Scandal In Sydney: Sydney Harbour Hospital: Lily's Scandal

She’d been her mother’s keeper. It had been a full-time job.

Right now, her mother didn’t know where she was and she couldn’t contact her. When Lily left town she’d stopped at the headland overlooking the bay and tossed her cellphone as far as she could throw it.

If her mother had a drama—and she would certainly have a drama—Lily wouldn’t even know about it.

She could guess.

Would the vicar stay with her? Would her mother be able to ride out the town’s condemnation? Would her mother be able to operate the microwave?

Her father had treated her mother like a Dresden doll. He’d died when Lily had been twelve, and Lily had promised …

Enough.

She lay in Luke’s bed with no cellphone, no way her mother could know where she was, and she felt … weightless.

She could even manage pretending to be Luke’s lover for this luxury, she told herself. And Luke was serious about what he wanted. He’d slept in the living room, then carefully packed everything up before he’d left for work, checking and rechecking so Mrs Henderson would have no hint they’d slept apart.

Mrs Henderson supported her into the shower, clucked over her and helped her into a clean nightgown. Apparently Luke had gone through her baggage and given instructions that everything should be cleaned. She should be offended but she didn’t have the energy. She lay in the vast bed on the crisp linen Mrs Henderson had insisted on changing. She gazed out of the windows at the glorious vista of Sydney Harbour.

Four days of nothing, nothing and nothing.

Apart from being Luke Williams’s pretend lover.

‘Wouldn’t your mother want to know that you’ve been ill?’ Mrs Henderson asked as she bustled back in to say goodbye for the night.

‘No,’ she said sleepily. ‘I don’t want to worry her.’

And her mother wasn’t worrying her. Luke Williams’s lover wouldn’t have mother worries.

Luke William’s lover didn’t.

‘So how long has this been going on? Why haven’t we heard about her before this? Where have you been keeping her? And where is she now?’

To say he was besieged was an understatement.

Luke’s Thursdays were always frantic—it was the day he did his kids’ list, birth defects, procedures that took all his skill and emotion. Today he was doing graft work on Ruby May Ellington’s left thigh. Ruby May was four years old. Born as a conjoined twin, her sister had died at birth. Her sister’s death had meant there had been no hard ethical decisions to be made, but the surgery to separate them had been performed urgently. There’d been no time for preparation of excess skin flaps, and the grafting still was ongoing.

Luke had been working on this case when Hannah had died. The day she’d died, his team had saved Ruby’s life.

The medical imperative tore a person in two. Like now, when he was concerned about the woman he’d left in his apartment. She was suffering from gastro but instinct told him it was more. She was too thin. Too tired. Too … shadowed.

She was running from something, he thought, but what?

He worked on, but the questions kept coming.

And they kept coming from the people around him.

Who was this Lily he’d kept so dark?

‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ The head of paediatrics, Teo, a Samoan with a heart almost as big as his body, had been involved in Ruby’s care from the beginning and, like Luke, he was willing the little girl a good outcome. It wasn’t, however, deflecting him from hospital gossip. ‘You’ve had this woman for how long?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘Hey, this is the Harbour,’ Teo said mildly. ‘Everything’s everyone’s business. And now you’ve installed her in Kirribilli Views … You expect to keep her to yourself?’

‘Until she’s better, yes.’

‘You have the next three days off, right?’ With the procedure over, Luke was stripping off his theatre garb. Teo had hitched himself up onto the sinks and was regarding him thoughtfully.

‘Yes.’ What was coming?

He knew what was coming. Teo had a huge extended family and he treated the hospital as part of it. He shouldn’t be a paediatrician, he should be a party organiser.

‘I’m having a party on the beach on Saturday night,’ Teo told him. ‘My aunties are bringing food. You’ve knocked me back now one hundred and seventeen times …’

‘A hundred and seventeen?’

‘I’ve been counting,’ Teo said. ‘You disappear every time you have time off, and now we know why. But since you’ve introduced your Lily into the medical team, the least you can do is bring her along.’

His Lily? ‘No.’

‘No?’

Finn walked in and Teo turned to him. ‘He’s not cooperating,’ he complained. ‘Tell him letting us in on this lady is in his contract.’

‘It’s not,’ Finn said shortly, and Luke glanced sharply at his boss. Was he in pain? His voice was tight, tense. Luke had seen a lot of pain in his professional life. There was something wrong.

