The Italian Surgeon's Christmas Miracle

by Alison Roberts

  He lifted the blankets a moment later to check her ankles. There was no swelling to suggest that her heart failure was not under control but he still wasn’t entirely happy and he knew he was frowning as he looked at Amy.

  Her face was so…alive. She could talk without saying a word. Luke could see she understood his disquiet perfectly. That she also sensed something was brewing but, as yet, there was nothing to point out the direction any deterioration was taking. It was impressive that this nurse could share what was an instinctive warning bell. It was somewhat disturbing that they could communicate almost telepathically.

  Amy probably found it equally disturbing. ‘We’re looking after her,’ she said aloud. ‘We all love Summer.’ She stooped to kiss the child. ‘I’m going get your medicine now, darling, and put you to bed. Zoe’s coming to look after you and read you a story.’

  ‘Zoe?’

  ‘The babysitter. I’m on night shift tonight.’

  Luke was shocked. ‘You’re going to work? Tonight?’

  Her look was steady and Luke almost felt embarrassed. Yes, she could communicate very well non-verbally. Bills needed to be paid, the look said. Mouths needed to be fed. Not everybody had the luxury of being able to afford designer coats. Some people had no choice about having to work, no matter how difficult it might be.

  ‘Robert’s here, as well.’ Amy motioned towards the lanky boy who was now washing dishes. ‘He’s fourteen and he’s our man of the house.’

  Luke could hear the pride in Amy’s tone. He could see the way the corner of Robert’s mouth twitched—as though he was suppressing a pleased smile. The teenager didn’t turn towards them, however. Instead, he spoke gruffly to the younger boy beside him.

  ‘Get those bowls off the table,’ he ordered. ‘They need doing, as well.’

  ‘That’s Andrew,’ Amy told Luke. ‘He’s eleven.’ She smiled at the boy. ‘You’re doing a great job, Andy. Thank you.’

  The twins had disappeared, presumably into the bath, but the two girls were still at the table and Luke raised an eyebrow. Seeing as they had started introductions, they might as well finish.

  ‘Chantelle’s eight and Kyra’s twelve,’ Amy said cooperatively. ‘They’ve both been living with us for nearly two years now.’

  ‘Amy?’ Chantelle had her hands full of paper loops. ‘Can we put these on the tree now?’

  Amy nodded. ‘And then it’s bed for you and homework for Kyra. I’m going to put Summer to bed now and get changed for work.’

  ‘OK.’ The girls headed through the door.

  Luke suddenly felt as though he didn’t belong there. He should get out of the way and let Amy sort out her unconventional household.

  ‘I still need to talk to you,’ he warned.

  Surprisingly, Amy nodded. ‘Give me a few minutes to get Summer to bed and the other children organised. Unless it can wait until tomorrow?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Luke wanted to get it over with. He had no intention of coming back here tomorrow. Or any other day, for that matter.

  Amy disconnected the tubing from the oxygen cylinder and gathered Summer into her arms. A few minutes later, the boys finished their task of clearing the bench and also left the kitchen. Luke found himself alone, the noise of activity and voices fading into the distance.

  He scanned the room. The old range still had spots of burnt sauce all over it. The table was a mess and it looked as though somebody had had a tantrum with the contents of the hutch dresser. Why was it being emptied all over the floor like that? Had Amy been searching for something?

  Like a will?

  Was there another will that would have left the house to its current occupants? His information was that the only will ever recorded by Giovanni Moretti had been made shortly after his marriage to Caroline Harrington in which he had left all his worldly goods to his wife and any children they might be blessed with. His wife had died over thirty years ago, however, and he’d never bothered to locate his child. It was quite possible he would be less than happy with what had eventuated.

  Well, tough! If he wasn’t getting what he wanted, it was exactly what he deserved. Even if he had made another will, Luke could contest it and no doubt win the case easily as the closest living relative.

