Maggie Kingsley - The Surgeon's Marriage

He didn’t believe her. She could tell by the way he smiled that he didn’t, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was to be as far away from him, and her own unsettling thoughts and feelings, as she could possibly get.

‘The agency can’t supply me with any emergency nursing cover for this afternoon,’ Liz declared, slamming down the staffroom phone. ‘Apparently I haven’t given them enough notice. Not enough notice,’ she repeated furiously. ‘Like how exactly am I supposed to know when people are going to be sick?’

And how could I have predicted I’d start behaving like a loopy schoolgirl because a handsome man keeps smiling at me? Helen thought unhappily.

‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ she asked as Liz made for the door.

The sister shook her head. ‘All I can do is phone around, and see if I can sweet-talk somebody into coming in on their day off.’

Helen wished she had the day off, too, when Liz had gone and she turned to find Mark staring at her thoughtfully.

‘We’d better get going,’ she began. ‘We’re doing Gideon’s ward round, remember, and—’

‘You don’t like me very much, do you?’ he observed.

Whatever else she might have been expecting him to say, it hadn’t been that, and she flushed.

‘I don’t know you well enough to dislike you,’ she said, striving to sound light, dismissive, which wasn’t easy with a pair of intense green eyes fixed on her.

‘That’s what I figured.’ He nodded. ‘In fact, it might surprise you to know that I’m generally considered to be quite likable.’

It didn’t surprise her in the least. Men who were as charming and handsome as Mark Lorimer were generally well liked. In fact, if she was honest—and she had absolutely no intention of being honest—she would have admitted that she could all too easily get to like him herself. A lot.

‘I really do think we should start making tracks,’ she said uncomfortably. ‘The ward’s pretty full so it will take us quite a while.’

‘Tom tells me you have eight-year-old twins—Emma and John?’ he said, clasping his hands behind his head and leaning back in his seat. ‘They must be quite a handful.’

‘They have their moments,’ she replied, wondering what else Tom might have told him, and just where this conversation was going.

‘It must be very difficult for you—holding down a full-time job, running a home, looking after your kids.’

‘Tom does his share,’ she said swiftly. Well, he’d been trying to recently, she told herself, though at the moment his efforts were proving more of a hindrance than a help. ‘It’s not a solo effort.’

‘I can’t imagine Tom as a New Age man.’

He hadn’t make it sound like a compliment. In fact, he’d somehow managed to make Tom sound both boring and dull, and before she could stop herself she said, ‘I don’t know about New Age, but he’s certainly a lot more adult than men who flit from girlfriend to girlfriend, with no roots or purpose in life.’

Mark grinned. ‘I’ve no doubt he is. But I bet he’s not nearly so exciting.’

There was no answer to that—at least none she could immediately think of—and she strode to the staffroom door and opened it. ‘Our ward round, Dr Lorimer?’

‘Didn’t think he was,’ he said, his green eyes dancing.

And you’re too smart by half, Helen thought as she followed him down the corridor. Too smart, too charming, too everything.

Well, maybe he wouldn’t be quite so smart and charming after a couple of hours on the ward, she thought waspishly. Maybe a couple of hours of examinations, blood pressures and sheer exhausting hard work, would dent his charm and overweening confidence.

It didn’t. Not even when Mrs Foster launched into her usual round of complaints the minute he appeared at her bedside.

‘A week is how long I was told I’d be in here,’ she declared, her beady eyes sweeping over him with no appearance of being in the least impressed. ‘One week, and now no one can tell me when I’m going home. If my stitches had been inserted properly—’

‘The trouble is, you tried to go to the toilet too soon after your hysterectomy,’ Mark interrupted, his face a picture of warm solicitude. ‘I can understand why you wanted to—an active, independent person like yourself—’

‘Well, I’ve never been lazy,’ she said, her eyes softening slightly, ‘but—’

‘And I appreciate that you’re anxious to go home, what with having little ones to take care of…’

‘My youngest is twenty-five.’

‘Good grief, you must have been married very young,’ he exclaimed. ‘I wouldn’t have put you a day over forty.’

Mrs Foster pinkened, and simpered. ‘Well, I’ve always tried to take care of myself, but—’

‘And that’s what we want to do for you now,’ he continued with a dazzling smile. ‘Take care of you. I want to take care of you, and surely you’re not going to deny me that opportunity, or the pleasure of your company?’

Helen heard Liz choke behind her, and she only just managed to maintain her own composure by staring determinedly at the wall over Mrs Foster’s bed, but when Mark had moved on down the ward she couldn’t restrain her laughter.

‘That was the most outrageous example of flattery I’ve ever heard,’ she gasped.

‘It worked, though, didn’t it?’ he protested. ‘And you’re not telling me that dreadful woman hasn’t been a thorn in your side for the past week.’

‘No, but—’

‘And it got you to smile at me, instead of shooting daggers, so it was worth it.’

Mark’s eyes were deep, and warm, and she shook her head. ‘You’re completely incorrigible.’

‘But likable?’ he suggested, and she shook her head again, and laughed.

He was likable. Dangerously likable. In fact, in the space of a week he had somehow managed to make her feel more feminine, more attractive and more desirable than she had done in years, and it had to stop.

