Angel Kate

by Ramsay, Anna

  'I'll bet. But be warned, it's quite difficult for doctors to tell when a fracture is fully healed. Manual examination and X-rays can give ambiguous results. The orthopods won't be in a hurry to take risks where Mr Galvan's concerned …'

  The water was warm and caressing, silky with Chanel bath oil. Kate allowed herself a ten-minute soak then towelled herself dry and set to with the hairdryer. If she cut this lot off, think of the time it would save. But Dad had made her promise …

  She combed through her damp hair and partially dried it, fixing it back in a heavy ponytail, moist tendrils escaping untidily at the nape of her neck and around her ears. She looked doubtfully at the denim crops she'd packed as an afterthought, then decided, why not? She could change again after breakfast.

  Over her head she slipped a light sweatshirt in dove grey, stretching the neckline over her ponytail, black espadrilles on her size six feet.

  Now for the first official task of the day.

  The hospital had loaned her all the necessary equipment and record charts, stowed into a black leather case. Kate collected this from the bottom of the wardrobe and—disturbingly aware of the mingled tension and pleasurable anticipation which seemed the hallmark of her relationship with this very special patient—lifted her hand to knock (after a second or two's hesitation) upon the door connecting the two bedrooms.

  There was no one else about in the whole of the building. Mrs Capel didn't start work until nine.

  'Mr Galvan. Tom? It's time for your check-up!

  'I'm coming in.'

  Chapter Eleven

  'Good morning, Tom! It's lovely out there, the sun's shining and the birds are singing. Let's get you up and moving.'

  Tom yawned and blinked. Wasn't it still the crack of dawn? He leaned over to peer at the digital alarm clock, linen sheets hitched carelessly about his middle, rich plum velvet covers tumbling on to the floor. He never wore pyjamas. Only in Room 27 when forced to by that officious Nurse Wisdom. And she seemed back on form with a vengeance.

  'And what time did we get to bed?'

  He chose to ignore the question. After three, he seemed to recall. And it was her own fault he'd stayed up so late, did she but know it. None of her business anyway, bossy woman.

  The faded crimson curtains were swept aside and tethered in their tie-backs. Morning sunshine flooded in, illuminating uneven oak floorboards and rumpled Turkish rugs, soft as cloth and just lying in wait, noted Kate, to trip the unwary. She'd have a word with Bess about removing those for the time being.

  Am I going to have to put up with this every morning while Kate's here? grumbled Tom to himself, pulling himself on the pile of pillows that supported his arm, the better to watch as Kate strode round the room tut-tutting and flinging open windows to let in a breath of fresh air. She was wearing jeans. He'd never seen her in jeans before. They clung to her legs, revealing shapely calves and long firm thighs, ending just above narrow ankles with delicately carved anklebones.

  Tom began to perk up. Her light grey sweater outlined her breasts so clearly that his thoughts turned to what she might be wearing underneath. Or not …

  'Did you have a comfortable night? I'm sure you did, back in your own bed. I slept like a top. Must be all this country air.' She knew she was prattling on but it was a safety-device to keep her feelings dampened down, here in the intimacy of her tame panther's lair.

  From her case she produced a thermometer which she stuck in his mouth while she took his pulse. Checked the reading—perfectly normal—then recorded her observations on the morning chart.

  'I've got a German medical journal,' mumbled Tom, his teeth clacking against the thermometer, 'interested in publishing a couple of my recent neurosurgical papers. Any chance you could do me an English-to-German translation?'

  Kate took the thermometer, glanced at it and shook down the mercury. Yes, of course, she could, with a bit of help from her mother. 'No problem,' she said nonchalantly, hiding her frisson of pleasure at being able to help this talented man.

  'You truly are an angel. My Angel Kate.' Tom was wide awake now. 'Did you bring that sphyg from the hospital? You could have borrowed mine.'

  'The hospital insisted on sending all the equipment. You're very important to them,' smiled Kate, her cup of happiness brimming over. In Tom's eyes she'd gone from 'Gertie' to being his Angel Kate. Such a dear, lovely man …

  But she must keep control of the situation; remember her professional capacity, not go soft on him now.

