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‘Hey,’ he murmured appreciatively, ‘you’re a nurse?’
‘Top marks for observation!’ Jenny snapped, making as if to push past him, but he stopped her.
‘Don’t run away,’ he protested. ‘I feel responsible for your fall, and you’ve ripped your stockings—the least you could let me do is buy you a new pair.’
‘They’re tights!’ she retorted, and then wished she hadn’t because he smiled a very slow smile indeed.
‘What a pity,’ he murmured, ‘Legs like that are wasted in tights.’
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
In fondest memory of Betty Shore
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
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
‘I AM quite sure, Mr Fogg.’ There was a pause. ‘Quite sure!’ Another pause. ‘Well, if I do change my mind—you will be the first to know!’ Jenny replaced the telephone receiver noisily.
Men! Why did they treat women like imbeciles? They seemed to think that a woman living on her own couldn’t make a simple decision. Like whether or not to take out a new and very expensive insurance policy. Perhaps now Mr Fogg would finally get the message. Farewell, Mr Fogg, she thought as she pulled her uniform dress over her head, and giggled.
She peeped out from behind the curtain. It was an almost perfect morning. Well, as perfect as you could get for mid-January. The sky wasn’t quite blue, but it wasn’t quite grey either—more the colour of the sea just before the sun came out.
Perfect, and far too nice to be starting back to work on a late duty after two weeks away, she mused as she began to button the dress up.
That was the trouble with holidays, really. You loved them and needed them, and they put you off ever going back to work again! Still, it shouldn’t be difficult to get back into the swing of things—the ward was always busy, especially at this time of the year. Broken bones were very common in winter, when the roads became slippery with ice and snow!
She fastened the starched and frilly collar of her dress with the small white stud and stepped back from the mirror to survey the results. A great improvement on the pale-faced young woman of two weeks ago, she thought. Her face was lightly tanned from using the sun bed and it made her green eyes dazzle. Her thick dark hair was as neat as she could make it. It fell to her shoulders in a glossy mass. Really, the sensible thing would be to cut it, but she didn’t want to. She was sensible about most things, but not about her hair.
She fastened her belt with the intricate silver buckle which had once belonged to her mother. She had followed her mother’s footsteps into nursing and now held the very same post of orthopaedic sister on the ward her mother had run for years. She knew that some people thought it odd that she had never wanted to move to pastures new, to venture further afield, or even overseas, but she had always been perfectly contented with her quiet life and her satisfying job—and what was the point of moving away if you were happy where you were?
She loved the feeling of continuity which came from living in a small, stable community. She felt safe and secure where she was, and security was very important to her.
She glanced at her fob-watch. There was plenty of time to walk down to the village shop before setting off in her car for the hospital. She needed a jar of coffee and some water biscuits, but she wanted to buy some fruit for Mrs Jessop. The old lady with the fractured femur had been on Jenny’s ward for so long now that to the sister she felt like a permanent fixture. She couldn’t ever imagine her going home and, if she was absolutely honest, she was pretty sure that the frail old lady would far rather stay in the bright, cheerful atmosphere of the ward than go home to a cold empty flat.
There was a lightness in her step as she walked along. Despite her earlier feelings of post-holiday laziness, she was looking forward to seeing all the staff again. She had worked with Dr Marlow and Staff Nurse Collins since she had started at Denbury, and she had known them both all her life. She hadn’t told them that she was staying with relatives for her holiday—if people knew that then inevitably there would be phone calls if something couldn’t be found, or if something needed smoothing over. The ward staff tended to think that their sister was indispensable and, much as that flattered her, she knew that a complete break had been what she’d needed.
She had gone to Bristol for the fortnight, to the home of her favourite cousin, Joan. Joan belonged to a health club, and they had spent the two weeks swimming, playing squash and lying on sun beds, and then had promptly ruined all the good work by eating pizza and hot curries in the evening!
She would just have to watch the calories for the next few weeks, she told herself sternly—although her navy uniform dress hung as loosely as it had ever done.
She walked round the small village shop, and had collected together and paid for her groceries when an unusually loud roar startled her, and she looked from side to side, thinking that the sound had come from within the shop.
Consequently, she wasn’t paying attention as she left, and was just stepping out into the sunshine when she collided with a man who was on his way into the shop, momentarily losing her balance.
A strong arm went out to grab her, and she leapt away from it so that she lost her balance completely and ended up sitting on the pavement, the coffee providentially saved, but the oranges rolling off in all directions down the street.
