Читать книгу A Nurse In Crisis - Lilian Darcy, Lilian Darcy - Страница 7

‘SORRY…I’m going to interfere, Dad,’ Rebecca said.

‘Go ahead,’ Marshall invited.

He’d known this had been coming when she’d suggested they have lunch together, but he’d accepted her suggestion with an innocent face and had proposed the local Asian noodle house. Now Rebecca was toying with a plate of Pad Thai and making a very obvious effort to be calm and pleasant.

He waited as she gathered her thoughts, and wondered with a distant sort of curiosity about how he was going to react to what she had to say.

She was still struggling.

‘It’s about Aimee, isn’t it?’ he prompted helpfully.

‘Yes.’ She looked up. The noodles were still untouched. ‘And it’s not that I don’t like her. You know that. She seems very nice and, of course, I’ve known her for longer than you have, since we met when we were both working at Southshore Health Centre.’

‘But,’ he supplied, still helpfully.

‘Just…be careful. Perhaps you don’t need me to say it. Probably you don’t. You’re an experienced, sensible man.’

‘Thank you!’

‘But I know how hard it can be when two people are working together. Harry and I nearly didn’t reach the finish line a couple of times. Well, more than a couple! And it’s not as if you’re two carefree young lovers, who—’

‘We’re not lovers at all,’ Marsh cut in deliberately, feeling a sudden need to assert himself. He wasn’t a fool when it came to human relationships, and he was a private man. This was his business.

His daughter’s uncomfortable shifting in her seat and sudden apparently starving attention to her noodles gave him a pinch of satisfaction. Rebecca had made her case, he now considered.

‘I take your point, Rebecca,’ he went on, making a conscious effort not to increase the gulf in understanding between them. ‘And, of course, you’re right. To a certain extent. Yes, we have more issues to consider at this point in our lives than a couple of twenty-year-olds. But I hope, as you say, that we have more good sense as well. I’m not sure what’s happening yet, and I don’t want office memos to be issued on the subject.’

‘Of course not! I won’t say a word. Even to Harry, if you don’t want me to,’ she promised extravagantly.

‘I’d prefer that, yes, at this stage.’ He nodded, and saw her eyes widen a little.

She hadn’t expected him to take her up on that overenthusiastic offer to keep a secret from her own husband, but he really didn’t want it gossiped about for the moment, not even between husband and wife, and if that didn’t convince her that he was being appropriately cautious, what would?

Everyone in the practice knew that they had been away for the weekend recently, of course, but he’d presented the event as what it essentially had been—a group of friends enjoying two days of winter sports, not a romantic interlude.

‘You know I’m only saying this because I care about you, Dad,’ Rebecca said, her voice suddenly husky with tenderness.

And he did know it, too. As well, he was guiltily aware that he’d once interfered in her relationship with Harry for exactly the same reason, and the result might have been disastrous on that occasion if Harry hadn’t completely ignored his sage advice.

‘Shall we change the subject?’ he offered, and she greeted the suggestion with relief.

Marshall wondered later, as they returned to the surgery together, if she realised how relentlessly her words were laying siege to his inner equilibrium. In many ways he was as wary as his daughter about this new thing that had so unexpectedly entered his life. Rebecca had no reason to accuse him of not being careful.

If dwelling on things, and replaying conversations—and silences—over and over in one’s mind were signs of being careful, then he was being positively obsessive. That stupid business of Aimee’s wineglass the other night, for example. He could have kicked himself for that unforgivable moment of hesitation.

He could tell she was afraid he suspected her of being a secret drinker, and he didn’t. She’d given him no reason to. Not at the snowfields or at work here in Sydney. Not during the three times they’d been out together. So why that moment of suspicion, flashing through his mind, that he hadn’t managed to hide?

‘Because I’m a doctor, I suppose,’ he concluded, muttering to himself. ‘I’ve had patients who did drink, when sometimes it was the last thing you’d suspect.’

Like fifty-eight-year-old Joan Allyson, who was first on his list this afternoon.

