‘And what road would that be?’ she snapped, hoping that no one could hear what they were saying.
‘I think you know the answer to that,’ he said abruptly, with his glance on what was going on behind her, and when she turned Isabel found herself looking into her father’s cold blue eyes.
‘We’re off,’ he said. ‘If either of you need me for anything you know where I am.’ And on that brief note of farewell he went.
As they watched him go, with a back straight as a ramrod and only the slightest hint of stiffness in his movements, Isabel said, ‘You don’t like my father, do you?’
‘No. I don’t. I don’t like him one bit because of how he has always treated you, and yet in a grudging sort of way I respect him.’
‘He would have been different if I’d looked like my mother.’
‘Maybe, but it does him no credit. He should love you for what you are. Millie is no oil painting, but he doesn’t undermine her confidence like he has always done yours.’
‘That is all in the past,’ she told him stiffly. ‘I’m my own woman now. I don’t dance to his tune any more, or anyone else’s for that matter, and now I’m going as I want to get ready for tonight.’
She was smarting at his easy acceptance of her lack of beauty and being put in the same category as the elderly spinster who seemed to be the only one on her father’s wavelength. Maybe that was why Ross was making such a fuss about her date with Stephen Beamish. He couldn’t believe that, next to Kate in the classy outfit, she had been the object of the other man’s attention.
‘Where is he taking you?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s my choice. Probably the Pheasant. It’s as good as anywhere in the area.’
‘Have a nice time, then,’ he said in an easier tone.
Still ruffled, Isabel said, ‘So you’re not going to comment on the strangeness of the handsome neurologist asking me out when Kate was fluttering around like a beautiful butterfly?’
‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ he replied smoothly. He was looking around him. ‘I think I need to spread myself around a bit. These people have come to welcome me. The least I can do is renew my acquaintance with those I knew before and introduce myself to any newcomers.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said quickly. ‘I won’t delay you any longer. I’ll see you on Monday morning at the surgery.’
You might be seeing me before that, Ross thought as Isabel made her farewells to his mother and aunt. Kate had told him that while she’d been in hospital she’d heard the staff discussing Stephen Beamish. She’d discovered that he was well known as a womaniser who liked to boast of his conquests, and the thought that he might intend to add Isabel to the list was not acceptable.
But he, Ross, had already upset her by appearing to fuss over something that was not his business and he had just been told that she didn’t dance to anyone’s tune but her own these days, so how was he going to keep Izzy safe from a guy who used women for just one thing, without upsetting her further?
* * *
Her conversation with Ross at the tea shop had put the blight on any pleasure Isabel might have felt at the prospect of dining out with an attractive man. For one thing, Ross had made her feel that she’d been just a bit too quick to agree to a date with a stranger, and for another had compared her attractions with those of a woman old enough to be her mother.
On top of that, he’d made no bones about not wanting to have anything more to do with doctors’ daughters, as if she’d set the stamp on women of that ilk with her hysteria and the foolish romanticising that lay in the past like an insurmountable barrier.
If she’d dressed down for Ross’s welcome-home party, she was going to dress up for tonight, she thought defiantly. The doctor from the city wasn’t going to be shown up by the country bumpkin. Taking off its hanger a short black cocktail dress that hadn’t seen the light of day before, she prepared to make the best of her resources.
* * *
Stephen Beamish had charm, lots of it, Isabel decided as the evening progressed, but it was a practiced sort of charm, like a script that he’d rehearsed. And he liked to touch. When he’d helped to remove her wrap after she’d seated herself in the hotel restaurant, he’d let his hands linger on her bare shoulders and his leg movements beneath the table were suspect.
If this was for starters, what was he going to be like when he took her home? she thought. He’d already said that he’d love to see the inside of her cottage and the look in his eyes told her that it wasn’t the downstairs part of it that he was interested in.
In the middle of the meal she excused herself to go to the ladies’ room for a respite while she gathered her thoughts. As she was making her way there, Isabel stopped in her tracks. Ross was seated at a table for one in a small alcove that was almost out of sight from the rest of the diners.
He was enjoying his meal and hadn’t seen her until she planted herself in front of him and muttered angrily, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘The same as you…eating,’ he said calmly. ‘How’s it going with the hospital stud?’
‘You knew, didn’t you?’
‘What? That he’s as fresh as a basket of whelks? Yes. Kate told me that he’s after everything in skirts.’
‘And that’s why you’re snooping on me.’
‘Shall we change that to “keeping a watchful eye”? If you have no problems, I’ll leave you both to it. On the other hand, if you want to make a dash for it I can come up with an urgent call from a patient or something.’
‘Stephen won’t believe that. Anyone in the NHS knows that night calls are dealt with by an emergency service.’
So you do want to get away?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘But without being rude. I did let myself in for this.’
‘Go back to your table and leave it to me,’ he said.
She nodded, feeling that she had made a prize fool of herself, and without further conversation did as Ross had suggested.
