They worked on. The place settled into the normal chaos of an emergency ward, with the three doctors working together, doing what they did best.
It felt okay.
Who needed a holiday? Ellie thought as the morning became afternoon. This felt great.
But why did this feel so different than at home?
And she glanced at the young doctor, Luc. He was discussing ongoing care with Marc, deferring to Marc as the senior doctor. Now he looked competent, intelligent, decisive, but he’d looked strained to the point of breaking when they’d walked in. She could only imagine the orders that had come from above. Royal visit—clear the area and make it look pristine and under control. He didn’t look old enough or assured enough to defy such an order. What was such a young doctor doing in charge of a department as busy as this?
And to be alone, as she was alone at home...
The afternoon Marc had arrived she’d been faced with a carload of injured teens and she’d been terrified. She’d had too much work and every decision had been hers. She watched Luc now, discussing the current case with Marc, and she realised loneliness had many guises.
She was going home to more of the same.
What was she doing, thinking she was lonely when she had a community to envelop her? She could remarry. A couple of the local farmers had made it clear they were interested.
Why had she never been interested in them?
‘Will I be okay?’ The elderly lady she’d been treating quavered her question and Ellie’s attention jerked back to where it should be. The woman had fallen and jarred her hip, but the X-ray had shown no break.
‘You’ll be more than okay,’ she told the woman in her own language. ‘But you’ve been lucky. You need handrails on those steps straight away.’
‘I’m on a list,’ the woman told her. She nodded towards Marc, who was treating a young girl who’d burned herself trying to wax her own legs. The girl had arrived feeling frightened and embarrassed, and then she was stunned to silence when her treating doctor turned out to be the new King. But Marc now had her laughing. He was telling her a silly story about his first ever attempt to shave. True or not, it had the girl relaxed. Smiling. Adoring.
The woman Ellie was treating had exactly the same worshipful look on her face, and suddenly Ellie realised she did too.
Oh, for heaven’s sake...
‘They say he’ll change things,’ the woman told her. ‘They say hospital waiting lists will go down and schools will get more money. But there’s so much work for him to do. I can’t understand why he’s here.’
‘I guess he’s needed here now,’ Ellie told her.
‘He’s needed everywhere.’
‘Then let’s play our part and get that scrape cleaned so your daughter can take you home,’ Ellie said, with a last glance across at Marc. He had so much on his plate. So much responsibility, but his sole intent now seemed to be making one teenager smile.
He was needed everywhere and he knew it. And so did she.
* * *
Marc worked through until three. He spoke again to the director—who just happened to keep checking in—and at change of shift two doctors appeared instead of one.
‘It’ll blow my budget,’ the director fussed but Marc shrugged.
‘Wear the loss until after the coronation. The budget of the entire country is about to be rewritten.’
And that could be the rest of my life right there, he thought grimly, envisaging the budget calculations, foreseeing hour upon hour of endless negotiations with so many needs.
The country’s funding had been skewed for years towards indulging royal whims. Marc himself had fought for medical funding. He could grant that now, but there was desperate need in education, housing, welfare, infrastructure... So many things. But for now he’d worked for five hours beside Ellie and it felt good.
He needed to return to the palace. Ellie needed to return to Felix. They both wanted a walk.
He said as much and his security people stared at him as if he’d grown two heads.
Walking home was what people did every day, yet it turned out to be an undertaking so extraordinary Marc almost gave up.
But he was the new King. Surely the title had to be good for something. ‘Deal with it,’ he growled and led Ellie out into the sunshine.
His outriders were still there, patiently waiting. Here was a cost saving he could make, he thought, and he attempted to wave them away. But his chief of security was having kittens, so a compromise was reached. He and Ellie walked but they had bodyguards walking before and after.
Five minutes after they left the hospital a helicopter appeared and hovered overhead.
And Ellie got the giggles. ‘I feel like an ocean liner with tug boats,’ she told him. ‘So much for our peaceful stroll. What do you think a chopper could do if I attacked you with the secret knife inside my left shoe? Drop a bomb?’
‘They’re not worried about you.’
‘Then what are they worried about?’
‘The royal family’s made themselves amazingly unpopular.’
‘But you’re going to fix that, right?’ she said and she suddenly tucked her arm into his. It was a gesture of friendship, nothing more, he told himself, but it felt...great. ‘You started today. The patients you treated loved you.’
‘Only one I treated was able to talk!’
‘Yeah, well, she loved you. Swapping shaving stories—I can’t think of any better way to win adoration.’
He chuckled and the mood, blackened with the fuss made by security, lightened immeasurably. They were approaching the ancient bridge over the river. The castle was beyond, a fairy tale of turrets and shimmering stonework. The sun was shining and the river was shimmering and calm.
He had a sudden urge to highjack one of the boats beneath them and leave. Go where the river took him.
‘You need to figure out a way to keep your medicine,’ Ellie told him and his mind jerked from fantasy back to reality.
‘You think I can do this every day? Have you any idea how many appointments were set aside because—?’
