Angel Kate (9 page)

'How could you!' she scolded. 'You with your lungs full of anaesthetic.'

Deliberately he raised the cigar to his lips and drew a long slow inhalation. Behind the camouflage of smoke his face remained inscrutable; but things were clicking nicely into place.

'So, Gertie,' he murmured into the veil of smoke that hung between them. 'I knew there was something about you – something I couldn't put my finger on.

'This,' he added slowly, 'is turning out to be quite a day.'

Kate didn't know what to make of it, what to think. Tom was staring at her, his face a bitter mask. She could not read his mind. He gave no clues away. Why was he looking at her like … like that?

So, Tom was asking himself. What would Kate say if I told her. If I said it now, out loud:
You're the one who sent my car spinning out of control. Because I could not get you out of my mind!

All along he'd been convinced that in spite of their theories he had not fallen asleep at the wheel. He, Tom Galvan, master of steely concentration in the operating theatre, schooled to ignore physical discomfort on the precarious tightrope of brain surgery. Was it likely he'd be careless at the wheel of a high-performance sports car?

Why not? When you can be so attracted to an unknown woman that you almost kill yourself thinking about her?
It was all coming back to him now, his close and silent observation of the mermaid creature padlocking her bicycle and walking—apparently—straight into his arms. Graceful and loose-limbed, the fantasy of her had lived on vividly in his imagination: immensely appealing after Diana's contrived and artificial glamour.

Why, no doubt about it, Nurse Wisdom might have saved his life—but she'd damn near finished him off in the first place!

'Those letters you wanted me to post. I forgot them. And here you are smoking when you know perfectly well—'

In two strides Tom was across the small room, confronting her, the glowing point of his cigar mere inches from Kate's startled nose. She pressed back against the door, her throat dry, fingers spread helplessly against the solid barrier of wood.

His voice was a throaty growl. 'You forget, young woman, that I am a doctor and fully in control of my faculties. This one solitary cigar has a positive contribution to make
at this moment
to my well-being.'

Kate locked eyes with him and said accusingly, 'There are better ways of dealing with stress than filling your lungs with nicotine.'

If he'd had two working arms, Tom would have grabbed the girl. Thrown her on the bed. Held her hostage while he worked through this mental jigsaw. He removed himself from temptation, leaving her there by the door while he leaned back against the windowsill, enjoying her consternation almost as much as he was enjoying feasting his eyes on her.

Kate cast her eye round the room, hoping to grab the letters and make her getaway.
Oh why did I come back? Why didn't I just go on home?

Her forlorn expression at last began to get through to him. The huge wounded eyes gazing anxiously up at him while he sated himself with the sight of her. That sweet face framed by long glossy hair. Those endless legs. She wasn't plain. How could he ever have thought Kate was plain?

Kate was grieving silently.
Oh Tom! I'll never forget the way you were that night. So compellingly attractive, so perfect and unharmed. And now look at you …wounded and angry and uncertain what the future's going to hold for you.

What she longed to do was so improper it would mean instant dismissal if they were caught. Hold him tightly in her  arms, feel the warm  reality of his body pressed hard against hers. And through sheer force of will move back time to the days before the accident when this gorgeous gifted man was his kind and gentle self, fighting fit and one hundred per cent well.

A time,
she thought sadly,
when you didn't  know I existed.

How her fingers ached to stroke his tousled black hair, still wet from the bath. The electric light  glinted on a sprinkling of silver which with a catch of breath Kate realised she hadn't noticed before. Was it the accident? Severe trauma could turn people's hair white. Had they all misunderstood the depths of his despair as he faced the prospect of never operating again?

How could I have been so unkind as to reproach him over one miserable cigar, she accused herself.

Tom coughed. His chest was hurting. The cigar was a mistake. Kate was right. And so were Frank and the rest of them.
You fell asleep!
You worked yourself to exhaustion. And you hadn't got the flat keys with you. What happened is your own damn fault!
And it's thanks to Kate Wisdom you're alive. And this is how you treat the poor kid when like the dedicated nurse she is, she demonstrates care and concern for your well-being. Let her get on home, she's worked a long day …

And don't you forget it from now on: Kate Wisdom is one and the same person. Yes, she's the woman you saw and in an idiotic moment thought you'd fallen dramatically in love with. And she's also Kate Wisdom RGN, the professional nurse who you have come so much to depend upon.

