Home to Turtle Bay

by Marion Lennox

  Home to Turtle Bay

  Marion Lennox

  www.harlequinbooks.com.au

  To David, Anne and Evan.You share my fantasy world with patience and with humour, and I love you for it.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  1

  acid drop n. the bottom of the wave collapses; there’s nothing to do but fall.

  ‘I don’t care if he’s left you a dozen surfing schools. You’re not leaving Manhattan—but you do need to deal with this dog.’

  My grandmother … Uh-oh.

  Isabella Clayburgh—the Isabella Clayburgh—was on my examination couch, naked from the waist down. I’d been listening to her baby’s heartbeat. It was a nice, strong heartbeat. Now that my grandmother was in my consulting room, the baby’s beat was about quarter the rate of mine.

  Heartbeat aside, I needed to act professionally, as if a grandmother and a dog bursting into an obstetrician’s consulting room didn’t fuss me at all. Flipping Isabella’s gown to near decency, I shielded her as much as I could, which, considering the stage of her pregnancy, wasn’t shielded enough.

  ‘Grandma, can we talk outside? And what’s the dog—’

  ‘Don’t call me Grandma. This man … Leaving you his farm … Calling it a surf school. Sending you a dog—a dog—all the way from Nautilus Island. And calling himself your grandfather! You don’t have a grandfather. Have I ever said you have a grandfather?’

  ‘No, but …’

  ‘There you go. You don’t!’

  Muriel, in case you’ve missed it, is insane. Gorgeous, but nuts.

  ‘But everyone has a grandpa.’ Isabella’s sculpted blonde head was poking out from behind me, apparently unconcerned by her lack of clothes. ‘Hi, Mrs Kelly.’ She checked out the shaggy, off-white mutt at Muriel’s side. ‘Cute dog.’

  It wasn’t cute, I thought wildly. It … she … was huge.

  ‘It’s not my dog,’ Muriel told her. ‘And Jennifer doesn’t have a grandfather. She has no father. She has nothing but what I’ve given her.’

  Mistake. Isabella might be an airhead, but she does have a basic grasp of family trees. ‘She must have,’ she reasoned. ‘Unless she’s a test-tube baby. Did they have IVF back then?’ Her wide blue eyes turned to me, inspecting me like I was some sort of test-tube bug.

  Muriel glared, as if Isabella was the bug. Then she reverted to her fury.

  ‘For fifty years I hear nothing, and now he’s sent his dog. And his will says he’s left you a surf school. And a boarding house! Of all the nonsense …’

  ‘A surf school? On Nautilus Island? You mean the Nautilus Island, off Australia?’ Isabella hauled herself into a sitting position, smoothing her gown tenderly over her eight-month bump. It was the first tender thing I’d seen her do for her unborn child. ‘Jenny, this is awesome!’

  Grandma turned her glare back on Isabella, and Isabella—Isabella Clayburgh—closed her mouth.

  Muriel Kelly, my seventy-five-year-old grandma (not that I’m permitted to call her that) is something of a force to be reckoned with here in Manhattan. She’s the product of English aristocracy and American money, and she’s considered a style icon. Everything she does is noted and copied, but all I’ve ever been able to find out about her as a young woman is that she made an unfortunate match somewhere far from Fifth Avenue. She says it was nothing to do with me, and I have no right to know the details.

  But that match can’t be entirely forgotten, for there’d been a baby: my mother, Sonia. Even what I know about Sonia is sketchy. I remember snatches of our lives together, wandering from camp to camp with various gentle backpackers in Nepal. She had the same frizzy red hair as I do—I remember her trying to comb it, laughing, telling me I’d hate it all my life. Which I do. I remember long skirts and patchouli oil and singing. I remember making tea once, a lot of people helping and laughing, and that it took the best part of an afternoon. I remember she was often ill and so waif-thin that her big shiny jewellery cast her face in the shade.

  I remember appalling loneliness when she was ill and I didn’t know how to help her.

