In The Venetian's Bed

She hadn’t been speaking to Luca Barbaro but to herself, and turned on him angrily. ‘I should have picked it up.’

‘Get over the guilt and tell me what you remember.’

His sharp voice shook her into gear. ‘It happened so gradually I hardly noticed.’

‘Until you couldn’t wake her, I presume? Has anything like this ever happened before?’

‘Never.’

‘This is important, Nell,’ he warned.

‘Do you think I don’t know that? And it’s Ms Foster, thank you.’ She stared at him with hostility. But for Molly’ s sake she had to go over everything again. Nell started to snatch at whispery strands of recollection from the day—the simple breakfast, the cappuccino froth lodging on her lip, which Molly had wanted to copy…dabbing it on, holding her up to laugh at her reflection in the mirror…Nothing to give warning of what was to come. And why was he examining Molly’s fingertips again? Was she getting worse?

The fear was rising again. It sat on her thought processes like a heavy weight. This was far worse than Jake’s accident, even though she’d been pregnant with Molly then, and still had everything to learn about betrayal, loss and loss of trust. She had survived the disillusionment of discovering Jake’s double life, survived having everything she believed in ripped away, and with no warning at all, but, staring at Molly lying lifeless in Luca’s arms, she wasn’t sure she was equal to this.

She wanted to ask more questions, but remembered from her experience with Jake that doctors were masters of deception. What would this man tell her that she could believe? She had been told so many lies. Where there’s life, there’s hope—that was just one of the many platitudes she had been fed in the hospital. No one told her before she went into Jake’s room that he was already brain-dead, and that his body only lived on thanks to the machines breathing for him.

‘Have you come up with anything yet?’

Dragging herself back to the present, Nell realised that Luca Barbaro had a frighteningly similar manner to the doctors she had encountered in the hospital following Jake’s accident. ‘I’m trying to remember.’ She was struggling with every atom of intellect at her command to try and pin down a trigger. If she could just identify the moment when things had changed…

She’d been over and over it, and still nothing new, and now the past was sucking her down again like quicksand. Jake’s death had flung back the curtain on his secret life, proving she hadn’t known the man she loved, the man she believed loved her and their unborn child. But Jake was wild, a free spirit. He would never have been content with a conventional life with her…

Barbaro was staring at her, Nell realised, his eyes hypnotic, demanding. He’d guessed something was chipping away at her mind. She didn’t want him climbing inside her head, reading her thoughts.

‘Tell me everything you did from leaving the hotel,’ Barbaro prompted.

His manner rankled. He was so sure of himself, so altogether comfortable in his deeply tanned skin. But however much she wanted to hit back, this was for Molly, and she would give him every bit of help that she could. ‘She became sleepy about half an hour after we boarded the gondola. At first I thought it was because she found the ride soothing. I was day-dreaming too…’ Nell stopped abruptly. Help was one thing, sharing her personal impressions with this man was something else.

‘And before that?’

‘Nothing. She was fine.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. Will you give her to me?’

‘No. You might drop her.’

‘Drop her?’ Was he mad? ‘I can assure you, I won’t!’

‘You look light-headed to me.’

‘Is that in your professional opinion?’

Ignoring the sarcasm, he leaned out again, and so far this time, Nell grabbed him by the sleeve.

He looked down at her hand on his arm and she quickly drew it back.

‘Will you please try to calm down?’

‘How do you expect me to be calm when you take chances with my daughter—when you stand there saying nothing, explaining nothing?’ Nell shook her head. She would never get through to him. As far as Dr Barbaro was concerned, she was the unavoidable encumbrance that came with each of his patients—their relative or friend.

Digging in her pocket, she found her phone. Relief flooded through her; she could do something now. She could ring the emergency services—take over. And the number was…?

Why hadn’t she thought to ask at the hotel about the local emergency number? Because an emergency was the last thing you thought about on holiday…because all it took was one ray of sunshine and your brain shut down.

‘What are you doing?’ Luca Barbaro said sharply.

She ignored him and kept on punching numbers. ‘I’m ringing our hotel.’

‘Why?’

‘To ask them for the number of the emergency services.’