‘Leave him alone,’ Finn snapped before Luke could get any further. ‘He chose to flaunt his woman once, it doesn’t mean he has to do it again.’

‘I didn’t … flaunt,’ Luke said, and Teo grinned.

‘Having it off in the on-call room? I’d call it flaunting. Bring her on Saturday. You’re going to spend the whole weekend fending off visitors anyway. Word is Ginnie Allen’s already figured out she’s Lily’s new best friend. She’ll be knocking on the door asking for a cup of sugar right now. So … party it is.’

‘Party it isn’t,’ Luke growled.

‘Are you taking Mariette to Teo’s party on Saturday?’

Finn Kennedy groaned. Surely as Surgical Director he should have privacy. He’d been back in his office for a whole two minutes and now Evie Lockheart was leaning on the doorjamb, surveying him with sardonic amusement.

‘No.’

‘No?’ She raised her brows. ‘Just as well. Everyone’s tiptoeing around you but maybe someone ought to let you know David Blackmore, the new paediatric intern, is breaking his heart over Mariette.’

‘What does that have to do with me?’ The pain in Finn’s shoulder was driving him nuts and this woman was driving him nuts. She had no power in this hospital. She was one cog in a very big machine.

Her family money meant she could lean on the doorjamb and look … sardonic.

She also looked concerned. ‘Is there something wrong with your arm?’

‘No. Butt out.’

She butted, but only so far. ‘Mariette’s afraid to break things off with you because she’s scared you’ll sack David.’

‘I won’t sack David. And Mariette …’

‘Has a reputation,’ Evie said evenly. ‘Which is why you’re using her. You don’t use women you can hurt. All I’m saying is that David’s smitten and Mariette’s worried enough to be not backing off from you for his sake. David might be the making of her. They say love cures all …’

‘You’re telling me this why?’

‘Just so you know,’ Evie said blithely. ‘You’re the ogre around this place. No one stands up to you.’

‘Except you.’

‘And Luke,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘There’s another case in point. Love conquers all. He has a lady and he’s taking her to the farm this weekend. I’m thinking we should change the quarantine rules so neither can come back to the hospital for a week. It wouldn’t hurt to give them a push.’

‘If you think I have time to waste …’

‘On romance? I know you don’t,’ she said, and straightened. ‘Just saying. Just going. Think about Mariette, though. She’s a good kid at heart. And as for interfering with Luke’s hot weekend—’

‘I have no intention—’

‘Excellent,’ Evie said. ‘I do like a man with no intentions.’

Every second Friday Luke had off. Every second Friday was tomorrow.

Luke’s normal routine was to work for eleven days straight. He was happy to be rostered on public holidays, Christmas and Easter; in fact, he preferred it. But at the end of every two weeks he had three days off for the farm. For his sanity.

His farm was his place, his sanctuary, his solitude.

Solitude? Lily?

The entire hospital now believed he was taking Lily there.

In the brief moments he’d had to himself since settling Lily into his apartment, he’d decided that he’d go to the farm as usual this weekend and that she’d stay where she was. Only now he’d started a lie.

Lily was deemed his long-term lover. He’d hardly go away to the farm the moment she arrived.

If he did, everyone at Kirribilli Views would know she was ‘home alone’, and what’s worse, he wouldn’t put it past them to drop in on Lily. To sympathise? To check on her for him?

He could see Teo dragging her to his party whether she willed it or not. The man’s charm was legendary.

He didn’t mind if Teo’s charm was second to none, he told himself, but …

But his thoughts wouldn’t go further than that one word.

One lie and a whole skein of deception had appeared.

Should they both stay here?

If he stayed here he’d be either pacing the hospital with nothing to do or he’d be pacing the apartment. With Lily.

So … Farm?

Would she come?

How did you persuade a stranger?

But she wasn’t a stranger, he told himself grimly. She was his lover for a month.

Including farm time.

‘John says you’re going to the farm for the weekend. Oh, that’s lovely. What’s it like? He never tells us anything about it. He keeps everything so quiet. He’s kept you so quiet.’

To say Lily was bewildered was putting it mildly. She’d opened the door, hoping the doorbell signalled a delivery or something equally innocuous, and an immaculately groomed woman with eyes darting everywhere swept right in.

‘I’m Ginnie Allen. My husband’s a clinical psychologist at the Harbour. We live in the apartment on the next floor up. I’m so happy to meet you. Oh, he’s wicked, your Luke, fancy keeping you to himself. Has he told you Teo’s having a party this weekend? Everyone’s aching to meet you but he says you’re going to the farm. He always goes to the farm. Surely you’d prefer the party?’

