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His eyes narrowed.
‘Why bother asking me, Staff? You seem about to give a lecture. Pray continue.’
Patronising so-and-so! ‘With pleasure!’ she responded tartly. ‘Giving juniors nothing but menial chores plays havoc with their self-esteem. Especially if they see the staff nurse swanning around the place like a queen bee, afraid to dirty her apron or have any kind of hands-on contact with the patients. Now that kind of attitude doesn’t earn the kind of respect I like to receive from my junior nurses!’
‘Whereas you think that scrubbing out the bath and singing loudly like a fishwife does, I suppose?’ he suggested sarcastically.
Nicolette gave him her most beatific smile. ‘Yes, Doctor,’ she replied sweetly. ‘I do.’
Dear Reader,
One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.
There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.
I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”
So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?
I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.
Love,
Sharon xxx
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
www.millsandboon.co.uk
To my beautiful CiCi, who is the best daughter any mother could hope for.
CONTENTS
Cover
Dear Reader
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
‘Goo-goo-goo!’
Nicolette lifted baby Tom out of the bath-tub and onto a warm, fluffy towel, where he wriggled about appreciatively as she began to dry him. ‘Goo-goo-goo!’ she cooed at him again in a sing-song voice, her experienced hands rubbing the small, fragrant body. Babies just out of the bath smelt almost good enough to eat, she decided, not for the first time! ‘Who’s an absolutely gorgeous boy, then?’ she murmured. ‘And who knows it, too?’
The baby gurgled back, seemingly unaware that a week ago he had been hanging on to life by a slender thread.
Nursing was no like no other job in the world, Nicolette decided with satisfaction as she pulled the plug out of the bath and the water began to gurgle away. You could start on a brand-new ward, in a brand-new hospital, and after a busy, busy morning you would automatically feel as though you’d been there since the year dot.
Amazing!
And very convenient, too, since the ward sister she was supposed to have been on duty with had broken her leg while out mountain climbing, and wouldn’t be back for at least six weeks. Which meant, to all intents and purposes, that Nicolette and her opposite-number staff nurse would be in charge of the ward. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end!
‘Yes,’ Nicolette murmured as she tickled Tom’s belly button. ‘You are definitely the most scrumptious baby!’
‘Do you make a habit of talking to yourself, Staff Nurse?’ came an amused voice from behind her.
Nicolette turned round without ceasing the patting movements of her hands to see Jane Jones, one of the student nurses, standing at the bathroom door, grinning from ear to ear. Jane was a first-year student, just coming to the end of her stint on the busy paediatric ward, and she had been of invaluable help to Nicolette on her first morning at Southbury Hospital.
‘But I’m not talking to myself,’ corrected Nicolette, mock-reprimandingly. ‘I’m talking to young Tom. Did they never teach you in nursing school that babies and children should be talked to constantly?’
‘They sure did,’ said Jane, moving across the tiled bathroom floor to crouch down beside Nicolette. She watched the staff nurse making tickling little circles all over the baby’s tummy and noted the child’s enthusiastic response. ‘Hard to believe he was so ill, isn’t it?’
Nicolette deftly snapped a nappy on and began to roll a blue Babygro over one little foot. ‘Well, I didn’t see him, of course, but if his notes were anything to go by then yes, he’s lucky to be alive. Did you nurse him when he first came in?’
Jane shook her head. ‘No, not at first. He was a bit too poorly for any of us students to look after. Intensive Care was full, so they sent one of their nurses down here to special him. Sister usually likes caring for the really sick ones herself, if the ward’s quiet enough, but since she—’
‘Broke her leg,’ finished Nicolette with an expressive flash of humour in her blue eyes. ‘Yes, I know.’ She pulled the Babygro up the child’s emaciated torso; he was still painfully thin. ‘How come he nearly died before he was admitted to hospital—do you know why he didn’t come in sooner?’
Nurse Jones nodded glumly. ‘It was the usual sorry story, I’m afraid. His father abandoned the family, leaving Tom’s mother to go out to work.’ She grimaced. ‘As she’s underqualified, the only work she could get was in a bar, so she left Tom in the charge of his older sister.’ She paused dramatically. ‘Only trouble is that she isn’t much older—she’s only nine herself, and didn’t realise how ill he was.’
Nicolette nodded. ‘Or how rapidly a baby’s condition can deteriorate, no doubt.’ Poor little mite, she thought. As Nurse Jones had said, it was the old, old story, and not for the first time she found herself wondering what kind of chance this child would have in life. She glanced at the student nurse, who was crouched beside her with an enquiring look on her face, and smiled. ‘So—did you come here just to keep me company? Because if you did . . . you can start cleaning out that bath right now! Or have you come to inform me that there’s an acute admission on its way up from Accident and Emergency?’