‘I’m perfectly capable of handling this. It’s too late for them to do anything, and you’ll just complicate everything. It will be quicker if we wait.’

‘For how long?’ she almost shouted.

‘You’d make better use of your time if you could remember something.’

Their voices were rising over Molly’s head, Nell realised, clamping her mouth shut. Did he think she was being deliberately obstructive?

‘Where did you start your day?’ he demanded.

She thought back to St Mark’s Square: grandeur and scale beyond imagining. Pigeons wheeling over their heads like dull grey streamers. The cafés, the crowds. Molly eating ice cream, pasta…She blenched. ‘Molly doesn’t have food poisoning, does she?’

He frowned, but didn’t answer.

‘Don’t you know?’

‘I’m sorry, I’m not prepared to confirm or deny anything until I’m certain.’

He was sorry? She doubted that somehow. ‘You must be able to tell me something.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t.’

She gritted her teeth. ‘How far away are we from the hospital?’

‘Not too far.’

‘Then why don’t we walk?’ she said with exasperation.

‘Not too far by boat,’ he clarified.

Nell felt as if she was tearing up inside with frustration. She wanted to do something. Most of all, she wanted the ground to open up and swallow him, leaving Molly safe and well in her pushchair. With an angry sound she raked her hair.

‘If this is getting too much for you, I could always help you down to that ledge and you could sit down.’

Too much for her? Sit down? She couldn’t believe he was pointing to a seat cut into the rock beside the steps rubbed smooth by countless weary travellers—as if she could relax like them. ‘I’m not tired!’ She ignored his outstretched hand. The last thing she wanted to do was sit down. No, not the last thing. That had to be taking his hand. She had no intention of touching any part of him.

The black-gold gaze lingered on her face. ‘Worrying will only sap your energy.’

‘Thanks for the advice.’ Nell raked her hair again until it stood in even angrier spikes. ‘Why don’t you save the platitudes, and give my daughter back to me?’

‘Bad temper won’t help either…’

He was looking at her hair. Let him look. It perfectly mirrored her feelings. Doubtless Barbaro preferred his women to have long, silky tresses he could wind around his fist…

A siren blasted and Nell exhaled with relief. At last something was happening.

The launch painted in orange and white had Ambulanza emblazoned along the side and across the front. Moving steadily towards them, it finally slowed beside the steps.

‘Be careful when you climb on board,’ Luca Barbaro advised. ‘Leave Molly’s pushchair to one of the men. We haven’t time to deal with a second emergency.’

And then he was gone—with Molly. When she went to follow, one of the paramedics got in her way. Nell panicked, the past mocking her, reminding how they had kept her away from Jake. But then Barbaro stuck his head out of the cabin to see where she was and shouted something in Italian. She didn’t wait to work out what it was. The man moved out of the way, and she hurried on board.

The fear that she would be separated from Molly was so real Nell had to ram the past back in its box and lock it up again. She had to tell herself that this wasn’t a replay of Jake’s accident, but something entirely different, and that she had to keep a clear head if she was going to stay on top of this new nightmare.

As she ducked her head to enter the cabin she could see Luca Barbaro was already treating Molly. He was clearly in his element, moving purposefully, calmly. The men knew him and watched him confidently. Their attitude relaxed her a little.

‘Sit here, please.’ Without taking his attention from Molly, Barbaro directed her to a bench seat on the opposite side of the cabin. As far away from Molly as possible.

He’d shifted up a gear, sloughing off all the irritation she’d sensed on shore. He was delivering instructions into his phone now, as well as to the men on board, and she didn’t need to understand the language to know who was in charge, or to gather that this was a full-blown emergency and there was no time to lose.

The creeping cold that had started down her spine spread to Nell’s shoulders as she sat watching. She didn’t even know that she was shivering until Luca Barbaro turned in the middle of attending to Molly and murmured something to one of the paramedics. Then the man tossed a blanket over her shoulders and she drew it tight.

Nell watched him work with a mixture of awe and dread, all the time willing Molly to wake up. But it didn’t take long for her to lose her flimsy faith. She was stung into speech by the sight of a syringe in his hand.

