Dr Mathieson's Daughter

She sighed. ‘It’s a case of child neglect. Two girls and a boy, aged between one and four. The police brought them in ten minutes ago for a medical assessment before they contact Social Services. Apparently their dad’s in jail, their mother is God knows where and a neighbour phoned the police because she hadn’t seen them out and about for a week.’

‘Medical condition?’ Elliot demanded, his professional instincts immediately alert.

‘Excellent, considering they’ve been living in an unheated flat for the past week, and the oldest child told the police they haven’t had anything to eat for two days.’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘Honestly, some people should never have children.’

People like him, Elliot decided, but it was too late to think about that now, too late to regret that night in the hotel in Paris. ‘Who’s with them?’

‘Jane. Charlie’s checked them over, and there’s nothing we can do for them except clean them up and give them some food, but…’ She shrugged. ‘It’s better than nothing, isn’t it?’

He supposed it was as he strode into the cubicle to find Jane sitting on the trolley, holding the youngest of the three children in her arms while the other two clung to her, wide-eyed and clearly terrified.

‘Need any help?’ he asked.

She shook her head and smiled, apparently completely oblivious to the overpowering smell of dried urine and faeces emanating from the trio. ‘No, thanks. I’ve sent down to the kitchens for some food, and Kelly’s organising a bath for them all.’

‘What about clean clothes?’ he suggested.

‘Flo’s phoned her husband and he’s bringing some of their twins’ old things over.’

There was nothing for him to do here, then, Elliot realised, but still he lingered, watching in admiration as Jane managed to eventually coax some smiles from the children.

She was good with kids. Actually, she was quite amazing with kids. He’d seen her get a response from even the most traumatised of children simply by sitting with them, holding them, murmuring all kinds of nonsense.

And suddenly it hit him. He had the answer to all his problems sitting right in front of him. Jane. Jane would be perfect for Nicole, just perfect.

But would she do it? Would she be prepared to move into his flat to help him out until he could get a nanny or a housekeeper in a month’s time?

Of course she would. Jane helped everybody, and it wasn’t as though he was asking a lot. Not much, he observed sourly. Just for her to take over your responsibilities, that’s all. Nonsense, he wasn’t asking her to do that. He wasn’t even thinking about himself at all. He was simply thinking about Nicole.

And Jane clearly thought he was, too, when he whisked her into his office and explained what had happened after the police had collected the three abandoned children and taken them off to Social Services.

‘Oh, the poor little girl!’ she exclaimed, her eyes full of compassion. ‘Why on earth didn’t Donna tell you about her before?’

He’d wondered about that, too, but all he could think was that she must have been so angry with him when they’d parted that this had been her way of punishing him.

‘You’re going to have to go very carefully with her,’ Jane continued, her forehead creased in thought. ‘Not only has she lost her mother, but coming to a strange country, to a man she doesn’t know…She’s going to need lots of love and attention.’

‘But that’s the trouble,’ he declared. ‘How can I give her lots of love and attention when I’m hardly ever going to be there? Janey, you know what our hours are like—’

‘We’ll all help out,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s a nuisance Mr Mackay being away, but when he gets back I’m sure he’ll agree to letting you work days for a while. In the meantime, we could ask Charlie if he’d mind doing most of your night shifts—’

‘I don’t want Charlie to do my night shifts!’ he snapped, then flushed as Jane’s eyebrows rose. ‘Janey, I’ve got to be honest with you…’

He paused. How to explain? How to say that it wasn’t just a question of the day-to-day complications of taking care of a child that was worrying him, but that he didn’t want this girl because she would remind him of a time in his life he preferred to forget. Jane would ask why. She’d ask questions. Questions he didn’t want to answer.

Better by far for her to think he was selfish, he decided. Better for her to believe he was the biggest heel of all time than for him to have to reveal the sorry details of his failed marriage.

He took a deep breath. ‘Janey, the thing is, kids…they’re not really me. I never wanted any—never planned on having any. I’m a loner at heart, you see, always have been.’

Oh, he was something all right, she decided as she stared up at him in utter disbelief. How could he be so unfeeling about a child? And not simply any child. His child. His daughter.

‘So you’re getting your mother to look after her, I presume?’ she said tightly.