‘How are you, Joan?’ he greeted her, as she sat down in the chair opposite his desk.

‘Fighting fit, I hope,’ she answered, and she looked it. Short grey hair, trim, energetic figure, dangling earrings of a pretty red to match her red trouser suit. She had come straight from work, and was due back there after her appointment. ‘I’m just here for my annual check-up.’

She’d been very good about such things for the past seven years, but it hadn’t always been that way. She’d started drinking heavily about fifteen years ago, after a painful divorce, but she’d hidden it so carefully at first that no one had suspected. Not her grown-up children. Not her colleagues at the insurance company where she’d worked. Not even her family doctor!

Until she’d turned up one day with gout, indicated by her symptoms of pain and confirmed by the test Marshall had done, revealing high uric acid levels. At that point he’d suspected very strongly, but his questions on the issue had brought only flat denial.

After that, it had got worse and everyone knew. Her two children had each come to see him in turn to ask if there was anything they or he could do. Without her willingness to admit to a problem, of course, there hadn’t been. Her health had deteriorated. There had been more severe episodes of gout, and treatment for venereal disease. She’d lost her job.

Finally, and he still wasn’t sure what the trigger had been, although he suspected another one-night stand which had turned bad, she’d come to him of her own volition and had asked for help. She’d heard of a drug called Antabuse, which caused any alcohol intake to create strong feelings of nausea, and she’d been keen to try it. He’d prescribed it for her, but had also urged her to join Alcoholics Anonymous.

Since then, she hadn’t looked back. Now, seven years since her last drink, she had a well-paid and satisfying job in the administration of the Sydney Opera House, her health was good and on this visit she had some news as well.

‘I’m particularly hoping everything’s all right today,’ she said, ‘because I’m getting married in six weeks.’

‘Oh, Joan, that’s marvellous!’ Marshall said, and meant it. ‘Congratulations!’

She beamed, and the warmth in the room was palpable. Marshall was honest enough to admit to himself that if it hadn’t been for the advent of Aimee in his life, he wouldn’t be basking quite so strongly in the reflected glow of Joan’s obvious happiness. But, to be truthful, he did find it very encouraging that love could run smoothly on the far side of fifty!

‘He’s a violinist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra,’ Joan went on. ‘And he’s got an adventurous spirit. We’re going to East Africa for our honeymoon. Will we need any vaccinations?’

‘Yes, I’m sure you will, but I’ll have to check the most up-to-date information,’ he told her. ‘Why don’t you make an appointment for next week? I’ll make sure I have what you need in stock. Meanwhile…’

He gave her a thorough check-up, including a pap smear and a good listen to her chest and heart. In a minute, Aimee would take some blood to be tested for lipids, and he finished his own part of the check-up with, ‘How long since you had a mammogram—do you remember?’

She made a face. ‘I was afraid you’d say that.’

‘I can easily check it in your file.’

‘No, I know perfectly well I’m due for one.’

‘The mammography screening unit at Southshore Health Centre would be the easiest place to go.’

‘Will I have to wait? I’d really like to have it over with before the wedding.’

‘That shouldn’t be a problem. But do you really hate it so much? It doesn’t hurt very badly, does it?’

‘Spoken like a man,’ she teased. ‘Yes, it does hurt a fair bit, especially if you have largish breasts, on top of which it’s not remotely dignified. Oh, I’ll be glad I’ve done it, but it’s not exactly something to look forward to.’

‘I suppose not,’ he agreed on a laugh. ‘Rest assured, though, we males of the species have our own unique and painful medical indignities to endure!’

‘True,’ she conceded.

The rest of the afternoon’s patients were routine, with some more interesting than others. After over twenty years in general practice, Marshall was used to the rhythm and flow of the work. If he’d been a composer, he could have written a piece of music to express it.

Intertwining pastoral melodies for all those rather benign things like children’s ear infections, annual flu shots, blood-pressure measurements. The interest lay in the way he got to know his patients year by year as he watched the wheels of their lives slowly turn. Patients he’d known as children were now grown up and married with families of their own. Patients he’d first seen in their fifties were now making decisions about retirement homes.