  Sonia died when I was seven and I still don’t know why. Drugs, I guess, or maybe she was sick and the local hospitals couldn’t help. Or maybe she didn’t ask for help.

  Sometime after her death, someone plucked me off the streets of Nepal. I have a vague memory of a man with a scarred face feeding me fish soup, and the same man shouting at people around me, but that’s a tiny scene in a vast patchwork that’s never been sewn together. I remember a hospital and a woman in an orange jacket with a clipboard. I remember questions and a lady washing me and dressing me in new clothes. Finally there’d been a long plane flight to meet Muriel. I’d lived with my grandmother since then, but with nannies, huge houses and my grandmother’s social butterfly existence, I’d never seen much of her.

  I surely wished I wasn’t seeing her now.

  ‘Isabella, would you excuse us?’ I was trying to steer Muriel and the dog out the door but Muriel wasn’t the type to be steered.

  ‘I’m staying put until you promise you won’t go.’ She was holding the dog’s collar with one gloved hand and with the other she pointed an imperious finger at Isabella. ‘You go.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ The normally bored beauty was quivering with interest. ‘A surf school on Nautilus Island? It’s supposed to be fabulous. Subtropical island, surfers, cabana boys, nothing to do but drink and tan … Ooh, Jenny, this is so cool!’

  ‘Jennifer’s an obstetrician,’ Muriel snapped.

  ‘I am. And, Grandma, I’m consulting. Privately.’

  ‘I can see that. I’m not stupid. Who is this?’

  ‘Me?’ Isabella demanded, dumbfounded. ‘You know who I am. Everybody knows who I am.’

  Oh, God. Two society beauties … and no room for me in between.

  My grandmother is tiny, about four feet eight inches in her stockinged feet, with a beauty that’ll stay with her until the end. She was wearing a dove-grey dress straight off the Paris catwalks. She’d teamed it with elegant, wrist-length gloves and an antique silver necklet that should be locked in a bank vault. A wispy, feathery fascinator nestling on her bobbed, blonde hair completed the picture of a woman who’d cared about beauty all her life. For a woman of seventy-five, Muriel looked fantastic.

  Isabella also looked amazing. As always. Her beauty is her fortune, and she works at it every waking minute. She has youth and bubbly good humour, and she surely has confidence, but right then Muriel had the advantage. Isabella was wearing nothing but a medical gown (designer fabric—we are exclusive—but medical gowns are medical gowns) and she was almost eight months pregnant. Isabella was, however, my most important client. I needed to keep my job. I had to do something. Fast.

  ‘Muriel, please.’ I threw an anguished look out to Nora, but my usually competent receptionist simply held up her hands in surrender.

  ‘Ask this woman to leave,’ Muriel demanded. ‘We have business to discuss.’

  Isabella shook her head. ‘Uh-uh, Mrs Kelly. This is my appointment.’

  But then
Muriel’s eyes narrowed. ‘Isabella Clayburgh. You’re the idiot who married Lionel Clayburgh the … what is it? Sixth?’ Recognition and contempt were mixed to perfection. ‘Pregnant already. You fool.’

  ‘Grandma …’

  But Muriel, mid-tirade, was unstoppable. ‘Your husband’s family hasn’t made a marriage last for two hundred years. The Clayburgh talent is hiding assets in divorce settlements. The skill’s embedded in the family genes, and they hone it. That bottom-feeder Lionel will use you as an incubator. Get yourself a good divorce lawyer, fast.’

  And then Muriel’s face crumpled. Tears rushed down her carefully made-up face, and her legs seemed to give way under her.

  Muriel crying? I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  I made a frantic gesture to Nora, who approached with caution—she told me later Muriel had swiped her with her purse to get past her. We half led, half carried the weeping Muriel into my second consulting room. The dog plodded despondently beside her, head low, like a dog about to face a firing squad.

  If I was stuck with an angry Muriel, I might feel the same.

  We pressed Muriel into an armchair. I put a hand on her shoulder in what I thought was a gesture of comfort and she attacked me with the purse. Obviously the old Muriel was still inside.