‘Are you sure all this is necessary?’

‘Yes.’ He glanced over his shoulder too briefly to make eye contact.

She had only wanted him to explain what he was doing. He had checked Molly’s vital signs, listened to her chest, checked her pulse, her blood pressure, tapped her back, scrutinised her fingernails for the umpteenth time and shone a light into her eyes. And now she wanted to be with Molly, holding her…

Nell made her request the moment he straightened up.

Barbaro remained staring at Molly, waiting for signs of improvement, she guessed.

‘Not yet.’

‘When?’ But the powerful engines started up at that moment, drowning out her voice, and then the launch surged forward, fixing her in place. Nell waited until she judged it safe to move—

‘Sit down!’

The harsh command shunted ice through her veins. She speared a look of resentment at him, but at that moment the launch picked up speed, and as it thrust forward the prow lifted, tilting the deck at an extreme angle. Thrown off balance, she was forced to make a grab for one of the upright poles and cling on desperately.

Barbaro’s voice reached her over the roar of the engines. ‘Police launches and ambulances break the speed limits inside the city and we’ll be going even faster when we reach the Grand Canal. Get back to your seat and sit down now. It isn’t safe to stand up.’

Tears of frustration welled in Nell’s eyes. ‘You might have warned me.’ But Barbaro had already turned back to tend to Molly. She tried to get back to her seat, but the launch hit another boat’s wake and lurched unexpectedly.

Nell finally staggered back to her seat, where the weight of emotion pinned her in place. Terror made her want to cry, to sob hysterically and shout out: why? Why Molly? The emotion building in her throat, in her chest was nearly choking her. She guessed that everyone on board would be used to emotional incontinence—all the more reason not to give way to it. She would hold herself in check—do whatever it took not to distract them from treating Molly. Her chest was heaving convulsively, but she made herself calm down. Then at last Dr Barbaro stood back and she could see Molly clearly.

Nell paled. There were so many tubes and wires connected to Molly’s tiny frame. She stared up fearfully, trying to read Luca Barbaro’s face, his eyes…She was so hungry for information. Why didn’t he say something to her?

‘Can I sit with Molly now?’ Her voice was small. ‘Can I hold her?’

‘You might dislodge the drip.’

The drip? She hadn’t noticed it before, but now she did. It was suspended above Molly like an abomination. ‘I wouldn’t—’ Nell’s throat seemed to be caught in a vice. ‘Does she need that?’

‘It’s used for rehydration, and we’re giving antibiotics too, as a precaution.’

Nell frowned. ‘You don’t know what’s wrong with my daughter but you’re pumping her full of drugs?’

‘I consider it necessary.’

‘And what’s that machine?’ She wanted to know. She wanted to know everything. She wanted to drive him, drive him hard. How else was she to find out what was going on? How else was she going to let him know she was there for Molly?

‘A nebuliser. It delivers the medicine in a fine mist so the patient can breathe it in without it disturbing them.’

‘Without it disturbing them?’ Nell shuddered as she stared at the mask on Molly’s face, the coarse green elastic binding her fine baby hair to her moist skin. The noise from the machine was enough to disturb anyone. But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? Nothing was going to disturb Molly; nothing could disturb her while she was in this condition.

The sooner they arrived at the hospital the sooner she could breathe easily again, Nell realised. Or maybe not even then. Maybe this man was representative of the type of cold-hearted individual she was going to find there. Something inside her said, if she could just touch Molly, give her love…

‘I won’t disturb her, and I won’t pull anything out.’

She suffered his scrutiny in silence, holding herself together in the hope of passing his test.

‘All right,’ he agreed finally and, Nell guessed, reluctantly. ‘I’ll lift her onto your knee and then you can hold her while she inhales the medicine.’

‘Thank you.’ She was so grateful, all her feelings of hostility towards him started to fade. ‘Does she need the drip as well as the mask?’ Nell tried not to let her gaze linger on the fine tubing hanging from Molly’s slender arm. Molly had never needed a plaster to cover an abrasion in her whole life, let alone required a needle to be inserted in her arm…

‘It’s the most efficient way I know to administer antibiotics and rehydrate the body.’

