Never Forget Me

by Marguerite Kaye - Never Forget Me

  Flora shook her head. ‘It’s my father I’m worried about. It wasn’t just Alex’s death, it started with the requisition. His whole world is utterly changed. When the army informed us that they would be closing down the hospital and handing the house back, I hoped it would be the boost he needed, but then he just—I don’t know, sort of abdicated. He told Robbie it was up to him to do what he wanted with the estate, but Robbie is rebuilding his wine business now the war is over, and he spends as much time in France as London. You haven’t met his wife, Sylvie. She’s lovely and I’ve never seen Robbie so happy.’

  ‘How did your mother take to his marrying a foreigner?’ Sheila asked laughingly.

  ‘French is preferable to Welsh, apparently, and a school teacher is an improvement on a miner’s son,’ Flora said wryly. ‘It was Robbie’s idea to establish the trust in Alex’s name, and the laird’s idea to have it dedicated to treating ex-servicemen. When it looked as if Geraint would still be in convalescence for some months, I agreed to come up here and manage the handover from the army to the trust, but now I have to be with Geraint. So you see, it’s been a blessing, really, that you came along looking for something to do, because I can leave with a clear conscience. Do you know, in four years of marriage, we’ve never actually lived together.’

  ‘You must miss him madly.’

  ‘Oh, much more than madly,’ Flora said with another of her secret smiles. ‘You wouldn’t believe the things I say in my letters. Sometimes I think the paper might burst into flames.’

  Sheila laughed, though she was rather taken aback. ‘My goodness, I never thought I’d hear you say such a thing.’

  Flora blushed. ‘I love my husband in every way,’ she said with a touch of defiance. ‘I don’t see why I should pretend we don’t—you know—or that I don’t enjoy it.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘You’ve been away from Glen Massan for more than four years, Sheila Fraser, but the one thing that hasn’t changed about you is that you’re still the bonniest lass in the Glen. Don’t tell me there weren’t men tripping over themselves to ask you out, over in France. Was there anyone special?’

  An image of herself naked under the lean, thrusting body of her Armistice-night lover popped into Sheila’s head, making the blood rush to her cheeks.

  ‘I knew it, there was someone,’ Flora exclaimed triumphantly. ‘Spill the beans. Was he one of the doctors?’

  Another face, Dr Mark Seaton’s, replaced the previous image. You’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick, poor girl, and now everyone else has, too. Frankly, my dear, you’re becoming an encumbrance. Sheila shuddered, not so much at the memory of Mark’s contempt as her own naivety. ‘There was no one special,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t believe you. What happened, Sheila?’ Flora looked at her with concern. ‘Oh, no, did he die? I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No, no. Nothing like that.’ Sheila turned her face away from her friend’s anxious gaze. ‘You know what it was like out there, no time for anything but work, and nothing more important, either.’ Which was true, had always been true for her, even when she had thought herself in love, even if the man she thought herself in love with had believed otherwise. She managed a weak smile. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’

  Flora looked unconvinced, but to Sheila’s relief, decided not to press her. ‘You’ll meet someone special, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘I’m not interested in finding a husband. I don’t need a husband. I want to stand on my own two feet, and I want to be judged on my own merit, and I intend to start by securing this post at the hospital,’ Sheila said with conviction. ‘Though I have to tell you,’ she added wryly, ‘it’s not easy, living in the village again, sleeping at home in my old bed, buying groceries at the shop, as if the past five years haven’t happened.’

  Flora rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t I know it. You heard my mother, talking to me as if I was still a wee lassie. Is yours the same?’

  ‘I love her, I really do, but she simply doesn’t understand why I don’t want to slip back into my old life. She can see I’ve changed, but she doesn’t know the half of what it was like out there, and I don’t want to disillusion her. I feel like I’m pretending, all the time I’m here. Don’t you feel sometimes, there are those of us who were there, and those who weren’t? And between us there’s this thing called the war that we’re all desperately trying to put behind us, but it’s there all the same.’