  ‘Grandma, can you tell me what’s happening?’

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  Finally, an order I was happy to comply with.

  ‘Keep an eye on Mrs Kelly,’ I told Nora in my best Doctor Voice. ‘When she stops crying, tell her I’ll be back as soon as I can. Offer her coffee and the new Vogue.’ I eyed the dog with unease. Muriel had never had a dog in her life, and I surely hadn’t been permitted to keep one. ‘Maybe some water for the dog? But Nora, if you let her in with Isabella again, there’ll be vacancy ads on the internet by tomorrow. For both of us.’

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ Nora said—frantically—but I was already gone.

  Deep breath. Back to Isabella.

  Isabella was calmly pulling on her clothes. She seemed a lot more cheerful now than when she’d arrived, much more cheerful than you’d think gossip and insults could make her.

  ‘Sorry about that.’ I closed the door, leaning against it for support.

  Thankfully she seemed to have skipped over the insults. ‘Jenny, do you really have a surfing school? On Nautilus?’ Her eyes were enormous.

  ‘Heaven knows. To be honest I think my grandmother’s certifiable. But we need to talk about your baby.’

  ‘Must we?’

  ‘Isabella, you’re well into your third trimester. You have no choice.’

  ‘Fine.’ Now she was glowering, clearly upset that I wouldn’t play her game. She’d been trying to distract herself from this pregnancy since conception, and she didn’t like me pinning her down. ‘You swear you’ll be here when I finally deliver?’

  I took a couple of deep breaths and returned to my desk. Given the Clayburgh profile, this question was a no-brainer. ‘Of course.’

  Isabella checked her eyeliner. How a gynaecological examination could have messed with her eye makeup wasn’t clear, but no one hurries a Clayburgh. No one—excepting Muriel, it seems—even interrupts a Clayburgh.

  At least Isabella was ready to admit that this baby was a reality. It was an improvement, but we needed to take it further. I glanced warily at the door, but whatever Nora was doing seemed to be working, so I relaxed a bit and went back to my normal wait-for-patients activity. Which is sketching doodlebugs.

  A surfing school? My surfing school?

  A surfboard appeared under my doodlebug, and the beginnings of a very small wave.

  Forget Muriel. Forget surfing schools. Concentrate on the Clayburgh. Isabella gazed a moment longer into the mirror—checking the perfection of her cupid’s bow lips. She then seated herself gracefully in front of my desk. I pushed my doodlebug sideways into the trash. Surf on, tiny bug. I wished I could do the same.

  ‘Okay. So I saw a thing about this on television last night,’ she said, waving a manicured hand in the general direction of her bump. ‘Apparently you can make it happen any time after thirty-six weeks. I’ll have less chance of stretch marks, and everything can go back to normal.’

  Normal? Coping with a newborn?

  But then, nannies would already be installed in the Clayburgh nursery. Personal trainers would be limbering up for the post-natal workout. Birth meant Isabella could get back to her career of being beautiful, which meant I had a job and a half to persuade her to keep this baby on board.

  But I could do that. To my grandmother I may be mousy Jennifer, with a dress sense so conservative that without the red hair she swears I could be taken for Nancy Reagan, but as obstetrician to some of New York’s wealthiest women, this discussion was what I did best. I leave the hysterics to the pretty ones. I’m a professional.

  ‘I know you’re uncomfortable, but induction brings with it a lot of unnecessary risks for the baby,’ I told her.

  ‘Then organise a caesarean,’ Isabella snapped. ‘The book says caesareans don’t hurt, and Lionel says we’re sixty percent less likely to sue if I have one.’

  That was something to think about. I didn’t need to search my notes to see what my boss had written—and underscored—the day he’d told me Isabella was to be my client. Isabella’s husband, Lionel, had spent his formative years in law school in preparation for inheriting the family’s billions. There he’d discovered a passion. Lionel didn’t take legal action against doctors for money. He did it for fun.