Then there would be plodding underbeat for the cases that few doctors could find interesting. Patients who came once to have a cut stitched or an ear syringed and were never seen again. People who needed a medical examination for work or insurance purposes and had phoned this practice purely because it was on a list of approved ones in the area.

There would be a burst of joyful song for wanted pregnancies, good test results, serious illnesses cured. And, finally, there’d be the keening of violins for the patients that broke your heart.

Like Hilde Deutschkron. He’d spoken to her surgeon on Tuesday morning. Today was Thursday, and she’d been discharged from the hospital this morning as planned.

After his last office appointment for the day, Marshall drove to her small house several streets back from the beach at Bondi and knocked at the front door.

Mrs Deutschkron’s daughter, Marianne, answered. She was an attractive dark-haired woman of about thirty-eight, and Marshall had seen her a few times years ago for minor illnesses when she’d still been living at home. Since then, she’d led an interesting life as a journalist, with several stints of living and working overseas. She wasn’t married, and he was pleased to find that she’d taken time off work to help her mother convalesce. Mrs Deutschkron’s two sons lived in Melbourne and he knew she got lonely at times.

‘How are you, Marianne?’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you remember me…’

‘Of course I do, Dr Irwin!’ she said with a confident smile. ‘How could I forget the man who came at me with a cauterising thingy that time I had that strange lump on my little finger that kept bleeding if I bumped it?’

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten all about that. We never really decided what it was, did we? The cauterising didn’t work, I remember, and it came back. You had to have it cut out under local anaesthetic at Southshore Hospital.’

‘I’m amazed you remember!’

‘Only because it stumped me, and the doctors at Southshore, too. Did it ever come back after the surgery?’

‘No, but I still have the scar.’ She stuck her little finger up in the air, then lowered her voice and said, ‘Come through. Mum’s on the couch, though I think she should really be in bed. She’s not feeling very good, and she’s anxious to hear your report. Do you have all the results or whatever everyone was waiting for?’

‘Yes, I do,’ he said, following her down the rather dark corridor. ‘Uh, would it be too much trouble to ask for some tea?’

‘Of course not. Straight away?’

‘If you don’t mind.’

Marianne nodded, and he saw that she understood. There was a brief flare of well-schooled alarm in her eyes. Marshall didn’t really need tea, but he wanted to break the news to Mrs Deutschkron alone. He had no doubt she’d need her daughter later, but for those first few moments…

‘Hello, Mrs Deutschkron!’ he said, coming into the thickly decorated sitting-room. There was a floral lounge suite, photos and knick-knacks everywhere, two shelves of books, vases of silk flowers, and all of it immaculately dust-free. ‘Marianne says you’re not feeling too good?’

‘Would you be?’ she retorted weakly. She’d lost weight since he’d last seen her, just before the surgery, and it was starting to show in the loose fit of her clothing, though there had been a time, long before he’d known her, when she had been far, far thinner than this.

‘You have some news for me, don’t you?’ It came out abruptly, coloured by the accent she hadn’t lost even after more than fifty years away from her native Germany.

‘Yes, I do.’ He sat down in the armchair at right angles to the couch where she lay, her legs and torso covered in a mohair blanket. ‘And not good news, I’m afraid.’

He knew she wouldn’t appreciate prevarication. Even his tiny pause now was pounced on.

‘Don’t keep me in suspense, then!’

‘There was cancer throughout your liver, and the surgeon was unable to locate the primary tumour. That means the cancer didn’t originate in the liver. It has metastasised from a primary tumour elsewhere. Chemotherapy is an option for you, but it won’t be a cure. It’ll give you several more months, that’s all. I’m sorry, Hilde, there’s no easy way to say this.’

She’d taken a sharp in-breath as she’d understood the truth, and now she was nodding slowly. ‘I’m dying, then.’

‘Yes. It was a surprise. Had you been feeling more discomfort and pain than you told me about?’