  'They want you back in full working order, Mr Galvan. Professor Davy sent you a walking stick. I'll fetch it later – it's in the boot of my car.'

  Tom's face was a picture. She'd been expecting he'd make a fuss and was ready with a calm sweet smile as she detailed his regime: every afternoon there would be a long walk, and Tom would carry a walking stick to keep him secure when crossing fields and rough ground. 'We mustn't take any risks till that plaster's off, must we.'

  Now he exploded. 'Do you suppose I've been sitting on my backside for the past couple of weeks? I don't need a walking stick! Bring me a stick and I'll break it.'

  'My goodness, that'll be a first. It's from the OT department, one of those adjustable ones made of metal.'

  Tom made a disgusted sound and wrapping the sheet around his middle swung his legs out of his kingsize bed.

  'Please try to stay calm,' advised his nurse. 'Getting het up about using a sensible walking aid isn't going to help our blood pressure, now is it. Take deep breaths and think of something nice.'

  Kate wrapped the inflatable cuff round the hard muscles of his upper arm and a moment or two later Tom had forgotten his strop and was crowing over his blood pressure. 'Pretty good, eh! Just wait till I get back on the squash court.'

  His nurse was playing it cool. 'Mmm, it's not bad, all things considered. Now show me how your scar's coming along.' Without waiting for an invitation Kate tugged away the sheet and peered at Tom's incision, healing cleanly, the suture line still vividly pink. She leaned across to cover his exposed abdomen, smelling faintly delicious, soft tendrils of hair falling with charming but most uncharacteristic untidiness about her face, her bare arms skinny in the loose sleeves of her light sweatshirt.

  Her proximity was playing havoc with Tom's senses. That mermaid in the car park - here alone with him in the intimacy of his bedroom! It was like some fantasy come true. His good hand closed over her wrist, pulling relentlessly until Kate was forced down on the bed with Tom leaning over her, demanding an explanation. 'I saw you yesterday, making assignations with my number two. I warned you about Kingsley yet you deliberately went off and cosied up to him in the corner. So what was that all about, eh? … mm, you do smell nice. Positively … ah yes, I thought so.'

  'Ouch!' complained Kate, wriggling in a halfhearted attempt to escape from Tom's grasp, 'I don't know what you're talking about. All Mr Armstrong wanted to know was—Tom!! stop that at once!'

  'I was right, you're not wearing a bra. Now that's just asking for trouble …'

  Kate tugged down her grey top and with jittery hands tried to anchor her disobedient hair. But the rubber band had snapped and a shining wayward mass spilled over the velvet bed cover. Tom grinned to see the self-composed Nurse Wisdom looking dishevelled and more than ever his mermaid girl. He couldn't resist it … plunged his fingers into the glossy tresses, holding her head down on the bed as he leaned over her, his eyes locking into hers.

  Kate struggled to break free but he had her pinioned and there was no way she could move while he held her by her hair. Her heart wanted to stay where she was, half lying across his lower body, feeling the desire in him …

  But her head knew she must put a stop to this before things got right out of control. She knew just what to say that would make him let her go.

  'You're hurting me,' she protested, and immediately he let go. It wasn't true, but a man like Tom wouldn't force himself on any woman. Kate sat up, breathing hard, her heart thundering in her chest, her shoulders heaving
, her face and neck flushed red. Her feelings for Tom were running out of control. She wanted him as she'd never wanted any man before …

  Where was it all going to end?

  'That's quite enough of that, Mr Galvan!' she gasped. 'I shouldn't have to remind you that I'm on duty and you're my patient.'

  Tom put on an exaggerated expression of sorrow and remorse that was so ludicrous she had to bite her lips to hold back the laughter of hysteria. 'I do hope we're not going to have this sort of carry on every morning,' she said in her severest tone of voice.

  'No Matron. Won't happen again. Promise.' Tom threw away the sheet and stood up in all his rampant glory.

  Kate's eyes widened. Then she fled.

  Later in her room she curled up on the deep window-sill, arms wrapped about her knees. She was shivering, and not with cold. Tom Galvan was a dangerous man. And she should not be alone with him because it put at risk her future. That quiet predictable future with the dependable Dr Mallory. Which was what she had planned for, what she had dreamed of.