  No matter. One of the reasons I’d achieved a place in this prestigious birthing unit—and the major reason Isabella had been steered my way—was that my litigation record was clean. This could even be seen as a challenge. If I could deliver this high-profile baby without drama, my client base would go through the roof.

  Maybe Isabella could have a caesarean? A sneaky voice in the back of my head was lining up caesarean indicators and prodding them forward in a tempting conga line. Isabella’s body-fat ratio was low, and that could be used as an indicator …

  Okay, no. One of my clients was Isabella’s unborn child, and he’d be a Clayburgh as well. Litigation now, or litigation in thirty years for post-traumatic stress from an unnecessary caesarean?

  Maybe not.

  ‘Isabella, there’s no clinical indication for a caesarean. Your baby’s beautifully normal. You’re looking great. Your pelvis is broad enough to allow …’

  ‘You mean I’m fat? I know I’m fat. I can’t stop gaining weight.’

  I thought of the endless discussions over the past months. ‘Isabella, mango sorbet does not contain calcium, dairy products, or probably even fruit. The fact that it’s bought at an ice-cream bar doesn’t count. Drink a mango smoothie instead. Plus everything else on the nutrition sheet.’

  I’d said it over and over, uselessly, but the major development stages were now complete. This baby was on its own.

  ‘I’m saying you’re carrying a lovely, slim baby,’ I told her. ‘Just like his mother—which means you can look forward to a normal birth. Your baby’s growing, not you, and everything’s as it should be.’

  But Isabella, still upset and nervy, showed no sign of calming down. ‘The show I watched said it’ll hurt. Hurt as in agony. It said Queen Victoria used enough chloroform to knock out a horse, and she loved it, but you won’t give that to me, will you? Is that true? Not even if I pay?’

  The effect of chloroform on a newborn’s breathing? Maternal heart failure? There was the stuff of nightmares.

  ‘No. No matter what you pay. Drugs that cause unconsciousness can seriously affect your baby. You don’t want that.’

  ‘I don’t want it to hurt me. Can’t you make it happen without the pain?’

  ‘There are things we can give you to help. Isabella, a caesarean would cause you more discomfort after the birth. If you need it we can give you an epidural injection. That’ll block the pain below the waist. Natural birth might stretch your muscles to th
eir limit, but a caesarean forces me to cut. You won’t be able to do your normal exercises for weeks after you give birth, because you’ll need to heal before you start. It’ll take a lot longer to get your body back into shape. Why do that if you don’t need to?’

  There was silence while Isabella thought that through. She turned again to the mirror, considering the muscles in question.

  Time for another doodlebug? Another little surfer?

  Why had this idea—no matter how improbable—of my inheriting something upset Muriel so much? Property, assets, social cache, these were the things Muriel lived by.

  And what was with the dog?

  Stay focused, I told myself sharply. Boredom must have been extreme last night for the beautiful Isabella to watch a documentary. Actually, considering the rumours flying around town about Lionel, boredom might well be a way of life for her.

  Isabella had been tricky as a client, swinging one moment from demanding—almost pleading?—that I be her friend and the next to remembering her status and treating me as the hired help. A beauty queen who’d ‘married up’, famous for, well, being famous, I thought of the circles she moved in and diagnosed bone-deep loneliness. But that wasn’t my problem. She was my job, nothing more.

  ‘Fine.’ She seemed to be griping directly at her stretched and fatless abdominal muscles, now clearly The Enemies. ‘No caesarean.’ But things clearly weren’t fine. She turned from the mirror and concentrated on me. ‘You will be here?’

  Why was she worrying so much? What could go wrong for a Clayburgh?

  ‘Of course,’ I said again. I’d be at this birth if my bosses had to drag me here in chains. Richard, my fiancé, might even help attach them. This one birth amongst the hundreds of exciting, loving, moving births I attended for a living had every society tabloid agog, and Richard, too, was excited. He had a point—it was the single most important step in my career.

  ‘If I’m in pain …’

  ‘I’ll do something about it.’

  ‘I’m paying for the best. You’re the best.’