  Still…Luke felt uncomfortable. Movement seemed a good distraction and it could be useful. Already he could see things that made this house substandard, like the old cooker, the dripping taps, the bare light bulbs and the peeling paint on the ceiling. Was the rest of the house in even worse condition? A list of such inadequacies would strengthen his case that better accommodation would be more suitable for these people.

  And with that in mind, Luke dismissed his aversion to being inside this house and set off to explore.

  CHAPTER THREE

  IT WAS worse than he had expected.

  Or perhaps better, given that he was looking for ammunition with which to strengthen his position.

  A large room next to the kitchen and scullery complex had a television in one corner. A fire burned merrily, safely covered by a wire screen, but the warmth and cleanliness of the room was easy to overlook.

  Luke’s attention was on several very old and mismatched couches that could well have been rescued from a rubbish dump, with their lumpy cushions and frayed fabrics. Battered toys lay scattered about, some of the lead-light windows had cracks covered with masking tape and, if he concentrated, he could feel a draft of icy air around his ankles.

  The two older boys lay on the floor in front of the television with what looked like schoolwork around them. Robert noticed Luke entering the room and he could feel the challenging glare on his back as he walked over to a set of French doors. This was where the draft was coming from but Luke could see why the curtains had not been drawn. The ancient velvet would probably disintegrate under the pressure required to pull them into place.

  Enough light escaped the room to illuminate a flagged terrace area and the shaggy edges of a large, dark garden. Luke knew it was a large garden because a plan of the property had been included with the paperwork his solicitor had sent him weeks ago now.

  Large was not really the word for it, he thought, staring out at the smudged outlines of old trees. It was vast by London standards. With the house removed, it would be easy to build an entire apartment block on the site. With Regent’s Park virtually across the road, it wasn’t reasonable for anyone to sit on private parkland that supported only one dwelling. Financially, it was just plain stupid.

  The observation he was still under from Robert made Luke vaguely uncomfortable but he was satisfied with the list of inadequacies he had noted in this room, so he acknowledged the boys with a nod and somewhat tight smile, leaving the room to cross the wide hallway where he entered what must have originally been a drawing room.

  There were more leaded windows here and the fanlights had coloured glass in an intricate pattern. The ceiling in this room was very high and the plasterwork very ornate, but it failed to impress Luke. How could it when it was a pale imitation of the architectural splendour Harrington Manor had to offer and when its condition was so bad? The paint on this ceiling was peeling off in large flakes. Probably lead-based paint, Luke decided. Dangerous for children.

  Such as the two girls who were sitting on a faded rug in front of a cavernous fireplace that contained some half-burnt logs and no doubt provided a whistling, icy draft. The girls didn’t notice Luke enter the room because they were too intent on admiring their handiwork.

  A tall but scraggly tree branch—possibly yew—was propped up in a plastic bucket that had a tartan ribbon tied around it. More of the tartan ribbon was tied in bows on the branch offshoots and it was now also draped with the strings of paper loops he’d seen Chantelle carrying.

  ‘We need an angel,’ he heard her say to Kyra. ‘For the top.’

  ‘Angels are expensive,’ Kyra said doubtfully. ‘There might not be enough money if we’re all going to get a present.’

  ‘We could make o
ne.’

  Kyra shook her head. ‘That would be a really hard thing to make. We could make a star, though. A really big one and I think we’ve got some glitter.’

  ‘Silver glitter?’ Chantelle asked hopefully.

  ‘No. I think it’s blue. Or green. It’s left over from that birthday card we made Robert.’

  ‘Oh…That was blue. ’Cos he’s a boy, remember?’

  ‘Oh, yeah…That’s right.’

  Blue didn’t seem to be acceptable. Luke watched as Chantelle wriggled closer to Kyra and the older girl put her arm around her shoulders.

  ‘It’s still beautiful,’ Kyra said. ‘And we’re lucky. Some kids don’t even get a tree.’

  And some had so many beautiful new decorations, they had no use for a big box of older ones. Imagine how excited these girls would be if they had that whole box that had been left in the ward office. It wouldn’t be hard to pick it up and leave it on the doorstep here.