She had to start distancing herself from this man. For her own peace of mind and safety she needed to distance herself from him, or…

Don’t go that way, her mind warned. You’re married, and he’s Tom’s friend, so don’t let your mind go down that road even for a second.

‘Helen?’

A smile was playing about his lips, and again she had that uncanny feeling again that he was reading her mind.

Abruptly she turned on her heel. ‘We’ve two more patients left to see. Which do you want first—Mrs Alexander or Mrs White?’

‘ANYTHING happening yet?’ Helen murmured, hovering at the delivery room door while Liz checked Mary Alexander’s blood pressure, then the foetal monitor.

‘Nothing,’ Tom muttered back. ‘I’m afraid it looks like we’re going to have to go for the Caesarean after all.’

Helen nodded. Tom had ruptured Mary Alexander’s membrane earlier in the morning to release some of the amniotic fluid around the baby. In theory that should have induced her contractions, but when nothing had happened he’d ordered an IV line of oxytocin, and yet still there was no sign of her going into labour.

‘BP up, foetal heartbeat becoming a little unsteady,’ Liz said in an undertone.

‘Shouldn’t something be happening by now, Doctor?’ Mary asked, gazing uncertainly up at Tom. ‘I know I’m no expert, but—’

‘Occasionally we get a baby who’s reluctant to leave the nice warm shelter of his mummy’s tummy.’ He smiled, his face a picture of calm, controlled confidence. ‘It’s nothing to worry about.’

But it’s taking too long, Helen thought, seeing the concern behind her husband’s bright façade. With so much of the amniotic fluid gone the baby was going to be in big trouble soon if they didn’t do something.

Tom met her eyes and he nodded. It was time to alert the theatre staff.

‘Do you want me to page Gideon, tell him what’s happening?’ she asked after she’d phoned the theatre and Tom had explained the situation to Mary and her husband.

‘Please. A Caesarean’s the one thing he was hoping to avoid after her deep-vein thrombosis, but…’ He sighed wryly as one of their porters wheeled a very frightened-looking Mary and her husband out of the delivery room. ‘Want to wish me luck?’

‘You won’t need it,’ she declared, and he smiled.

‘Female intuition?’

‘Professional opinion,’ she replied, and he shook his head and laughed as he hurried after Mary, but she meant it. He might not have Mark’s flamboyance when it came to operating, but he was good—very good.

And Annie looked decidedly harassed when Helen met her coming out of the ward.

‘Tell me that you speak Greek,’ the junior doctor exclaimed. ‘Please—please—tell me you speak Greek.’

‘Why in the world would—?’

‘It’s Mrs Dukakis. She came into A and E this morning complaining of severe stomach pains. They decided she was simply suffering from a bad case of indigestion, but when they tried to discharge her she became hysterical so they sent her up to us.’

‘But—’

‘She’s six months pregnant, and…’ Annie shook her head. ‘Look, come and see for yourself. Or, to be more strictly accurate, come and listen.’

Helen did.

‘Cripes,’ she murmured when Mrs Dukakis finally subsided into silence after a long and virtually incomprehensible account of what she thought was wrong with her.

‘Exactly.’ Annie nodded. ‘Now you see why I was hoping you might speak Greek.’

‘I don’t, and I’m afraid I can’t think of anybody on the staff who does,’ Helen replied, seeing Mrs Dukakis gaze uncomprehendingly from her to Annie.

‘I believe Mark does,’ Liz announced, overhearing them as she passed by with the drugs trolley.

Mark would, Helen thought sourly. Mark probably spoke ten languages, had an IQ of two million and did rocket science in his spare time.

No, that wasn’t fair, she told herself, but after spending the better part of the last ten days trying to avoid him, the last thing she wanted was to actively go looking for him.

‘Helen?’

Annie was staring at her curiously, and she forced a smile to her lips. ‘We’d better get Mark.’

Mrs Dukakis clearly agreed. In fact, her face lit up like a beacon when he spoke to her in her own language, but something was obviously very badly wrong judging by the number of times she burst into tears when he questioned, then examined her.

‘What is it—what’s wrong?’ Helen asked as Mark took her by the elbow and steered her to the bottom of the ward, leaving Annie to comfort the woman.

‘At the moment nothing more drastic than a very bad case of indigestion, but…’ He shook his head. ‘What do you know about thalassaemia major?’

‘That it’s a serious, inherited childhood anaemia, most commonly found in people of Mediterranean or Asian descent.’ Helen glanced over her shoulder at the sobbing woman. ‘Is that why Mrs Dukakis is so upset—is she a thalassaemia carrier?’

‘Mrs Dukakis hadn’t even heard of the condition until I asked her whether she had any other children,’ Mark said grimly. ‘She thought she was having a miscarriage.’

‘But—’

‘Helen, she only came to Glasgow four months ago. Before that she and her husband lived in a poor, very isolated part of Greece with limited medical facilities. All she knows is she’s given birth to two other children, and neither of them reached their second birthday. The wasting disease, the people in her village called it.’

What must it be like to lose two children? Helen wondered, staring at Nana Dukakis. To feel them grow inside you, feel them move, then give birth to them, only for them to die so quickly. It didn’t bear thinking of.