‘Ach! Pain!’ she said dismissively. ‘It’s relative, isn’t it? Where’s Marianne? You sent her off to the kitchen, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Thank you…’

They could both hear the rattle of bone china teacups on their matching saucers, and the sound of cupboard doors opening and shutting. ‘Shall I call her in?’ Marshall asked.

‘No, let her wait for the kettle. I’ll just…digest this.’

She sat in silence, thinking, and he waited, wondering whether to reach out and touch her hand. He decided after a moment that she wouldn’t appreciate it, and stayed where he was.

Then she looked up. ‘So, may I articulate this situation more precisely?’

‘Of course, Hilde. Any questions, anything at all…’

‘I’m seventy-two years old. I am dying from a cancer that has spread throughout my body. I can choose to let death come soon…How soon?’

‘A few months,’ he offered. ‘Three or four, perhaps. It’s very hard to say.’

‘Or, by having a course of chemotherapy, I can live longer. Again, how much longer?’

‘Three or four months more. I’m sorry, it’s so hard to be specific. Everyone is different.’

‘The chemotherapy will make me sick.’

‘Probably.’

‘And I’ll lose my hair.’ She touched the grey knot on top of her head.

‘No, actually, you won’t with this particular treatment.’

‘Ah, a plus! Not that my hair is so magnificent!’

They both smiled a little. In the kitchen, the kettle began to sing. Mrs Deutschkron was silent.

‘I’ve fought death before, you know,’ she said suddenly. ‘In Berlin, in the war, and in a place in Poland which I won’t name!’

‘I know you have.’ He nodded. Of her entire extended family, she had been the only survivor of those nightmare years in Europe, and had come to Australia in 1947, aged twenty.

‘But do I wish to fight it now? That is what I have to decide.’

Marianne came in with teacups, cosy-covered pot, milk, sugar and a plate of biscuits on a tray.

‘What is it you have to decide, Mum?’ she said.

When she heard, she burst into tears.

‘She’s urging her mother to have the treatment, but I’m not sure if that’s best,’ Marshall told Aimee. ‘As you know, a lot of people react very badly to it. I hope Mrs Deutschkron feels able to make her own decision.’

‘Her daughter cares about her?’

‘Oh, very much. Which can make people selfish sometimes.’

‘And the reverse. It can make people sacrifice their own desires and needs.’

‘I have a sense that Mrs Deutschkron is going to think about it all very carefully before she makes up her mind. I’ve told her there’s no rush. She needs to be healed from the surgery first. I’ll wait a few weeks before I press her for a decision.’

‘Yes, it’s not something to rush, is it?’

They stood in silence for a moment, and Aimee felt the sleeve of Marshall’s shirt warm against her bare arm. Although it was only the end of July, this Friday afternoon was sunny and mild, and she’d taken off her light jacket to reveal a black-and-white-striped knit shirt beneath. Zebra stripes. Appropriate for a visit to the zoo.

She hadn’t understood, at first, when Marshall had suggested the idea. ‘Since we’re both off work on Friday afternoon, can I extend the dinner plan we’ve already made to include something else?’ he’d said to her the previous day, catching her during a quiet moment in the corridor at the practice.

‘That would be lovely,’ she’d answered, having had to conceal just how much her heart had jumped with pleasure at the thought of spending more time with him. Quite shamelessly, she hadn’t cared a bit what it was! An invitation to help him fill out his tax return? Delightful! A trip to the local garage to get the spare tyre fixed? A dream come true!

‘I’d like to introduce you to Felix, you see.’

‘Felix…’ she’d echoed blankly. Who was that? Not his son, she knew. A brother? Evidently someone important…

But he’d grinned. ‘Can’t quite call him a friend. More of a protégée.’

‘Ah.’ She’d nodded seriously. A young medical student from a disadvantaged background, perhaps? But that didn’t seem…

‘I sponsor him. The name’s not official, by the way. He’s a black-necked stork at the Taronga Park Zoo. I’ve told him all about you and he’s dying to look you over.’

