From Doctor to Princess?

by Annie Claydon

  ‘That’s good news.’ Hugo flipped his gaze up towards Nell, and she nodded, smiling. Clearly she’d taken a moment to find out how Nadine was, and the little girl was recovering well.

  ‘Were you lonely?’ Nadine looked around the room that Hugo had occupied. He supposed that the exaggerated quiet of the private wing of the hospital must seem a little lonely to her.

  ‘Yes, I was a bit lonely. But I was only here for one day.’

  Nadine nodded, tugging at the teddy bear that was squashed down beside her in the wheelchair. A little tattered now, Claude had accompanied Nadine through most of her stays at the hospital. When she stretched out her hands, offering him to Hugo, he felt his eyes fill with tears.

  ‘Are we going to see how Claude is?’ How many times had he pressed his stethoscope to Claude’s chest to dispel a little girl’s fears? He knew something about those fears now, the unspoken shadows that defied everything he’d learned as a doctor.

  ‘How you are.’ Nadine was growing up. She knew that Claude was just a way of talking about her own difficulties, and she was offering him to Hugo in the hope that he might speak for him, too. Hugo’s hand automatically reached for the stethoscope that wasn’t in his pocket, and decided instead to just press his ear to Claude’s chest.

  ‘I hear it...’ He nodded, hearing only the pounding of his own heart. ‘That’s very good...’

  ‘Perfect.’ Nadine echoed the word he usually said when he listened to Claude’s heart. It had been on the tip of Hugo’s tongue but somehow he’d been unable to say it in connection with himself. Hugo nodded, giving Claude a hug and then passing him back to Nadine.

  ‘It’s time to go back now, Nadine.’ Nell spoke in her careful, studied French, but the warmth of her smile was unmistakable. ‘Your mother will be here to see you.’

  Hugo couldn’t let her go yet. This little girl who had been through so much but had still found it in her to offer him the comfort of a teddy bear. ‘Would you like me to come with you?’

  Nadine nodded, and Nell flashed him a querying glance. Hugo realised that his jeans and casual shirt weren’t his usual attire for the hospital, but that didn’t seem to matter right now. He got to his feet, releasing the brakes on the wheelchair.

  Hugo had breezed past the nurses, smiling as he went but not stopping to receive his printed discharge papers. Nell had collected them for him, and followed him through the building to the children’s section of the cardiac unit. A couple of the staff obviously noticed that he was dressed particularly casually today and might have wondered, but Hugo didn’t seem to care and neither did any of the children in the ward. Nadine was settled comfortably back into her bed, and Hugo spent time talking and playing with her and all the other children.

  He seemed to light up when he was around them. After an hour, it still didn’t seem that Hugo was about to leave and Nell stepped in, dragging him away. He’d had enough for one day and there was no question about whether Hugo would be back soon, despite the fact that he was still on leave of absence from the hospital and had so very recently been one of its patients.

  ‘They’ve been through so much. I feel like a complete fraud.’ He murmured the words as he got into the back seat of the car, next to Nell.

  ‘You need to stay strong, Hugo. Who’s going to champion them if you don’t?’ This afternoon had brought exactly what she and Hugo were doing into sharp perspective. If the endless meeting and lunches had seemed less important than being on the wards, it would make a huge difference to both the patients and the doctors and nurses who worked here.

  He laughed suddenly, taking her hand, even though no one was looking. ‘And who’s going to champion me if you don’t?’

  ‘I expect you’ll find someone.’ Every time he got too close, she instinctively drew back. Then kicked herself for it, because being close to Hugo was the best thing that she could imagine.

  The car slowed a little and Hugo nudged her. On the pavement a couple of women were waving at them, and Hugo waved back.

  ‘Wave...’ he murmured to Nell.

  ‘They’re not interested in me.’

  ‘No?’ He turned to her in disbelief. ‘Try waving and see what happens.’

  Ted had obligingly bought the car almost to a halt. Nell leaned across and waved at the women, feeling rather stupid, but they reacted by waving even more enthusiastically. A small boy standing next to them on the pavement started to jump up and down, catching their excitement.

