A Gem of a Girl

A Gem of a Girl
Betty Neels

Mills & Boon presents the complete Betty Neels collection. Timeless tales of heart-warming romance by one of the world’s best-loved romance authors.The angel and the professorGemma Prentice might have no looks to speak of, but she had something better – a kind and conscientious nature, which made her a wonderful nurse – to her patients she really was a ‘gem’ of a girl!So when she unexpectedly found herself out of work, the distinguished Dutch professor, Ross Dieperink van Berhuys, unhesitatingly asked her to accompany him to Holland to look after his invalid sister. Gemma accepted – even though she knew Ross was never likely to see her any more intimately than as his sister’s nurse…

“She called me a jolie laide, which is so much nicer than being told that one is plain.”

Ross put his head on one side and took a long look at her. “There is a difference, you know.” His voice was very deliberate, his eyes on her face. “No looks, wasn’t it—too plump and far too good.”

She went a very bright pink. “There’s no need…” she began.

“Oh, yes, there is, even if it’s only to make you see that you mustn’t always believe what you hear. What you are, in actual fact, is jolie laide, just as Great-Aunt said, and although this may surprise you, men like plump girls—they like good girls, too, Gemma, and don’t you forget that.”

About the Author

Romance readers around the world were sad to note the passing of BETTY NEELS in June 2001. Her career spanned thirty years, and she continued to write into her ninetieth year. To her millions of fans, Betty epitomized the romance writer, and yet she began writing almost by accident. She had retired from nursing, but her inquiring mind still sought stimulation. Her new career was born when she heard a lady in her local library bemoaning the lack of good romance novels. Betty’s first book, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, was published in 1969, and she eventually completed 134 books. Her novels offer a reassuring warmth that was very much a part of her own personality. She was a wonderful writer, and she will be greatly missed. Her spirit and genuine talent will live on in all her stories.

A Gem of a Girl

Betty Neels

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

GEMMA was at the top of the house making beds when she heard the ominous shattering of glass. The boys were in the garden, kicking a football around, and she wondered which window it was this time. She mitred a corner neatly; news, especially bad news, travelled fast, someone would be along to tell her quickly enough.

It was George, her youngest, ten-year-old brother, who climbed the three flights of stairs to break it to her that it was Doctor Gibbons’ kitchen window. ‘And I kicked it,’ he added with a mixture of pride at the length of the shot and apprehension as to what she would say.

‘A splendid kick, no doubt,’ declared his eldest sister robustly, and shook a pillow very much in the manner of a small terrier shaking a rat. ‘But you’ll all have to help pay for the damage, and you, my dear, will go round to Doctor Gibbons when he gets back from his rounds, and apologise. I’ll telephone Mr Bates in a minute and see if he’ll come round and measure up the glass right away—perhaps he might even get a new pane in before Doctor Gibbons gets back. But you’ll still have to apologise.’

‘For a girl,’ said George, ‘you’re not half bad.’ With which praise he stomped downstairs again. She heard him in the garden a few moments later, arguing with his brothers as to the sum of money required for the new window pane.

Gemma finished the bed and went, in her turn, downstairs. She was a smallish girl and a little plump, but nicely so. Her hair, hanging down her back in a brown tide loosely tied with a ribbon, was the same soft brown as her eyes and although she was on the plain side, when she smiled or became animated, the plainness was lost in its charm. She was almost twenty-five years old and looked a good deal younger.

She went straight to the telephone and besought Mr Bates to come as soon as he could, and then retired to the old-fashioned wash-house adjoining the kitchen, and started on the week’s wash; a fearsome pile, but she was used to that; with three boys in the family and two sisters younger than herself, there was naturally a vast amount.

She eyed it with a jaundiced expression; it was a pity that Mandy and Phil had gone to friends for the weekend—of course she could leave it until the next day when they would be back, but the Easter holidays ended within a day or so and it seemed mean to blight their last freedom with a lot of hard work. Besides, it was a lovely day, with just the right kind of wind. She battled with the elderly washing machine and then left it to thunder and rumble while she went to the kitchen to make coffee. It would be a relief when Cousin Maud got back from her visit to her brother in New Zealand—five weeks, reflected Gemma, of holding down a full-time job, running the old-fashioned house and keeping an eye on her brothers and sisters was just about her limit; thank heaven there was only another week to go—less than a week now, she remembered happily as she went to stop the machine. She hauled out the wash and shoved it into the rinser, set it going and then filled the tub up again. The two motors, working in unison, made the most fearful noise, but she was used to that, merely reiterating to herself the promise that one day she and Cousin Maud would get another washing machine, as she went back to the kitchen to drink her coffee.

