She walked the elderly woman to the door and saw her out, her eyes going immediately to the man framed in the window embrasure. No, all men were not the same, she admitted silently, then trembled as if a draught had brushed across her neck.

Calling for the next patient, she turned back inside so she didn’t have to look at the stranger in their midst.

Well, you mightn’t have to look at him, but you’ll have to think about him some time soon, she reminded herself, grabbing the chubby two-year-old who’d scampered through the door ahead of her mother, intent on climbing onto Paige’s desk and creating as much havoc as she could.

‘Not today, Josephine,’ she murmured as she swung the child into her arms and gave her a quick hug. ‘Is she any calmer on the Effilix?’ she asked, turning to the young woman who’d followed them into the room and settled into the chair with a tired sigh.

Yes, she had more to worry about than princes—or men either—at the moment, she reminded herself, watching Debbie and wondering how she juggled her studies and motherhood.

‘I suppose it depends on your definition of calmer,’ Debbie Palmer replied with a wry grin that told Paige no miracle cure had been effected by the natural therapy. ‘But Susie’s been giving her massages every second day and that seems to have a good effect on her, and the other mothers at playgroup feel she’s interacting much better with their kids.’

‘Well, that’s something,’ Paige said in her most encouraging voice, setting Josie back on her feet and handing her a small bright top, demonstrating how it spun, then watching as the little hands tried to duplicate the action. In her opinion, Josephine was a very bright child with an active, enquiring mind, but too many people had muttered ‘hyperactive’ to Debbie, and the young single mother now feared a diagnosis of ADD—the attention deficit disorder—which was the popular label for behavioural problems used among parents and school teachers at the moment.

Debbie was ambivalent about the drugs used to treat the disorder—some days determined to keep Josie off medication, while on others wanting the relief she imagined they might bring. Paige had come down on the side of a drug-free life for the child and pressed this point of view whenever possible, although at times she wondered how she would feel in a similar situation.

‘I’ve arranged for a paediatrician to see Josie next month,’ she said. ‘It’s a Dr Kerr, and he’s agreed to meet you here so she’s in familiar territory. But as I’ve said before, Deb, there’s no guarantee he’ll come up with anything. It’s very difficult to pin a label on so young a child.’

Debbie looked at her without answering, then she shrugged and grinned.

‘Seems a little unfair, doesn’t it? You get a prince and I get a paediatrician!’

‘I can’t imagine he’s really a prince,’ Paige retorted. ‘And, even if he is, what would I want with one?’

‘Well, he’s decorative for a start,’ Debbie pointed out. ‘And he oozes that magnetic kind of sex appeal only some men have, in case you’re too old to remember what sex appeal is.’

Paige chuckled in spite of the worry Debbie’s conversation had regenerated.

‘Am I walking around looking jaded and depressed? Or like someone gnawing at her bones with frustration?’ she said. ‘Mabel’s just told me I need a man and now you’re here offering me good-looking sex.’

‘Oh, he’s beyond good-looking,’ Debbie argued, taking the top from her daughter before it could be hurled across the room. She leaned forward and demonstrated its action once more, then smiled as she watched the little figure squat down on the floor and try again.

Paige watched the interaction of mother and child, saw Debbie’s smile, so full of love for this difficult little mortal she’d conceived by accident, and felt the tug of envious longing which told her Mabel was right.

But the prince, if prince he was and her assumptions were correct, had come to reclaim his wife, not carry a tired community nurse off into some fabled distance on his shining white charger.

She sighed.

‘Sighing’s usually my line, not yours,’ Debbie told her. ‘Are you OK?’

‘A bit tired,’ Paige explained, not untruthfully. The problem of what to do with her uninvited house guest had been keeping her awake at night for the last month.

‘That’s why you need a change—a holiday,’ Debbie reminded her. ‘You’ve been working for what…four years without a break. You deserve a bit of time to yourself.’

To do what? Paige thought, but she didn’t say it. She did need a break, needed to get right away somewhere so she wouldn’t be tempted to step in if things went wrong at the service, answer calls at night which someone else should take.

But with Lucia?

She sighed again.

‘OK, OK, I get the message,’ Debbie said. ‘I won’t keep you. I brought back the library toys and Sue chose some new ones for Josie, so all I need is a time for Dr Kerr’s appointment and I’m out of here.’ She grinned cheekily at Paige. ‘Leaving you with only one patient to go before the prince!’

‘Lucky me! Who is it? Do you know?’

‘I think it’s Mrs Epstein. I noticed her in the corner, huddling into that black wool coat of hers and trying to look invisible.’