‘Because you saved lives? Which is what you want to do.’
‘You know more than anyone we can’t always do what we want.’
‘No,’ she said softly, and her hand suddenly slipped into his. Naturally, as if it had the right to be there. ‘But how often do you have to give in?’
‘Is that you asking? The Ellie who wanted to be a neurologist? The Ellie who’s now a country doctor, working in a place she vowed never to return to?’
Silence. He hadn’t meant to sound angry. He hadn’t meant to sound frustrated. But both of those things were obvious. The afternoon was still. Sound carried and the bodyguards glanced in astonishment before regaining their impassive demeanour.
‘There must be some way.’ Ellie didn’t seem to have heard his anger. Her hand was still tucked in his, as if he hadn’t just tried to hurt her. ‘Marc, you can’t spend the rest of your life sitting in your oval office being King. You’re not that sort of guy.’
‘It’s not oval.’
‘I bet it’s big.’
‘It is big.’
‘And scary?’
‘And scary,’ he admitted.
‘And I’ve seen the films of the Queen. Do you have red boxes too?’
‘Gold boxes.’
‘Oh, of course. Gold.’ She nodded. ‘Important, huh?’
‘Very important.’
‘All of it?’
‘I’m not supposed to discuss...’
‘Of course you’re not. So you’re not discussing. Just nodding. All of it important?’
He said nothing. They were approaching the far end of the bridge but their steps slowed. There were things to be sorted before they
entered the intimidating walls of the palace.
‘So a secretary could maybe sort the boxes and mark the important stuff?’ Ellie tried cautiously. ‘That could give you time.’
‘Who could I trust to tell me what’s important? That’s what my uncle did—left the decisions to minions. As long as the royal family got what they wanted, they were happy.’
‘You’re not that sort of King.’ She hesitated. ‘But, Marc, you’ve given up so much already.’
‘Our marriage, you mean? Our son?’
And there it was, out in the open.
They stopped. The security guys edged closer. Marc waved them back, out of earshot.
‘Very imperious,’ Ellie commented and Marc glowered.
‘No, I meant it as a compliment,’ Ellie told him. ‘Is that what Felix will be doing for the next few weeks? Going to Imperious School?’
‘Ellie...’
‘You did give up Felix for your country,’ she said softly. ‘You did give up our marriage.’
‘If I remember correctly, you did the same. You made the decision to care for your mother and to put our son up for adoption.’
‘There didn’t seem a choice,’ she whispered. ‘But, Marc, if we’d really tried...’
‘How could we have tried any harder?’
‘Maybe by honouring the vows we made? Maybe by at least staying in contact. I don’t know. It all seemed impossible at the time, just as your decision to take on the throne to the exclusion of everything else seems the only option now. But surely—’
‘Surely nothing. There is no choice.’
‘So you’ll sit in your grand office and play with gold boxes and live happily ever after.’
‘Don’t belittle what I’m trying to do.’
‘I can’t. Nor can I judge. I made decisions too, Marc. All I know is that my decision ten years ago, to abandon you—’ she caught herself ‘—to abandon our son was the wrong one. Thankfully, I could reverse it. But your decision now to walk away from medicine...’
But his attention was no longer on his choice. It was on her words. ‘Your decision to walk away from me was wrong? What are you saying...?’
‘We were kids,’ she managed. ‘What’s done can’t be undone. But it made us...it made me unhappy, and seeing you today, seeing you do what you do best, but knowing you need to walk away again...it’s breaking my heart. Marc, I know you need to take the throne but to walk away from your medicine seems equally impossible. You’re needed.’
‘I can organise funds for more doctors. As ruler I can make things better.’
‘Of course, but maybe you can do that in the afternoons and in the morning you can take out the odd appendix.’
‘With my security guards at the ready.’
‘They’d be just as bored watching you work through boxes, and this way they can flirt with the nurses. Surely you can do a few sessions a week. And hey, it’ll keep your hand in. If the peasants revolt then you can go back to work.’
‘My job is to stop the peasants revolting.’
‘Which is much more likely if your people see you care. What you did today...’
‘Ellie, you can’t tell me how to run my life. What about yours? Are you planning to bury yourself in Borrawong for the rest of your life?’
Silence. They should keep going, Marc thought grimly. Officials would be waiting. Boxes would be waiting.
The rest of his life was waiting.
He turned again to the river. House martins were swooping under the parapets, in and out of the shadows. A dragonfly flittered past. Two birds dived with precision, carrying their unfortunate victim triumphantly towards land.
He felt like the dragonfly. Caught.
And then he thought, The birds worked as a team.
A team...
‘Ellie?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Stay with me.’
Silence.
‘What...?’ she managed at last. ‘What do you mean?’
He hardly knew himself. He hadn’t meant to say it but it was out there, demanding a continuation.
He didn’t turn to look at her. He couldn’t. But what needed to be said had to be said.
‘You still feel like my wife.’