‘Oh, Marshall!’

Another grin, quite shameless.

‘You really had me going there!’

‘I know, but I’m very fond of the zoo. I’m a “zoo friend”, and a diamond sponsor member. There’s a collared peccary at the Western Plains Zoo with whom I have a special relationship as well.’

‘And what’s his name?’ Aimee had asked, entering into the spirit of the thing.

‘Hers. Calliope.’

‘Felix and Calliope,’ she said. ‘The sort of names one considers calling one’s children, and then doesn’t dare, in suburban Australia, in case they’re teased at school.’

‘Exactly. Will you come?’

‘I’d love to!’

So here they were, watching Felix and the other birds disporting themselves in the still, greenish, dust-covered water of this pond from their viewpoint on the boardwalk bridge that crossed over it. Felix certainly was a handsome fellow, with his long, salmon-pink legs, lethally curved black bill and green and purple iridescent neck and head. He had a white breast with a black back and belly, and when he spread his wings the big white feathers spread like fingers.

Taronga Park had to be one of the world’s most beautiful zoos. Situated on land that sloped down towards the harbour, amidst a jungle of semi-tropical greenery, it had magnificent views from numerous vantage points, taking in the blue-green water and the constant plying to and fro of sailboats and ferries and ships, the black fretwork of the Harbour Bridge in the distance, and that other landmark which could have been a clipper ship in full rig but was, in fact, the Opera House.

‘Almost criminal to leave the place to tourists,’ Marshall commented as they crossed the boardwalk bridge and set off in the direction of the reptiles.

‘It is, isn’t it?’ Aimee agreed. ‘I haven’t been here since the children were preteens, and that’s too long. Why are locals, in every part of the world, so blasé about the treats that their home town has to offer?’

‘Inertia?’ he suggested. ‘Our senses and our imaginations get dulled by the daily routine. It’s something I decided to teach myself after Joy’s death…Oh, it’s trite when you say it, but true on a level I didn’t understand before I’d felt that grief. To strive to live each day, not merely exist. I brought some cousins from England here several years ago, and that’s when I decided to get involved with the place.’

‘Zoos need people like you,’ she told him. ‘I’m afraid I…do coast a bit perhaps. I have my garden, the children and now my work. But nothing else that I’m really energetic about, or committed to.’

‘Nonsense, Aimee!’ he said. ‘You seem like one of the most alive people I know, not openly passionate about things like my daughter is, bless her, but game for whatever comes your way—like the skiing on the weekend. And you’re thoughtful, perceptive—’

‘Stop!’ she protested. ‘I wasn’t fishing for that.’

‘I know you weren’t,’ he said, a little gruffly, ‘but I wanted to say it all the same.’

He looked across at her, a fresh sea breeze ruffling his hair for a moment before they passed into the interior display of reptiles, and she couldn’t miss the heat in his expression. It made her insides dissolve like melting chocolate to realise that he was happy to show what he felt this way.

She let her own gaze linger on features that were starting to be so familiar and important. His blue eyes with the laugh lines at their corners. A straight line of a mouth that could curve to express so many subtle nuances of humour and opinion—quizzical interest, amused irony, studious patience.

And then he slipped his hand into hers and all she could think about was that, the smooth touch of his palm engulfing her fingers, his shoulder nudging hers as they walked and the dry, pleasant timbre of his English voice.

They stayed at the zoo for nearly three hours, then he dropped her home to change, picking her up again an hour and a half later to take her to dinner. They’d arranged this meal at one of Sydney’s most exclusive harbour-side restaurants more than three weeks ago, before Marshall had even suggested the skiing trip that had taken place last weekend.

Thinking back to the cautious way Marshall had explained, back at the beginning of the month, that the booking for the restaurant needed to be made well in advance for a Friday night, Aimee marvelled at how far their connection to each other had advanced in so short a time.