Much more of this treatment and wild horses won't drag Kate back to you.

*  *  *

After a rare night of tossing and turning, Kate woke late. Had she slept at all? It didn't feel like it. Every hour, on the hour, she had counted the  cathedral's solemn chimes. She stumbled around the bedroom, bumping into chairs and dropping things in her fumbling haste.

Bundling her hair into a plastic cap, she stepped under the deluge shower while the water was still running cold. It made her gasp, shocked her wide awake. What a restless, frustrating night. And all because of Tom.

 He'd been so aloof. And not a word of thanks for taking the trouble to come back for the letters.  She'd been made to feel like a stranger, which was utterly ridiculous when nurse and patient were involved in a situation of such intimacy that she could have described the mole below his left shoulderblade and the exact location of the suture line; with closed eyes recall the texture of smooth olive skin and the mingled smell of sandalwood soap and warm masculinity, the way the hair curled thickly on the nape of his neck, the shape of his mouth …

Why, I couldn't even describe my James in such detail! Kate reflected indignantly, rubbing goose- pimpled flesh with a big blue towel. Her hand reached automatically for the bottle of baby oil, hovered over it and then picked up the one she saved for best, Mitsouko-perfumed body lotion, smoothing it generously all over her damp skin, wanting to smell nice for Tom.  So what if there was no time now for breakfast.

One small self-indulgence remained from her Paris modelling days: the caressing softness of pure silk against her skin. Shivering a little, she slipped into a delicate shell-peach Lise Charmel bra and briefs, clasped the matching garter belt round her narrow waist and fastened pale stockings to the suspenders. Tights weren't comfortable on the hot busy wards; nurses preferred minimal underwear beneath their uniforms.

All the time her thoughts were on her surgeon patient… how strangely he'd looked at her, as if he didn't think much of Nurse Wisdom in her dark clothes with her hair flopping down her back.

'Perhaps he'd appreciate me more in palest peach,' she thought naughtily. Then,
Really Kate!
as her sensible side took back the lead.

With an ironic half-smile Kate assessed the steamy image in the bathroom mirror, trying to picture herself through another's eyes. It was difficult to be objective. At eighteen she'd been obsessed with clothes and the way she looked, slim as bamboo, with a natural elegance, perfect skin and masses of dark hair. That looked great, of course, when she was modelling Galliano or Chanel, not a serious thought in her silly head. Spoiled and petted, the daughter of Archie Wisdom, the wealthy and celebrated theatrical impresario. Only one thing she'd ever refused the top designers and that was to cut off her long mermaid hair.

'Katie darling, whatever you want to do, you know I'm right behind you. But leave your hair alone. Don't ever let those people cut it. Promise me that. You'll never need to work, princess, but you're as lovely as your mother and if you choose to cash in on your model girl looks I'll be in the front row at all your shows.'

His only child, Kate had always been able to twist him round her little finger. 'So you'll ring Wycombe Abbey and tell them I won't be finishing my A levels.'

She had total recall of that conversation. It was the first and last time she'd ever reproached her father. 'Why didn't you
and Mum stay
married to each other?'

He had stroked her glossy head with a rueful hand. 'We drifted apart, sweetheart. One day you'll understand.'

The truth of the matter was that it had been  Stephanie who had left her husband and child. She had fallen head over heels in love with a celebrated German writer whose books she'd been  translating into English for his London publisher. But Archie Wisdom hid his sorrow and bitterness from his young daughter, determined to keep his little princess safe in her ivory tower. 'Just drifted apart,' he said, thinking of his new love, a sweet-natured blonde whose impressive soprano was proving a hit in the new West End musical he was backing.

Obstinately Kate had clung to wistful memories of those days when they were all three of them together. When she married it was going to be for keeps, however rich and famous they both might be.