Her breath hissed in so sharply it hurt. ‘That’s...that’s nonsense. We’ve been divorced for nine years.’
‘Then why does it still feel as if we’re married?’
‘It doesn’t.’
‘Liar. Last night—’
‘Was only a kiss. It didn’t mean—’
‘It was more than a kiss.’ He hesitated. This wasn’t the time or place to say it, but his thoughts were so huge, so urgent they had to find words. The bodyguards had backed off a little. They almost had privacy.
‘Ellie, when we separated we broke each other’s hearts,’ he said, feeling his way through each word. ‘You’ve said as much. I’ve never remarried and that’s been for a reason. I’ve always felt married. Seeing you again...nothing’s changed. It still feels like you’re my wife. If you feel the same...why not remarry? Bring Felix up together. Share our lives again.’
She turned and stared at him in incredulity. ‘What are you saying?’
‘You heard,’ he said evenly. ‘Ellie, it makes sense. To share our lives...’
‘Again. That’s what I thought you said. Are you kidding? We never shared our lives.’ Her voice was almost a yell. She’d forgotten the bodyguards; she was too shocked, too angry to consider. ‘We were together for mere months, for not much longer than one long vacation. My life was Borrawong, my community, my mum. Your life was your country. We met and forgot everything we should have remembered. You weren’t even truthful about who you were. So sharing our lives again? You’re saying now that we could pick up pieces that didn’t exist in the first place?’
This was impossible. How much would he give to be able to step forward now, take her into his arms, tell her how much she was loved? That he’d never stopped loving her. That walking away from her had killed something in him that he’d thought was gone for ever.
But she was looking at him as if he was crazy, and maybe he was. What had she said? One long vacation... Maybe that was all their marriage had been, yet what havoc it had wrought in their lives! And here he was again, suggesting an even greater upheaval.
What right did he have? None, he thought grimly, but he thought again of the advantages and knew he needed to press on.
‘Ellie, it could be sensible. Setting aside the attraction we feel for each other...’
‘Yeah, let’s set that aside. It scares me stupid.’
‘Okay.’ He held up his hands as if in surrender. ‘But I would like some say in Felix’s upbringing. I would like to share him. And yes, that’s all about me, but for you... Ellie, you could have fun. Felix could be brought up here, knowing the palace, knowing his people and you could do what you like. Work as a doctor if you wish. Relax and do nothing if you wish that more.’
‘Lie beside one of your over-the-top pools and sip drinks with little umbrellas.’ She was still staring at him as if he had two heads. Or as if he frightened her, which was far, far worse.
He was struggling to hold it together, to sound practical rather than emotional. To take that look of fear away. ‘That’s what the women of this family have done from time immemorial.’
‘Gee, thanks. I don’t think so.’
‘Ellie, ten years ago I came home because there was no choice,’ he tried. ‘You stayed with your mother because there was no choice. But you have a choice now.’
‘But you still don’t,’ she said flatly.
And he didn’t. ‘The throne is non-negotiable,’ he agreed. He paused, fighting his own anger and frustration. Fighting to make this proposition sound logical. ‘
I know it’s a huge ask, but it might just work. I could offer you my support and protection, things you should have had for the last ten years. I can help with Felix. Felix would have a father as well as a mother and you know he’d enjoy that. What do we have to lose? And it’d make it so much easier...’
‘For you.’
‘Yes.’ What else could he say but the truth? ‘But for you too. And for Felix as well.’
‘Leave us out of it. What are you proposing—that I marry you again so you’ll have more time for your boxes?’
‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘So what did you mean?’
‘I mean I’ve never considered us not married.’
She shook her head in disbelief. ‘You’re kidding. Nine years...’
‘I’m not saying I’ve been faithful.’ He was fighting to explain something he barely understood himself. ‘But all these years... Ellie, our divorce was supposed to nullify our vows but it didn’t work. Not for me. I’ve never imagined marrying someone else. I knew I never could.’
‘Because the country would call? Because imperatives would win and marriage would be put aside again?’
‘You sound bitter.’
‘Why would I be bitter? Haven’t I had long enough to get over it?’ She shrugged. ‘Of course I have, but for me, like you, it’s left scars. We married in passion, but that passion wasn’t enough to hold us together. So it broke my heart. And, yes, I was only nineteen and having a broken heart is what all nineteen-year-olds are expected to experience, but it hurt so much I learned never to go down that path again. You say you haven’t been chaste. You haven’t held our marriage vows sacred after divorce. Well, neither have I, but the men I’ve dated have been sensible.’
‘Sensible?’
‘What’s wrong with sensible? Sensible’s safe. Sensible doesn’t leave me whimpering under the covers at three in the morning.’
‘Ellie...’
‘And don’t you feel sorry for me. I didn’t whimper for long,’ she snapped. ‘I’m over it. I’m over you. Marc, I know you’ll make this country a better place because that’s your role. But for me to stay here and play part-time wife when you have a few moments to spare... Marc, that might just break my heart all over again.’
Reunited with Her Surgeon Prince Page 11
