Unwrapped by the Duke

by Amy Ruttan

  “Scamp, and what would you know about the world?” he asked.

  Zoe playfully stuck out her tongue while Geri tried not to laugh.

  “How much of an age difference is there between you two?” Geri asked.

  “A lot,” Zoe teased, while Thomas groaned. “I’m seventeen.”

  “Yes, but she’s still not mature enough to take care of herself. Since our father died and her mother is working with Doctors Without Borders in Africa, I am currently Zoe’s legal guardian.” He smiled down at his younger sister with much tenderness. “We were just doing some Christmas shopping. She wanted to send her mother something nice to try to entice her back to London.”

  “Yes, so I can spend school holidays away from this tyrant,” Zoe teased. “Which reminds me, a group of my friends are meeting over on Brompton Road at the cinema. Can I please go? Jennifer can give me a lift back to the flat.”

  “I suppose so, but I want you home by eleven.”

  Zoe rolled her eyes. “Yes, tyrant.”

  “Scamp.” Thomas ruffled her hair.

  “Nice to meet you, Dr. Collins.” And with that Zoe left them, heading down Sloane Street back to Knightsbridge.

  “I have to say I’m relieved she’s your sister.”

  Thomas cocked an eyebrow. “Jealous, are we, Dr. Collins?”

  “Hardly.”

  Liar.

  “Then why are you so relieved?” he asked.

  “Actually, I was worried that an older man was with a young girl. It looked a bit icky if you ask me.”

  Thomas laughed out loud. “Icky? Never heard that one before. And you do know many men in your father’s circles have second or third wives who are scandalously younger than themselves. I mean, I saw Lord Twinsbury eyeing you up today. Perhaps you can be the next Lady Sainsbury?”

  “No, thank you,” Geri said. “Well, I won’t keep you.”

  He grabbed her arm, stopping her from leaving. His hand so strong on her arm, so reassuring it made her feel nervous, because it felt so good.

  “You’re not keeping me. Where are you off to?”

  “I was just taking a leisurely stroll.”

  He cocked an eyebrow and then took her arm, slipping it through the crook of his arm. “In December at night?”

  “Is there some sort of law against that?” she asked.

  “No, but I’m thinking about the thousand fits your father is going to have.”

  “I’m thirty. He shouldn’t worry so much.”

  “Maybe he’s trying to make up for lost time?” Thomas suggested tentatively.

  “It’s hardly your place to say that, Mr. Ashwood,” Geri replied icily. But a niggling voice in her head had said the same thing.

  “True. Just a suggestion. From one gentleman regarding another gentleman.

  Geri smiled. “Yes, you are a gentleman, aren’t you? I don’t know of another man who would take time out of his night to walk a new business partner down some random street in the snow.”

  “You’re obsessed with winter, it seems.”

  “No, just Christmas.”

  “I don’t get Christmas.”

  “What don’t you get about Christmas?”

  He shrugged. “It was never a big deal when I was growing up. I mean, I guess I didn’t have a loving family. Detached was more like it. So Christmas was just another day.”

  “Same here,” she said. “But I loved the idea of it being something more. Which made me just want to love it all the more the older I got.”

  “Well, it did get considerably better when Zoe came on the scene. It was nice being able to buy toys and dolls when I was young man and celebrating Christmas with her and her mother.”

  “Were they together long, Zoe’s mother and your father?”

  Thomas shrugged. “Long enough. But Zoe’s mother wouldn’t marry my father. She was smart.”

  “Why?”

  “He was... He had a lot of resentment. He never did get over my mother’s death.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Thomas shrugged. “Zoe’s mother always made me feel like a son. Didn’t have much of a mother figure growing up and my father was distant. I lost my mother when I was very young. I don’t recall her, but people have told me my father was happy. Though I never saw it.”

  “I understand. My mother was not the most pleasant. I’m sorry about your mother.”

  He nodded. “Yes, I was heartbroken. It was a myocardial infarction during a pregnancy that did it. The baby died as well. She wasn’t far along when it happened. Crushed my father. He didn’t really get over her.”

  Geri squeezed his arm. “That’s nice they loved each other. My parents did not love each other. They were two ships that passed in the night.”

  “You sure about that?” he questioned.

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “They married.”

  “So?” Geri shrugged. “Love and marriage don’t always go hand in hand.”

  “Still, there must have been some feelings.”

  “Whatever feelings they had I don’t wish to discuss.” She shuddered. “Why are you so adamant they were in love?”

  He shrugged. “I heard different.”

  Geri pulled him to a stop and to one side so they wouldn’t get trampled by the Christmas shoppers on the sidewalk. “What do you know?”

  “Nothing, just rumors.”

  “Tell me.”

  He opened his mouth to say something but his pager went off, as did hers. Thomas reached his first and pulled it out, frowning when he read the text.

  “It’s Lord Twinsbury. We have to get back to the hospital.”

  “I sent Jensen away,” Geri fretted.

  “Don’t worry, my car is down the street.” He grabbed her hand. “Let’s go. Thankfully the hospital isn’t far.”

