In The Venetian's Bed

‘A nebuliser. It delivers the medicine in a fine mist so the patient can breathe it in without it disturbing them.’

‘Without it disturbing them?’ Nell shuddered as she stared at the mask on Molly’s face, the coarse green elastic binding her fine baby hair to her moist skin. The noise from the machine was enough to disturb anyone. But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? Nothing was going to disturb Molly; nothing could disturb her while she was in this condition.

The sooner they arrived at the hospital the sooner she could breathe easily again, Nell realised. Or maybe not even then. Maybe this man was representative of the type of cold-hearted individual she was going to find there. Something inside her said, if she could just touch Molly, give her love…

‘I won’t disturb her, and I won’t pull anything out.’

She suffered his scrutiny in silence, holding herself together in the hope of passing his test.

‘All right,’ he agreed finally and, Nell guessed, reluctantly. ‘I’ll lift her onto your knee and then you can hold her while she inhales the medicine.’

‘Thank you.’ She was so grateful, all her feelings of hostility towards him started to fade. ‘Does she need the drip as well as the mask?’ Nell tried not to let her gaze linger on the fine tubing hanging from Molly’s slender arm. Molly had never needed a plaster to cover an abrasion in her whole life, let alone required a needle to be inserted in her arm…

‘It’s the most efficient way I know to administer antibiotics and rehydrate the body.’

The body? Nell gasped involuntarily.

‘Your daughter,’ he corrected himself tersely.

Had she got through to him? His dispassionate voice suggested otherwise. ‘The most efficient way you know? How can I be sure you know what you’re doing?’

‘You can’t. I’ll have to take her off you if you are going to get upset.’

‘Don’t threaten me! I’ve got no intention of breaking down, I can assure you,’ she managed coldly, staring into his eyes until he looked away. Then she drank in every nuance of Molly’s changed appearance. Rather than its usual porcelain perfection, Molly’s complexion was ashen and her lips were tinged with blue…like her nails. She looked up again. ‘I think it’s time you told me what’s going on.’

‘When I know I’ll tell you, and not before.’

He was not prepared to deliver a diagnosis that might be disproved once the child was admitted to hospital, where all the necessary tests could be carried out, nor was he accustomed to being harangued—let alone by some pixie-haired termagant with eyes like cobalt searchlights. He’d been looking forward to some hard-won down time when the call came through from Marco, the gondolier. He hadn’t had chance to eat or to drink all day, let alone take a shower, or shave. And his reward for a being a good citizen? A woman who scrutinised his every move as if he were a first-year med student!

If the child hadn’t been so sick he would have left her in the care of his very competent colleagues on board the ambulance. Then her mother could have driven them crazy with her questions. His focus was always on the people under his care. Relatives and friends were the province of his nurses. They acted as intermediaries for him, shielding him from distraction—just the way he liked it. If Nell Foster wanted more—well, she couldn’t have it.

But something made him wonder about her backstory. Why had Ms Foster stripped every bit of feminine allure from her appearance? There wasn’t a suggestion of femininity in her baggy clothes, and the spiky hair was a good indicator for her personality. Her face looked as though it had never seen make-up, and yet her eyebrows were beautifully shaped, and her eyes, fringed with long black lashes, were beautiful. Her teeth were film-star perfect—a fact he could attest to with confidence, since she drew back her lips to snarl at him as many times as most people cast deferential smiles in his direction.

Deferential, her? That was a laugh! She evidently hated doctors, mistrusted them…and him most of all. In this situation he would have expected her to be grateful, hanging on his every word, but she couldn’t have made it plainer that she considered him to be a threat rather than a help to her daughter.

Nevertheless, she stirred feelings in him he was finding it hard to ignore. Her attitude irritated him, he was affronted by it, but there was something more, something electric…But those feelings were not only unusual for him, they were also forbidden to a man in his position. It was more than his fledgling career was worth to…

To what? Sleep with Nell Foster?

That was what he’d wanted to do since the first moment he’d set eyes on her—and therefore he had to put distance between them the moment he could.

CHAPTER THREE

‘I’M STILL waiting for an explanation,’ she reminded him.

He watched her glance sweep across the lines and tubes attached to his patient. Nell Foster was continually harassing him and questioning his judgement. Part of him resented it, part admired her spirit, but most of all he was concerned for the child lying so still and silent on the stretcher. He didn’t want to show the mother how concerned he was. She was steadier now and he wanted to keep her that way. Too much knowledge would frighten her, too little might raise her hopes.