  Hugo caught her hand up, pressing it to his lips, and the women laughed, nudging each other. Ted waited a few more seconds and then applied his foot to the accelerator.

  ‘That’s nice of them.’ Nell watched through the back window as the car moved away.

  Hugo nodded. If only the women knew that this was all a sham. Nell sat back in her seat, suddenly feeling dispirited.

  ‘By the way, I’ve postponed my meeting for tomorrow. We can fit it in next week.’ Perhaps he felt the same. Hugo seemed keen to change the subject.

  ‘Are you sure you’re feeling all right?’

  ‘I feel fine. But another day’s rest couldn’t hurt.’

  Nell had assumed that as soon as Hugo got out of hospital he’d be as unstoppable as the last time. ‘Have you got something up your sleeve, Hugo? You’re not going to tell me you’re going paragliding or something?’

  ‘No. Seems you’ve got me under control...’

  Nell snorted with laughter. ‘Right. That’s never going to happen, Hugo.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HUGO HAD TO admit that these few days’ rest had done him good. He felt stronger, less fearful, and less of a slave to the imagined beat of his heart.

  But now it was time to get back to work, and Nell accompanied him to a presentation to the board of directors in the most prestigious of the few high-rise offices in Montarino. It was one of their most important meetings so far, and Nell seemed to dwindle into the background, hanging on to his arm and supporting him. It wasn’t until he’d got up to speak that the idea in Hugo’s head became a reality.

  He thanked everyone for being there, and reiterated the importance of the project that they were being asked to help sponsor. Then he introduced Nell, and sat down.

  She kicked him so hard under the table that he jumped. But she got to her feet, smiling. She made a charming apology for any shortcomings in her French, making a joke about having to learn so that she knew what her fiancé was up to. Everyone laughed, and then the lights went down and the first of the images from Hugo’s laptop appeared, projected onto the wall. She then proceeded to make a presentation of such vigour and freshness that even Hugo felt he would have given anything that she asked of him.

  She waited until they were in the car again before she turned on him. Hugo shifted his feet away from her, just in case she decided to kick him again.

  ‘What are you doing, Hugo?’

  ‘I’m doing the best I can for the clinic. You had them eating out of your hand.’

  ‘You!’ She pointed at him accusingly. ‘They wanted you, not me.’

  ‘Maybe they went in wanting me. Unless I’m very much mistaken, by the time you’d finished with them, they’d forgotten about tax deductions and publicity, and they wanted a clinic.’

  ‘You might have told me first.’

  ‘Yes, you made that plain. I’m sorry, I was improvising.’

  ‘Well, don’t do it again, Hugo. Next time you tell me what you’re about to do.’

  The pink of her cheeks, Nell’s passion, and her unerring sense of how to capture hearts. He’d do anything not to see that subsumed into the quiet, submissive woman who had walked next to him into the building.

  ‘All right. So that means you’ll do the next presentation?’

  ‘This is your project, Hugo. You’re the boss.’

  He didn’t want to be the boss, in N
ell’s eyes. He wasn’t someone whose opinion of her might drag her down and make her feel any less than she was. But on the other hand, being the boss did give him the opportunity to build her up, and he decided to let go of the question of who was supposed to be telling who to do what.

  ‘So I’m making a decision. You do it better than I can.’ He leaned forward, hoping for some support. ‘Don’t you think so, Ted?’

  Ted was keeping his eye on the road and didn’t turn. ‘I didn’t catch that...’

  Right. Ted was keeping out of it. Wise move, probably. But if Hugo was venturing where angels feared to tread, he wasn’t going to back down now. It meant far too much to him.

  ‘So you’ll do the presentation tomorrow?’

  Nell was trying to glare at him, but she couldn’t quite conceal her pleasure. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  Hugo closed his eyes, trying to conceal his pleasure. Things were going in the right direction.

  * * *

  ‘Ted... Ted, look...’

