From Doctor to Princess?

by Annie Claydon

  Ted had helped him back up to his apartment and Nell had fussed around, taking off his shoes and jacket and loosening the collar of his shirt, then making him lie down on the bed. He’d protested and she’d ignored him, and then suddenly a wave of fatigue had pulled him into sleep.

  When he woke, the room was in semi-darkness. He could make Nell out, sitting by the window, reading in the last rays of the sun.

  ‘Do you want me to say it?’ When he spoke, it felt as if his mouth was full of cotton wool.

  She looked up from her book. ‘You can if it makes you feel any better.’

  It did. Hugo pulled the bedspread down from his chest, sitting up slowly. ‘I overdid it today. I felt okay and I was sure I could manage it but... I couldn’t.’

  She smiled and suddenly overdoing things and proving Nell right didn’t seem such a bad thing after all.

  ‘You know, of course, that this happens. After the shock of being taken ill and then going through a surgical procedure.’

  ‘Yes. Primitive instincts. We fight to survive, and then, when the danger’s passed...’

  She nodded quietly. ‘And now you have to come to terms with it all.’

  ‘What if I don’t want to?’ The words escaped Hugo’s lips before he had a chance to stop them.

  Nell shrugged. ‘That’s just too bad. You can command it to go away all you like, but it’s not going to listen.’

  Maybe. But if he couldn’t rule his own feelings, then he could return the favour and not listen to them. Not let anyone know his weakness.

  He swung his legs slowly from the bed. They seemed strong again. All he’d needed had been to sleep for a while.

  ‘You’re getting up?’ Nell was looking around the room as if she was trying to figure something out.

  ‘I feel much better now. What are you looking for?’

  ‘Your wardrobe.’

  ‘Through there.’ Hugo nodded towards the door to one side of the bed, and Nell got to her feet. It seemed she’d decided to lay out a change of clothes for him. The idea that she might stay and help him into them didn’t seem quite as deflating as it had when the nurses at the hospital had done it.

  ‘Oh...’ She’d opened the door and put her head inside the dressing room. ‘Sure you have enough to wear here?’

  ‘I go out a lot.’ Hugo chuckled. ‘Casual is on the left, at the end.’

  She disappeared inside the dressing room, and Hugo heard her opening drawers and closing them again. Then Nell reappeared, with a dark polo shirt and a pair of pale chinos over her arm. ‘Will this do?’

  ‘That’s great, thanks.’

  ‘Bathroom?’

  ‘Through there.’ Hugo indicated another door, staying put. He wondered how far Nell intended to go with this.

  She disappeared into the bathroom and he heard the sound of water running. Then she popped her head around the doorway. ‘I’ll take a look at your chest and then leave you to it.’

  Hugo heaved himself from the bed and walked into the bathroom. She’d moved the shower chair in front of the basin, and motioned him to sit down.

  ‘How do you really feel?’ She bent down, unbuttoning his shirt.

  He wanted to say that he felt fine. Hugo meant to say that he felt fine, but in her quiet, fragrant presence he couldn’t.

  ‘As if I’ve been hit by a truck.’

  Hugo closed his eyes, feeling her slip his shirt from his shoulders and carefully threading it off his left arm. Coming to terms with the piece of cutting-edge technology that was now implanted in his chest was the easy part. It was the thought that he was somehow flawed that he just couldn’t shake.

  More flawed. He hadn’t been perfect to start with.

  He felt her carefully remove the dressing over the surgical incision. It was hard not to shiver at the touch of Nell’s cool fingers.

  ‘It’s looking good. A little bruising, still, but there’s no infection and it’s starting to heal. It’s a nice job.’

  Nice job. She’d said that before and he’d wanted to turn his back on her and tell her that he didn’t need that doctor-to-doctor reassurance. If he’d still had a gaping wound on his chest, a scar that would never heal, it might reflect the way he felt a little better.

  ‘Take a look.’