Wealth and privilege made a soft cushion for a young girl's life. School holidays were usually spent in Munich with her mother and her kindly if absent-minded new step-father. And Olwen moved in with Archie and his daughter in their Eaton Square home.  

But the ivory tower crashed to the ground one September day when Kate was twenty-one and doing catwalk at Somerset House for Rico Bianchi's autumn collection.

Archie Wisdom, there in the front row as always, Olwen at his side wearing cream Chanel,  slumped in his gilt chair, stricken with a massive heart attack.

Kate ran panic-stricken to her dying father. Crouching on the ground  with no thought for the fabulously expensive dress she was crushing, she was completely useless. She didn't even have the most basic knowledge of first-aid.

A doctor was called—but by then it was too late.

The event was widely reported.

The bulk of the estate passed to the new young widow and Kate's own inheritance was a small fortune in itself. But it came with the loss of her beloved father.

 For Kate, this was the wake-up call and she was ruthless in her determination to change what she now believed to be a trivial useless life. So she left London. She didn't even bother to tell her Chelsea set she was going to do RGN training, but headed for the first hospital prepared to take her application seriously.

Several hospitals had already turned her down. It wasn't easy to persuade Directors of Nursing that a catwalk model was serious about three years of hard graft.

Here at St Crispin's, Mrs Harris had been more perceptive than most. So Katie Wisdom, Top Model, became simply Kate Wisdom, student nurse, subdued and single-minded shadow of her former happy-go-lucky self. Without the magic of the makeup artist, her neat regular features were never recognised. Her hair was scraped back and twisted into a knot, her slender figure disguised in sensible uniforms.

At the start Kate's contemporaries found her distant and solemn.  She didn't smile much and she didn't gossip and she wasn't interested in the hospital's social life, disappearing like a mysterious shadow at the end of a working day. She was different. They knew she lived out. Left  her padlocked cycle near the Nurse Education block and went straight home after studying all day.

And the way she walked and the poised angle of her head … Wisdom was definitely not Student Nurse Average.

And it was hard-going for a twenty-two year old used to soft living. The first few weeks felt like never-ending torture. Sometimes it all seemed too much for someone unused to real hard work.

She couldn't bear the sight of blood; felt faint when injections were given. There were times she was on the verge of quitting.

But slowly she toughened up, adjusted to the pace and began to think of herself as a born nurse. She loved looking after sick people, especially the children and the frail elderly patients. And she was becoming friendly with a doctor who seemed to be everything she'd come to respect in a man: dedicated and hardworking, far more interested in pathology than in the sort of pursuits that entertained the like of Mike Filing in off-duty hours.

In Kate's estimation you'd go a long way to discover a more decent, dependable partner than James Mallory.

*  *  *

Apart from the seductively perfumed lotion -  which only she knew about - Kate's appearance was much as usual when she wheeled her cycle up the path.

'I'm late,' she whispered to the gnarled old apple tree as she knelt in the brilliantly green wet grass, gathering a fistful of lily-of-the-valley. 'I've never been late before. Wonder if Tom will say anything.'

'It's a chest infection all right,' agreed Professor Davy. 'Let's get decent levels of penicillin established quickly.' He scribbled instructions and handed the drugs record card to Kate who raised an eyebrow and went off to get the keys to the drugs trolley. The faded hothouse roses, he noted, had been replaced by a small pot of lily of the valley.  'Who brought you those?' he asked curiously.

'Kate. She was late this morning. That's why.'

'What, late because she was buying them. Or, sorry because she was late?'

'How should I know!' said Tom testily. 'She just turned up with them. From her garden, she said.'

Frank breathed in deeply. 'Glorious. Smells like the essence of spring. Wonder if she'd bring me some for Mary. Peace offering. She's cross with me.'

'I wonder why,' said Tom ironically, his words turning into a wheezing cough.

While Kate was out of the room Frank told his patient bluntly there was now no chance of early discharge. Tom scowled, but in truth he felt pretty awful, and though he made a token effort, another bout of coughing put paid to his weary protests.