He moved to one side so he could look at her more fully, lifted his glass so no one would know what he was doing. Perhaps her face wasn’t sadder, perhaps it was his imagination. He knew he had hurt her—but it was all for her ultimate good. Pity she couldn’t know that.
He wrenched his gaze away, turned to look for friends and acquaintances. This was supposed to be a party, an occasion for joy. And he did enjoy himself, talking to people and generally having a good time. But then, as he turned away from one small group, he met her, face to face. She couldn’t be avoided. He saw the slight shock of recognition on her face, the wariness that followed. He wondered what his own face told her.
But she seemed entirely unperturbed. ‘Hello, Toby, good to see you. Great party, isn’t it?’
‘Wonderful,’ he agreed. ‘I think my brother has done really well for himself. I’m envious.’
Then he wondered if that had been an entirely sensitive thing to say.
But Annie didn’t seem to mind. ‘Plenty of other women around,’ she said lightly. ‘You can still go on looking.’
This was the kind of dialogue he could manage easily. ‘No matter how hard I look, I’ll not find a Miranda. But any woman who can dominate big brother Jack—she is really something.’
Annie smiled at his teasing tone. ‘She doesn’t dominate him. She loves him and because of that he wants to make her happy.’
‘Sounds like domination to me. Only it’s cunning domination.’
So, a light, pointless, teasing conversation. But his thoughts were very different. Yes, perhaps her face was a touch thinner but it was as lovely as ever. And the rest of her—that scarlet top had every man trying not to stare at it. What it didn’t reveal it suggested.
An emotion he couldn’t identify jerked through him. Regret… sadness… guilt… he just didn’t know. Perhaps some combination of all of these. A vague feeling of loss, of what might have been but couldn’t be.
He didn’t like being in doubt. So he hunched his shoulders and did what he always did—met any problem head-on. Not that Annie was a problem but… ‘Would you like to dance?’ he asked. This one’s nice and slow.’
‘Dance with you? For old times’ sake?’
‘No. Because I want to dance with you and you’re the best-looking girl in the room.’
‘That’s the Toby we all know and love,’ she said, slightly mocking. ‘How many girls will you say that to tonight?’
‘I meant it,’ he protested cheerfully. ‘You’re the best-looking girl in the room.’ He paused a moment and then went on, ‘Apart from Miranda, that is. She just has to be the best looking, this is her party.’
Both of them turned to look at Miranda. ‘I think my brother is very lucky,’ Toby said, suddenly sounding very serious. ‘She’s gorgeous.’
Annie nodded. ‘So she is. And I think she’s very lucky too, having Jack. Now, are we going to dance or stand here and talk about it?’
He was a little surprised at that, but took her hand and led her onto the dance floor. Then he slipped his arm round her waist. There was an odd pang as he felt the warmth and softness of her body.
They moved gently to the music and for once in his life he wasn’t sure what to say. But there was something. ‘You’re wearing perfume,’ he said. ‘That’s something new, you never used to. But I like it.’
‘It’s part of my new image,’ she said simply. ‘A lot has changed about me and wearing perfume is an example.’
He didn’t know what to reply. For a while they moved easily to the music, perfectly attuned, her body knowing just what his was doing, responding instinctively. They moved well together. He was enjoying himself more than he could have imagined. But there was something missing between them.
Go for it. Risk the consequences, say what he thought.
‘I, er… hope you don’t still feel bad about our parting,’ he said. ‘I’d hate it if there was any ill feeling between us.’
She smiled. ‘We didn’t part,’ she said. ‘Parting suggests some kind of a joint decision. You dumped me. I’m sure it was for the very best of reasons, but no girl likes being dumped. Still, I’m well over it now. I really am.’
Toby was having difficulty coping with this. ‘Well over it,’ he mumbled. ‘Good, I wouldn’t want to hurt you. So I’m forgiven?’
It looked as if she had to think about this. Then, ‘Yes, you’re forgiven. Forgiven, if not forgotten. You are you and everyone loves you the way you are. Which lucky girl are you taking home tonight?’