  Hugo had purposely not removed the dressings to see what was underneath. But it seemed that parts of his body answered to her and not him, and his eyes flipped open. The first thing he saw was her face, composed in a reassuring smile, and even though he knew that smile was probably something she wore for all her patients it did its job. He smiled back.

  ‘What do you think?’ She stepped out of the way, and Hugo found his gaze on the mirror above the basin.

  ‘It’s...’ Hugo tried for a shrug, and felt his left shoulder pull. ‘You’re right. It’s a neat job.’

  She nodded and turned to the basin, leaving him alone for a moment with his own reflection. Hugo didn’t like the way it made him feel and he concentrated on watching Nell instead.

  Her hands were gentle but capable as they dipped a flannel into the basin, twisting it to wring out the excess water. In his experience, that was only a short step away from tender. She laid the flannel over his shoulder, her entire concentration on what she was doing. It felt warm and comforting.

  ‘That feels good. Thank you.’

  She nodded, removing the flannel and dipping it back into the water. Wiping it across his skin, careful not to allow any drops of water near the wound. He’d seen this so many times before at the hospital, and had always felt that this was one thing that no amount of technology or learning could replace. When the nurses washed a patient, there was a tenderness about it that spoke of the kind of care that only human beings could give one another.

  And now he felt it. The warm touch of water against his skin calmed Hugo, and the suspicion that everything would be all right floated into his consciousness, with all the reassurance of a forgotten friend.

  She leaned towards him, rubbing the flannel across his back. Stopping to rinse and then repeat, her movements slow and thoughtful, like those of a craftsman plying his trade. Hugo closed his eyes, not ready to let go of this feeling just yet.

  She finished with the flannel and gently patted his skin dry with a towel. Then he felt her fingers on the top of his left arm, gently massaging. He knew what Nell was doing. He wasn’t supposed to lift his left arm above shoulder level for six weeks, and it was common to get a frozen shoulder during that time. It was just straightforward care, but it felt like so much more.

  ‘Would you like help to shave?’ He opened his eyes and saw that Nell was now opening one of the sterile dressings from the box that lay on top of the bathroom cabinet.

  It had been a while since he’d let a woman shave him, and then it had been purely for pleasure. Anna had done it, but since then he hadn’t let a woman get to know him that well. Hugo regarded the shaving cream on the shelf above the mirror and decided against it.

  ‘Thanks, but I’ll go with the designer stubble.’

  Nell gave him a half smile. ‘It suits you.’

  It was the one thing she’d said that betrayed some kind of emotion locked behind the caring, and it sent tingles down Hugo’s spine. Nell checked that the new dressing over his wound was firmly anchored, and then turned abruptly, leaving him alone in the bathroom.

  * * *

  If it worked, then it worked. Society lunches and bidding for a weekend in the presence of a prince wasn’t a strategy that Nell had been called on to adopt before, and neither was washing a patient. But talking to someone, learning what made them tick and suggesting ways of coping was. And if the sudden closeness with Hugo had left her wanting to just touch his skin, simply for the pleasure of feeling it under her fingertips, then that could be ignored in the face of a greater good. Her job here was not really to look afte
r him in a medical sense but to get behind his suave, charming exterior, and find out what drove him so relentlessly that he was willing to risk his health for it.

  Nell rang down to the palace kitchen, wondering if anyone was there at this time in the evening, and found that not only was the phone answered immediately but there was a choice of menu. She ordered a salad, on the basis that it was probably the least trouble to make.

  Apart from raiding the fridge, of course. Nell had suspected that the top-of-the-range fridge in Hugo’s kitchen was pretty much for show, and when she’d opened it, she’d found a selection of juices and other drinks. Nothing that involved any culinary activity other than pouring. She could have made him a milkshake, but that was about all, and a decent meal would help him recover.