‘Neither. But there has just been a phone call.’
‘Not Pharmacy again?’ Nicolette clicked her tongue absently as she pulled a funny face at the baby.
‘Not this time,’ grinned Nurse Jones, thinking that Staff Nurse Nicolette Kennedy was going to breathe a lot of life into this place—and not before time! ‘Dr Le Saux is on his way up. He wants to have a quick look at one of the patients. So I thought I’d better warn you,’ she finished, in the kind of tone that Nicolette might have associated with the three-minute warning if she’d ever been unlucky enough to hear it.
‘And Dr Le Saux is the consultant?’ guessed Nicolette slowly.
‘That’s right,’ said Jane in an even gloomier voice that even after only one morning together Nicolette could tell was over-succinct. ‘Haven’t you met him?’
Nicolette shook her glossy black curls as she sat back on her heels and watched Thomas happily kicking his legs. ‘No, I haven’t. He was away overseeing some research proposal when I was interviewed for the job.’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘Unusual name; is he French?’
Jane shook her head. ‘Apparently it’s an old Jersey name. Distinctive and unique—just like our dear doctor!’
Dr Le Saux sounded nothing if not formidable, thought Nicolette with some amusement. ‘What time did he say he would be here?’
‘In about half an hour.’
Nicolette picked the unprotesting baby up and cradled him against her shoulder, unable to ignore the non-verbal messages she was getting from her junior any longer. ‘And is he so very awful that you think I should be warned against him?’
Nurse Jones opened her mouth with undeniable eagerness, then seemed to think better of it, and shut it again. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Fine,’ smiled Nicolette diplomatically, and rose to her feet in one easy, fluid movement. If any of her family had been watching they would have been amazed. Sometimes she could be the world’s clumsiest person—in fact, her family were always teasing her about having two left feet. But when she was in charge of a baby or a child she seemed to develop an unerring grace. It was as though children brought out the very best in her, and perhaps it was this quality which had always made her attain the most glowing reports from all the paediatric wards on which she had worked.
Though lately she had to admit to feeling a touch wistful. Broody, almost; wondering what it might be like to care for a baby of her own, instead of always looking after someone else’s.
And you can knock that idea on the head immediately, Nicolette, she told herself sternly. The creation of babies took two people, and she was old-fashioned enough to believe in love and marriage. And there were certainly no suitable candidates for either love or marriage in the offing at present!
Nurse Jones got to her feet as well, already feeling an odd sort of loyalty to this new staff nurse with the dark, curly hair and the remarkably bright blue eyes. ‘Er, Staff?’
Nicolette turned around, the baby still cradled against her shoulder. ‘Yes, Nurse Jones?’
‘About Dr Le Saux . . .’
‘Mmm?’
Nurse Jones bit at her bottom lip. ‘Well, I wouldn’t want to be indiscreet,’ she began falteringly.
‘And I’m not asking you to be,’ Nicolette told her firmly. ‘The last thing I’m after is gossip. But it’s just that, as Sister isn’t here to give me any guidelines, I’d appreciate any help you can give me about the consultant’s particular likes and dislikes. He might not have any, of course, but then he would be unique—in my experience of consultants!’ She grinned at the junior.
Nurse Jones dimpled back. ‘I know exactly what you mean!’
‘Well, then—any tips at all, and I’d be truly grateful,’ said Nicolette.
Nurse Jones began to doubtfully eye the wayward strand of black hair which was threatening to escape from Nicolette’s chignon. ‘Er—it’s just that Dr Le Saux likes order.’
‘Order?’ Nicolette echoed in surprise as she tried unsuccessfully to tuck the errant curl behind her ear. Obviously one tried to keep a hospital ward as orderly as possible, but, in Nicolette’s experience, doing so with any degree of efficiency on a children’s ward was doomed to failure. Children and order, like electricity and water, simply did not mix!
Nurse Jones nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’
‘What kind of order?’
‘Oh, you know, a tidy ward. A quiet ward—’
It sounded as though this list might go on and on and Nicolette gave a strangled kind of smile. ‘On second thoughts, say no more! Dr Le Saux can tell me all his likes and dislikes himself.’ But if he thinks I’ll be straightening sheets when I should be cuddling babies, he’s got another think coming, she thought with a determined tilt of her square chin. She handed the baby over to Nurse Jones, who, even after one morning, she could tell loved small children just about as much as she did. ‘Would you like to give Thomas a feed for me?’
‘Oh, could I?’ asked Nurse Jones gratefully, then screwed her nose up as she noticed that the bath still hadn’t been cleaned. ‘You’re going to leave cleaning the bath, then?’
