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The euphoria didn't last. Her confidence began to ebb as the memory of the magic became overshadowed by the realisation that he had said not one real word of love to her for all that night in his arms. Had she really thought that of all the women who must have enjoyed his sensual lovemaking
she
was special? Had she really imagined that her love for him was the key to lasting happiness?

They had parted with no arrangement to meet again. Obviously she would see him at Greenvale, but those impersonal surroundings could stifle anyone's feelings and they would need to be discreet or set the grapevine buzzing.

Mark hadn't mentioned the Penistones. She knew, because everyone else did, that he was one of the main guests at Hugh Penistone's birthday dinner. She didn't want to think of him spending the evening with the beautiful Louise by his side, perhaps wondering why he shouldn't carry out his original intention of asking her to marry him.

Why should he remember Gillian in his arms or feel that their lovemaking should affect his long-standing
decision to acquire an eminently suitable wife for a successful surgeon? It seemed only too likely that men like Mark took girls like herself to bed and then forgot them. They married the Louise Penistones of their world!

Her heart grew heavier as she busied herself with necessary chores about the flat. She decided to go shopping that afternoon—and almost the first person she saw was Mark.

His height and striking good looks made him an unmistakable figure among the crowd of shoppers in the High Street. Instinctively she quickened her steps to reach him as he paused outside the shop he had just left. She desperately needed to see and speak to him if only for a moment. She needed the reassurance of a smile, a word, a loving glance.

She didn't know if he had seen her. But he suddenly turned and began to walk quickly in the opposite direction . Hesitating, Gillian realised that he had come out of a jewellers, the most exclusive and expensive in the town. He had put something away in his pocket as he stood outside the shop. A small square box, perhaps. Maybe one that contained a ring. The engagement ring he had chosen for Louise?

Gillian's heart plummeted like a stone.

What else?

Everyone knew of the engagement. She could almost visualise the enormous diamond solitaire on its velvet cushion that he must have bought for the girl he meant to marry.

No wonder he hadn't wanted to speak to her, Gillian thought bleakly. He must have seen her hurrying along the pavement towards him. He had been looking at her!

He was going through with it. The gift of her love, of herself, meant absolutely nothing to him. He meant to marry Louise because he was a proud, ambitious, cold-hearted man who was quite incapable of loving any woman.

Gillian turned and made her way back to the flat, seeing nothing and no one, buying none of the essential items that had taken her out that afternoon. She was struggling with the most dreadful pain that radiated from the region of her heart and turned her limbs to lead and her blood to ice-water.

Of course Mark didn't love her. She had always known that there was no future in loving him. She had walked into his arms with her eyes wide open and it was much too late for regrets. He had taken what she offered just as any man would.

At least he had spared her the lie that he loved her, she thought bleakly. She couldn't have coped with that amount of hurt.

She shrivelled at the memory of her own declaration of love. He had been drowsy, drifting into sleep— Perhaps he hadn't heard! But his arm had tightened about her and she had known that he smiled and he had murmured her name in lazy response. Of course he had heard.

She could only hope that he hadn't believed her. People did say such things at such times, she knew. She couldn't bear it if Mark knew how she felt about him and just didn't care! She couldn't bear it if he dismissed her love with that mocking contempt he seemed to show for all the women who paraded their desire for him! She wouldn't let him trample her heart beneath his uncaring feet. She must find a way to convince him that she didn't love him at all!

There was Robin, she thought thankfully. Dear, loyal, loving Robin who had come back into her life just when she needed him most.

Louise Penistone's engagement didn't have to be the only one that was announced that weekend, she thought with a desperation born of pride, dialling Robin's telephone number and knowing that he wouldn't let her down ...

Gillian was numb.

She talked and smiled and laughed and danced in Robin's arms and gave a convincing performance of happiness at the Country Club that evening. It was all for Robin's sake. He didn't deserve the hurt and humiliation of knowing that he was being used to protect her pride.

There was a buzz of speculation about the party at the Penistones. It was a private party with very few guests. No one seemed to doubt the outcome. Gillian tried not to listen to the gossip and had nothing to say about Mark Barlow's plans. She did work with him but she scarcely knew him, she insisted brightly. She was a newcomer to the clinic. She didn't know Louise Penistone except by sight. She was very beautiful and very smart. Everyone seemed to think that the surgeon and Hugh Penistone's daughter were well suited, she agreed—and drew Robin out to the dance floor to escape any more talk about the couple before she betrayed the dead thing in her breast that she called her heart.

As they danced, Robin drew her close with proud and tender possessiveness. She was so pretty and so sweet, so popular among his friends with her easy friendliness and bright humour and love of life.

