‘Thank you.’
‘Do not thank me yet, Miss Fraser.
Alors
, let us take this tour, and you will persuade me why I will find you an indispensable—what was it Mrs Cassell said?’
‘Right-hand man.’
Luc eyed the extremely feminine form in front of him and smiled. ‘That remark,
mademoiselle
, could only have been made by another woman.’
Chapter Five
S
heila led Luc—no, it had to be Dr Durand from now on—into the house. ‘This is the Great Hall,’ she said, her voice echoing in the huge empty space. ‘Most of the original furnishings are still in storage, in the stables and the attics,’ she explained. ‘Lord and Lady Carmichael have no room for it since they’ve moved into the Lodge.’
‘What about the rest of the family?’ Luc asked.
‘Flora and her husband, Geraint, are setting up home in London. Geraint is hoping for a career in politics. That’s also where the eldest son, Robbie, lives, with his wife, Sylvie. She’s French, apparently, like you. He was discharged from the army in January this year and has gone back to his wine-importing business. The youngest—Alex—well, as you know, he was killed in battle in October.’
‘I am sorry,’ he said.
‘I was with him at the end,’ Sheila surprised herself by saying.
‘Really? That must have been extremely traumatic for you.’
Sheila shook her head. ‘I’m glad it was me and not a stranger. His name has been added to the family crypt. It’s a lovely place at the far edge of the loch—you should visit it, if you get the chance. His body is interred in France though. I think Lady Carmichael would like to visit the grave, but I doubt the laird is fit for it. Màthair said...’
Luc raised a questioning brow.
Sheila laughed. ‘Màthair,’ she repeated slowly. ‘My mother. It’s Gaelic. I don’t speak it myself, but she’s fluent.’
‘And she lives in the village—I think it is called Glen Massan, yes, the same name as the house?’
‘She does, and it is.’
‘It must be good to be home, after being in France for—how long?’
‘Almost three years, after a year in a hospital in Glasgow training before that. I joined the VADs at the outbreak of the war.’ Sheila gazed up at the wall over the huge fireplace. ‘I gained a huge amount of experience. I want to put that to good use. I don’t want you to think you have to take me on just because of—because we...’
She broke off, mortified, cursing herself for having resurrected the subject when they had only just agreed it hadn’t happened. She could see it in his eyes, too, the memory of it. The air between them was suddenly charged. Their eyes locked. She had no idea how it happened. She had no memory of moving, or of him moving, either, but one of them must have. Or both. His fingers feathered along her jaw. She tilted her head. He dipped his. For just a fleeting moment, their lips met. The memory of that first kiss, just as tentative, just as irresistible, kept her transfixed. She sighed, the merest breath, then she jerked back. Or he did. Or they both did.
‘As I said, I don’t want any favours, Dr Durand,’ Sheila said briskly, turning away, throwing open the first door she came to. ‘The drawing room,’ she announced.
* * *
Neat rows of iron bedsteads flanked the walls of the huge room. The bare wooden boards were scrubbed clean. Through the white paint covering the walls, traces of the original wallpaper pattern could still be glimpsed. The plasterwork of the ceiling formed a geometric pattern that looked to be quite intact. Luc wandered farther in. The fireplace, which was probably marble but had also been painted institutional white, was flanked by a pair of statues, one carrying a torch. The other, which looked as if it should have matched, was both headless and minus her torch.
‘My heavens, it looks like the Western Front out there.’ Sheila was standing in the bay window, gazing out in horror at the gardens, though to call them gardens would be a gross exaggeration. The churned-up lawn scarred with practice trenches and criss-crossed with duck boards looked all too familiar, along with what looked like the remnants of a walled garden full of piles of rusting machinery. ‘You should have seen it before. And this room—it was so beautiful.’
‘Tell me, I’d like to know.’
Luc listened as she described the room in a level of detail that surprised him. She took him by the arm and showed him where each of the gilded sofas, the inlaid tables, the fire screens and armchairs with footstools had been placed. The animation he remembered from their first meeting had returned to her face. Her eyes sparkled as she recounted stories of the parties that had been held here, of the games she had played with the Carmichael children in her youth.