‘Leave it? Leave it? Certainly not, Nurse Jones! Are you trying to encourage cross-infection on the ward?’ squeaked Nicolette indignantly, but then her full mouth softened with irrepressible humour as she saw the younger girl’s startled face. ‘I’ll do it myself, you ninny,’ she chided gently.
‘You?’ The student nurse’s eyebrows disappeared into her fringe.
‘Sure. Just because I’m qualified doesn’t mean I can’t do a bit of the donkey work now and again. Besides, you’re leaving here soon, aren’t you? And there won’t be much chance to feed babies on the pychiatric ward.’
Nurse Jones grimaced. ‘Please don’t remind me!’
‘Oh, you’ll love it,’ prophesied Nicolette cheerfully. ‘I did.’
‘Just not as much as paediatrics?’ guessed Nurse Jones.
‘That’s right. But then for me nothing was ever as much fun as paediatrics. Now, shoo! Take that baby before I change my mind,’ and Nicolette laughed as she picked up the cloth and started to sing tunelessly as she began to wipe the bath out.
Life was good.
Very good, she sighed contentedly.
After doing her nurse training in one of London’s biggest teaching hospitals she had done the additional studying required to become a registered paediatric nurse. And after all that hard work had decided that she needed a break!
So she had taken a year off to travel around Australia and had had an absolute ball of a time, exploring the country’s beautiful wide, open reaches and enthusiastically entering into the sporty lifestyle which the Australians seemed to take for granted. When the year was up she had found that she had changed her mind about returning to London and her training hospital. The thought of crowded metropolitan life in comparison to the great outdoors had made her feel positively claustrophobic. So she had applied for the post of staff nurse here at pioneering Southbury Hospital, set in the glorious south of England. And although Southbury itself was a big naval port, with a thriving city centre, Nicolette couldn’t dispel her image of it as a sun-baked, sleepy haven—a little like a lazy cat sleeping in front of a banked fire!
She didn’t hear footsteps; she was too busy belting out a number from the year’s hit musical and attacking the side of the bath with her usual enthusiastic vigour. She didn’t even hear a voice, and surely someone wouldn’t have just come and stood at the bathroom door without saying anything?
Consequently she didn’t know how long it took for her to register that there was someone else in the bathroom with her.
She saw a leg. Correction: two legs swung into her line of vision. Or, rather, it was the feet connected to the legs that she noticed first, because the feet were wearing the kind of shoes which Nicolette had never seen before, and she knew instinctively that the soft black leather was handmade, that it was very definitely not English, and, furthermore, that the shoes had cost a fortune. They were also polished and bright and extraordinarily clean. Now who on earth had the time to keep their shoes that clean? she thought fleetingly as her bright blue gaze travelled upwards.
Nice trousers, too, she thought absently. Grey and immaculate. Worn casually loose. Nicolette blinked.
And not doing much . . . Correction: not doing anything to disguise thighs so strapping and so muscular and so. . . This man could be an Olympic sprinting champion, she decided, keen to see whether the top half of the mystery intruder would match the bottom half, when a cold, clear and crisply incisive voice cut into her thoughts like a tape-measure into the hips of an unnsuccessful dieter.
‘When you’ve quite finished,’ the voice said repressively.
Nicolette sat back on her heels and found herself looking into the most spectacular pair of eyes she had ever seen. She swallowed.
Beautiful brown eyes.
She swallowed again. Brown was far too ordinary a word to use in conjunction with eyes which reminded her of velvety chocolate, and of treacle . . . of all things dark and sweet and mysteriously delicious. And when she looked more closely they weren’t a uniform colour at all, because there were flecks of other colours hidden in their depths. An arresting green—as fresh and as verdant as a spring day—and gold, too, precious and gleaming and . . . and . . .
‘Er. . .hello,’ she managed.
His mouth, which also happened to be the embodiment of perfection, twisted into a grim, hard line as his eyes flicked disparagingly over her dripping hands. ‘Staff Nurse,’ he growled dangerously, ‘would you mind telling me what you think you’re doing?’
Nicolette should have interpreted the dangerous glint in those magnificent eyes, but she foolishly attempted to chivvy him out of a blatantly foul temper. ‘Well, I’m not writing out my tickets for the National Lottery, am I?’ she joked.
He didn’t move a muscle of his face in an answering smile. Instead he surveyed her with a cold, unblinking scrutiny as though she were something which had just been dragged in by the cat. ‘Are you or are you not supposed to be in charge of the ward?’ he demanded curtly.