  The apparent brilliance of the idea was surprising. The strength of desire to follow it through was unsettling. What was he thinking? The cleaners had most likely taken the box away as rubbish by now and even if they hadn’t, all he’d achieve would be to give the impression that he wanted these children to stay here and enjoy Christmas. He could make sure they got a much better tree somewhere else. In their new home. A real spruce tree that had gifts beneath it and an angel on the top.

  The girls needed to be cuddled together for more than comfort. That fire would have to be well stoked for a long time to take the chill off this enormous room. He took note of a slightly damp smell, as well, as he slipped out.

  A peal of childish laughter drifted down the sweep of the staircase at the end of the hallway, but fortunately Luke could think of no reason he needed to go upstairs. Except that he felt curiously disappointed. Although he had seen enough to fuel the argument he knew was looming, he decided to check out the last downstairs room. Perhaps the distinct feeling of discomfort at what he was doing here would be relieved if he found something more personal to the previous owner of this house.

  Something that might rekindle the anger that had grown from the loneliness of being so different. Alone. Brought up isolated from parents or siblings. Unwanted to the extent that not even a spark of responsibility remained.

  He hit the jackpot through the door that opened beneath the staircase. Having turned on the light and instantly sensing that this room’s occupant had been absent for some time, Luke froze.

  This was it. Away from an upstairs inhabited by numerous women and children, this had been a man’s domain. The old brass bed had a maroon cover. A dark woollen dressing-gown hung on one of the brass knobs and a pair of well-used men’s slippers lay beneath it. A maroon colour, like the bedspread, the woollen toes of the slippers were a little frayed and the sheepskin lining squashed into an off-white felt. They could have been anyone’s slippers.

  Except they weren’t.

  These slippers had been worn by Giovanni Moretti.

  His father.

  Luke’s mouth was dry. He hadn’t expected anything like this. He’d grown up knowing that his father was a monster. Responsible for his mother’s death and too uncaring to think of his son. He had been an ogre until Luke had been old enough to start feeling angry. To start hating the man. Even then, he had always seemed larger than life. An enemy. A man powerful enough to ruin the lives of others.

  But huge, powerful, evil men did not wear slippers like this.

  They didn’t collect homeless children and get called ‘Uncle’ by everyone, either. His father had owned this house and presumably lived in London since he had been five years old, and he’d never made contact. Never remembered a birthday or sent a letter. And yet he’d left him this house.

  Why?

  To underline the fact that he had existed—close by—and hadn’t given a damn? To make sure Luke never forgot?

  As if he could!

  Luke could actually taste the bitterness that rose within him. Giovanni Moretti had cared about the children other people didn’t want, but he hadn’t cared about his own son.

  He was right to hate this man. To dismiss his life—and this room—with no more than a cursory look.

  A gaze that took in a plain dressing-table that had a brush and comb on its dusty surface and unframed photographs jammed into the frame around the large mirror. Snapshots of people. Dozens of them. Luke found his feet moving in much the same way as he’d been drawn towards Amy and Summer in the kitchen. Pulled by something he couldn’t—or didn’t want to—identify.

  One photograph stood out from the rest. In pride of place maybe, at the top left-hand corner. Or maybe it looked different because it was older. Curled at the edges. The hairs on the back of Luke’s neck prickled as he stepped closer, however. What, in God’s name, was a photograph of himself doing in this man’s room?

  It wasn’t him. Of course it wasn’t. The explanation was genetic. This was a picture of his father taken more than thirty years ago when he had looked extraordinarily like Luke did now.

  The gorgeous blonde woman in the photograph was just as easily recognisable. Caroline Harrington had been frozen in time and had always looked like this as far as Luke had known. Except there was a difference here. Compared to the studio portraits Grandmother had in plenty, this was just a candid shot. The focus wasn’t perfect and the colours had faded. What was even more different was his mother’s expression.