For some reason that didn’t please him. ‘You said we were dancing for old times’ sake.’ He managed a cheeky grin, trying to keep it light-hearted. ‘Could I take you home for old times’ sake?’
Annie laughed. ‘I’ve been one notch on your bedpost already. I’m not going to let you make it a double notch.’
‘Ouch,’ said Toby. ‘That hurt.’
‘The truth often does hurt.’
He smiled at that, he had to, it was his way. But it did hurt. He supposed his reputation was deserved and in some ways he had cultivated it. Everyone knew what he was like. And that was the way he needed to be.
The music was coming to an end. He sketched an elaborate bow and asked, ‘Would Mademoiselle like another dance?’
She shook her head. ‘Perhaps later. But for now there are a lot of friends I have to catch up with. Thanks for the dance, Toby. I’d forgotten how well we fitted together.’ And she walked away.
Toby accepted that what she had said was very reasonable. But it didn’t stop a heavy weight settling in his chest as he watched her departing back.
He decided that the best thing was to go to get another drink. Then he danced with some very pretty nurses, all of whom seemed eager to get to know him better. But for some reason he just wasn’t interested. All he could remember was what Annie had asked him. Which lucky girl are you taking home tonight? He knew it had been half joke, half bitter comment. And suddenly, even though he was enjoying the company of his current dance partner, a beautiful theatre nurse who was currently twining her arms around his neck, he didn’t want her to be the girl he took home.
Tactfully he extricated himself and moved on. Time to speak to his sister-in-law-to-be. He saw that, just for a moment, Miranda was on her own and went up to her, giving her an affectionate kiss on the cheek.
‘Hey, gorgeous.’ He grinned. ‘So you’re marrying my brother Jack. I don’t know if that is a cause for congratulations or commiserations, but I’m happy for both of you and so welcome to the family. As you know, every family has to have a black sheep and it looks like I’m the one.’
‘Sheep can be sheared,’ Miranda pointed out. ‘Even you.’
Toby ran his hand over his thick dark hair. ‘A dreadful thought.’ He stooped to kiss her again then handed her a gold-coloured envelope. ‘This is an engagement present. Hope you like it.’
Miranda eyed him thoughtfully. ‘Am I going to get a shock when I open this?’ she asked. ‘I know it’s not a frying pan, the envelope’s too small.’ She opened the envelope. A congratulations card, of course, and attached to it a gift card for a relaxing break for two in a luxury hotel. Miranda smiled. ‘Toby, that’s a fantastic idea. Thank you so much!’ She stood, flung her arms round his neck and kissed him.
‘Thought it might be nice for you two to get away for a bit. We Sinclairs try to please,’ said Toby urbanely.
Miranda put the gold envelope in her handbag and looked at him with an assessing eye. ‘I saw you dancing with Annie,’ she said. ‘You looked very happy together.’
His expression gave nothing away. ‘We’re old friends. We had something going—it’s over now.’
‘Whatever you say. But when are you going to provide me with another sister-in-law? There must be the right woman for you somewhere.’
He smiled easily. ‘I’ve looked hard enough.’
‘Yes, we’ve noticed. And have you never found anyone who was the right person for you?’
Then he
made one of his rare mistakes. ‘Found the right person for me?’ he said. ‘Once I did and then I found out that nothing’s for ever so I…’ Then he blinked.
He was enjoying the party, he had had one glass of champagne and two of red wine. Before that he’d worked an over-long and very hard shift. Perhaps he was more tired than he knew. Certainly he was more careless.
He could feel Miranda looking at him, thoughtfully, expectantly. ‘Nothing is for ever? Tell me more.’
Time to concentrate! Move back into cheerful Toby mode. ‘I met the love of my life,’ he said lightly. ‘But then I discovered that her father wasn’t rich enough. So she had to go.’
‘You’re a tease,’ Miranda complained. ‘There’s good sense in you but I can never get at it.’
‘Miranda, congratulations!’