‘I can’t. She flew out to Canada last Saturday to stay with my sister for the next three months. Annie’s been having a really rotten time with her first pregnancy—’

‘Then you’re hiring a nanny?’ Jane asked, her heart going out to his poor little motherless, unwanted child. ‘Or are you too damn mean to fork out the money?’

‘It’s not a question of money!’ he exclaimed, his cheeks reddening. ‘None of the agencies I contacted could get me anybody until next month, which is why…’ He quickly fixed what he hoped was his most appealing smile to his lips. ‘Janey, I need you to do me a huge favour. I want you to come and live with me, to help me look after Nicole.’

‘You want me to…’ Her mouth fell open, then she shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, but I think there must be something wrong with my hearing. I could have sworn you just said you wanted me to come and live with you to look after your daughter.’

‘I did—I do. Janey, listen, it makes perfect sense,’ he continued as she stared at him, stunned. ‘You’re a woman—’

‘I also like pasta but that doesn’t make me Italian,’ she protested. ‘If you’re so desperate for help, why don’t you ask Gussie Granton? She’s your current girlfriend, according to the hospital grapevine, and as a paediatric sister she’s bound to know more about children than I do.’ He had the grace at least to look uncomfortable and her grey eyes narrowed. ‘You’ve already asked her, haven’t you, and she said no.’

Gussie had. Oh, she’d been wonderfully understanding, her luscious lips curving into an expression of deepest sympathy, but, as she’d pointed out, the demands of her job simply didn’t give her the time to take care of a child.

‘Janey—’

‘So you decided that as your mother couldn’t do it, and Gussie wouldn’t, muggins here might fit the bill,’ she interrupted, her voice harder and colder than he’d ever heard it. ‘Well, you can forget it, Elliot. Forget it!’

‘But you’ve got to help me,’ he cried, coming after her as she made for his office door. ‘Surely you can see that I can’t do this on my own?’

‘You’re thirty-two years old, Elliot,’ she snapped. ‘Get off your butt and try!’

‘But you’re so good with kids—the very best,’ he said, his blue eyes fixed pleadingly on her. ‘And I’m not asking you to do it for ever—just for a month. Until I can get a nanny or a housekeeper. Please, Janey.’

She’d heard that wheedling tone in his voice before. It was the one he used on women when he wanted a favour, and it usually worked on her, too, but not today.

‘No, Elliot.’

‘Look, I’m not asking you to go into purdah for the next month,’ he said quickly. ‘I have a three-bedroom flat—you can have your friends round whenever you want, go out whenever you want. All I’m asking is for us to dovetail our shifts and personal commitments so at least one of us will be there when Nicole comes home from school.’

‘No, Elliot.’

‘Janey, please. I’m begging you. If you won’t do it for me, won’t you at least do it for Nicole?’

Blackmail. It was blackmail of the worst possible kind, and anyone who agreed to move in with him under those circumstances needed their head examined. Anyone who had secretly been in love with him for the last two years and agreed to do it needed that head certified.

Tell him it’s his problem, not yours, her mind insisted. Tell him to go fly a kite, preferably on the edge of a very high cliff in the middle of a howling gale. OK, so his little girl must be grief-stricken to have lost her mother, but it’s not your problem.

And she cleared her throat to tell him just that when an image suddenly came into her mind. An image of a little girl with big, frightened eyes. A little girl lost, and alone, and deeply unhappy.

‘Just for a month, you said?’ she murmured uncertainly.

He nodded, hope, desperation, plain in his eyes.

‘You’ll have to do your fair share, Elliot,’ she declared. ‘Nicole is your responsibility, not mine.’

‘Oh, absolutely—definitely,’ he replied, nodding vigorously.

Only an idiot would agree to this, she thought as she stared up into his handsome face. Only a fool would ever say yes. And yet, before she could stop herself, the words ‘All right, then, I’ll do it’ were out of her mouth.

And as a broad smile lit up his face, and her heart turned over in response, she knew that she wasn’t simply an idiot. She was completely and utterly out of her mind.

CHAPTER TWO

‘SHE’S arriving this evening, then, on the nine o’clock plane from Paris?’ Floella declared as she helped Jane carry a fresh supply of medical dressings out of their small dispensary into the treatment room. ‘Poor little soul. Losing her mother like that. My heart goes out to her, it really does.’