The man was bending down towards her. ‘Here,’ he said in a distinctive deep voice, ‘let me help you.’
There was only one thing worse than making a fool of yourself—and that was having someone witness it, she thought, and for some reason she resented his confident offer of help, and couldn’t miss noticing the twinkle in his eyes as he stood looking down at her.
‘I can manage perfectly well on my own,’ she snapped, moving a leg gingerly and discovering that she had somehow grazed her ankle.
‘Suit yourself,’ he murmured. ‘But at least I can rescue your fruit.’ He began to move away in the direction of the errant oranges, and Jenny picked herself up and began to examine herself for damage.
The gabardine coat was muddy all around the hem—at least that could be quickly brushed off—but where she had grazed her ankle was an enormous hole in her black tights. Now she would have to go home and change them. . .
‘All present and correct, I think.’
She was shaken out of her reverie by the man with the gravelly voice, who was handing her the bag of fruit, and she looked into dark brown eyes.
‘Thank you,’ she said rather tightly as she took the bag from him.
‘My pleasure,’ he smiled.
There was something vaguely unsettling about him, though why she should think that she didn’t know. He was tall and powerfully built, with untidy, dark hair which curled around his ears. She noted that the dark eyes were slightly bloodshot and he looked as though he’d used a blunt razor blade that morning—if at all! If someone had told her that he worked on a building site or at a fairground she wouldn’t have been surprised, and yet the dark eyes looked curiously intelligent, and the deep voice sounded educated.
She noted the old tan leather flying jacket and the faded jeans which fitted him so closely that they looked as if they’d been sprayed on. Seedy, she decided. Definitely seedy, and just a little bit dangerous. . .
Her eyes returned to his face and she saw that he was studying her with amusement, but perfectly at ease, as though he was used to pretty girls standing staring at him.
‘And marks out of ten?’ he queried.
‘I beg your pardon?’ What was he talking about?
‘How do you rate me—on a scale of one to ten?’ he asked lazily.
Rate him! The arrogance of him!
‘You wouldn’t even make it past zero!’ she said tartly, as she realised that he now seemed to be assessing her, and she didn’t like the way he was doing it one bit. Round here, where people knew her, she was treated with deference and respect—and respect was just about the last thing on the face of this man. The nut-brown eyes had narrowed and he was looking at her in an openly appreciative way, which infuriated her.
‘If you would kindly let me pass. . .?’ she said icily, but he had barred her way with an expression of concern on his face. A gust of January wind had pulled at the gabardine coat, and it flapped open to reveal the navy blue of her dress. She saw that she now had his total attention.
‘Hey,’ he murmured appreciatively, ‘you’re a nurse?’
‘Top marks for observation!’ she snapped, making as if to push past him, but he stopped her.
‘Don’t run away,’ he protested. ‘I feel responsible for your fall, and you’ve ripped your stockings—the least you could let me do is buy you a new pair.’
‘They’re tights!’ she retorted, and then wished she hadn’t because he smiled a very slow smile indeed.
‘What a pity,’ he murmured. ‘Legs like that are wasted in tights!’
She was so outraged by his audacity that she was lost for words.
‘Can I run you somewhere?’ he offered, and he gestured with his head to a monster of a motor bike which stood parked a little way up from the shop, and which she assumed had been responsible for the peace-shattering roar earlier.
Inwardly she counted to three. ‘I do not allow myself to be picked up by strangers,’ she said clearly. ‘And I never go out with yobs.’ She lifted her chin. ‘And now, if you don’t mind—you’re in my way.’
To her fury, he had started chuckling at her outburst, and without another word she marched back up the narrow street, knowing that he was standing there watching her, and she childishly wished that they weren’t oranges she was carrying but very large, squashy tomatoes and that she could hurl one directly into the centre of his smug, self-satisfied face!
As it was, she had to dash to get to work on time, rushing back to the house to pull on a new pair of black tights and flushing furiously as she remembered his remarks about stockings. Fancy telling him that she was wearing tights! What had got into her? And what was it about him that had made her react so angrily?
She often met men who were interested in her rather understated beauty—Mr Fogg the insurance salesman, for example!—but she certainly didn’t let them get under her skin in the way that the man on the motor bike had done. Perhaps because most men weren’t as blatant about it as he.
She put her foot down as she sped along the quiet country lanes to the hospital. A police car in a siding contemplated following her, but when Billy Baxter, the young constable, saw it was that cracking-looking young sister from the cottage hospital, he simply flashed his lights and let her drive on.