  ‘I see it.’ The car slowed suddenly, and Hugo opened his eyes. For a moment he remembered the pain from the stun gun, and almost threw his arm protectively across Nell before he realised that they weren’t under any threat.

  At the side of the road, a car had veered off the road, breaking through a fence that bounded a field. Another car, which had stopped at the side of the road, was crushed at the front right-hand side and a young man was climbing slowly out of it.

  Almost before Ted had brought the car to a halt, Nell had the door on her side open and was climbing out. Wobbling a little on her high heels, she ran over to the man, calling to him and then changing direction, making for the car that was in the ditch.

  ‘We’re going to need the first aid kit, Ted.’ Hugo climbed out of the car, knowing that Ted would follow him with the medical kit they carried in the boot. He ran over to where Nell was sliding precariously down a grassy slope towards the stricken car.

  This time, he supported her. Reaching out with his right hand, he grabbed her elbow to stop her from falling as they both hurried towards the car. As they approached, Hugo could hear the sound of a baby crying.

  Nell carefully pulled the driver’s door of the car open. A woman was sitting inside, trapped by the crushed dashboard and steering column. Mercifully, it seemed that she was just unconscious.

  ‘I’ll take her.’ Hugo knelt down on the grass, reaching in with his good arm to find a pulse. ‘You get the baby out.’

  ‘Right.’ Nell opened the back door of the car, reaching in towards the baby carrier in the back seat. It was still firmly strapped in, and that seemed to have saved the child from any injury if the noise it was making was anything to go by. But the angle of the car made it awkward to get to.

  She crawled inside without a moment’s hesitation. Hugo felt a flash of regret, wanting to be the one to go inside the car but knowing that Nell was the better choice right now. He bit back his feelings, turning quickly to the woman in the front seat.

  Behind him, he could hear Ted calling for an ambulance and a fire and rescue truck. Then another voice came to his ears.

  ‘Is she all right?’

  The man from the other car was standing right behind him, blood beginning to trickle down the side of his face. Ted ended his call and stepped forward, ushering him away. He would check him over for any signs of serious injury, and with the information that Hugo had now, he had to concentrate on the woman. He could see blood beginning to pool under the seat but couldn’t see where it was coming from. She was pinned down by the infrastructure of the car, and even if she hadn’t been, Hugo was loath to move her until the ambulance arrived with the proper equipment.

  The woman was breathing but still unconscious. Carefully he pushed his fingers between the seat and her legs, but there was no blood there. The bleeding must have been further down, and he couldn’t see her lower legs. Quickly checking her chest and stomach, Hugo turned his attention to craning inside, cursing quietly as he felt his left shoulder pull. There was no time to think about that right now.

  * * *

  Nell climbed inside the car, sliding across to where the baby was secured on the back seat. Fumbling with the nylon mesh straps, she found that one of them had become caught when the front passenger seat had been forced back a few inches in the crash.

  But it seemed that the baby was unhurt. Quickly she crawled backwards out of the car, opening the medical kit that Ted had brought and searching for a scalpel. It registered at the back of her mind that as car medical kits went, this one was particularly well-stocked and it looked as if Hugo might need it. The woman in the front seat of the car still wasn’t moving.

  She climbed back inside the car, cutting the straps around the car seat with the scalpel and carefully pulling the car seat free. Laying it down on the grass, she examined the baby for any signs of injury.

  ‘Okay?’ Ted’s voice behind her sounded as if he was fighting with a lump in his throat.

  ‘Yes, I can’t see any injuries at all.’ The baby was still screaming, tears squeezing their way down its crumpled little face, and Nell tried vainly to comfort it. ‘How’s the driver of the other car?’

  ‘Okay. Cut on his head. Someone else has stopped and they’re sitting with him.’

  ‘Right. Let me know if things change. Can you...um...do anything...?’ She gestured towards the carrier. If the baby and the other driver were all right, she should help Hugo.

  ‘Yep.’ Ted leaned over the car seat, his thick fingers suddenly tender as he smoothed the child’s head then brushed his finger against the palm of its hand. It opened its eyes, still grizzling fitfully.