  The formal dining room in his apartment seemed a little too much like keeping up appearances, when that was exactly what she was trying to encourage Hugo not to do. A small table on a sheltered balcony was better, and she opened the French doors at the far end of the kitchen and arranged two chairs beside it. It would have made an excellent place to cook and enjoy food, and it was a pity that Hugo’s gleaming kitchen didn’t look as if it saw too many serious attempts at cooking. Nell wondered what he would say if she expressed the intention of baking a cake, and smiled to herself. Maybe she’d try it, just to see the look of bewilderment on his face.

  Their meal arrived, and Nell directed the young man who carried a tray loaded with two plates and various sauces and condiments through to the balcony. He looked a little put out that she’d laid the table herself, and adjusted the position of the knives and forks carefully.

  She called Hugo, and he appeared from the bedroom, looking relaxed and rested. When Nell had chosen his clothes, she been considering comfort, and hadn’t spared a thought for how well they might fit or how her eye was drawn along the hard lines of his body. Chest. Left arm. It was permissible to allow her gaze to linger there, on the grounds that she was checking up on him. The strong curve of his shoulder, the golden skin of his arm, which dimpled over bone and muscle, were both visual pleasures that Nell could pretend not to have seen.

  ‘Thank you. This is nice.’ Hugo pulled one of the seats away from the table, waiting until Nell sat down before he took his own place. Even now, he couldn’t quite let go and let her look after him.

  ‘I just made a call down to the kitchen. Is someone always there?’

  ‘No, not always. My parents are hosting a dinner party tonight.’ He smiled at her, and in the muted lights that shone around the perimeter of the patio his face seemed stronger. More angular and far more determined, if that was even possible.

  ‘So calling down for a midnight snack is usually out of the question.’ Nell picked up her fork, stabbing at her food.

  ‘Yes.’ He grinned. ‘If I want a midnight snack, I usually have to walk all the way down there and make it myself. Life at the palace can be unexpectedly hard at times.’

  Nell couldn’t help smiling in response to the quiet joke. Hugo knew exactly how lucky he was. Maybe not exactly, he probably hadn’t ever battled his way around the supermarket on a Saturday morning, but he understood that he was privileged.

  ‘If we’d been at my place, this might have been cornflakes. With chocolate milk if you were lucky.’

  ‘You think I haven’t done that?’ Hugo looked slightly hurt. ‘I trained as a doctor, too. You’re not the only one who’s eaten cornflakes with chocolate milk at three in the morning then fallen asleep on the sofa.’

  Probably a nicely upholstered sofa, and not too much like the lumpy one that had been in Nell’s shared digs, when she had been training. She wondered if Hugo’s memories of medical school were quite as good as hers were.

  ‘Where did you stay in London?’ Holland Park, perhaps. Somewhere near the embassy.

  ‘Shepherd’s Bush. We had a flat over a pizza place for a while, and it always smelled of cooked cheese. Then we moved to Tottenham. That was a great flat, in a high-rise. You could see right across London.’

  Perhaps his experience had been a little more like Nell’s than she’d thought. ‘It must have been a bit of a culture shock for you.’

  He laid down his fork. ‘People are people. That’s what every doctor learns, isn’t it?’ He said the words as if he was explaining a simple concept that Nell had somehow failed to understand.

  ‘Yes, of course. But some people find things easier than others.’ Waiting lists. Doctors who had enough time to see to the physical needs of their patients but not always the opportunity to talk for as long as was needed... The list could go on.

  ‘You met Justine and Henri earlier today. What did you think, that they were a couple of privileged people who like a nice lunch?’

  ‘They...’ Yes, that was exactly what Nell had thought. ‘They were very generous.’

  ‘Yes, they always are. They lost their son to heart disease when he was only two years old. Justine became very depressed and it was years before she would even talk about him. Holding a lunch event is a massive step for her. It’s not all about the money. Yvette lost her father to heart disease when she was fifteen.’

  Nell felt herself flush. ‘I’m sorry. I did think less of what they were doing because they’re rich, and that was wrong of me.’