Lily clutched her bathrobe round her. Actually, it was Luke’s bathrobe. Big and black and masculine, it fell to the floor and made an ungainly train.

She’d just woken. Her hair was ghastly. She was wearing no make-up. The woman before her looked like she’d just stepped out of Sporting Vogue.

To say she felt at a disadvantage was an understatement.

‘And you’re Lily …?’ Ginnie waited for her to complete the name.

‘Yes,’ Lily said discouragingly, backing away slightly. ‘And I’m sorry, but I’ve been ill. If you could excuse me …’

‘Oh, of course, you tuck yourself straight back into bed and we’ll talk there. Would you like me to make us both a nice cup of tea?’

Tea had suddenly lost its appeal. ‘I’d rather—’

‘Coffee? No, dear, tea’s much better. And toast? You need to keep your strength up if you’re going to spend the whole weekend with Luke.’

‘Hi, Ginnie.’

Luke. He stepped out of the apartment elevator in his suit and tie, with his briefcase in hand. Doctor coming home from work—to be greeted by the little woman in his bathrobe, and her new best friend, Ginnie.

‘Luke!’ Ginnie gave a crow of delight and hugged him before he had a chance to defend himself. ‘Oh, wow, congratulations. You and Lily … I had no idea.’

‘We’re hardly announcing diamonds,’ Lily said dryly, thinking she’d better nip this in the bud. ‘Are you congratulating Luke on sharing his bathrobe?’

‘I’ve no intention of sharing,’ Luke said, and looked across Ginnie’s head to smile at Lily.

And that smile …

Oh, that smile. She really was her mother’s daughter, she thought, suddenly feeling frantic. If Luke had been the vicar …

She thought suddenly of the vicar, and for some stupid reason the thought made her want to chuckle. And wince. How could her mother fall for someone like the vicar when there were men like Luke in the world? Men who owned bathrobes like this. It must be cashmere, she thought. It was a caress all on its own.

His smile was a caress all on its own.

‘I can’t believe you’re not coming to Teo’s party,’ Ginnie said reproachfully, letting Luke go and regarding him with huge disappointed eyes—and Luke’s expression became a bit hunted.

He always goes to the farm … Lily wasn’t sure what was happening here, but he didn’t look the least bit like he wanted to go to any party. Well, neither did she. She didn’t know what was going on but he’d lent her his bathrobe. He’d lent her his bed. Maybe she could afford to be generous.

He always goes to the farm …

‘I’m not a city girl,’ she told Ginnie. ‘That’s why I’ve only agreed to come and stay here for a month. That’s why Luke and I can’t be … as together as we’d like. But now I’ve been ill I’m—’

‘Pining,’ Luke finished for her, his smile still lurking. ‘For the fjords.’

She cast him a look that was meant to put him in his place. ‘For fresh air,’ she told him. ‘For the smell of … sheep.’

‘Horses,’ Luke said.

It was becoming more difficult to be generous. Especially when he was still smiling.

‘Especially for the smell of horses,’ she amended. ‘Eau de horse will cure me faster than anything.’

‘You like farms?’ Ginnie sounded incredulous.

‘What’s not to love?’

‘Well, horses for a start,’ Ginnie said, and shuddered. ‘They bite.’

‘Not my horses,’ Luke said.

‘Well, we wouldn’t know,’ Ginnie said, suddenly waspish. ‘We’ve been practically next-door neighbours for four years and not one invite. You know we’d all love to see your farm. It’s like you’re keeping it a secret. It’s like you’ve been keeping Lily secret.’

‘It’s because I know you hate horses,’ Luke said blandly. ‘Lily loves horses. She rides ‘em to the manor born.’

Lily blinked. She loved horses?

Actually … she did.

A farm with horses. She thought suddenly … what was being proposed here? A couple of days on a farm with horses.

She might even put up with Luke Williams for that.

‘Well, I think you should stay here,’ Ginnie said crossly. ‘Look at her.’ She motioned to Lily-In-The-Bathrobe. ‘She looks sick.’

‘Gee, thanks.’ But she was wobbly.

‘My car’s lovely,’ Luke said reassuringly. ‘Aston Martin, deep leather seats, pure luxury. And Lily even managed to protect them with her paper bag,’ he told Ginnie. ‘She’s a heroine, my Lily. I’m thinking she can sleep all the way there.’

My Lily. The words hung.