  Flora frowned. ‘It will always be there, and it’s just as much a part of those who were left behind. We’ve all changed, Sheila. Look at my father. Look at that memorial in the village to the fallen. Geraint says the trick now is to look forwards, not backwards. We have to rebuild something better from the ashes of the past.’

  Sheila grinned. ‘It sounds like Geraint is going to have competition when he finally gets up on his political soapbox.’

  Flora looked sheepish. ‘His enthusiasm is infectious. But he’s right,’ she said. ‘We need to embrace change. A brave new world and all that.’

  Just how much she had changed would surprise even Flora. For a moment, Sheila considered unburdening herself to her friend. It was not embarrassment that stopped her. She hadn’t been in love, but she’d thought she was, and Flora would not condemn her for behaving improperly. As to Sheila’s lack of judgement, however—would Flora be able to overlook that? This job was far too important for her to take the chance. ‘Since we’re swapping slogans—actions speak louder than words. I’ll make a success of this job, and then maybe everyone will see I’m not just the chambermaid from the Big House who’s become too big for her boots.’ Or think that she clung to the coat-tails of her lover to advance her career. ‘Thank you for setting this up for me, Flora. I won’t let you down, and if I make a success of it, who knows where it might lead.’

  ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, you have to make a success of your interview. In my experience, these high-flying surgeons can be an arrogant lot, especially when dealing with a woman.’

  ‘Trust me, I know the type.’

  ‘That sounds like the voice of bitter experience.’

  ‘It is, believe me,’ Sheila said, noting too late the questioning look on Flora’s face. ‘That impertinent manner of yours, Miss Fraser,’ she continued quickly, in an excellent imitation of Lady Carmichael, ‘will likely get you into trouble. I suggest you remember your place in the order of things and stick firmly to it.’

  Flora’s peal of laughter told her she had successfully averted any potential reference to Dr Mark Seaton. Good! It could stay that way.

  Chapter Four

  It had been a long drive, through countryside that had become less and less familiar with every passing mile. Which was a good thing, wasn’t it? This was, after all, a new chapter in his life. An exciting new challenge. An opportunity to deploy all the skills and techniques he had worked so hard to acquire. A chance to finally leave his past behind.

  The last leg of the journey was along a ribbon-like road that seemed to be carved into the hillside. The sheer drop was breathtaking. Far below in the valley, a track snaked alongside the path of a river. At the bottom of a steep descent, he passed through a village before turning through two large gate posts into a wide, curved driveway. Glen Massan House, the sign read in florid script, and beside it, a familiar-looking military sign read Argyll War Hospital. Soon, as soon as he could manage it, the house would reopen in another incarnation under his management. Though he mocked himself for it, he couldn’t help but feel a burgeoning sense of pride.

  Passing a small lodge of grey granite, Luc drove along a wide, winding driveway, catching glimpses of a sparkling blue stretch of water before pulling up in front of the large house. Stepping out of the car onto neatly swept gravel, he noticed with amusement that it was bordered by the army’s trademark white-painted boulders.

  The house itself was built of pale grey granite and stood on a promontory facing out over the loch. A mass of turrets and sloping roofs, with a larger turret bolstering one side, i
t was a real Highland castle. He hadn’t been expecting that. The car engine ticked as it cooled, but there was no other sound to disturb the scene. Though he knew the army had vacated the place only a few weeks before, it felt eerily empty, the windows shuttered, the huge door closed. Funnily enough, it had felt like a huge door opening when he received the letter offering him the position. He had been so excited by the prospect, he hadn’t really considered the implications. The terms of the trust responsible for setting the hospital up were somewhat vague, for though it wasn’t run by the military, it would be in effect a privately funded military hospital, with ex-servicemen for patients. At this moment in time, however, there was no hospital at all, only an empty shell that he would have to equip and staff.

  He was a surgeon, he knew nothing about such administrative matters, but help was on hand in the form of a family member from the trust, a Mrs Flora Cassell. A few discreet enquiries had reassured him. She had a formidable reputation for administration, which would leave him free to concentrate on what he’d come here to do. Save lives. Make lives better. He turned towards the house, where the huge front door was opening. That would be her now presumably. He stepped forward, a professional smile on his face, and removed his hat.