  She nodded and let Thomas guide her along the busy road to his car. She still wanted to know what he knew about her parents, but right now Lord Twinsbury was the most important thing. Everything else could wait, because really what difference would it make if her parents had been in love thirty years ago?

  It wouldn’t change the past and wouldn’t shape her future.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “SUCTION, PLEASE.” THOMAS WORKED over Lord Twinsbury. The graft had thrown a clot and begun to leak. It was the first time in a long time Thomas had performed a coronary artery bypass graft that had failed, but it was one of those things that could happen. There were so many factors that could lead to the graft leaking.

  He was annoyed, but as he worked on Lord Twinsbury he could see the tissue was friable and he had a hard time suturing. All he seemed to be doing was macerating the vessels and he couldn’t take another one from the groin. He glanced up to see Geri watching from the viewing gallery.

  She was biting her lip and pacing, which wasn’t helping, but he understood. She was worried about their patient. Her first patient since she’d started working with her father. He had a sneaking suspicion she liked the old coot and, truth be told, he did too.

  Come on.

  There was a buzz from the gallery.

  “Mr. Ashwood, may I suggest something?”

  “I’m all ears, Dr. Collins.” What she could possibly suggest he didn’t know, but if he didn’t get the graft to work, if he didn’t get the vessels to connect, he would lose Lord Twinsbury and he refused to let the old man go.

  “Does the hospital have any donated umbilical vessels that can be used instead of trying to take another one from the patient?”

  “Brilliant, Dr. Collins.” He nodded to a surgical fellow who took off to see if that could be found while he continued to work on saving Lord Twinsbury’s life. It didn’t take long for the fellow to
return with an umbilical vein, prepped, stripped and ready to go.

  Thomas gently took and placed it just below the faulty graft, praying that this one would be stronger than the one before. He was impressed Geraldine had known to suggest it. It was a trick only a well-read surgeon would know.

  “Take him off bypass.” Thomas closed his eyes and waited with bated breath. He glanced up at Geri, who had her hands pressed against the glass, worrying her bottom lip as she watched too.

  The bypass machine slowed, the whirring sound ending, and the blood was allowed to flow through the heart.

  Come on.

  He didn’t have to wait too long before the heart began to beat on its own again. The new graft was holding and he sent up silent thanks. Geri was clapping and smiling in the gallery and he smiled to himself as he finished the operation.

  It was the best part of his job, saving lives, and it reminded him he was healing hearts, so that others didn’t have to go through the pain he and his father had gone through when his mother had died. So other families didn’t have to be devastated.

  He couldn’t heal his own heart, but he’d made his peace with that. He wouldn’t pass the fear he faced along to children. This would never be their life. After what had happened with his mother and father, he knew he couldn’t trust himself to love that deeply, to put his own heart at risk. His existence for the last thirty-odd years had worked and that’s how it would stay.

  When he’d finished with Lord Twinsbury he left it to his cardiothoracic fellow to take their patient up to the ICU. Tonight he would have his fellow monitor Lord Twinsbury’s vitals. Charles wouldn’t be happy, but he was tired from pulling an all-nighter just recently and it was Zoe’s first day back from boarding school for the Christmas holidays. He wanted to be there for her.

  Even if she spent most of her free time with her friends.

  At least he would be home for her.

  He would be the constant for Zoe, which he’d never had as a child.

  Thomas leaned over the sink in the scrub room, rolling his neck. Every part of him was hurting and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so bone weary.

  “You did amazingly.”

  He turned to see Geri, in scrubs, standing just outside the scrub room.

  “You changed into scrubs to come and tell me I’m amazing? I’m impressed.”

  Geri shrugged. “I was going to do rounds on a couple of patients of my father’s who were admitted for minor issues, so I thought I would come down here and congratulate you on that nice save.”

  “I should’ve thought of umbilical veins. It was the farthest thing from my mind as I tried to make the anastomosis with the original vein graft work. Thank you for being my reason back there.”

  “It’s part of my job.” She blushed. “Thank you for the acknowledgment.”

  “You’re welcome, but it’s not part of your job. It’s a surgeon’s job,” he said. “Why didn’t you become a surgeon again?”

  “I wanted to be in a clinic instead of an OR. I wasn’t cut out to be a surgeon.”

  She’d said something similar before and he’d believed her at the time, but now he didn’t really believe her; she was being evasive. Something else had made her decide not become a surgeon.

  “Are you staying tonight?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “No, I want to be home and see if Zoe makes her curfew.” He dried his hands. “I’ll grab something vile from the cafeteria to eat and then head for my flat.”

  “Enjoy your vile dinner. I’m going to make my quick rounds and then head back to Holland Park. I’m sure my father is wondering why a dress and shoes made it home but I didn’t.”

  “A dress?”

  “Yes, for that social event I’m being forced to go to.”

  “Ah, I’d completely forgotten about it.”

  She snorted. “I don’t blame you.”

