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Phoebe found herself apologizing. “I’m sorry—I went to sleep over my book.” She added, in the hope that it might put things right, “I didn’t mean to wait up for you.”
His cool voice chilled her. “No? I hardly expect you to be a wife who checks on every breath her husband takes.”
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‘Nurse Creswell, your aunt, Miss Kate Mason, is ill. She has asked her doctor to send for you—apparently you are her only relative.’ She gave Phoebe an accusing look as though that was her fault. ‘She feels most strongly that your place is by her side so she may be nursed back to health. I should add, Nurse, that your aunt is suffering from chronic bronchitis and crippling arthritis and is unlikely to regain a state of health when she will be unable to do without your care. It means, of course, that you will have to give up your training for at least the immediate future.’
Phoebe stared at the Tartar’s cold eyes while she digested this information. Here was help not quite what she would have wished for, but a loophole of escape. Aunt Kate was a holy terror; dictatorial and on the mean side, she had ignored her family for years and Phoebe, the last member of it left, hadn’t seen her for some time. So like Aunt Kate, she mused, to turn a cold shoulder on the family and then demand help as though it was her right. But it was an escape…
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