  There were two of them, both considerably younger than he had expected. The taller one had a cloud of copper hair. Beside her, the other woman, also tall and slim, had bright gold hair cropped in the new fashion to her shoulders. Dark brown eyes, fixed on him. A pink mouth that turned up at the corners, the plump bottom lip contrasting with the shortness of the upper.

  She wore no army overcoat, no neatly tied VAD cap and her hair was shorter, but it was her, all right. She had inhabited his dreams too many times for comfort since that night for there to be the slightest vestige of doubt, and now here she was standing in front of him, looking as stunned as he felt. What the hell was she doing here?

  When he stepped forward, the redhead did so, too. ‘Forgive me, I hadn’t expected you to be so...’ She stopped, disconcerted. ‘What I mean is, I had expected someone much older. Welcome to Glen Massan, Doctor. I am Flora Cassell.’

  He shook her hand distractedly. ‘Enchanté.’

  Flora Cassell stared at him. The other woman—Sheila!—was determinedly looking anywhere else but at him, obviously as flabbergasted as he was. He looked pointedly at her.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Mrs Cassell said with a faint start, ‘may I present Miss Sheila Fraser who, I hope, will be your right-hand man, so to speak, in the coming weeks.’

  A heart-rending plea from those speaking brown eyes begged him not to admit to their previous acquaintance, something he was more than happy to do. ‘Miss Fraser,’ Luc said, with a slight nod of the head.

  ‘Doctor...?’

  ‘Durand.’ She had come slowly forwards to stand on the gravel beside him. She held out her hand. He took it. A frisson of shared memory shot through them and she snatched her hand away as if it had been electrocuted. In the bright spring sunlight, she looked more mature than he remembered and far lovelier, though the sparkle had gone from her eyes. Now he knew why the accent of the landlady in the little inn he’d stayed in last night had been vaguely familiar.

  ‘Doctor Durand?’

  As if she could not quite believe it. ‘Vraiment,’ he said, and was rewarded with a ghost of a smile.

  ‘I am afraid I have some packing to do and must beg to be excused,’ Flora Cassell said. She gave Sheila a look that, if Luc didn’t know better, might have been construed as a wink. ‘I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Miss Fraser, Dr Durand. She was raised in the village here. There is no one who knows the house and the estate better, outside my immediate family. I am certain she will prove satisfactory to your needs.’

  * * *

  Of course Flora did not intend the double entendre, Sheila thought as she turned from her friend’s fast-disappearing figure to face the man who held her professional fate in his hands. The man who had, for one torrid night, been her lover, who was no doubt, thanks to Flora’s unwitting remark, remembering exactly that. If only the ground would open up or the sky fall or a thunderbolt would strike. Why did these things only ever happen in books? And why, why, why, did he have to be so much more devastatingly attractive than she remembered? It wasn’t fair. Flora had certainly been impressed by him. That little look she had given her, as if to say, ‘Well, look at this handsome stranger who’s fallen into your lap.’ Luckily, she had no idea that, while he was undoubtedly handsome, he was no stranger!

  Doctor Luc Durand. Doctor! She hadn’t even noticed the medical insignia on his uniform. Not that she had been paying much attention to his uniform that night, being much more concerned with the man underneath. The man who would now be her boss. She could feel her face flaming. She had to get control of herself. She was not going to allow history to repeat itself, absolutely not! ‘You didn’t tell me you were a doctor,’ she said, turning to him accusingly.

  ‘I hardly though it mattered at the time. I don’t recall that you even told me your surname.’

  He sounded equally defensive. The realisation was both reassuring and disconcerting. ‘Those rooms of yours—why weren’t you living in the hospital grounds like the rest of us?’

  ‘I was on secondment only, to several of the hospitals run by the Americans. It was easier to rent a room than fight for space with the permanent staff. And I like my privacy.’