This was getting out of hand, Lily thought, starting to feel hysterical. She’d agreed to this, why?

‘How long have you guys been an item?’ Ginnie demanded of Lily. ‘Have you been to his farm?’

Was now the time to back away? Lily wondered, hysteria growing. Pack and leave for Brisbane?

It’d have to be Brisbane. She couldn’t go back to the Harbour after confessing this lie.

Luke had started the lie. Not her. She glanced at Luke, who glanced right back. Their eyes locked. His gaze was … almost a challenge?

Are you about to tell the truth?

Oh, for heaven’s sake, why should she? she thought. What right did this nosey woman have to the truth?

Whatever, she decided. Go with the flow.

But maybe … not lie unless she had to?

‘Merrylegs is my very favourite horse,’ she said, tangentially.

‘Merrylegs?’ Ginnie blinked.

‘She’s given me years of joy,’ she said and somehow, between Ginnie’s prurient interest and Luke’s bland withdrawal, she found herself remembering her first and one true love. ‘She’s beautiful. I know her so well she’s almost part of me, and I wish I could be riding her now.’

‘She’s on Luke’s farm?’

‘All my horses are on my farm,’ Luke said, sounding suddenly … wicked. ‘Even though Merrylegs is Lily’s favourite, all my horses are her horses.’

‘How long have you two been an item?’ Ginnie demanded.

‘Years,’ Luke said. ‘Like Lily said.’

‘How many years.’

‘Three?’ Luke said. ‘I think. Isn’t that right, dear?’

‘Have you been staying on Luke’s farm for three years?’ Ginnie was almost speechless. ‘That’s not even a year after Hannah died.’

‘I never met Hannah.’ Lily faced Luke’s wickedness head on. What had he called her? Dear. She lowered her voice, talking respectfully about her lover’s deceased wife. ‘Would Hannah have loved Merrylegs?’ she asked Luke. ‘Dear?’

‘Hannah was more a cat person,’ Luke said. The smile behind his eyes was challenging. Dangerous.

She rose to meet it. Challenging right back.

‘You never talk to me about Hannah. I think you should.’ She turned back to Ginnie. ‘He never talks to me about Hannah,’ she said, sounding aggrieved. ‘I think our relationship would be better if he let it all out.’

‘That’s what John says,’ Ginnie managed. ‘So …’

‘So, farm,’ Lily said, trying hard to sound brisk when, in fact, all she wanted to do was retreat to Luke’s bed and pull pillows over her head. ‘We can pack pillows,’ she told Luke. ‘Your beautiful car might even be comfortable enough to sleep in. Mind, I’m more accustomed to the farm truck,’ she confessed to Ginnie. ‘But when in the city, act like a city girl, that’s what I say. You might like to pack some more paper bags … sweetheart.’

‘I guess we’d better start packing,’ Luke said faintly. ‘Darling.’

‘You start packing,’ Lily said tartly, long-term-lover-like. ‘I’m poorly. Ginnie, would you like to help? Maybe you could make me that toast you were offering?’

‘Are you offering to make us dinner?’ Luke asked, full of hope, and Ginnie backed out as if burned.

‘I’ll leave you to it. We’ll miss you tomorrow night. Come back better, Lily. We’ll have a lovely long chat on Monday.’

‘I can’t wait,’ Lily muttered as Luke closed the door behind her. ‘I just can’t wait.’

To say the silence was loaded was an understatement. Luke closed the door carefully and then snibbed it, as if even now Ginnie might return.

Lily backed to the closest dining room chair and sat. Whatever energy she’d had had been spent.

‘I’m thinking,’ she said at last, trying hard to breathe so she didn’t gasp, ‘that communication seems to be lacking. So we’re a couple. Congratulations are in order. We’ve been dating for years. We’re about to leave on a romantic weekend to some farm I’ve never heard of.’

‘Where you ride a horse called Merrylegs.’ He seemed just as winded as she was. ‘I believe two of us are playing this game.’

‘It’s not a game,’ she snapped.

‘I’m not laughing,’ he said, and suddenly he wasn’t. All this time he’d been holding his briefcase. Now he set it down, carefully, like it might explode.

That’s what the atmosphere felt like, Lily thought. Loaded.

‘I’m feeling a wee bit trapped,’ she said, and hauled his bathrobe tighter round her.

‘That’s the part I don’t understand.’

‘What?’

‘The trapped bit. You’re an agency nurse. You could pack up and leave.’