Then he hadn’t been certain that they’d both still want an intimate dinner like this three weeks into the future. Now she felt a rich wash of pleasure just at being with him like this, loving the way he shared his feelings about the working week…and even the way he brazenly stole one of her oysters fifteen minutes later when their appetisers arrived. He would never have done that—and he wouldn’t have grinned like a little boy as he’d done it—if they hadn’t felt so right in each other’s company.

It was a magic, sophisticated evening after the frivolity of their trip to the zoo. He wore grey—a dark grey suit, with a steel-grey shirt and tie, simply cut but with a quiet distinction of style that could only have come from one of Sydney’s best men’s outfitters.

She loved dressing up for him, matching his subtle elegance, wearing clingy, simply cut black, with her pale, silvery hair folded and pinned high on her head. She’d had to ransack her jewellery box for things she hadn’t needed—or bothered…to wear for years. A necklace of silver and garnets which had belonged to her grandmother. Matching earrings. A bracelet engraved with a subtle, filigree design.

Over dessert and the last of the white wine, Marsh started playing with the bracelet, rolling it around her wrist with his finger so that she could feel the warmth of his skin against hers. It made her want more—more of his touch and his company, more of his conversation, which had all the seasoning of a mature man’s knowledge and experience, yet none of the rigidity and complacency that some of her women friends complained of in their husbands and which Alan had started to display when he’d reached his late fifties.

Perhaps it was because Marshall had been widowed while still in his thirties. His two children had been his closest companions, closest to his heart, and he’d retained their vigour and freshness of outlook. He’d said something about that time in his life that afternoon—that it had been Joy’s death which had taught him how to live.

His own thoughts had been travelling along a sober path as well.

‘I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier today, at the zoo, about sacrifice,’ he said, as their dessert plates were taken away, and she was pleased that he’d remembered their conversation so clearly and had thought it important enough to mull over.

‘Yes?’

‘You’re right,’ he told her. ‘Looking back on my experience, sacrifice is more common when there’s a change or a crisis involving people who care about each other. Knowing how her daughter feels, I wonder if Mrs Deutschkron will do what she thinks is best for herself, or what she thinks is best for Marianne.’

‘You won’t try to influence how she decides?’

‘I hope not. It’s hard. A doctor has to try to present the options in a neutral, factual way so that it truly is the patient’s decision. But if you do know your own opinion, it’s sometimes almost impossible not to let that colour the way you talk about it.’

‘And do you have an opinion in this case?’

Marshall sighed, and let his fingers trail down to rest across the back of her hand. She felt his heat begin to rise all the way up her arm. ‘I’d be inclined to say, “Leave it, and enjoy the time you have left”, but if she decides otherwise, I’ll do everything I can to help her retain her quality of life during the treatment and afterwards, as will her oncologist, of course.’

‘It sounds as if that’s all you can do.’

‘Yes, and I’m sorry we’re still taking about it.’

‘Not still. Again. We haven’t talked about it for hours. And it’s fine, Marsh. I’d hate to think you’d edit your conversation out of a desire to spare me,’ she told him, meaning it.

‘Making sacrifices of your own?’ he teased. ‘Putting up with me to that extent?’

‘It’s a thankless job, but someone has to do it!’

They both laughed.

Outside her house, half an hour later, he left the engine of his car running. Listening to its subtle purr, Aimee began to shape her mouth into a polite thank you, before an equally polite goodnight. Then she rebelled. That wasn’t what she wanted. Not tonight, after the deepening connection created by the time they’d spent together. It wasn’t even ten o’clock yet, and the weekend lay ahead.

‘Turn it off, Marsh, please,’ she begged him boldly. ‘I’d like you to come in.’

‘Would you?’ A light flared in his eyes, and there was a little catch in his voice.

‘We didn’t have coffee at the restaurant,’ she hedged, her courage already slipping. ‘We could talk a bit more, and—’

But he hadn’t heard this last part. The engine was off. He’d opened his door. He was through it, out of the car and bouncing onto his feet. Oh, heavens! Her heart started to beat faster and she was battling to suppress her grin of relief and pleasure. Courage? If she didn’t have it, he certainly did!