  ‘Great. Nice one.’ Nell assumed the manoeuvre wasn’t in any royal bodyguard’s manual, so it must be in the one that came with being a father of three girls. Ted nodded, picking up the seat and carrying it over to their car.

  ‘How is she?’ Hugo was bending down awkwardly, trying to see into the footwell of the car.

  ‘Airways are clear, and I can see no signs of internal bleeding. She’s injured somewhere, though, and I think it’s her lower legs.’

  ‘Let me see.’ Nell pressed her lips together. Implying that he couldn’t do his job was a bitter pill for Hugo to swallow, but right now their feelings didn’t matter. They had to make the right decisions for the woman in the car.

  Hugo stepped back immediately. ‘Can you see anything?’

  ‘No, not from this side. I’ll see if I can get to her from the passenger seat.’ Nell straightened up and started to walk around the car. Hugo couldn’t do this. He was bigger than she was, and although his shoulder was improving, it still hampered his movement.

  ‘Be careful...’ He shot her an admonishing glance and Nell nodded.

  It was a struggle to get the passenger door open, but she managed it. Climbing inside, she bent down, trying to see through the twisted metal.

  ‘I can see her legs. She’s pinned but...yes, I can see where the blood’s coming from.’ Nell stretched out, gripping the woman’s leg just below the knee, and the blood that was coming from a large gash on her lower leg began to ooze slower.

  ‘Can you reach the wound?’

  ‘Just about. Pass me some dressings, would you? I think I can pack a temporary dressing around it, just to stop the bleeding a bit, until they get her out.’

  Hugo leaned in to pass the dressings to her. ‘Give me the ring. If you get it caught on something...’

  ‘Yes. Thanks.’ Nell had seen de-gloved fingers, where rings had been caught in machinery, during her stint in A & E, when she’d been training. She pulled the bulky ring off and put it into Hugo’s hand. ‘How’s she doing?’

  ‘Vital signs seem steady.’

  Nell wriggled forward, leaning down to apply the dressings to the woman’s wound. It was awkward work in the confined space, and she ended up half on the seat an
d half lying in the footwell. As she finished, she saw the woman’s foot twitch.

  ‘She’s moving, Hugo. Might be coming round...’ Hugo would need to try and keep her still, and that wasn’t going to be easy.

  ‘Okay. I’ve got her.’

  Nell heard the woman moan, and what sounded like an attempt at words. Hugo’s arm across her legs was keeping her relatively still, and he was talking to her, replying to her incoherent cries.

  ‘Your baby’s safe and well. I’m a doctor and we’ll have you out of here soon. Try to stay still for me.’

  The woman’s leg moved a little and she screamed in pain. Hugo quieted her and Nell heard the sound of weeping.

  ‘All right, sweetheart. Hold on to me.’

  A siren, which cut off abruptly, heralded the arrival of the ambulance. Then voices, telling Hugo to move back, which changed their tone considerably when he turned around and the ambulance crew recognised him. He updated them on the woman’s condition and asked what analgesics they carried with them. After some conversation he turned back to Nell.

  ‘I’m giving her a shot of morphine. Are you all right down there?’

  ‘Yep.’ Nell’s back was twisted uncomfortably and her arm was beginning to ache. But she didn’t dare move in case the dressings were dislodged and the woman started bleeding again.

  After what seemed like an age, but was probably only a few minutes, Nell heard another siren. She heard Hugo talking to someone and squeezed her eyes closed, concentrating on holding the dressings in place and ignoring the ache in her back. Hugo would take care of things. He would deal with it, and the woman would be brought safely out of the car.

  ‘Okay... Nell, are you still with us?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Good job. They’ve decided to take the roof of the car off.’

  ‘Right.’ Nell had expected that. It made it easier and safer to move someone who might have a spinal injury. And the Jaws of Life should make short work of the car’s structure and allow the rescuers to peel the car roof off.

  ‘It looks as if once that’s done, they’ll be able to free her legs easily. Shouldn’t take too long.’