And I don’t know why MI5 doesn’t simply throw in the towel and hand over all its surveillance work to St Stephen’s in future, Jane thought ruefully.

How did they do it? She’d told nobody about Nicole, and she was pretty sure Elliot hadn’t told anybody either, and yet it had taken the staff less than twenty-four hours to discover not only that he had a daughter but what time her plane was arriving as well.

‘I bet Gussie’s spitting nails about you moving into Elliot’s place.’ Floella chuckled. ‘I hear she’s been itching to become his live-in girlfriend.’

‘I’m not exactly moving in with him, Flo,’ Jane said quickly. ‘Simply helping out until he can employ a housekeeper.’

‘Oh, I know that,’ the staff nurse said dismissively. ‘We all do.’

Which was another thing that was beginning to seriously annoy her, Jane thought, putting down the boxes of Steri-Strips she was carrying with a bang. The way everyone had instantly assumed there wasn’t anything personal about the arrangement.

OK, so there wasn’t, but that didn’t mean she had to like the idea that nobody thought there might be. She wasn’t that plain, and was it really so unlikely that she and Elliot could have become an item? Apparently it was.

‘Elliot, we were just talking about your little girl.’ Floella beamed as he strode down the treatment room towards them. ‘You must be really excited at the prospect of meeting her.’

Jane didn’t think he looked even remotely excited, but to his credit he managed to mumble something suitably enthusiastic in reply.

‘You must bring her into the hospital one day, so we can all meet her,’ the staff nurse continued. ‘And, don’t forget, if you ever need a babysitter, I’ll be only too happy to oblige.’

Elliot smiled and nodded but as Floella bustled away he shook his head wryly. ‘You know, this has got to be the worst-kept secret in the hospital.’

‘Do you mind everybody knowing about Nicole?’ Jane asked.

He shrugged. ‘She’s a fact of life. Whether I mind or not is immaterial.’

Which sounded very much as though he did mind. As though he’d far rather she didn’t exist.

She’d thought—hoped—that since last night he might have had time to see what a great gift he’d been given, how lucky he was, but nothing, it seemed, had changed. He still saw his daughter as a nuisance, an unwelcome intrusion into his life.

‘I’d better get back to work,’ she said abruptly, but before she could move he suddenly clasped her hands in his.

‘Jane, what you’re doing for Nicole—for me—I just want to thank you again. It’s really good of you to help me out like this, and I do appreciate it.’

Like hell you do, Elliot, she thought sourly, trying very hard not to notice the way her skin was traitorously reacting to the touch of his fingers. You just think you’ve got it made. You just think you’ve managed to offload your responsibilities onto someone else. Well, you’re going to find out very quickly that I’m not a complete pushover. You’re going to do your full share of taking care of your daughter, or my name isn’t Jane Halden.

Determinedly she extricated her hands from his. ‘I’d better go—’

‘Did you remember to arrange with one of the night staff to start a little earlier tonight so you can come out to the airport with me?’ he interrupted.

She nodded, though she still thought Nicole would probably have preferred him to meet her alone.

‘I thought we’d take her out to dinner,’ he continued. ‘A sort of welcome-to-London treat. I know this fabulous restaurant in town which not only does the most amazing lobsters but also the best prawns this side of the Channel.’

He had to be joking. One look at his face told her he wasn’t.

‘Don’t you think fish fingers and chips at home would be a much better idea?’ she said quickly.

‘Jane, she’s French—’

‘And she’s six years old, Elliot. Look, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she’s exhausted and a bit weepy when she arrives,’ she continued as he opened his mouth, clearly intending to argue with her, ‘so I really do think fish fingers and chips in your flat would suit her much better than dinner out at a fancy restaurant.’

He frowned uncertainly. ‘If you say so. I don’t think I’ve got any fish fingers in my freezer but I could easily buy some.’

Frankly she’d have been amazed if he’d had fish fingers in his freezer. Pâté de foie gras, quail and partridge eggs for sure, but not fish fingers and chips.

In fact, when she’d dropped off her clothes at his flat this morning her heart had quite sunk when she’d seen where he lived. Oh, his home was beautiful—all gleaming modern furniture and immaculate white walls—but not by any stretch of the imagination could it have been described as child-friendly. Indeed, its pristine elegance had intimidated her, so who knew what it would do to Nicole?