Leading him through a concealed door in the panelling, she took him into another room, where the inbuilt bookshelves, now empty, proclaimed its former use. ‘I can’t remember how many times Lady Carmichael chided me for hiding in here, my nose stuck in a book,’ Sheila said.
As she stooped down to retrieve a piece of paper that was wedged in the skirting, the movement tightened the folds of her gown against her pert bottom. He suddenly remembered her legs wrapped tightly around his waist, her heels digging into his buttocks.
‘I don’t understand why it was such a crime to be caught reading,’ Luc said, hoping his voice didn’t sound as strangled as it felt. ‘Were the books so very valuable?’
‘Oh, it wasn’t my reading them that was the problem. The laird was always encouraging me to borrow books, but Lady Carmichael wasn’t keen on my reading them when I was supposed to be working. I was her maid, didn’t Flora tell you?’
‘You were a servant?’ It seemed so at odds with her confidence and her obvious intelligence, but at least it explained her intimate knowledge of the house and all its furnishings. He tried to imagine her in a maid’s black gown and apron, cleaning the huge grate, dusting the shelves, running up and down the steep staircases they had passed, and discovered that he didn’t like the idea of her in such a menial position one little bit. ‘I thought you were a friend of the family.’
‘Flora and I have always been friends. We went to the village school together, until she was old enough to be packed off to finishing school and I was old enough to make a living from scrubbing out pans. My grandmother worked here, and my mother before me. It’s a family tradition.’ Her smile had faded. There was still a sparkle in her eyes, but it seemed to Luc it was more belligerent now. ‘What else was I to do?’ she demanded. ‘My mother’s a widow, and I’m her only child. She taught me how to sew and how to clean because that’s all she knows. I worked my way up here from scullery maid, and I never once relied on my influence with Flora. In fact, if you must know, Lady Carmichael did her best to prevent us being friends. It’s to Flora’s credit that she didn’t succeed.’
‘Sheila, I didn’t mean to imply...’
But she ignored him. ‘I’ve no formal qualifications, Dr Durand. Even if I’d wanted to leave, where would I go, other than to another position in another house where I didn’t know anyone? When I applied to be a VAD, they took one look at my hands and accepted me because they needed people willing to swab the floors of the hospitals and wash the sheets. Have you any idea how hard it was for me to persuade them I could do more! And even then...’
‘Sheila...’
‘Even then,’ she continued remorselessly, ‘I had to work harder than everyone else. This face, this hair—oh, I’m not such a hypocrite as to say that I wish I looked different, but you’ve no idea what a handicap it is. Especially after...’ She looked down at the bit of paper she’d retrieved, biting her lip, then glared at him. ‘It’s different for men. I don’t suppose your dashing good looks have ever held you back.’
‘You think I am handsome?’ He was so taken aback by her tirade that he said the first thing that came into his head.
‘Not handsome exactly, but you know perfectly well how attractive you are. I wasn’t the only woman who couldn’t take her eyes off you on Armistice night. I bet the theatre nurses drew lots to be on your rota.’
‘I choose my own theatre nurses on the basis of experience and skill.’
‘And yet, I am living proof that you have a weakness for a pretty face—you see, I’ve heard it all before. You’ll be telling me next that you’re so dedicated to your profession that women are a distraction you can’t afford.’
‘I am. They are.’ He was struggling to keep his temper, unsure how the conversation had taken this turn, confused by her aggression. ‘I told you the truth when I said you were an exception, and I told you the truth when I said I don’t notice how my nurses look, but only what they do. I am not some sort of surgical lothario. I don’t abuse my position.’
She went quite pale. ‘What have you heard?’
‘About what?’
‘About me. What did they say?’
She looked quite terrified for some inexplicable reason. ‘Until I received Mrs Cassell’s letter, I didn’t even know your full name,’ Luc said patiently. ‘How could I possibly link Miss Fraser with the VAD I knew only as Sheila until today? I’m not sure what your previous experience is, Sheila—Miss Fraser—but I assure you, when I am working, I am not a man but a surgeon. I think like a surgeon and I act only as a surgeon. If you and I are to work together, then I will expect you to do your job and nothing else.’