  And though he shouldn’t offer it, he couldn’t help himself. “Well, if I’m still here when you’ve done your rounds I’ll give you a ride home.”

  “Thomas, it’s okay, really. You don’t have to stick around. You’ve just done grueling surgery and you need to go home and check on your sister. Make sure she made her curfew.”

  “Of course.”

  She nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the office.”

  Thomas watched her walk away from the scrub room, her long delicate hands thrust deep into the pockets of her white lab coat. Her glorious hair was braided and piled under a hideous scrub cap, but she still looked very desirable.

  And he hated himself for his weakness when it came to her.

  * * *

  It was well after midnight when the taxi pulled up in front of her father’s Holland Park town house. The lights were still on and she had no doubt her father was pacing. It was sweet of him, but he needed his rest. Part of the reason for his retirement was because he had cancer. He was fighting it and he needed to conserve every last ounce of his energy.

  It was bad enough he wasn’t telling anyone besides her that he was fighting the disease. He even went so far as to go to another hospital on the far side of the city to get his treatment. That way no one would know.

  He was stubborn.

  Just like her. Or at least that’s what her mother had always said. Something she’d clung to as a child when she’d been wondering who her father was.

  She had resented him for taking so long to find her and even then only finding her when it was too late almost to form a proper relationship.

  “You’re here now, Geraldine. That’s all that matters.”

  She paid her cabbie and pulled out her key. There was a thick blanket of snow on St. James’s Gardens across the road from her father’s townhome and the streetlights gave the snow a warm golden glow.

  The steps up to the navy door of her father’s home had been meticulously cleared. That had probably been Jensen, who had gone back to his own home, which was not far from her father’s. Her father might be of the gentry, but, other than Jensen, Molly, the cleaning lady and cook, he didn’t employ servants, whereas Geri knew that Lord Twinsbury did.

  Of course, Lord Twinsbury lived in Hampshire and when he came to London stayed at his club.

  She didn’t even have a chance to get the key in the door when her father swung it open, frowning.

  “Where were you?”

  “I was at the hospital, doing rounds on two of your patients. I also stayed to make sure that Lord Twinsbury’s repair surgery went off smoothly.” She pushed past her father into the entranceway and took off her jacket, hanging it on a coat hanger.

  “Repair surgery?” Her father asked, concerned. “What happened? Is Lionel okay?”

  “The vein graft leaked. The anastomosis from the original coronary artery bypass graft wouldn’t hold. His veins were very friable.”

  And she was glad she’d been in the gallery to suggest the alternative graft. It had been her first surgical triumph as a resident on her first solo coronary artery bypass graft. She’d used an umbilical vein to save a young woman’s life when that young woman’s veins had also been very friable.

  It was her signature move.

  Frederick had felt a bit threatened by her at that point. She was sure now it was that surgery that had destroyed their romance a year ago. Still, Lord Twinsbury’s life had been saved, even if she hadn’t been the one to do the surgery. Even though she hadn’t been able to see the full surgery from the gallery, she’d closed her eyes and could see it all step by step in her mind while Thomas had operated. And as she’d watched from the gallery she’d realized how much she missed surgery. Painfully.

  She missed holding a heart in her hand, because it was a beautiful thing indeed.

  It was comforting and she loved its complexities.

&nbs
p; “Blast,” he cursed under his breath, shaking her from her thoughts. Her father then ran a hand through his white hair. “Do you want a drink?”

  “It’s midnight.”

  “Yes, I know, but I can’t sleep anyway. Damn pain.” Her father wandered into the sitting room and began to pour himself a drink. She could hear the crackle of a fire.

  Geri sighed, sinking down onto the very comfortable couch. “Sure, I’ll have a gin and tonic.”

  “I thought you were a whisky lass,” her father teased, pouring her a small glass.

  “Usually, but I do have to get up early and go to the hospital first to check on our patients. Do you start chemo tomorrow?”

  “Yes.” Her father sat down in his leather wing chair. “I do.”

  “I wish you’d just get treated at St. Thomas Aquinas. Who cares if people know you have cancer?”

  “I care.” Her father took a sip. “I want to keep it to myself. Private.”

  She understood his need for privacy. There were things about her life no one knew and didn’t need to know. Like she was a disgraced surgical resident, for one thing.

  “If you were at the hospital I could check on you.”

  Her father raised any eyebrow. “Would you, then?”

  “Of course.” And it was true. As angry as she was at him, she knew none of this was really his fault. He had told her when they’d met that her mother had purposefully obscured the knowledge of her existence, until he’d received a letter from her a month before they’d met, telling him that he had a daughter. Even then, she hadn’t formally met her father until the results of the DNA test to prove that they were actually related had been available. Their first meeting in the laboratory after it was confirmed had been awkward, to say the least.

  “She called you Geraldine.”

  “Yes. Your mother...my grandmother, I suppose, had that name?”

  “Yes.” Her father cleared his throat. “She did. It’s my favorite name.”

  For so long she’d been mad at her father for not coming to find her, but when she’d met him she’d realized the damage and hurt her mother had caused for them both.