The body? Nell gasped involuntarily.

‘Your daughter,’ he corrected himself tersely.

Had she got through to him? His dispassionate voice suggested otherwise. ‘The most efficient way you know? How can I be sure you know what you’re doing?’

‘You can’t. I’ll have to take her off you if you are going to get upset.’

‘Don’t threaten me! I’ve got no intention of breaking down, I can assure you,’ she managed coldly, staring into his eyes until he looked away. Then she drank in every nuance of Molly’s changed appearance. Rather than its usual porcelain perfection, Molly’s complexion was ashen and her lips were tinged with blue…like her nails. She looked up again. ‘I think it’s time you told me what’s going on.’

‘When I know I’ll tell you, and not before.’

He was not prepared to deliver a diagnosis that might be disproved once the child was admitted to hospital, where all the necessary tests could be carried out, nor was he accustomed to being harangued—let alone by some pixie-haired termagant with eyes like cobalt searchlights. He’d been looking forward to some hard-won down time when the call came through from Marco, the gondolier. He hadn’t had chance to eat or to drink all day, let alone take a shower, or shave. And his reward for a being a good citizen? A woman who scrutinised his every move as if he were a first-year med student!

If the child hadn’t been so sick he would have left her in the care of his very competent colleagues on board the ambulance. Then her mother could have driven them crazy with her questions. His focus was always on the people under his care. Relatives and friends were the province of his nurses. They acted as intermediaries for him, shielding him from distraction—just the way he liked it. If Nell Foster wanted more—well, she couldn’t have it.

But something made him wonder about her backstory. Why had Ms Foster stripped every bit of feminine allure from her appearance? There wasn’t a suggestion of femininity in her baggy clothes, and the spiky hair was a good indicator for her personality. Her face looked as though it had never seen make-up, and yet her eyebrows were beautifully shaped, and her eyes, fringed with long black lashes, were beautiful. Her teeth were film-star perfect—a fact he could attest to with confidence, since she drew back her lips to snarl at him as many times as most people cast deferential smiles in his direction.

Deferential, her? That was a laugh! She evidently hated doctors, mistrusted them…and him most of all. In this situation he would have expected her to be grateful, hanging on his every word, but she couldn’t have made it plainer that she considered him to be a threat rather than a help to her daughter.

Nevertheless, she stirred feelings in him he was finding it hard to ignore. Her attitude irritated him, he was affronted by it, but there was something more, something electric…But those feelings were not only unusual for him, they were also forbidden to a man in his position. It was more than his fledgling career was worth to…

To what? Sleep with Nell Foster?

That was what he’d wanted to do since the first moment he’d set eyes on her—and therefore he had to put distance between them the moment he could.

CHAPTER THREE

‘I’M STILL waiting for an explanation,’ she reminded him.

He watched her glance sweep across the lines and tubes attached to his patient. Nell Foster was continually harassing him and questioning his judgement. Part of him resented it, part admired her spirit, but most of all he was concerned for the child lying so still and silent on the stretcher. He didn’t want to show the mother how concerned he was. She was steadier now and he wanted to keep her that way. Too much knowledge would frighten her, too little might raise her hopes.

He found himself assessing her covertly. The mother was very different from the child. Nell Foster was robust, her features strong and clearly defined. It followed that the child must take after her father, which opened up more questions. He made himself stop and turn back to his charge. The little girl’s eyes were as vividly blue as her mother’s—he’d seen that when he checked her over. But was her gaze half as direct? He could only hope she was a fighter like her mother.

‘I’m still waiting!’

He turned his professional face to Nell. Her wide, intelligent gaze assured him she wouldn’t let up. It also hit him forcibly in the chest. Clearing his throat, he gazed at the roof of the cabin and launched into a reasonable explanation without giving too much detail. ‘There’s some congestion in your daughter’s lungs. I’m trying to ease her breathing.’ He stopped there, but even this was a first. He never divulged information piecemeal, never uttered a word that wasn’t backed up by hard fact. There was a whole range of tests he would have to carry out before he could be sure of his diagnosis…

‘When will you be able to give me some real answers?’