  Sheer joy radiated from her face as she looked up at the man beside her.

  Even the baby in her arms seemed to be laughing. Tiny fists punched the air in an exuberance of happiness. Luke had never seen a photograph of himself as a baby. For a long, long moment, he simply stood there. Staring.

  Shocked.

  Faintly, the sound of feet running down the stairs and Amy’s voice filtered through the haze.

  ‘I’ll be back up in a minute,’ Amy was calling. ‘I just need to talk to Mr Harrington before he goes home.’

  There was no time to try and analyse any of the odd, unsettling emotions Luke was experiencing. And there was no point, was there? It was all in the past and best forgotten. Destroying the evidence would make it all so much simpler.

  Without really thinking about what he was doing, Luke tugged the photograph free of the mirror and slipped it into his coat pocket. He flicked the light off as he left the room and strode back towards the kitchen. The sooner he left this house the better.

  All he had to do was make sure Amy understood that the same applied to her.

  Amy wound a rubber band around the end of the sleek French plait taming her hair that she had accomplished before hauling the twins from the bath and getting them dry and into their pyjamas. She changed into the tunic top and trousers of her uniform as the boys scrambled into the bunk beds in the room they shared with Robert and Andrew. She laced comfortable shoes onto her feet as she sat on the end of the trundle bed in her room where Summer was now tucked up.

  The bedroom oxygen cylinder was full and the coal fire stoked and screened. Summer was warm and already asleep. Amy kissed her, hating it that she had to leave to go to work.

  ‘Zoe will be here any minute,’ she whispered, more to reassure herself than anyone else. ‘She’s going to sleep in my bed so she’ll be right here beside you.’

  She kissed her again, and stroked her hair softly. One of these nights, Summer was going to go to sleep and simply not wake up.

  Not tonight. Please…Not before Christmas!

  Giving her uniform a final tug into place and letting the twins know she’d be back up to say good-night, Amy ran down the stairs. It was amazing how being clean and tidy and ready for work made her feel so much more in control.

  Ready for anything.

  Or almost anything. The empty kitchen took the wind out of her sails momentarily. So did the odd expression on Mr Harrington’s face when he appeared a few seconds later. Had he been snooping? Would that explain the curiously guilty flash she thought she saw in his
eyes?

  ‘This house is appalling,’ Luke said without preamble, walking towards Amy. ‘It’s falling to pieces.’ He stopped when he reached the kitchen table, resting a hand on the back of one of the chairs. ‘It’s neither a safe nor a healthy environment for anyone to live in. Particularly children. Especially a sick child. It’s simply not fit for human habitation.’

  ‘We love it.’ Amy’s heart sank at the wobble in her voice. She could do with a chair to hang onto herself. How had that confidence she’d brought downstairs with her evaporated so instantly?

  Maybe there was a disadvantage to wearing her uniform, as well. The confidence might be part of her work frame of mind but work was a place where no one would dream of disputing the authority of someone like Luke Harrington.

  Someone whose wrath was feared. You made sure children were where they were supposed to be when Mr Harrington was due for rounds. You picked up toys that could be tripped over. You made absolutely sure that any test results were available and you sympathised with the registrars and housemen who had to work to their utmost ability to win recognition from this perfectionist surgeon.

  ‘You’ll find something else is far more suitable,’ Luke said firmly. ‘A house that has adequate insulation and central oil-fired heating and plumbing that works, for instance.’

  He was so confident. Standing there all dark and serious and so sure of himself. So far above Amy in any pecking order she could think of. It took courage to stand up to him.

  ‘We can’t afford to rent a house like that. Not big enough for all of us. Not in central London, that’s for sure.’

  ‘So move away from London, then. Surely a rural environment would be a better place to be running a…whatever the modern equivalent of an orphanage is?’

  ‘A foster-home,’ Amy responded quietly. ‘And some of these children retain contact with their birth families. Kyra visits her mother every couple of weeks. She’s hoping she can move home again one day. That contact would be lost if we moved away.’