He’d wanted her to say that! Wanted it rather badly, if the swiftness of his response was any guide. And he didn’t care that she knew it.

Aimee was laughing as she got out, coming round the front of his streamlined car. And she was planning to say something clever and tender, like there was no point in his getting to the front door first because she had the key, but he didn’t give her the chance to say anything at all.

Instead, he turned suddenly and she cannoned into his mouth, then felt his arms wrapping her in a hug like a huge, friendly bear. She’d never known a kiss to get off to such a flying start, and for the first half-minute of it she was still laughing. Laughing against his lips, then with her head thrown back as he made a trail of moist fire from the edge of her jaw to the top of her collar-bone.

‘What’s funny?’ he growled, pulling off his glasses and sticking them heedlessly in his hip pocket, then glowering at her.

‘You’re so good at this!’

‘I should hope so,’ he growled again, and came back to her mouth for more. Much more. A hungry devouring of her that was so decisive it made her limbs as weak as water. ‘Admittedly, I haven’t been practising lately, but—’

She laughed again, and he frowned. ‘No, seriously, Aimee, is there something that—?’

‘Seriously,’ she whispered, ‘I think this is what’s known as being swept off my feet, Marshall. One minute I’m walking around your car in a very sedate manner, and the next I’m…’ She took in a slightly ragged breath, unable to describe it. ‘And it’s fabulous.’

‘Oh, it is, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Aimee, I don’t think that…well, that my feet are any closer to the ground than yours are.’

Marshall laughed, a rich, full sound from deep in his diaphragm, and shook his head, his brow slightly furrowed in bemusement as if he couldn’t quite believe that those words of confession had come from his own mouth. Then his lips claimed hers hungrily and fiercely once more, and his hands cupped the curve of her behind, sliding the silky fabric of her dress upwards.

‘Shall we go in?’ she said breathlessly.

‘If you can hold the key steady enough to get it into the lock,’ he answered. ‘I’m not sure that I could!’

She managed it, with his hand still roaming her back and his impatience and eagerness sounding clearly in the rhythm of his breathing. As soon as they were both through the front door, he kicked it shut behind him and engulfed her with his touch once more, turning her mouth into a swollen, tingling mass of nerve endings and her breasts into two aching buds and her insides to sweet, warm jelly.

‘We talked about coffee,’ she almost gasped at him. The words hardly made sense, barely escaped from her lips in recognisable form.

‘I don’t want it,’ he said, still painting her mouth with heat and pressure. A moment later he apparently thought better of the shameless response. ‘That is…’

He stopped and schooled his voice and his expression. Again, she almost laughed. It was the worst performance of upright social manners she’d ever seen!

‘Yes,’ he said, his voice burred with effort. ‘Coffee. Of course. That’s why you invited me in, isn’t it?’

‘It needn’t be. It wasn’t really. Actually, it was the furthest thing from my mind,’ she said in a low voice, hearing her own words with a stab of shock.

It was impossible to pretend. Her meaning was obvious to both of them, and she hadn’t stopped for a moment to think about what she was offering, and why.

Her body. Her bed. Why not? She was a grown, experienced woman, confident in her judgement of character and of her own feelings, and he was her male counterpart. There was no one to disapprove, no one to hurt, few physical risks.

She knew enough of him and his history to be certain that if he’d had a lover since his wife’s death thirteen years ago—and somehow, she doubted he had—then it would have been a woman much like herself, careful in such matters, not someone who slept around.

‘What are you saying, Aimee?’ Marshall demanded softly.

He knew. Of course he did. But she understood that he wanted to make sure that she meant it, and she loved that chivalrous quality in him. He was old-fashioned enough to want to protect a woman from any regret she might feel after the event at having let her body dictate the pace.

But she was old-fashioned enough to blush at the idea of putting it into words. ‘Don’t make me say it,’ she murmured, her eyes wide and honest. ‘Just…just take it, Marshall.’

‘I’d love to,’ he said. ‘Did you plan this?’