He had to look at her. ‘Soon, I hope.’

‘You hope?’ She was scathing. ‘How soon can we get someone else to look at Molly—someone who can do more than hope?’

Her mouth was set in a firm line, which drew his attention to her lips. He ignored the insult, and tried to ignore her lips. He brought professionalism to bear like a steel curtain, cutting Nell Foster out of the picture. ‘At the very least, I’ll need an X-ray to confirm my diagnosis. The drugs should help—’

‘Should?’

‘Medicine is not an exact science.’ He couldn’t believe how pompous he sounded.

‘So why not leave her alone until we reach the hospital? Anyone can see she’s sleeping. I think it would be better if you left her to rest rather than pumping her full of drugs before you know what you’re doing!’

‘Oh, do you?’ He’d had enough, but bit his tongue and focused on the child lying on the stretcher. How could he tell Nell Foster that her daughter wasn’t sleeping, but unconscious?

‘If Molly is having difficulty breathing,’ Nell persisted, ‘we should be able to hear something. Coughing, wheezing.’ Her eyes sharpened with certainty, and as he watched hope flood her face something rapped again on the stone he called a heart.

‘Nell, stop this!’

He didn’t know why he’d used her first name in such an emotional and unprofessional way, but the strange thing was that when Nell Foster’s eyes filled with tears his stung too. And it was not just tiredness that made him empathise with his patient’s mother—there was something more, something he had never let through before. There was fragility behind her bravado; he could hear it like a silent cry of desperation. ‘It isn’t always that simple,’ he said carefully. Most people would be content with that.

He should have known. ‘Go on,’ Nell said, firming her jaw.

He looked at her and measured her strength. It didn’t fall short, and that was something he could connect to. He owed it to her to be straight. ‘Sometimes, when things are really serious, there’s very little to hear at all.’

‘Really serious?’ She looked at him and he saw her spirit crumple; the fire went out of her, which again, incredibly, hurt him like hell.

What was this? What was happening to him? He never got involved emotionally. It was one of the first things he’d learned at med school—the moment you became prey to your emotions you were no use to anyone, least of all your patient. ‘Try not to get upset.’ He knew it sounded trite but he didn’t know what to say, had never felt like this before. He longed to escape the suffocating tension swirling round the cabin.

‘What do you suggest?’ Her voice was shaking with emotion. ‘Am I supposed to remove myself to some emotion-free zone when I’ve just been told my daughter is dangerously ill?’

He could think of nothing to say.

‘Luca?’ she pressed.

Her use of his first name gave him a jolt, even though he knew it was merely a measure of her desperation. ‘We can only wait now,’ he said honestly.

Did he really think she was going to crumble? Nell wondered, holding Luca’s gaze. Maybe at one time in her life she might have broken down, but not now. The turning point had been Molly’s birth. She’d had something to fight for since then. She would keep this vigil with him, keep it and will Molly well again.

Nell forced herself to look at everything dispassionately, to listen and become accustomed to all the alien sights and sounds: the nebuliser humming, the launch’s engines throbbing, the muted Italian exchanges rising and falling expressively around her like a song.

‘Andiamo!’

Luca barked out his instruction as they turned into the wide stretch of water that formed the main thoroughfare through Venice. It jolted Nell back to reality, made it hard to cling to the little life-raft of calm she had formed in her mind. She clutched the seat, ready now as the launch tipped at an even steeper angle. But the momentum jerked her forward and she was only stopped from slipping off the seat by Luca’s whip-fast reactions.

‘Sit back as far as you can, or I’ll have to take her from you.’

His voice was as harsh as before. She had put too much store in the brief flash of kindness. Nell drew Molly closer. No one was going to take Molly from her. Her daughter was back where she belonged, where she was going to stay…

‘Don’t hold her so tightly.’

She loosened her grip immediately. She wanted to get it right for Molly.

‘If you must lean on something, lean on me.’

Lean on him? ‘I’d rather not.’

‘Just until you become used to the rhythm of the boat—’

‘I can manage, thank you!’ Nell shrank away, relieved when Luca seemed to have second thoughts and left her to have a word with the captain of the boat, but even his back view was unsettling.