Flowers might soften the look, she thought suddenly, make it seem more homely, and she’d just opened her mouth to suggest it when two paramedics appeared, their faces taut, grim.

‘Twenty-three-year-old mum with bad burns to her face, arms and upper torso. Apparently she was frying some chips for her kids’ tea when the pan caught fire. She threw some water on it—’

‘And the whole thing went up like a torch,’ Elliot groaned as the paramedics wheeled the mother into cubicle 1. ‘Didn’t she know that oil and water don’t mix?’

‘Do you want me to page the burns unit?’ Jane asked, beckoning to Floella to assist him.

‘Please. You’d better alert IC as well. And, Jane…’ She turned, her eyebrows raised questioningly. ‘Make it fast, eh?’

She nodded. Shock was always the biggest hazard in cases like this. Shock and the danger of infection, and the sooner they could get the young mother stabilised and transferred to specialist care, the better.

And the sooner Richard Connery lost his high-and-mighty attitude the happier she’d be, too, she decided when she put down the phone to see the junior doctor snapping his fingers imperiously at her.

No wonder Floella’s temper was close to breaking point, she thought as she walked towards him. Her own was getting pretty wafer-thin as well, and it was getting harder and harder for her to continue believing that Richard’s high-handed manner was due to him finding the work in A and E a lot more stressful than he’d expected.

‘How can I help you, Doctor?’ she asked, determinedly bright as she joined him in cubicle 8.

‘Being here considerably earlier would have been a start,’ he declared irritably. ‘I’ve been waiting ten minutes for nursing assistance.’

‘We’re very busy this afternoon, Dr Connery—’

‘And I don’t have time to listen to excuses,’ he interrupted. ‘My patient is suffering from acute appendicitis and I need liver, pancreatic and guiac tests to confirm it before I send him up to Theatre.’

It wasn’t the only thing he needed, she thought grimly, but she managed to keep her tongue between her teeth and quickly took the samples he wanted.

‘Well, is it a ruptured appendix, as I said?’ he declared when she returned later with the results.

She cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘Could I have a word with you in private Dr Connery?’

‘I don’t have time for a chat, Sister,’ he retorted. ‘All I want is a simple answer to a simple question. Is it a ruptured appendix or not?’

Well, he’d asked for it, she thought, and as he’d asked for it he was going to get it. ‘I’m afraid it isn’t, Dr Connery. Your patient has gallstones.’

‘Gallstones?’ Richard’s normally pale face turned an interesting shade of pink, and he snatched the sheet of papers from her fingers. ‘Let me see those results!’

‘It can be very easy to confuse the two,’ she murmured for the benefit of the young man who was lying on the trolley, glancing from her to Richard with clear concern. ‘The symptoms—pain, nausea and sickness—’

‘Are you presuming to give me lessons in diagnosis, Sister Halden?’ Richard interrupted, his face now almost puce.

Of course I’m not, you big ninny, she thought. I’m simply trying to get you out of a jam. You should never have told your patient what was wrong with him until you were a hundred per cent sure, and making a diagnosis without having the results of your tests was just plain stupid.

But she didn’t say any of that. Instead, she said as calmly as she could, ‘Would you like me to make arrangements for your patient to be taken up to Men’s Surgical, Dr Connery?’

From his expression Richard looked as though he’d far rather have thrown her under the nearest bus, but he managed to nod.

But he wasn’t finished. The minute the young man on the trolley was wheeled out of the treatment room, he rounded on her furiously.

‘I do not appreciate being made to look a fool, Sister Halden! That man was my patient—in my care—and you deliberately undermined his confidence in me!’

‘I did no such thing,’ she protested. ‘I didn’t want to give you those results. I asked if I could discuss them with you in private, but you insisted on having them.’

He had, and he knew it. He was also plainly acutely and deeply mortified, and despite her anger she couldn’t help feeling a certain sympathy for him.

‘Dr Connery…Richard…Look, it’s no big deal,’ she said gently. ‘OK, so your initial diagnosis wasn’t correct, but you were sensible enough to order all the necessary tests—’

‘I am not a child so stop humouring me!’ he interrupted. ‘I am the doctor here, Sister Halden, and I suggest you don’t forget it!’

He stormed away before she could answer him, but to her dismay her troubles weren’t over. As she turned to go back into the cubicle to remove the paper sheet from the examination trolley and replace it with a fresh one, Elliot suddenly appeared and it was clear from his grim face that he’d heard every word.