The implication being, she supposed, that she’d left work on the ward undone, which she knew darned well she hadn’t! Nicolette’s soft features rearranged themselves into a mutinous expression. ‘I am!’ she fired back with equal curtness, her good humour evaporating completely. Just let him dare criticise her—just let him!
Not seeming at all perturbed by her expression, he proceeded to do just that. ‘And is this how it is deemed proper—’
Oh, what a pompous word!
‘—for a staff nurse to run the ward?’
‘What am I doing that’s so wrong—Doctor?’ enquired Nicolette sweetly. ‘At least, I’m assuming that you’re a doctor and not a pharmacist or a dietician or one of the many other members of the hospital staff who wear white coats. And the reason I don’t know your status is because you haven’t. . .’ she toyed with saying ‘haven’t had the courtesy’, but resisted the temptation ‘. . .haven’t introduced yourself,’ she finished primly.
The implied criticism went over him like water off a duck’s back. ‘Of course I’m a doctor,’ he snapped back. ‘Since when have you known pharmacists and dieticians to carry stethoscopes around in their pockets?’ His finger jabbed at the stethoscope which was dangling clearly from the pocket of his white coat. ‘And as to what you’re doing wrong—why, you’re cleaning the bath out, for heavens sake!’
‘Haven’t you ever heard of cross-infection?’ she retorted hotly, not flinching from the look of incredulity which had hardened the eyes she had once foolishly thought magnificent.
‘What?’ he demanded, as though she’d just started speaking to him in a foreign language.
‘Baths have to be cleaned every time they’re used,’ She shot back. ‘Or didn’t you know that?’
‘Of course I know that,’ he bit out impatiently. ‘But isn’t there a junior who could be doing it for you, while you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, namely, looking after the ward?’
Nicolette had many theories of her own about how nursing could be improved, and the mystery doctor had inadvertently hit on one of her number-one bête noires. She took a deep breath as she forced herself to control her temper. Heavens, she couldn’t remember being so mad in years! ‘I do not ascribe to the theory,’ she began haughtily, ‘that the students should be lumbered with all the menial tasks around the ward. If we make them play skivvy the whole time then they aren’t exactly going to learn a whole lot, are they, Doctor?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Why bother asking me, Staff? You seem about to give me a little lecture. Pray continue.’
Patronising so-and-so! ‘With pleasure!’ she responded tartly. ‘Giving juniors nothing but menial chores plays havoc with their self-esteem.’
‘Self-esteem?’ he echoed incredulously, as though he hadn’t heard her correctly.
‘Yes, Doctor—self-esteem! Nurses need it too, you know. And constantly assigning them to clean baths and empty bedpans, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, isn’t going to make them feel like an indispensable member of the nursing team, is it?’ she finished, her defiant tone disguised by her need to draw in a deep breath. ‘Especially if they see the staff nurse swanning around the place like a queen bee, afraid to dirty her apron or have any kind of hands-on contact with the patients. Now that kind of attitude doesn’t earn the kind of respect I like to receive from my junior nurses!’
‘Whereas you think that scrubbing out the bath and singing loudly like a fishwife does, I suppose?’ he suggested sarcastically.
She gave him her most beatific smile. ‘Yes, Doctor,’ she replied sweetly. ‘I do.’
His eyes were thoughtful as he stared down at her from a very great, very disapproving height and it only then occurred to her that she had conducted the entire conversation with him whilst sitting on the floor, and that her long black-stockinged legs were all splayed out in the most inelegant position! She hastily clamped her knees together and his frown increased still further.
‘I am waiting to do a ward-round,’ he told her in a shiveringly soft voice. ‘So would you mind getting up?’
‘Not at all,’ Nicolette answered formally.
Two things happened simultaneously.
The first was that Nicolette automatically did as he asked, and rose awkwardly to her feet.
The second was that she was so overcome, whether by his presence or their heated little contretemps, that she failed to see the small puddle of water on the tiled floor, which she must have slopped there when she was cleaning the bath. And, given the two catalysts of a slippery surface and her own innate clumsiness, the inevitable happened.
Nicolette slipped, her legs and arms flying with all the lack of co-ordination of a newly born foal, and she would have fallen completely and hit her head on the side of the bath, to boot, had not the tall man beside her lunged out instinctively to save her.
Nicolette was a tall girl, and certainly not fat, but she was healthy and well covered, and her rescuer was obviously unprepared for the soft, warm weight that landed in his arms, because somehow she toppled him too, and the two of them slid in synchrony down the side of the bath, like two drunks at the end of a long party.
‘What the hell—?’ he snarled in angry disbelief.
Nicolette tried to brace herself, but it was difficult. Her nose was just inches away from his name-badge, which had been hidden by most of his lapel, and which proclaimed his name as Dr L Le Saux.