Her Long-Lost Husband

by Josie Metcalfe

  ‘Actually…’He paused, suddenly remembering that he might not have time to approach the situation between them slowly. All he could do was hope that he wasn’t saying too much too soon and that she wouldn’t misunderstand if he didn’t find the right words. He didn’t really have any other option. Without knowing just how long she was going to let him stay with her, he was going to have to grab every opportunity as it presented itself. ‘Apart from…anything else that happened, I think the reason why I slept so well was because you were there with me.’

  ‘Oh.’ He saw her eyes widen, her immediate unguarded response a mixture of embarrassment and pleasure, but when her mouth parted as though she might argue the point, all he could imagine was the taste of those soft pink lips. ‘Well…um…’

  Livvy never had known how to take a compliment, even an implied one, and he’d always blamed her mother’s never-ending dissatisfaction with a daughter who’d never meekly given-in to her grandiose plans; her bright, beautiful, loving daughter who’d deserved so much more than to be married off to the highest title Phyllida Mannington-Forbes could find.

  But, then, his Livvy had also deserved far better than a man with no family and no country — an orphaned immigrant whose job had meant he was away more than he was with her — but he’d never stopped counting his blessings since she’d accepted his proposal and become his wife.

  ‘So…which do you want, Gregor…the bathroom or painkillers?’ She was trying to be efficient and impersonal but he wondered if she was aware just how much her expression had softened.

  ‘Do I have to choose?’ he dared to tease. ‘Can’t I have both — please?’

  Gregor’s attempt at a joke had lightened the mood enough for the two of them to be able to deal with the list of routine basic necessities from getting him out of bed to seeing him fully dressed and sitting at the table, but Olivia found it harder and harder to maintain her well-practised doctor’s composure with each new look at the scars on his battered body.

  As far as she could tell, the various surgical incisions had healed well, but there was clear evidence that he’d had a small forest of sutures at one time or another, and as for the oldest scars — the lasting evidence of the jagged, ragged injuries that must have confronted those two women when he’d first been brought to the impoverished hospital — it was a wonder that he’d survived long enough to have the later corrective surgeries.

  How he’d ever survived such extensive injuries without being overwhelmed by infection, she’d never know. He’d already told her that the hospital had been ill equipped, so there would have been no access to the sort of antibiotics he should have had, nor any blood to replace the volume he would have lost from that degree of trauma.

  As for his most recent visit to hospital…had that just been a formality, to check that everything that had been done for him had healed properly? Was it just a case of punishing physical rehabilitation and time, now, before he regained a workable level of mobility and independence, or was there more gruelling surgery waiting for him in the near future?

  She was desperate to know exactly what the surgeons had done to him and what prognosis they had given him, but she knew how important it was to bite her tongue for the moment. Frustrating as it was, she knew that the man she’d married would find it hard to deal with any more detailed conversation about the state of his health until he was ready to initiate it.

  That didn’t mean that they were going to be able to avoid the conversation indefinitely, she decided silently. In fact, as soon as breakfast was over and tidied away, she would make certain that she kept him in the hot seat until she had at least some of the answers she needed.

  In the meantime, it was all too easy to slip back into the easy familiarity that had characterised their relationship right from the beginning. In spite of the passion that had sparked between them from the first time they had met, and had only grown more potent as they had come to know and trust each other more deeply, there had been a strangely comfortable sense of companionship that had been as effortless as if they had always known each other.

  With her decision to talk after the meal banishing the tension inside her, their conversation over the breakfast table was as normal and far-ranging as if the intervening two years had never happened.

  In fact, Olivia was just beginning to allow herself to hope that there was a completely logical explanation for everything that had happened — to believe that their life could be put back together as though she hadn’t spent nearly two years believing that he was gone for ever — when the phone pealed out its strident summons.

  ‘Leave it,’ Gregor growled, his dark brows suddenly drawn together into a sharp angle above that unexpectedly elegant nose. ‘Let the machine answer it.’

  ‘I certainly don’t want word to get back to my mother that I’m here. She’d probably arrive within the hour,’ she agreed, pulling a face then feeling guilty that she should be so loath to speak to her own parent.

  She knew that her mother and father cared about her, in their own slightly detached way, but she was absolutely sick of her mother’s need to micromanage her only child’s life.

  ‘Olivia…this is Ash,’ the familiar cultured voice announced, and when she saw the way tension suddenly sent Gregor’s shoulders rigid, tightening his hands into fists and pouring out of him in almost-visible waves, she wondered if it might have been better to risk taking the call after all.

  ‘If you’re there, old girl, this is just a friendly warning that your mother will probably be turning up on your doorstep.’ She could hear the grimace in his voice, calm as it sounded as he continued.

  ‘Someone has apparently sold the tabloids the story of the wedding that never was. Their bloodhounds have found out that you’re not at the honeymoon hotel after all, and came back to both sets of parents with the information demanding to know where you’re hiding out. Your mother’s convinced herself that you would never have just set off for anywhere else for a fortnight without taking the time to plan it properly — the way she would — so it would probably be wise to get out of her way for a few days if you don’t want her company.’