Jenny gave a sigh of pleasure as she drove up the driveway of Denbury Hospital. It was set in Arcadian splendour amid trees and manicured lawns. Dedicated groups of helpers kept the flowerbeds far brighter and more lovingly tended than any paid gardener would have done, and already, in the shaded area near the entrance porch, she could see the showy cerise blooms of an early camellia.
She saw few people as she made her way along the corridor towards her ward. Visiting didn’t start until three, and all the patients would be lying on their beds after lunch.
All the wards were named after flowers, and Jenny’s was Rose—consequently, all the bed-coverings and curtains were in delicate shades of pink, as Daffodil was furnished in yellow, and so on. She loved the individuality of each ward, and was often thankful that she did not work in a busy general hospital, where uniformity was so important.
She hung up her gabardine in the small cloakroom and quickly clipped on her frilly cap with its myriad tiny pleats. The final banishing of a thick strand of hair which had escaped, and she was ready for anything. She pushed her handbag into the locker and pulled the door shut behind her.
The ward was very quiet, she thought as she walked towards her office, with not a nurse in sight. The girls should have finished getting the patients settled for their post-lunchtime rest and be tidying up by now, but then perhaps they’d had an emergency and the routine had been put behind.
As soon as she walked into her office she could sense that something was different. Indefinable, but disquieting. What on earth was it? There were the usual path-lab forms on the desk, physiotherapy requests clipped on to the board next to the X-ray machine. And suddenly she realised what was wrong: the large red book which always sat in the middle of her desk was missing.
Affectionately nicknamed ‘the bible’, in reality it was just a book used to pass messages on. It had been there longer than she had, and it was invaluable. If Dr Marlow wanted a new type of treatment commenced and she wasn’t around to tell, then he’d write it down in the book. He was always popping into the ward at odd moments, and often she missed him. The red book always sat in exactly the same place and she had never once not known it to be there—but perhaps he was buying a newer version which had more capacity!
She glanced at her fob slightly impatiently. Judy Collins, her staff nurse, should have been here by now to update her and give her a report on all the patients. How unlike Judy to be unpunctual. Whatever emergency they had had, it must have been a bad one.
She idly began flicking through the dietician’s clipboard when the sound of someone entering the office made her look up, and she met the eyes of a complete stranger—someone who was obviously a nurse, but dressed in an alien uniform of white with a navy belt and a paper cap. Her fair hair curled over the collar of her dress and Jenny tutted inwardly.
The girl flashed her a non-committal smile. ‘Hi,’ she said, going to sit down at the desk. ‘Who are you?’
Jenny was so amazed that she opened her mouth then shut it again, but speech returned, and with it an irritated tone in her voice which she couldn’t quite disguise.
‘I might ask you the same question!’
The girl seemed to have registered what Jenny was wearing, and her eyes came to rest on her name-badge. She looked slightly taken aback, but nowhere near as embarrassed as Jenny would have been in similar circumstances.
‘Oh,’ she said slowly. ‘You must be Sister.’
‘I am indeed,’ answered Jenny. ‘And now perhaps you’d like to introduce yourself?’
‘I’m. . .’ the girl began, but the phone on the desk started to ring. She made as if to pick it up, but one look from Jenny stopped her in her tracks.
‘Rose Ward. Sister Hughes speaking,’ she said smoothly.
‘Oh, Jenny—you’re back! Thank goodness!’
The voice she recognised immediately as that of Sonia Walker, the hospital nursing officer. ‘Of course I’m back, Sonia! What’s the matter?’ She saw the girl in white watching her warily. ‘And where’s Judy?’ she queried.
Sonia’s voice continued to sound worried. ‘I need to speak to you in my office, Jenny. Can you come down immediately?’
‘But I haven’t taken the report yet!’ Jenny protested.
‘This won’t take long. Tell the agency staff nurse that she can go to lunch in about ten minutes, when you’ll be back—but I must speak to you right away.’
‘OK, I’ll be right along,’ Jenny agreed, and as she replaced the receiver she glanced at the fair-haired nurse. ‘Are you an agency staff nurse?’ she enquired.
‘Yes,’ answered the other curtly, ‘I am.’
Jenny nodded. That would explain her uniform. ‘I have to go and see the nursing officer—I shan’t be long. Can you hold the fort until I get back?’
The girl had dead pale skin and her eyes grew fearful. ‘Hurry up, then, will you? I’ll drop if I don’t eat something soon.’