  Hugo shook his head. ‘You’re not entirely wrong. A lot of the people who were at the lunch today were there because they wanted to be seen in the right places. But many of them have a real and personal commitment to what we’re trying to do.’

  ‘The little girl in the leaflet. She’s really a heart patient?’ Nell had had her doubts, wondering if the leaflet was principally an exercise in PR. It was important now, to know whether she’d been wrong.

  ‘Yes, she is. One of my patients, in fact. She had her ninth operation a few days ago. She wanted to help me build her new clinic.’

  Nell laughed. ‘Her new clinic.’

  ‘Yes, it’s hers. She might let a few other patients in if she likes them. No boys. And she wants it to be completely pink, like a giant marshmallow.’ He was smiling now.

  ‘Sounds like my kind of hospital.’

  ‘So what are you doing here?’ He asked the question quietly. ‘You don’t strike me as the kind of person whose ambitions lie in the direction of keeping errant princes in check.’

  Hugo had a way of dropping the charm and cutting right to the chase. It was uncomfortable. ‘I’m...in between jobs at the moment.’

  ‘I saw your curriculum vitae. Someone with your talents isn’t usually in between jobs unless she wants to be.’

  He’d seen what the employment agency hadn’t, and there was no explaining it away with clichés. Nell wanted to tell him the whole truth, but that probably wouldn’t be all that wise.

  ‘My last job was challenging, both professionally and personally. I want to spend six months looking around for another that will...’

  ‘Just be challenging professionally?’

  Nell caught her breath. How did he know so much about human nature, when he seemed so protected from it? ‘Something like that.’

  ‘So you thought that one patient might be a bit of a holiday.’ He was taking her apart, piece by piece, and Nell felt powerless to stop him. ‘But I imagine you’re someone who gets a little bored on holiday.’

  She could feel her cheeks heating up. She wasn’t going to give Hugo the satisfaction of admitting that he was absolutely right. He held her gaze for a moment longer, and then leaned slowly back in his chair. Maybe he’d already seen what he wanted to see, and her reply was unnecessary.

  ‘Then maybe I should consider diversionary tactics. To keep you from feeling that you’re wasting your time here.’

  He reached for the bottle of water on the table, and Nell took it from him. ‘How can I be wasting my time when there are bottles to be opened?’

  If he could hide his inner
most feelings under a layer of charm, then so could she.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE SUMMONS HAD arrived first thing the following morning, and Nell had followed the messenger to the King’s study. Despite the early hour, he was already working at his desk. He had offered her a cup of coffee and then pushed the morning paper towards her.

  The King hadn’t expressed the horror that Nell had felt when she’d looked at the pictures on the front page. It was just one of those things, an innocent action could be misinterpreted under the glare of scrutiny that the royal family were subjected to. But he had taken issue with a number of other things.

  Nell had felt her heart close. Unable to look at him, she’d given no reason as to why she and Hugo had been seen at the back entrance to the palace at one in the morning. How could she? She’d promised to keep silent about the business with Jacob and Celeste until Hugo had had a chance to approach his father.

  The King moved on to why exactly she’d been seen bidding for Hugo’s company at the auction yesterday. This time Nell did have an answer, even if it wasn’t a very good one.

  ‘It was my idea. I thought that...well, it’s too much for him to be hosting a weekend like that so soon after the operation. And Hugo wouldn’t back out.’

  ‘And you didn’t consider how it might look?’ The King’s tone wasn’t unkind, but it was very firm. He tapped the paper with one finger. ‘My real concern though, is that it’s clear to me that this photograph does not show an embrace, as the papers seem to believe, it shows Hugo leaning on you. Your one responsibility was to ensure that he didn’t take on too much, and damage his health.’

  Nell nodded her assent, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. How could she object to the King’s request that she submit a written account of Hugo’s activities and medical condition every day, when she had already failed so spectacularly? And how could she complain when he hinted that unless things changed, he would be finding another doctor for Hugo.