Both Miranda and Toby looked up, to see three of the consultants from neighbouring wards. They’d just arrived. ‘Talk to you later,’ Toby whispered, and slipped away.
For a moment he stood in the shadowed side of the room, bit his lip, and breathed a small prayer, asking for forgiveness. Then he smiled and moved back to join his group of friends.
It had been a good party, Annie decided. She had enjoyed herself. She lay in her bath, gently splashing water over her body and thought about the highlights. She had talked with old friends, she had enjoyed a superb buffet, she had—shame on her—drunk enough champagne to make her quite certain that she had been right not to have come in her own car. Both Miranda and Jack had made short speeches. She had enjoyed those too. But most of all she was happy because she knew that she was finally and absolutely over Toby.
She knew that her friends had been conspiring to keep them apart. Now it just wasn’t necessary. They could work together, perhaps even be friends. She knew that he had no idea—could have no idea—just how much he had hurt her. And she was not going to inflict that on him.
It had been hard for a while but she had survived. Now she should be focusing on the future.
But he had looked good.
CHAPTER TWO
A senior house officer was certainly a doctor. She could call herself Dr Arnold, was licensed to prescribe drugs and could conduct examinations. But being an SHO wasn’t always at the fascinating, cutting edge of medicine. In the middle of the next morning Annie found herself sitting in the doctors’ room, filling in forms. She knew that records were an essential part of medicine. But they were boring.
The door opened behind her and a male voice said, ‘It’s good to see someone working.’
Slightly surprised, she turned, but she’d recognised that voice at once: Toby. Still, why not? He was as entitled to be there as she was.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked. A casual question, one doctor to another.
‘Drugs records. Apparently we now have to satisfy the accountants as well as the consultants.’
He winced. ‘Modern medicine, cash led. As your doctor I prescribe an instant infusion of coffee. May I get you a mug?’
‘Please. You know how I like it.’ Then she, too, winced. That had been a mistake.
But he fetched her coffee without comment. This was all a bit new. For quite a while—well, since their break-up—if he walked into a room where she was standing he would casually walk out again. If she saw him she would avoid him. There was nothing too obvious but it was there. And she knew that their friends had tried—again without being too obvious—to keep them apart.
But now it was good to know that there was no need. Everything was over and they were back to being just colleagues.
‘Great party,’ she said. ‘I really enjoyed it.’
‘Me too. Good to see two people so happy. It was enough to make someone think that they ought to get engaged as well. Don’t you think so?’
She pursed her lips. ‘Not really. You’ve got to find the right man and the right woman.’
‘And they’re hard to find and to put together?’
‘It’s almost impossible.’
He sighed and shook his head. ‘It’s a sad situation when we can’t rely on women to be romantic. See you, Annie.’ He carried his coffee out of the room.
Annie nodded to herself when he had gone. She was OK with him now. She could get on with her boring paperwork. But two minutes later her pager sounded. She checked it and rang John Bennett, her head of department. ‘Got a minute to drop in and see me?’ he asked.
John Bennett searched through the papers on his very cluttered desk, found one, glanced at it and said, ‘You enjoy working in obs and gynae.’
It was a statement rather than a question. ‘Yes, I do. I would like—I hope—to specialise in it.’
‘So you’ll want to do another six months rotation with us?’
‘If you’ll have me.’
John looked at the paper in his hand again, nodding thoughtfully. ‘I think so. People seem pleased with your work. Your logbook is up to date? You’re working towards your Part One of the MRCOG exam?’
‘My logbook is fine and I’m studying for the exam.’
Passing Part One of the Medical Research Council Obstetrics and Gynaecology examination was the first step towards Annie’s dream of being an accredited O and G consultant.
‘Good,’ John said. ‘Now, you know the job of an SHO is generally to make sure that everything goes smoothly for those higher up the ladder? Be a general dogsbody?’
‘I know the work has to be done.’ Annie was cautious.