She was back in the wash-house, hauling out the first batch in blissful silence, when a faint sound behind her caused her to say: ‘James? or is it William or James? take some money from the housekeeping jar and get some sausages from Mr Potter—and don’t waste time arguing about going if you want your dinner today.’

She was tugging at a damp sheet as she spoke, and when a strange voice, deep and leisurely, said: ‘I’m afraid I’m not the person you think—my name’s Ross,’ she dropped it to shoot a startled look over her shoulder.

She had never seen the man standing in the doorway; a tall, broad-shouldered individual, with pale hair which was probably silver as well, she wasn’t near enough to see, but she could see his eyes, blue and heavy-lidded below thick, pale brows. He had a high-bridged nose and a firm mouth and he was smiling. He was a very good-looking man and she stared for a moment. He bore her look with equanimity, laid a football which he had been carrying on a pile of sacks by the door and remarked: ‘Your brothers’, I believe,’ and waited for her to speak.

Gemma disentangled the sheet and heaved it into the basket at her feet. ‘You’re from Doctor Gibbons,’ she stated, and frowned a little, ‘but you can’t be the foreign professor who’s staying with him; the boys said he was short and fat and couldn’t speak English…’

Her visitor shrugged. ‘Boys,’ he remarked, ‘I’ve been one myself.’ He smiled again and Gemma wiped a wet hand down the front of her jersey and skipped across the floor between them.

‘I’m Gemma Prentice,’ she told him, and held out a hand, to have it engulfed in his.

‘Ross Dieperink van Berhuys.’

‘So you are the professor. Do you mind if I just call you that—your name’s rather a mouthful, isn’t it? For a foreigner, I mean,’ she added politely. ‘And thank you for bringing the football. I do hope it didn’t disturb you—the window being broken, I mean. They all go back to school tomorrow.’ She gave him an unaffected smile. ‘Would you like some coffee? If you wouldn’t mind waiting while I load this machine again…?’

His thank you was grave and his offer to hang out the clothes ready for the line was unexpected; she accepted it without arguing and he went into the large untidy garden with the basket while she switched on once more and went back into the kitchen to fetch another mug.

The coffee was freshly ground and carefully made; she and Cousin Maud cooked and baked between them and they both turned out what her older relation called good wholesome food; the coffee she poured now smelled delicious and tasted as good as it smelled. Her unexpected guest, sitting comfortably in an old Windsor chair, remarked upon the fact before asking gently: ‘And you, Miss Prentice?’

‘Me what?’ asked Gemma, all niceties of grammar lost; if the boys had disappeared—and heaven knew they always did when there was a chore to be done—she would have to leave the washing and fetch the sausages herself, which meant she wouldn’t get her work done before dinner. She frowned, and the professor persisted placidly, ‘The sausages bother you, perhaps?’

She gave him a surprised look. ‘How did you know?’ She refilled their mugs. ‘Well, actually, yes…’ She explained briefly, adding obscurely: ‘I expect you’re a psychiatrist—they always know things.’

Her companion turned a chuckle into a cough. ‘Er—I suppose they do, but you did mention sausages…I’m an endocrinologist, myself.’

He got to his feet, his head coming dangerously near the low ceiling. ‘I should be delighted to fetch these sausages for you while you finish your washing.’

He had gone before she could thank him, and was back again in a very short time, to put his parcel on the kitchen table and observe: ‘There is someone repairing the window.’

‘Oh, good—that’ll be Mr Bates. I asked him to come round as soon as he could—it’s so much nicer for Doctor Gibbons if he doesn’t see the damage.’

The professor’s lids drooped over amused eyes, but his voice, as he agreed with this praiseworthy sentiment, was as placid as ever.

‘I daresay you find it difficult to understand,’ she went on chattily, ‘but it’s impossible not to break a window now and then when there are three boys about the place.’

Her companion made himself comfortable on the edge of the kitchen table. ‘I don’t find it in the least difficult,’ he protested, ‘I’m the eldest of six, myself.’

Gemma flung the last of the washing into the basket. Somehow it was hard to imagine this not so very young man in his elegant casual clothes being the eldest of a large family—and they would surely all be grown-up.

Just as though she had spoken her thoughts out loud, her companion went on smoothly: ‘I’m thirty-seven, my youngest sister is not quite eighteen.’