  Olivia shuddered at the image that presented.

  Luckily, her mother was far too conscious of the ‘right’ way to behave to have a screaming fit in the middle of several hundred of her closest aristocratic friends, but the gloves would come off with a vengeance if she ever had Gregor cornered somewhere private. And the fact that he was in a wheelchair and physically unable to escape her excoriating tongue wouldn’t be likely to make her soften her attack, either. When it came to protecting her family’s position in society, Phyllida Mannington-Forbes’s killer’s instinct for the jugular was far too highly developed.

  ‘If you’re really away…’ The pause on the tape went on so long that she began to wonder if the connection had been broken till she clearly heard the sound of another voice in the background — a male voice — and Ash hurried to end the call with a flippant, ‘Well, if you’ve really gone away somewhere, good for you. Take care of yourself. Bye, old girl.’

  Olivia had been facing Gregor when the message had started and when she saw his expression change, had been overcome with a terrible feeling of guilt — almost as if she’d deliberately set out to betray him with Ash.

  She had to remind herself that he had been the one who’d left her, not the other way around. It had been for work, admittedly, and he’d had no option, but Gregor certainly hadn’t bothered hurrying to get in touch when he’d returned to the UK. And he still hadn’t explained why.

  His grey eyes were stormy in the aftermath of the message, but she could still decipher a strange mixture of anger and frustration in them as she tried to get her own thoughts in some sort of order to start that all-important conversation.

  It had only been a matter of hours since she’d heard his voice coming from the back of the church — less than a day — but already she could feel her resolve being weakened in exactly the same way as it had wh
en she’d first met the man and fallen in love with him, in spite of her determination that she would complete her training before she allowed herself to be side-tracked by any man.

  She’d known right from the moment she’d applied for a place at medical school that she would only have one chance at forcing her mother to accept her desire to train as a doctor. Any sign that she wasn’t whole-heartedly focused on that goal and Phyllida would have taken it that her exasperating daughter had only been using the excuse of training for a profession as a means of delaying the day when she would meekly accept her mother’s choice of the perfect husband.

  Well, her overwhelming attraction towards Gregor had blind-sided her once, but she’d had two long years to school herself into controlling her emotions, good and bad, and she wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

  This time, if there was going to be any sort of relationship between them, it wasn’t going to be forged in the crucible of their passion for each other. She had a powerful and well-trained brain that found it easy to sift through a patient’s disparate symptoms to arrive at a diagnosis, only this time she was going to step back and allow it time to weigh everything up so that she could decide whether there was any point in letting herself be vulnerable again.

  ‘Gregor, we need to talk — ’ she started in a rush.

  ‘Livvy, I don’t think this is going to work — ’he began, at exactly the same time as the phone began to ring again.

  Impatiently, Gregor muttered something under his breath and suddenly Olivia was catapulted back to an earlier time, the first time she’d heard him speaking the language he’d learned as a child.

  She’d been fascinated by the sound of it and by the way his accent carried over more strongly into the first few sentences when he switched back to English, the slightly rough, yet liquid edge to the words affecting something deep inside her.

  She was instantly wrapped up in her usual game of trying to work out whether he really was swearing or if his angry words just sounded that way; so distracted that she found herself automatically reaching her hand out towards the imperious ring of the phone.

  ‘Don’t!’ he reminded her, sharply, and she waited for the machine to take over.

  ‘Oh, no, it’s one of those wretched answering-machines,’ said an unknown female voice when the machine finally cut in. ‘Are you sure this is the right number, Staff Nurse? Should I leave a message…just in case it’s the right place?’

  There was the muffled sound of an indecipherable reply somewhere in the background then the voice returned to begin again.

  ‘Ok… Here goes… This is a message for Gregor Davidov, recently an orthopaedic patient at this hospital. Please, can you tell him to contact the orthopaedic surgery department urgently and ask for Mr d’Agostino’s secretary to make a follow-up appointment for the rest of his tests? Oh…or please contact us to tell us if you know how to contact him if he’s not at this number, or to let us know if we’ve got the wrong number entirely,’ she added in a garbled afterthought before the connection was broken.

  There was an uncomfortable silence in the room when the call ended and Olivia knew that Gregor was waiting to see whether she was going to confront him for being so presumptuous when he’d registered with the hospital, albeit with the original version of his name rather than the one they shared.

  In truth, for a moment it was a toss-up whether she would point out that he hadn’t asked permission to give the hospital her telephone number as his contact point without so much as a by-your-leave, or whether she was going to tear strips off him because he hadn’t told her that he would be needing an urgent appointment with the orthopaedic consultant.

  For him to disappear out of her life for nearly two years only to reappear with every expectation that he would be welcome to take up residence in their flat was presumptuous in the extreme, especially when he’d made absolutely no attempt to warn her…or even to inform her that he was alive and back in the country.