‘So it has. But we’re going to give you just a little more responsibility, promote you a bit. We’re opening a new clinic, delivery and postnatal, and I want you to help run it. It will operate on three days a week. That’ll give you time to fulfil your other obligations and attend your SHO teaching sessions. It will specialise in those cases that the district midwife thinks needs extra medical care and will also often mean you assisting in difficult deliveries. There’ll be home visits too.’
‘I’d like that,’ Annie said. ‘I’d like that very much.’ Secretly she was delighted, but she didn’t know whether to show it or not.
‘It’ll be hard work but you’ll learn a lot. And in some ways it’ll be more rewarding. You’ll have more time to get to know your patients. They’ll become people instead of just women passing through.’ John put down the paper, stared at her. ‘There’ll be the usual chain of command above you—registrars, a consultant eventually—but I anticipate much of the work being done by two SHOs. You and one who has done one six-month rotation already. The senior SHO will be Toby Sinclair.’ He paused. ‘I know you two have some history so I wanted to ask you now if you would be happy to work with him.’
‘Absolutely no problem,’ Annie said confidently. ‘I’d like to work with Toby.’ She smiled and went on, ‘Did you ask him if he was happy to work with me?’
‘I did.’ Annie could see that John was choosing his words, carefully as he went on. ‘And he said that there’s no SHO in the hospital that he’d rather work with.’
‘That’s very gratifying. I hope your confidence in us both is justified. Now, when do we start?’
‘Next Monday,’ John said. ‘And good luck.’
Annie went back to her dreary paperwork feeling rather pleased with life. This was promotion, of a sort. Well, at least recognition of her good work so far. Working in the clinic would be a change; she’d learn a lot. And Toby was ahead of her; she would learn from working with him.
And she was getting on fine with Toby now, wasn’t she?
Toby hesitated outside the doctors’ room, wondering exactly how to put things. He’d just been told that he was going to work at the new clinic with Annie. He’d just been told that she was looking forward to working with him. This pleased him—but puzzled him at the same time.
Fortunately there was only Annie in the doctors’ room. She was bent over her paperwork again and looked up as he entered. ‘I’ve just heard that we’re going to be working together,’ he said. ‘Are you really OK with that?’
; He was relieved if a little surprised when she said, ‘Of course I’m looking forward to working with you. Why shouldn’t I be OK with that?’
That rather confused him. ‘Well,’ he mumbled, ‘things between us have been…
She laughed. ‘Toby! We had a fling and now I’m over it, OK? I hope you’re not going to drag this up every time we meet.’
‘Well, no,’ he said. He supposed he ought to be quite pleased. He wandered round the doctors’ room, picking up magazines, squinting at notices, for some reason unable to sit down and have the five minutes’ rest he so desperately needed.
‘In a sense we’ve both been promoted,’ Annie went on. ‘Isn’t that a good thing?’
Toby nodded. ‘I suppose so. So we are going to get on with each other?’
‘We are. I’ll learn from you, Toby, which is why I’m looking forward to working with you. You always pull your weight. You’ve got a year’s more experience than me. I can rely on you for advice.’ She grinned at him. ‘You can be my big brother.’
Toby frowned. ‘Are you sure you want me to be your big brother?’ he asked. ‘Big brothers can be an interfering nuisance.’
‘Is Jack an interfering nuisance, then? I wouldn’t have thought so.’
Toby obviously felt he had to be fair. ‘No. I guess Jack isn’t a nuisance. But he certainly feels that he’s entitled to make his views known.’
‘Then you can make your views known to me.’
‘Just on medical matters?’
‘Well, what else have we got in common?’ she asked lightly. ‘Now, back to paperwork.’ She bent her head over the files in front of her. Toby sighed and, without much success, tried to read a magazine.
There was silence for five minutes. Then from behind him there came the sound of a hand slapping a pile of papers and a satisfied voice saying, ‘Done!’ He turned to watch Annie stuffing sheaves of paper into her briefcase. ‘I’ve finished the paperwork and I’m an hour ahead of myself,’ she said happily.
The Doctor's Baby Surprise - An Accent Amour Medical Romance Page 2