He meant it, every word. It had been one of the few things about his work that Eugenie used to tease him about. ‘You talk about the nurses as if they are some other sort of species, not women,’ she’d said to him once, and he remembered how surprised he’d been, to realise it was true. Perhaps it was the fact that Sheila Fraser wasn’t in uniform that was making it difficult for him to stop thinking like a man. Perhaps if she wore some sort of apron and cap. But she’d been wearing a uniform the night he met her and he’d only had eyes for the woman beneath. ‘I don’t think this is going to work,’ Luc muttered.
‘Because I’m not a trained nurse? Because I was a skivvy before the war and you think I was nothing more than a skivvy during it, you’ll not be wanting my help.’
He hadn’t even realised he’d spoken aloud. The flush faded from her cheeks, and the light from her eyes. Her shoulders slumped. She looked quite dejected, and he was struggling to keep pace with the changes in her mood. He caught her as she turned away, gently turning her towards him, holding her by the shoulders, forcing her to meet his gaze. ‘I don’t know what this
skivvy
means...’
‘Cleaner. Servant.’
There was a shimmer of tears in her eyes, but she widened them, determined not to let then fall. Whatever was going on in that mind of hers, he couldn’t help but admire her spirit. ‘Let me tell you something that might surprise you. My father was a humble baker. I was raised in the apartment above the shop in Paris. It was my job to scrub down the table where he worked before I went to school and to sweep the floor. I know how to lay a fire, and how to clean out the oven. I, too, have been a—a skivvy.’
‘Can you bake bread?’
He was relieved to see the spark of interest in her eyes. ‘But of course,’ Luc replied. ‘One of my earliest memories is standing on a box kneading dough at my father’s side in the bakery. I could never rival my father, though, he was a true artisan.’
‘Was?’
‘He died six years ago, two years after my mother. At least they were spared the war.’
‘I’m sorry, Luc. Doctor Durand.’
‘Moi aussi.’
‘Did your father expect you to become a baker?’
Luc shook his head. ‘I have always wanted to be a doctor. From an early age, I was fascinated by how the human body worked.’
‘You must have had to study very hard. I don’t know how it is in France, but here, doctors tend to come from wealthy families.’
‘It is the same in France.’ Luc grimaced. ‘I had nothing in common with them. I went to different schools, I lived in a different area of Paris and I had to work to supplement my bursaries—sometimes two or three different jobs at a time.’
‘You must have been very determined.’
‘Very,’ he said grimly, thinking of those early days. ‘I know all about having to prove yourself, Sheila—Miss Fraser. I know all about earning respect. I don’t care that you were a servant before the war. All I’m interested in is what you are now.’
‘You mean you’ll give me a chance?’
She looked almost incredulous. He had never suffered from lack of conviction. Lack of funds, lack of background, lack of the right family, but never lack of conviction. It touched him, her determination not to give in to the pressure to conform.
‘Oui,’
he said. ‘I mean I will give you a chance. I’m a surgeon. I don’t know the first thing about running a ward or ordering supplies or keeping patients clean and fed. I know what I want this hospital to do, I know what kind of patients we can help, but I don’t have the first idea about how to get them here, and how to release the funds from this trust, either.’
‘I’m not a lawyer.’
‘No, but you can talk to the lawyer on the board. You’re in a unique position here, as far as I’m concerned, because you understand both sides—the medical and the administrative. That will allow me to focus on what I do best.’
‘But, Luc, Dr Durand, really, I think you’re expecting too much from me. I’m not qualified...’
‘You’re not listening to me. You have the perfect qualifications.’
He raised his brow enquiringly and waited.
‘It’s a huge responsibility.’
‘Says the woman who without doubt had the care of wards containing fifty, sixty, a hundred men at a time?’
‘There was always a nurse on call.’
‘Did you rely on her?’
‘No, I preferred to stand on my own feet, so long as it didn’t put the patient at risk.’
‘
Voilà.
So you will take the position?’
‘Not if you’re offering it out of pity, or because...’
He shook his head wryly. ‘No, it has nothing to do with that. I want you to work for me because I think you deserve a chance, and because I think you are the best person for the role,
d’accord
?’
Her smile was slow to arrive, but eventually it came.
‘D’accord,’
she said. ‘Thank you.
’