Jenny could believe that—the girl was so thin that she didn’t look as though she’d eaten a proper meal in months, let alone hours. She couldn’t help being a little surprised at the forthright response, though—in hospital it simply wasn’t done to clock-watch. Or at least it hadn’t been the done thing when she had trained—but things were changing all the time, even attitudes in as strict a discipline as nursing.
She smiled as she made her way to the central nursing office, and waited while the secretary buzzed through to Sonia. Moaning about the junior nurses—that made her feel very old!
She was shown into Sonia Walker’s office, and Sonia rose from behind her desk immediately, as immaculate as always in her smart blue dress, but with an anxious expression in her eyes.
‘Jenny!’ she exclaimed. ‘Do sit down. I’m so sorry to have had you come back from your holiday to such sad news.’
Jenny glanced at her, alarmed now. ‘Sad news? What news?’
‘You mean you haven’t heard?’
‘Heard what? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sonia.’
Sonia rested both hands on the desk, her eyes compassionate. ‘There’s no easy way to tell you this—I’m afraid Dr Marlow is dead.’
Jenny’s knuckles whitened as she gazed at the nursing officer disbelievingly. ‘Dead? Harry, dead? But. . . He can’t be. . .’ She stared at Sonia. ‘He was one of the fittest men around.’
Sonia shook her head. ‘I know. It happened so suddenly. He was driving to work. One minute he was fine—the next, gone. It was a terrible shock. The P-M showed that he had a massive stroke—he wouldn’t have suffered.’
Jenny let her head fall into her hands, willing the tears to stop, but unable to do anything to quench them. She had known Harry Marlow for as long as she could remember. He’d worked alongside her mother for years, and then with Jenny herself. He’d eaten his Christmas lunch with them every year, bar the time when he’d visited his sister in Australia. He had bought Jenny the engraved fob-watch, which she still wore, on the day she’d passed her finals.
Sonia moved from behind her desk to place a comforting arm around her shoulder, and handed her a wad of tissues.
Jenny wiped her eyes and blew ner nose. ‘I’m sorry, Sonia,’ she whispered. ‘It’s just come as such a shock. When—when. . .?’
‘It happened two days after you went away. We didn’t know where to reach you.’
Of course, she had left no word. She hadn’t even left a phone number.
‘So the funeral. . . ?’
‘Was last week. I’m so sorry, Jenny.’
So there wouldn’t even be a funeral for her to attend. No occasion for her to pay her last respects to the man who had been almost like a father to her.
‘And Dr Trentham thought it best not to try and trace you—to bring you back from wherever you were to be confronted with a funeral.’
Jenny had hardly been listening, but she raised her head a little. ‘Who?’ The tear-filled, green eyes stared at Sonia, who shifted in her seat a little.
‘Dr Trentham—he’s the new surgical attachment, replacing Dr Marlow. He didn’t think it wise to disrupt your holiday, and I agreed with him. He was right, Jenny. You needed the holiday. Everyone knew how hard you’d been working. What was the point of dragging you back?’
Sorrow, guilt and rage combined to form an icy hand which clutched at her chest. ‘This—Dr Trentham,’ she spat the name out as if it had a bad taste. ‘He had no right to make a decision like that, and I’m surprised that you allowed him to, Sonia.’
‘I wanted to do the right thing—and what he said seemed eminently reasonable at the time. I know you’re upset——’
‘How has Judy taken it?’ she interrupted in a small voice which seemed to come from a long way away.
Sonia looked as if she was about to wring her hands. ‘Judy has left, Jenny. She’s gone.’
Jenny looked blank. ‘Gone? What do you mean—gone?’
‘She’s left. She left when Dr Trentham joined. I think she found all the changes too much. She was only a couple of years off retirement, and I think that——’
Uncharacteristically, Jenny interrupted her nursing officer again, but Sonia Walker could see that the normally cool and efficient ward sister was in a state of shock.
‘Let me get this right.’ She spoke very slowly, as if checking her statement’s veracity while she uttered it. ‘Not only has this new doctor effectively prevented me from attending Harry’s funeral, but he has also made Staff Nurse Collins leave—after twenty years of loyal service?’
Sonia raised her eyebrows a little. ‘I wouldn’t have put it exactly like that. . . Listen, I can arrange for cover for your ward for today. Why don’t you go home and rest? It’s all been a terrible shock for you.’
Jenny had stood up, like an automaton, her eyes unseeing. Sonia sprang to her feet.