‘Poor thing. She’s not at all well, and hasn’t had a proper medical check since Sally Carruthers left town. She refuses to see a male doctor. I guess eventually someone will have to drive her down to Tamworth to see one of the women in practice down there. Would you send her in, to save me going to the door? Just lift her file out of the slot and give it to her to bring in.’

Paige gave Josie a hug and said goodbye to Debbie, then sat down at her desk and buried her head in her hands. One more patient then the prince to confront. He had to have come about Lucia, so what did she tell him? She could hardly reveal Lucia’s presence in the house without at least consulting her—explaining about the phone call and why she’d made it.

And she couldn’t leave this room to go upstairs and talk to Lucia without being seen by her two unwelcome visitors.

Unless…

She glanced towards the windows, stood up and walked across to open the one closer to her desk. To poke her head out and look up. As a child she’d climbed both up and down the Virginia creeper innumerable times, but would it hold an adult’s weight?

And was she seriously considering climbing up there?

‘Seeking an escape route?’

The deep voice made her spin around, and she knew from the flash of heat in her cheeks that her stupid pale skin was flushing guiltily.

‘The room was warm,’ she sputtered, compounding her stupidity with the lie. She took control. ‘Anyway, I’ve another patient to see before you.’

‘Your patient has departed,’ he responded coolly.

‘Or been intimidated into leaving by your presence,’ Paige retorted, curbing an urge to add a scorching remark about princely arrogance. ‘What’s happened to your sidekick?’

‘Sidekick?’ The man looked bemused.

‘Mr Benelli. The guy who bowed you in.’

‘Ah, you took offence at his behaviour. I can understand that reaction, but to check him, tell him this ceremony was not what I wanted or desired, would have been to humiliate him in front of your patients.’

Paige stared at him, though why his compassion for a fellow man should startle her she didn’t know. Unless she’d assumed princes were above such things! Which reminded her—

‘Are you really a prince?’

He shrugged, moved further into the room and smiled.

Bad move, that—making him smile. The rearrangement of his features made him even more devastatingly attractive—and, coming closer, it had brought his eyes into view. Not black but darkest blue, almost navy.

‘I am Francesco Alberici. The title “prince” is a hangover from bygone days—something I do not use myself. Benelli is an official at our consulate in Sydney. It is he who sees honour in a useless appellation, not myself.’

He’d held out his hand as he’d said his name, and politeness had decreed she take it. But to let it rest in his as he finished speaking? Another mistake.

She took control, stuck her still-warm but nonetheless offending hand into the pocket of her blazer and looked—confidently, she hoped—into his eyes.

‘So, now we’ve cleared up the prince business, how can I help you?’

As if I don’t know, an inner voice quailed, and she regretted not escaping through the window, even if she hadn’t climbed the creeper.

‘You phoned me—left a message.’

Marco watched the colour fluctuate beneath her cheeks—no doubt she was considering what lie to tell him—and wondered about her background. With that pale skin, cornsilk-coloured hair falling in a straight drop to chin level and the smatter of freckles across her nose, she certainly didn’t fit his image of a bronzed Australian. But, then, this New England city in the northern tableland area of New South Wales had the feel of an English market town, in spite of the lush sheep country which surrounded it.

‘You’re Marco?’

Her question, when it came, held surprise—and, he suspected, dread. Or guilt?

‘Who else?’ he said harshly, surprised to find an inner anger surging into the reply. He could usually control his emotions better than that. Tiredness? The long flight? Or the months of gut-wrenching, muscle-straining, heartbreaking worry over Lucia?

He curbed the anger as wide spaced green eyes, flecked with the gold of the sunlight outside, stared warily into his.

‘Why didn’t you phone?’

‘I came instead.’

‘Why?’

The question gave him momentary pause, then the anger churned again, rising, threatening to erupt.

‘To take Lucia home,’ he said bluntly.

Paige had seen him stiffen earlier, guessed at anger, saw the tension in his body, controlled now but ready to explode. She wondered about violence. Was that why Lucia had fled? She had to forget her own reaction to the man—that strange and almost instant attraction. Right now she needed to stall, to buy time. With time maybe she could persuade Lucia to talk about her flight, before revealing her whereabouts to anyone. Or this man’s presence in town to Lucia!

She tried for innocence in her expression—in her voice.

‘Lucia?’ she repeated in dulcet tones.

Wrong move! His body language told her she’d unwittingly lit the fuse to set him off. He stepped closer, spoke more softly, but there was no escaping the rage emanating from his body and trembling in his words.