He found himself assessing her covertly. The mother was very different from the child. Nell Foster was robust, her features strong and clearly defined. It followed that the child must take after her father, which opened up more questions. He made himself stop and turn back to his charge. The little girl’s eyes were as vividly blue as her mother’s—he’d seen that when he checked her over. But was her gaze half as direct? He could only hope she was a fighter like her mother.

‘I’m still waiting!’

He turned his professional face to Nell. Her wide, intelligent gaze assured him she wouldn’t let up. It also hit him forcibly in the chest. Clearing his throat, he gazed at the roof of the cabin and launched into a reasonable explanation without giving too much detail. ‘There’s some congestion in your daughter’s lungs. I’m trying to ease her breathing.’ He stopped there, but even this was a first. He never divulged information piecemeal, never uttered a word that wasn’t backed up by hard fact. There was a whole range of tests he would have to carry out before he could be sure of his diagnosis…

‘When will you be able to give me some real answers?’

He had to look at her. ‘Soon, I hope.’

‘You hope?’ She was scathing. ‘How soon can we get someone else to look at Molly—someone who can do more than hope?’

Her mouth was set in a firm line, which drew his attention to her lips. He ignored the insult, and tried to ignore her lips. He brought professionalism to bear like a steel curtain, cutting Nell Foster out of the picture. ‘At the very least, I’ll need an X-ray to confirm my diagnosis. The drugs should help—’

‘Should?’

‘Medicine is not an exact science.’ He couldn’t believe how pompous he sounded.

‘So why not leave her alone until we reach the hospital? Anyone can see she’s sleeping. I think it would be better if you left her to rest rather than pumping her full of drugs before you know what you’re doing!’

‘Oh, do you?’ He’d had enough, but bit his tongue and focused on the child lying on the stretcher. How could he tell Nell Foster that her daughter wasn’t sleeping, but unconscious?

‘If Molly is having difficulty breathing,’ Nell persisted, ‘we should be able to hear something. Coughing, wheezing.’ Her eyes sharpened with certainty, and as he watched hope flood her face something rapped again on the stone he called a heart.

‘Nell, stop this!’

He didn’t know why he’d used her first name in such an emotional and unprofessional way, but the strange thing was that when Nell Foster’s eyes filled with tears his stung too. And it was not just tiredness that made him empathise with his patient’s mother—there was something more, something he had never let through before. There was fragility behind her bravado; he could hear it like a silent cry of desperation. ‘It isn’t always that simple,’ he said carefully. Most people would be content with that.

He should have known. ‘Go on,’ Nell said, firming her jaw.

He looked at her and measured her strength. It didn’t fall short, and that was something he could connect to. He owed it to her to be straight. ‘Sometimes, when things are really serious, there’s very little to hear at all.’

‘Really serious?’ She looked at him and he saw her spirit crumple; the fire went out of her, which again, incredibly, hurt him like hell.

What was this? What was happening to him? He never got involved emotionally. It was one of the first things he’d learned at med school—the moment you became prey to your emotions you were no use to anyone, least of all your patient. ‘Try not to get upset.’ He knew it sounded trite but he didn’t know what to say, had never felt like this before. He longed to escape the suffocating tension swirling round the cabin.

‘What do you suggest?’ Her voice was shaking with emotion. ‘Am I supposed to remove myself to some emotion-free zone when I’ve just been told my daughter is dangerously ill?’

He could think of nothing to say.

‘Luca?’ she pressed.

Her use of his first name gave him a jolt, even though he knew it was merely a measure of her desperation. ‘We can only wait now,’ he said honestly.

Did he really think she was going to crumble? Nell wondered, holding Luca’s gaze. Maybe at one time in her life she might have broken down, but not now. The turning point had been Molly’s birth. She’d had something to fight for since then. She would keep this vigil with him, keep it and will Molly well again.

Nell forced herself to look at everything dispassionately, to listen and become accustomed to all the alien sights and sounds: the nebuliser humming, the launch’s engines throbbing, the muted Italian exchanges rising and falling expressively around her like a song.

‘Andiamo!’

Luca barked out his instruction as they turned into the wide stretch of water that formed the main thoroughfare through Venice. It jolted Nell back to reality, made it hard to cling to the little life-raft of calm she had formed in her mind. She clutched the seat, ready now as the launch tipped at an even steeper angle. But the momentum jerked her forward and she was only stopped from slipping off the seat by Luca’s whip-fast reactions.