Within minutes he appeared apologetically by her side and said to her companion, ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your meal, but I felt that I had to let Izzy know that her dog, Tess, seems to have escaped from the garden and is running free down by the riverbank.’
Stephen yawned.
‘Can’t you go and catch the dog?’
‘She will only answer to me,’ Isabel said, getting to her feet. ‘I’m sorry to have to rush off, Stephen, but I must see to my dog. My animals mean everything to me.’ And before he could protest further she left the dining room at a quick pace, with Ross close behind.
When they were clear of the hotel she said, ‘Go on, Ross, say it. You were right and I was wrong.’
‘I’m not going to say any such thing. I should have told you what Kate said about Beamish’s reputation, but I knew how you would see that.’
‘How? How would I have seen it?’
‘As interference, treating you like a child. And I knew that you’d had your fill of that. Was he as he’d been described?’
‘Mmm. Playing footsie and stroking my shoulders.’
‘I’ve a good mind to go back and sort him out.’
‘No, don’t! The fault was mine. I’ll bet you thought that I was so desperate I would go out with anyone. Though if you did, you were wrong. I was being childish.’
‘How?’
‘I was trying to make you jealous.’
‘After what your father and I did to you, I have no rights where you are concerned, Izzy,’ he said gravely. ‘No right to be jealous. No right to interfere in your life. And if I ever hurt you again, I will never forgive myself.’
‘You were the bright star in my dismal life in those days,’ she said wistfully. ‘Kind, funny, understanding. And I spoilt it all because I didn’t know how to behave.’
They were walking along the lane that led to her cottage and he stopped and took her arm, turning her round to face him.
‘You did nothing wrong, Izzy. You were dealing with two ma
ture men. One of them was determined you would go to medical school come what may, and the other was so afraid of you being dragged into a scandal he took off into the unknown and left you to cope all by yourself.’
The light had gone and a yellow summer moon was shining down on them as with eyes wide and questioning she asked, ‘What sort of a scandal?’
‘Your father threatened that if I didn’t leave the practice he would report me to the police and the General Medical Council in the hope that I would get a criminal record and be struck off for having an affair with his daughter.’
‘But we…you didn’t!’
‘I knew that and so did you, and even if it had been true, you were over the age of consent. But he said he would tell them that it had been going on since your early teens.
‘He always wanted you in the practice and when you refused to be separated from me he decided that you were going to medical school by fair means or foul. He didn’t credit me with having the decency to persuade you to change your mind and issued the ultimatum, which gave me no choice.
‘With regard to his ridiculous allegations I would have told him to go to hell and taken my chances, it would have been his word against mine. But I wasn’t having your innocence dragged through the mire to prove mine, regarding something that we hadn’t done, so I went.’
‘How could my father do that?’ she cried. ‘It was wicked.’
Ross’s smile was wry. ‘It might have been, but it worked. He got the doctor that he wanted for the practice. He did you a favour in an underhanded sort of way, because look at you now. He has to be proud of you.’
‘Huh! Maybe he is. But what about the way he messed up your life? Has he said he’s sorry for that?’
‘He’s asked me to come back, hasn’t he? Obviously he doesn’t see me as a threat any more.’
He could see the moon reflected in her eyes as she said, ‘So why don’t we prove him wrong?’
‘Like this, you mean?’ he said softly as he reached out for her and took her in his arms.
‘Mmm,’ she murmured as she lifted her mouth to his.
And for Stephen, who had reluctantly decided that the least he could do was go and help look for the wretched dog, there seemed little else to do but turn his car round and go back to where he had come from.
CHAPTER SIX
THE sound of the car reversing noisily behind them brought the kiss to an end and Isabel out of Ross’s arms.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked as it sped off into the night. ‘Was it someone you know?’
‘It looked like the car that Stephen picked me up in earlier.’
‘So if he hasn’t got the message now, he never will,’ Ross said, unperturbed, then added more seriously with his gaze on the lips that were still warm from his kiss, ‘What is more important is what sort of a message you were getting when we were interrupted. I wouldn’t want you to get any wrong ideas.’
‘Such as?’ she questioned flatly, as the magic drained away.
‘That I would pursue you just to get at your father, as that was what you were suggesting, wasn’t it?’
‘I said it on the spur of the moment as I don’t think that either of us have anything to thank him for.’
‘Much as I don’t like the man, that isn’t true,’ he said levelly. ‘You might never have entered the profession that you enjoy so much if it hadn’t been for your father’s scheming, and he has given me the chance to come back to the place where I’ve always wanted to be.’
‘Look, Ross,’ she said angrily. ‘I can see that you’re regretting what just happened between us and I suppose I can’t blame you. Once bitten twice shy when it comes to the likes of me, I suppose. I’ve just told you that I said what I did about calling my father’s bluff without thinking. I suppose in my own stupid way I was throwing out a challenge. It won’t happen again. In future I will consider every word before I say it. This has been a strange evening, spent with two different men. I suppose I should consider myself lucky. Except that one of them couldn’t keep his hands off me and the other forgot himself for a moment and couldn’t wait to tell me how much he regretted it.