  'What a corny thing to happen. Nurse falls in love with patient. Patient is a bored surgeon and sees leading her on as a bit of fun. Well how else could you look at it?

  Well for a start you might want to consider this, prompted the voice in her head. Tom Galvan is not a frivolous man. He'd never toy with a woman's feelings for his own amusement. Sure he's good-natured – most of the time – and for all his high status he hasn't lost his sense of humour. If a man like that ever took a serious interest in you, you'd be a lucky lucky girl …

  Kate sighed aloud. Her feelings were deeply confused. 'What's going to come of it all?' she asked the window pane.

  The voice of reason came back with what Kate knew was the only possible answer. 'Nothing, Nurse Wisdom. Nothing at all. In a fortnight you'll go back to St Crispin's and take up your new post. In time, the cautious James—yes, he is cautious, and that's one of the reasons why you value him because he's never going to precipitate you into unwelcome dramas—in time he'll put forward sensible and well-thought-out reasons why the two of you should tie the knot. You will say yes and heave a sigh of relief because that's the future all sewn up, safe and certain. Tom will marry Dr Diamond and make a great name for himself at Guy's or the Royal Hanoverian or somewhere equally illustrious. And you'll read about him and his famous wife in the gossip columns and shudder, thanking your lucky stars because after all you escaped from that sort of world.

  'Yes, but—

  'No buts. Your dreams are dangerous. An affair with Tom Galvan will hurt two other very special people. You are guilty, Kate Wisdom! Guilty of reading too much significance into the behaviour of a bored and restless red-blooded guy.'

  Peering down from her high perch, Kate could see Stan Capel trundling a wheelbarrow full of farmyard manure down to the walled vegetable garden. The load was heavy and his poor back was taking the strain as age drained the strength from his arms. Her brow furrowed in concern. Surely Tom could see it? The Capels had earned their retirement.

  Best to keep yourself busy, Katie girl…

  She sprang up from her lofty perch, gathering up the dictionary and the papers she'd been working on all afternoon. Hardly sensible, was it, to loll about weaving emotional fantasies over a man who certainly wasn't in with love her even if he might not kick her out of his bed! That was all it could mean to Tom Galvan: an amusing interlude to relieve the tedium of convalescence.

  She went to the bathroom and examined the reflection of her pale face and glittering eyes.

  Another and more practical problem loomed on the horizon, and she'd better start thinking of a solution pretty damn quick.

  * * *

  'One day return to Waterloo,' requested Tom, gripping his briefcase under his right arm and resting his wallet on the ticket office counter. Kate had pinned the empty left sleeve of his jacket so that his arm was neatly concealed. He strode down the platform, a commandingly tall and distinguished figure in his expensive dark suit, looking for an empty compartment at the front of the train in which to work uninterrupted.

  Kate watched her wounded hero disappear, then bought her own ticket and made her way to the other end of the train, finding a seat as far away from Mr Galvan as possible. 'Meet me off the six-thirty,' he had ordered. Which would fit would fit in nicely with her own plans.

  At Waterloo Station she watched him get into a taxi, then swiped her oyster card and headed into the Underground. Leaving Bond Street Tube station she made her way through the crowds of Oxford Street and wasting no time hit Fenwick's. Then on to her old favourite in South Molton Street where Archie Wisdom's daughter had once run up a huge account. They might even remember her, the ex-Vogue model.

  It must be something special for Professor Davy's dinner party—sleek, sophisticated and up to the minute. Tom would look at her with fresh eyes. And Professor Davy wouldn't regret a polite invitation extended in kindness to Tom's private nurse.

  She hurried into Space NK to stock up with cosmetics, ending up with a quick snack in Selfridges and a prowl around the first floor. She was having fun, buying not just for the dinner party but for the rest of her time at Foxe Manor. Tom wanted colour? He should have it. He wanted her to look nice for Professor Davy's dinner party? She'd stun him. He wouldn't recognise Staff Nurse Wisdom. There was no shortage of money in the bank, and her eye for what suited her colouring and tall slenderness was as sound as ever.

  Then the laden struggle back to Waterloo and an earlier train than Tom was to catch. Stow her shopping in the boot, and appear at the station as if she'd just driven from Foxe Manor to collect her VIP patient.