‘No. No, not at all.’

Marshall saw the sudden doubt and questioning in her eyes at once, and understood the new feeling.

‘Does that make it…less appealing to you?’ she said to him hesitantly. ‘Would you have preferred me to—I mean, it’s not as if we have to think about—’

‘No.’ He shook his head vigorously, his mind leaping ahead once again to understand her meaning. ‘No, Aimee! Nothing could make you…this…less appealing. And the fact that it was an impulse on your part, and so strong…’

‘Then isn’t that enough?’ she said. ‘There’s no reason in the world why this shouldn’t happen, and every reason why it should. That’s more than enough for me.’

‘And for me,’ he whispered, and kept on kissing her with an intensity that made both of them tremble, all the way along the corridor to her bedroom.

When they reached her bed, their need reined itself in a little, overtaken by ‘first-night nerves’ that he wasn’t afraid to admit to.

‘If you hear a squeaking sound in a moment, don’t worry,’ he said to her in a low voice, still holding her close. ‘It’ll only be the rust.’

She understood at once, and answered, ‘I can hear it already, only it’s coming from me. Marsh, I’m not—I’ve never—’

‘Let’s make some rules,’ he suggested, lacing his fingers in the small of her back as he held her more loosely.

‘Rules?’

‘Let’s not talk about the past, what we have and haven’t done or felt, and how long since we’ve felt it.’ He made a trail of tiny kisses from her forehead to her ear. ‘Let’s not put any pressure on ourselves or each other to succeed in some Hollywood version of this. We’ve succeeded already.’ His lips brushed her mouth. ‘Everything that happens from this minute on is just a bonus. That means we can take it at whatever pace we want to and that, whatever happens, it’s safe.’

‘Safe…’ she echoed.

‘I know what you’re entrusting to me, Aimee. You know I’m going to look after it with all the care and tenderness it deserves. And what I’m entrusting with you is just as fragile.’

‘Oh…yes. Thank you, Marsh. Thank you for saying it.’

She buried her face in the warmth of his neck for a moment, and heard a rumble of laughter from him, a mixture of relief and happiness and triumph, and she was so astonished and almost disbelieving that she’d managed to find a man like this that she had to pull away and simply look at him, laughing, too, at first until the magic between them made both their faces still.

In the silvery light that seeped into the room through the half-open curtains, his expression was serious and searching, and the lines of experience on his skin were softened so that the strong bone structure beneath was more apparent. The attraction between them was like a measurable force. It ought to have some sort of a scientific scale, she thought vaguely, like earthquakes did, and electricity. Volts or hector-pascals.

It seemed incredible that an attraction like this should be accompanied by such a sense of certainty and peace. On one level, she was a wild cauldron of feeling, but on another, at the centre of her being, there was calm, and those first-night nerves were ebbing by the minute.

Marshall had started to undress her now, with a tender reverence that had her breathing in little flutters as she held herself completely still so that she didn’t miss so much as a moment of sensation. Wanting to touch and explore his skin, she slid his jacket from his shoulders and began to unfasten his steel-grey shirt, then loosened his tie and started on the shirt buttons.

When they stood naked together, he whispered, ‘You’re beautiful.’

She didn’t try to deny it because she was too busy thinking the same about him. The texture of hair on skin, the taste of him, the smell of him…

They sat on the bed and he kissed her again, touched her in places that made her shudder, took his hands away when it became a little too intense and simply held her until she was ready to go further. Even when they were lying together, entwined beneath the sheets, and neither of them could breathe without making a jagged pattern of sound in the air, he was still able to pause, wait, let her become accustomed to the intimacy of it before they took another step.

Aimee hadn’t known it could be like this, that each step could be so thoroughly savoured, like an endless banquet of tiny, exquisitely served courses. She hadn’t known a man could possess such patience, pitted against such sensual need. She hadn’t known that she could lie in his arms afterwards, sated and replete yet still wanting more.

It was the longest, slowest, sweetest and, in the end, most passionate night of love-making she’d ever had.