‘If I break my four-week contract.’

‘I understand it’d make it hard to find another agency to take you. But there are other cities.’

‘I don’t have enough money to move to another city.’

‘Would you like to tell me why you’re in trouble?’

‘No,’ she said. She thought about it, thought about all the conclusions he might be jumping to, thought that maybe hiding any more conclusions wasn’t a good idea. ‘My mother’s maxed out my credit card,’ she said. ‘She’s done … well, let’s just say savings I thought were in my account no longer are. She’s taken a lover. We live in my tiny two-bedroom apartment and the walls are thin.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Her lover’s the local vicar, husband of a prominent citizen, I’m a scarlet woman by association.’

‘Double ouch.’

‘Lighthouse Cove is too small.’

‘I can see it might be.’ He looked at her, not so much sympathetic as interested. Doctor inspecting patient. Looking at strange symptoms. ‘So why not Adelaide? You trained there. You could get a job there.’

‘And my mother would be on my doorstep within days, weeping, asking for money, needing support. Or worse, walking into the ward where I’m working, weeping, asking for money, needing support. She’s done it before and she’ll do it again.’

‘So Sydney.’

‘For as long as I can manage,’ she said wearily. ‘For as long as I can get by until I need to go home and face the mess. I hadn’t counted on running into a mess myself.’ She sighed, and looked longingly at the bed. ‘I’m really very tired.’

‘You are,’ he said, gently this time, as if the physician had made his diagnosis and was moving to treatment phase. ‘But this apartment block is almost an extension of the hospital. We’ll be watched all weekend. The farm is best.’

‘I don’t want to move,’ she admitted.

‘It’d be better if I went to the farm and you stayed here,’ he conceded. ‘Only you’d get visitors and questions. At the farm you can sleep for three days straight. So what I suggest is that you sleep now for a couple of hours while I finish some patient notes, then I’ll tuck you into my car and you can sleep all the way to Tarrawalla.’

‘Tarrawalla?’

‘It’s where my elderly uncle lives,’ he said. ‘And the phantom Merrylegs.’ He smiled. ‘And the rest of my horses, all of which you ride like the wind.’

That smile …

She shouldn’t.

Shouldn’t what? Go to his farm? Sink into that smile?

No, she thought wearily, but her body was caving in.

‘You’re beat,’ he said softly, and before she could guess his intention he lifted her and carried her to the bedroom.

‘Put me … put me down …’

‘Of course I will,’ he said softly. ‘I won’t do anything you don’t like, Lily Ellis. We’ve been unwise enough. Now’s the time to be sensible.’

She didn’t feel sensible. She felt … she felt …

Like Luke Williams was carrying her to his bed and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

Travelling in Luke’s car was almost like travelling in his arms. She lay back in her glorious leather seat, padded with pillows, ensconced in a soft cashmere blanket and felt … cherished.

‘I feel like your ancient grandmother, being taken on a nicely padded outing,’ she told him as he negotiated his way up into the hills north-west of Sydney. It was well past dusk. They were driving into the night and the passenger compartment was a pool of luxurious intimacy.

Luke’s face was a focused profile against the moonlight shining through the driver’s window. His face had such strength … He’d been hurt, Lily had decided after a few covert glances at him. Even if she hadn’t known his wife had died, his face told her that. It looked … forbidding.

She was fighting an overwhelming urge to reach out and touch his hand on the steering-wheel, as a lover might, as a wife might.

Or an ancient grandmother ensconced in woolly cashmere.

‘My grandmother wouldn’t have been seen dead under a cashmere blanket,’ he said, and she blinked.

‘Past tense?’ she said cautiously. ‘Your grandma?’

‘She died young; cirrhosis of the liver. Too much champagne.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘There’re worse ways to go. She was the society matriarch of Singapore.’

‘Is that where your family live?’

‘Yes.’ Blunt and hard. The meaning was clear. Don’t go there.

She wouldn’t. But he had family. The thought jolted her. He’d seemed isolated.

He still seemed isolated.

And … he’d mentioned an uncle at the farm. Maybe it was time she learned more, even if she couldn’t ask directly about his parents.

‘So why aren’t you in Singapore?’ she ventured.

‘I was sent to Sydney to boarding school when I was ten and I’ve stayed. A couple of visits home were enough for me, to be honest. My uncle did all the caring needed. He left Singapore when he was twenty as well, pleased to be shot of them.’

‘So the Harbour is your de facto family,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘No wonder they matchmake.’