  The fact that the voice on the phone had referred to Gregor as Davidov rather than Davidson barely registered in comparison with the importance of one of the hospital’s most senior consultants leaving a message about an urgent appointment. And what were these tests that he was supposed to be having?

  It was no surprise to her that he’d chosen to make his appointment at the hospital where she worked because, having worked there himself, Gregor knew at first hand just how highly their orthopaedic department was rated. She could only suppose that his use of the original spelling of his name had been an attempt at preventing her from knowing that he was there, but the reason why he hadn’t wanted her to know was one of the questions she still had to ask him.

  As for his physical condition…well, the questions just seemed to be multiplying.

  Was Gregor treating his health negligently by signing himself out the way he had? Was his condition worsening because the injuries hadn’t been properly treated in the first place or was there a chance that another operation could improve matters for him? To her frustration, she had absolutely no idea because he hadn’t yet told her any details about the severity of his condition, but the tone of that phone message certainly sounded as if someone at the hospital was seriously concerned about him.

  Her pulse rate must have doubled, at least, but it felt as if her blood had frozen in her veins when she thought about the damage he could have done to himself…the damage she could have done to him by hauling him in and out of the wheelchair without knowing whether it was safe to do so, and as for that explosive interlude this morning…well, the fact that she’d been the aggressor…that she’d been the dominant one who should have used her position of power to stop anything happening…

  An overwhelming feeling of guilt had her ready to explode at him as she stalked towards him, ashamed that she was intending to use the fact that she could tower over him for the first time in their relationship to enforce her point.

  ‘Gregor, tell me you didn’t — ’ she began, but the phone rang again and she gave a shriek of frustration, tempted to rip the wire out of the wall if that was the only way she could vent her anger at the constant interruptions.

  ‘Olivia, this is Tricia and I hope you’re not going to hate me for ever, but it’s all round the grapevine that you didn’t get married after all — and I shall be expecting the full skinny about that the first free moment we get — but I’m really hoping that means that you’re at a loose end and can come in to cover Tony’s shift. He and Duncan were on their way to play in the hospital’s rugby team and were side-swiped by a drunk on a roundabout…drunk at this time of the morning, for heaven’s sake!’ her colleague added in a typical aside. ‘Anyway, he’s got a broken leg — comminuted fracture, of course; Tony never does anything by halves — and is on his way up to Theatre to have it pinned. Oh, and Dunc’s too bruised and shaken to be any use to anyone, today. So give me a ring as soon as you get this message…please! Better still, turn up as soon as you can. It’s bedlam here.’

  Suddenly, a whole row of jigsaw pieces slotted neatly into place in Livvy’s head, and instead of returning to the ear-bashing she’d intended giving Gregor she whirled and made her way towards the other end of the flat.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Gregor’s voice was so close behind her that she knew he was following her. Well, good; that would save her from shouting.

  ‘Packing,’ she said shortly.

  ‘What? Why?’ He could be a man of few words sometimes, and this was obviously one of them.

  She had the feeling that when he’d wheeled his chair into the bedroom he’d deliberately positioned himself right in her way between the wardrobe and the small bag she’d placed open on the bed. ‘I understand that you want to help them at the hospital, but what will I do?’ he demanded.

  ‘You’re going with me,’ she said shortly, briskly manoeuvring the chair out of her way and continuing to pick from the neat piles of ‘everyday’ bras and pants she’d left behind in the top drawer and moving on t
o the neat row of trousers and blouses that were her self-imposed uniform for going to work. She hadn’t expected to need to retrieve any of them until she returned from her honeymoon.

  ‘Going where?’ He didn’t get in her way this time, but his tone of voice was every bit as much of a demand for her attention as his previous position had been.

  ‘We’re both going to the hospital,’ she clarified as she swiftly added a handful of items from the top of the dressing table while she tried to think where the rest of her wash-kit could have gone. She had the little emergency bag with the miniature versions of her favourite soap, shampoo and toothpaste, but the fancy waterproof one that had enough room for the full-sized containers and her cosmetics, too, seemed to be missing.

  Belatedly, she remembered that it was packed away in the luggage that had been destined for her honeymoon, still stacked neatly just inside the front door, courtesy of Parker.

  ‘And while I’m getting things together, you can phone Rick d’Agostino’s secretary and get her to sign you back in so you’re ready for those tests and that appointment.’

  ‘No.’ It was only one word but it was as harsh and forceful as anything he’d ever said to her, evidence of how strongly he meant his refusal. ‘I’m not going into hospital again.’

  Frustration nearly made her explode, but she’d had long years of practice in dealing with her mother and managed to hang on to her control.

  ‘Obviously, that’s your decision to make, but take it from me, top orthopaedic consultants of Rick d’Agostino’s calibre don’t routinely have their secretaries phone patients to invite them to make urgent appointments.’ She drew in a steadying breath to ensure that her voice wouldn’t rise and spoil the illusion of calm…in through her nose while she counted up to five and then out equally slowly through her pursed lips before she continued in as reasonable tone as she could manage.