  She was horribly flustered. She couldn’t look at him without imagining him naked, without remembering the way he had felt, his mouth on hers, his skin, the low growl of his laugh, the harsh cry he’d let out when he’d climaxed. She closed her eyes, trying to blot it all out, but it only made it more vivid.

  ‘I suppose it made it easier for you to entertain women,’ Sheila said. For heaven’s sake, now she sounded petty, jealous, even, but it was too late to retract her words.

  ‘I am not in the habit of entertaining in that manner,’ he replied.

  She eyed him with disbelief. He wasn’t classically handsome in the way that Douglas Fairbanks was, but he was unforgettable, and even out of uniform he had an air about him that commanded attention. ‘Next you’ll be telling me I was an exception,’ Sheila said sarcastically.

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  Was he teasing her? He didn’t look as if he was. He looked—no, it would be better if she didn’t look at him like that. She narrowed her eyes. ‘How much of an exception?’

  ‘The only one.’

  His answer would have made her reel if she wasn’t reeling already. ‘Why me?’ she blurted out.

  ‘I have absolutely no idea.’ When she said nothing, because she could think of absolutely nothing to say, he shrugged, a very Gallic gesture, and smiled wryly. ‘I saw you dancing. You had such joie de vivre. I thought you were like—I don’t know, the spirit of the night. I wanted to capture it, what you possessed. You think that sounds fanciful?’

  ‘I think it sounds rather delightful.’ She ought not to have told him so, but these past few months had rather knocked the stuffing out of her joie de vivre. ‘It was like no other night, that night,’ she said softly.

  ‘Certainly, I am not usually given to dancing.’

  ‘That much was obvious,’ Sheila said, smiling faintly at the memory.

  He was standing close enough now for her body to protest that it wasn’t close enough. His hair had grown since she’d last seen him, curling over the starched white collar of his shirt. His eyes were dark brown in the light of day. He said he’d made an exception for her. That she was the only one. In how long, she wanted to ask him. She wanted to tell him that for her, too, he had been an exception, but how could she explain what she meant without explaining too much, without sounding as if he meant too much? ‘It all seems like a dream now,’ she said. Which was not at all what she meant to say, but his nearness was confusing her.

  ‘Do you regret it?’

  Did he? She studied him, his striking but not quite handsome face, the strong, lean figure
that looked just as good in his civilian suit as in uniform. Embarrassed and appalled by this outrageous twist of fate as she was, she could not deny her body’s response to him. ‘Regret it, no. But I definitely think we should forget it,’ Sheila said resolutely, ‘especially if we are to work together.’ She tried to sound as if it were something to be taken for granted, their working together, but it came out as a question all the same.

  ‘That is still to be decided,’ he said firmly, ‘especially in the circumstances.’

  She should have guessed. He was going to send her packing. This job, no matter how temporary, mattered to her. She could not let him dismiss her without even giving her a chance to prove herself something other than easy. She would not let that happen. ‘Doctor Durand,’ Sheila said urgently, grabbing hold of his sleeve, ‘let’s both agree to forget that night. You say nothing, and I say nothing. Not to anyone. Let’s pretend we’ve just met, that we’re complete strangers. Let me give you the guided tour. Let me tell you a little more about myself and my nursing experience. I can help you, Dr Durand. Let me help you. Please. I need this job.’

  * * *

  There was an edge of desperation to her voice. He couldn’t reconcile this anxious, almost insecure woman with the one he’d met on Armistice night. One minute she was smiling, the next she sounded as if she was going to burst into tears. What on earth was going on?

  Luc disengaged himself, because even the touch of her fingers on his jacket was making him think of the other ways she’d touched him, and threw his hat into the back seat of his car. There was no doubt that he needed assistance. Surely the formidable Mrs Cassell—who didn’t look at all formidable—would not have suggested Sheila Fraser to him if she was going to be a waste of space. This hospital was to be named after Mrs Cassell’s dead brother. It was her former family home. The lands that would provide funds for the place were her family’s estate. And Sheila—would he now have to call her Miss Fraser?