‘Does he always talk to you like that?’ he demanded. ‘He does—doesn’t he?’ he continued, seeing the betraying flush of colour on her cheeks. ‘Right. It’s obviously high time I had a chat with that young man.’

‘Oh, Elliot, don’t,’ she said quickly, dreading the inevitable friction that such a course of action would create. ‘He knows he was wrong, but he’s very young, still finding his feet—’

‘And using them to walk all over you by the sound of it,’ he snapped. ‘Jane, it’s not on. There’s such a thing as staff courtesy, not to mention the fact that even a first-year medical student would know never to make a diagnosis before they’d done every test.’

‘I know that, but, please, won’t you leave it for now?’ she begged. ‘I’m sure when he’s had time to think about it he’ll realise he shouldn’t have behaved as he did.’

‘And if he doesn’t?’ he demanded. ‘If he continues to treat you like this?’

‘He won’t—I’m sure he won’t,’ she insisted, and for a second he frowned, then sighed and shook his head.

‘You know something, Janey, you’re far too soft-hearted for your own good.’

Too damn right I am, she thought, or I’d never have agreed to help you with Nicole, and she would have told him so, too, if she hadn’t suddenly noticed he was smiling at her. Smiling the smile that made grown women grow weak at the knees, and her own were none too steady at the moment.

Why in the world had she ever agreed to move in with this man? Her brain must have been out to lunch. Her common sense must have gone with it, too, she realised, feeling an answering smile being irresistibly drawn from her. To live with him. To see him at breakfast. Last thing at night…

Then remember why you agreed to do it, she told herself sharply. Remember that he’s simply using you until he can employ a housekeeper, and that he doesn’t give a damn for his daughter.

And if that doesn’t bring you down to earth, she thought grimly when the doors of the treatment room swung open and Gussie Granton suddenly appeared, Elliot’s current girlfriend certainly should.

‘Hello, Gussie,’ Elliot said in clear surprise. ‘We don’t often see you down in A and E. Something I can do for you?’

Gussie wrapped one curl of her long blonde hair round her finger and threw him a provocative glance from under her impossibly thick eyelashes. ‘Not in public unfortunately, darling.’

Oh, barf. Barf, barf, and triple barf, Jane thought, deliberately beginning to edge away, but she didn’t get far. Gussie placed a beautifully manicured hand on her arm, and subjected her to a smile. A smile which had quite a struggle to make her eyes.

‘Don’t run off, Jane. At least not until I tell you how very sweet I think you’re being to help us out like this. I would have taken care of Nicole in a minute if I could, but being a senior sister in Paediatrics…’ She sighed heavily. ‘I just don’t have any time to myself.’

And I do? Jane thought waspishly. Like being a senior sister in A and E is a dawdle? Like I simply turn up every day, do my eight-hour shift, then go home and put my feet up?

For two pins she’d have liked to tell Gussie where to stick her thanks. Forget the two pins, she decided. She’d do it for free. And right now. ‘Gussie—’

‘Elliot, darling, it’s just occurred to me that you might like some company when you go out to the airport to meet your daughter,’ Gussie continued, completely ignoring her. ‘I could easily get one of my staff to swop shifts with me—’

‘There’s no need,’ Elliot interrupted. ‘Jane’s already agreed to come with me.’

‘Has she?’ Gussie’s large brown eyes narrowed slightly, then she smiled again at Jane. And this time her smile most definitely didn’t reach her eyes. ‘My word, but you are proving to be a little godsend, aren’t you?’

Elliot thought she was. In fact, after a sleepless night spent tossing and turning, he was all too aware of how very kind Jane was being, but he wished Gussie hadn’t said it—at least not in that particular way. There’d been a very definite edge to her voice. An edge which had made him feel uncomfortable, and if he’d felt like that he was sure Jane did as well.

‘Gussie, I’m afraid, can be a bit overbearing at times,’ he said the minute the paediatric sister had gone.

‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Jane replied tersely.

He coloured. ‘She does mean well, though, even if it doesn’t always sound like it.’

Oh, Gussie had made her meaning perfectly clear, Jane thought tightly, walking over to the thirteen-year-old boy and his mother who had come through from the waiting room into cubicle 8.