‘Yes, Lucia, Miss Morgan. And don’t act the innocent with me. You phoned my private work number, a new number only a handful of people know, you asked for Marco—a name only Lucia and my family use to address me. You left a message—said you wanted to speak to me. I haven’t come halfway around the world to play games with you, so speak to me, Miss Morgan. Or tell me where she is and let her explain her behaviour.’

Paige shivered under the onslaught of his words—and the emotion accompanying them. No way could she inflict him on her ill and unhappy house guest. But how to tell an enraged husband—however handsome and sexy he might be—you won’t let him see his wife, without risking bodily harm to yourself? She gulped in some replenishing air, waited for the oxygen to fire into her blood, then squared up to him.

‘I will speak to her, ask her if she wishes to see you.’

‘You will…’

Well, at least she’d rendered him speechless!

She raised her hands as if to show helplessness. ‘I can’t do any more than that.’

He glared at her, his eyes sparkling with the fierceness of his anger.

‘Then why did you contact me? To tease me? Torture me even more? Was it her idea? Did she say, “Let’s upset Marco in this new way”?’

The agony in his voice pierced through to her heart and she found herself wanting to put her arms around him, comfort him—for all her doubts about his behaviour towards his wife.

‘She doesn’t know I contacted you,’ she said softly—feeling the guilt again. Wondering how to explain.

He was waiting, the fire dying from his eyes, the grey colour taking over again.

‘Please, sit down. Do you want a drink—something hot—tea, coffee?’

No reply, but he did slump into the chair. He ran the fingers of his right hand through his dark hair, then stared at her. Still waiting.

‘She came to me—off a backpackers’ coach. Do you know about backpackers?’

He shrugged and managed to look both disbelieving and affronted at the same time. ‘Young tourists travelling on the cheap. But a coach? Lucia? Backpacking? And why would she come here?’

Well, the last question was easy. If you took it literally.

‘The bus company has a number of coaches which follow the same route through the country towns of New South Wales. People buy a six-month ticket and can get on and off wherever they like—staying a few days in some places, longer in others. This is a very popular stopping-off place and the company recommends the health service as a number of the professionals here speak more than one language.’

‘Parla italiano?’

The words sounded soft and mellifluous in Paige’s ears and again she felt a pang of sorrow—a sense of loss for something she’d never had.

‘If you’re asking if I speak Italian, the answer’s no. I used a phrase book to leave a message on your answer-phone. I studied Japanese and Indonesian and can get by in German. Many of the European tourists also speak or understand it, so I can communicate to a certain extent.’

‘Which is a credit to you but isn’t diverting me from the subject of Lucia, Miss Morgan.’

Mellifluous? Steely, more like!

‘Or your phone call,’ he added, in a no-less-determined voice.

‘She wasn’t well, and I sensed…’

How to explain her conviction that Lucia was in trouble—ill, lost and vulnerable—so alone that to take her in and care for her had been automatic.

She looked at the man from whom the young woman had fled and wondered how to tell him why she’d been compelled to phone him.

‘She wasn’t like the usual backpackers I see. Mostly they’re competent young people, clued up, able to take care of themselves, if you know what I mean. Lucia struck me as someone so far out of her depth she was in danger of drowning.’ She met his eyes now, challenging him yet willing him to understand. ‘But I also felt she’d been very much loved and cherished all her life,’ she admitted, ‘and from the little she told me, I guessed someone, somewhere, would be frantically worried about her whereabouts.’

He said nothing, simply stared at her as if weighing her words, wondering whether to believe them.

‘She doesn’t know I made that call,’ Paige admitted, feeling heat flood her cheeks again. ‘I looked through her passport one day and found the number pencilled in the back of it. I felt you—her family—someone somewhere—might need to know she was alive.’

He bowed his head, letting his chin rest against his chest, and she saw his chest rise and fall as be breathed deeply.

‘Yes,’ he said, after a long pause. ‘I—we all—did need to know she was alive.’

She studied him. Saw tiredness in the way his body was slumped in the chair. But when he raised his head and looked into her eyes there was no sign of fatigue—and the anger which she’d seen earlier still lit his from within.

‘Did she tell you why she ran away?’ he demanded.

Paige shrugged.

‘She told me very little,’ she said bluntly. ‘All I’ve done is guess.’

‘Abominable girl!’ the man declared, straightening in his chair and flinging his arms into the air in a gesture of frustration. ‘She’s been spoiled all her life, that’s her trouble. Cherished is right! Of course she was cherished. And how does she repay that love and affection? How does she treat those who love her? By taking off! Running away! Leaving without a word to anyone, a note from Rome to her mother, saying she will be all right! Then nothing for months. We all assume she’s dead! Dio Madonna!’