‘Thanks for walking me home and rescuing me from that man. But I would have managed on my own, as I’ve had to do for as long as I can remember, if you hadn’t shown up.’
‘Have you quite finished putting me in my place?’ he said calmly, when she stopped for breath.
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Then I’ll be off, until we meet again on Monday morning, bright and early.’
‘Of course,’ she said abruptly, with the thought that ‘early’ she might be, but ‘bright’? Not after tonight!
* * *
He was a fool, Ross thought as he walked home through the moonlit night. Not for rescuing Izzy from the clutches of the lecherous neurologist—he could no more have sat around and done nothing about that than fly to the moon. He was calling himself a fool because he’d done the very thing he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do, let Izzy get to him.
It had been as natural as breathing to take her in his arms and kiss the mouth that was reaching up to his, and it would have gone on from there, but in a strange sort of way Stephen Beamish had got his revenge for being left in the lurch. The noise of his car reversing behind them in the lane had broken the spell and brought him to his senses.
He had only been back in the village a short time and already he was causing complications between Izzy and himself. He’d promised himself before he’d come back that he would wait, he’d had plenty of practice at doing that, and take things slowly. Yet what had happened? The opportunity had presented itself and he’d taken it.
But he had to remind himself that their working relationship was vitally important. He wanted to establish that before anything else, as all eyes would be on him, Paul West’s in particular, observing just how successfully he was running the practice.
When he arrived back at the surgery he strolled around the refurbished rooms before going up to the dreary flat, and there was a smile on his face as he recalled Izzy’s pleasure as she’d watched the transformation take place.
He knew he’d upset her back there in the lane. He’d thought the right thoughts but said the wrong words. It would have been so easy to let the tenderness that she’d always aroused in him take over, but he had to get it right this time. No more hurts for the girl with the beautiful violet eyes. The two of them had a practice to run in a pretty village surrounded by towering peaks and bleak moorland, and until he’d got his hands securely on the reins the dream that he held in his heart would have to stay there just a little while longer.
* * *
‘My goodness!’ Jess said when she arrived at the practice on Monday morning. ‘What a transformation! I feel better already just for seeing some bright colours.’
‘So you don’t want to see the doctor, then?’ one of the receptionists said laughingly.
She sighed. ‘I’m afraid I do. Have you seen my face? It’s still swollen. Isabel said to come back if the tablets she gave me didn’t remove the swelling.’
The receptionist nodded.
‘Yes. She knows you are coming. Your notes have gone in to her so take a seat and she’ll call you when she’s ready.’
Isabel had been glad to get to work that morning. She hadn’t been able to settle anything during Sunday, the memory of what had happened in the lane on Saturday night between Ross and herself uppermost in her mind.
When he’d taken her in his arms she’d been ready to let the sudden unexpected chemistry take over, seeing it as just a romantic moment in the moonlight between friends, but she’d been amazed by how right it had felt. It had been like coming home after a long journey and his kiss had set the seal on it.
Bemused, she’d wanted more and had been desolate when the car behind them had broken the spell. But it had been clear that Ross hadn’t seen it in the way she had. He’d been straight onto the defensive, warning her off. Could she blame him? She’d already bee
n responsible for a big blip in his career once, so he wasn’t going to let it happen again.
From now on she was going to be a doctor first and foremost, she’d told herself during a sleepless night, and the woman who longed for love and affection was going to keep a low profile.
* * *
‘Everything all right?’ Ross had questioned warily when she’d arrived at the surgery that morning.
‘Yes, fine,’ she’d replied breezily, with the vow she’d made in the dark hours of the previous night at the front of her mind.
‘Good, as we appear to have a full waiting room,’ he told her. ‘And by the way, if you hear any noises coming from up above I’m having a new kitchen and bathroom fitted, starting today.’
‘That’s quick. One usually has to wait weeks for that sort of thing.’
He smiled.
‘I twisted a few arms and pleaded fast-approaching insanity if I didn’t get some speedy improvements in my living conditions.’
They were making small talk, she’d thought, neither of them referring to Saturday night.
‘Who have I got first?’ she asked the receptionist as she moved towards her consulting room.
‘Jess from the post office,’ was the reply, and when she buzzed for her to come in Isabel could see that the antibiotics hadn’t worked.
‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to send you for tests,’ she told her. ‘I think there could be a formation of a calculus, or a stone, to use a simpler term, in a saliva duct. If I’m right, it will mean a minor operation to remove it.’
The postmistress groaned. ‘This is all I need. A face like a balloon and sleepless nights worrying about whether the government will decide to close the post office down.’
‘The first problem shouldn’t be difficult to solve, if it is what I think it is,’ Isabel told her reassuringly, ‘and as to the second, it would be terrible if you were closed down. The village store and post office is the centre of our community. We would all be up in arms if it was taken from us. I bought my very first bag of sweets from you and my children will do the same…if I ever find the time to have any.’
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