  * * *

  'Kate!' Tom rapped a peremptory tattoo on the communicating door between their bedrooms.

  'Kate—this is your Lord of Foxe Manor come to claim his traditional rights.'

  Tom chuckled heartily at his own wit. He was in an exuberant mood: the day in town had raised his spirits to a new high—fellow surgeons congratulating him on a textbook recovery and telling him how glad they were to have him back in their midst.

  His confidence was back. He was over the hump now, he was sure of it, and it was in no small way due to his sweet Angel Kate.

  He had a present for her.

  Still no reply to his knock. Tom opened the door and called her name. Perhaps she was taking a shower. He called again—no answer. He'd leave the mail on her bed (funny she hadn't found her post – it must have been there all day on the Jacobean chest in the hall)—the bulky packet from Sussex and the letter with a Munich postmark.

  She was probably down in the kitchen, making more bread with Bess.

  Tom dropped the letters on her bed, picturing Kate lying there at night, only paces away from him. Did she dream of James Mallory? Tom supposed she must because women went in for that kind of thing. Speaking personally his head hit the pillow and that was that. Unless there was someone else in the bed to divert him … or the distraction of a gorgeous girl just the other side of the wall.

  The faint trace of perfume hung upon the air. The place was as neat as he might have guessed it would be, everything tidied away out of sight. Everything but a wispy grey thing dangling from a padded satin hanger against the wardrobe door.

  He poked a disappointed finger at the dress. Was this what she was planning to wear to Frank's dinner party?

  Tom cast a doubtful eye over the package he was carrying, the low-cut red satin thing he'd been such an idiot to buy. It was dawning on him that it was totally unsuitable. That Kate would refuse to wear it.

  There was a photo by the bed, a silver-framed portrait of a toddler half smiling, half doubtful of the photographer. The likeness was obvious: Kate herself, perhaps twenty years ago.

  Tom examined the photo with a sentimental eye—this was what her own children would look like one day, with cherubic little faces and tousled mops of brown curls. But closer observation showed a pencilled inscription in the left-hand corner, and he realised with a start that this child wasn't K
ate at all. In fact it was a boy. And the boy's name was … 'Ben' written faintly in Kate's own hand, just above the recent month and year.

  Tom straightened, frowning, rubbing his bearded chin with his hand, an unconscious habit when he was puzzled. He knew well enough it was none of his business, but … Ben? Who was Ben?

  A suspicion was taking form in Tom's mind. His expression was that of a man in pain who'd stumbled upon someone else's secret. Could this child be the solution to the mystery of Kate Wisdom, who hadn't taken up RGN training till her twenties. Why wasn't she part of the hospital's social life? Why had Tom never spotted her around Crisp's until that April evening? Such a special girl, with a special dignity and a special pain behind her calm eyes.

  Because Kate had a baby. And Ben was that child.

  Tom retreated to his own room and tried to rationalise his own feelings about this discovery. Why was he so upset about Kate's past? Did she pay someone to look after her child while she worked to maintain the two of them? And if this was so, what could he, Tom Galvan, do to help the nurse to whom he owed a debt beyond gratitude?

  But then there was the fact that she owned her cottage and had bought herself a new car. Had they been provided by the child's father? And Dr Mallory—where did he fit into all this?

  Tom sprawled on his bed, staring sightlessly at the William Morris wallpaper. This had been his grandmother's room and the furnishings hadn't changed in forty years. He heard Kate's door open and close, but the walls were too solid for him to hear any of her movements as she found her letters and she too lay down on her bed to examine the latest pictures of Ben in his new school uniform and read her mother's letter. Mum always wrote in German, even though she was a Londoner born and bred. If only Mum would only learn to get to grips with technology! It would be so much easier if she could email that English-to-German translation and get instant feedback on possible mistakes.

  'Don't worry about Ben, the doctor thinks it's just a bug he's picked up at nursery school. He'll throw it off now the weather's warmer. I've had an awful cold myself. You know what worriers we singers are, always panicking about our throats. If your technique's good enough you're supposed to be able to sing through anything. I SO hope I don't have to put that to the test this season. First performance of The Merry Widow next week and I'm singing the lead so wish me 'break a leg!' won't you.