He loved her very much. But it was a long time since they had been close enough for him to know her every mood. In three years, Gillian had matured and grown away from him and it would take a little time to regain their former intimacy, and understanding. So he wasn't sensitive to the misery behind the sparkle in her lovely eyes.

She seemed happy and relaxed, glad to be with him, and Robin didn't look beyond the obvious. He was too relieved. She had seemed to be keeping him at a slight distance. She had been insisting on her independence. She had encouraged Steve Palmer's interest too much for his peace of mind.

Now, she was affectionate and dependent and encouraging, referring lightly to the future as though there wasn't the slightest doubt that they would spend it together. Robin decided that she had just needed a few days to sort out her feelings after the surprise of meeting him again.

Gillian smiled at him. Dear Robin. He was so nice, so reliable. He was familiar and kind and reassuring and she knew exactly where she stood with him. Married to him, a girl would be safe. He might not be exciting but he was dependable and he would never hurt or humiliate her by taking everything and giving nothing.

The lurking pain began to creep up on her again. She forced it back. As long as she didn't feel anything she could contemplate marrying a man she would never, never love. She wouldn't think about Mark and the might have been. She would concentrate on Robin and the will-be!

Her hand tightened on his shoulder. 'I'm so glad we found each other again,' she said warmly. 'I missed you a lot when you left Kit's. I'm afraid I must have hurt you very much,' she added with new understanding and a great deal of compassion.

Robin was surprised by the sudden reference to the past and touched by the remorse in her soft voice. He brushed his lips against her hair. 'That's all forgotten, darling,' he assured her tenderly. 'We were lucky to be given the chance of a new beginning.'

'I think I can promise you a happy ending,' Gillian said. 'If you still want me ...'

Taken by surprise, he missed a step, a rare event for such an expert dancer. 'Do you mean it?
Will
you marry me?' he asked eagerly.

She nodded. Words were too difficult.

He caught her close and kissed her in the middle of the crowded dance floor, a rare event for such an undemonstrative man. 'Soon?'

'Whenever you like,' Gillian said bleakly.

He was too delighted to realise the sadness in her eyes or the despair in her voice. He was over the moon, exultant, excited, making plans. She didn't have to say very much at all for the rest of the evening for Robin was voluble with happiness and relief, and confidence in the future.

He didn't question if she loved him, Gillian thought, relieved. To someone as uncomplicated as Robin there couldn't be any other reason why she would want to marry him. He wouldn't understand that a girl could be driven by pride and pain and a hopeless passion for one man to seek refuge in the arms of another who had loved her so long and so loyally.

An evening with his friends turned into a celebration and it was late before he took her home. Gillian wished she could say goodnight and send him away with a chaste kiss. But a man who was expecting to marry the woman he loved in the near future also expected more than a kiss to seal the bargain, she told herself heavily.

He had been very patient. Somehow she must let him into her arms and try to respond to his ardour. It wouldn't be possible to say no to him once she was his wife.

If she had only said no to Mark then she might not be so reluctant to lie in Robin's loving arms, she thought with the beginning of pain that the magic had fled so soon.

Comparisons were odious, she told herself fiercely, unmoved by Robin's warm lips on her own, his tentative caress of her breast, trying not to shrink from him. Her body was cold and heavy and unwilling.

He kissed her gently and without fire. There wasn't the urgency in his embrace that she had expected and dreaded. She realised that he was keeping a tight rein on his feelings. She was surprised and relieved when he released her with a last kiss.

'Darling, I'd better go,' he said wryly. 'I want you too much ...' She felt obliged to tell him that he didn't have to go. He smiled and shook his head. 'It's like you to be generous. You're very sweet,' he told her warmly. 'But I've waited so long for you that a few more weeks won't be any hardship. Besides, I'm old-fashioned enough to want a virgin for my bride.'

Gillian knew she should disillusion him then and there. She simply couldn't. She kissed him and let him go, happy in his ignorance.

She hadn't known that it was so easy to commit herself to an unwanted future. Now, she wouldn't have that year at Greenvale, after all. Robin wanted an early wedding and she knew his views on working wives. Mark would have to find someone else to take over as his theatre nurse, she thought with a wrench of disappointment. But she knew she couldn't have taken the job, anyway.

Even a Kit's nurse could find it impossible to separate the personal from the professional when she found herself deeply in love with a surgeon ...

Gillian
didn't sleep at all.

Her thoughts wound themselves ceaselessly around a trio of doctors. A surgeon, a GP and an anaesthetist. Hopelessly in love with the first, foolishly engaged to the second, she almost found herself wishing that she had settled for the unalarming and undemanding third!

She was tormented by doubts and anxieties and regrets. She wandered aimlessly about the lonely, echoing flat. She sat with her head in her hands. She went to bed and got up again. The night seemed endless, an eternity of pain and despair. She cried for Mark, for Robin, for herself.

Mark didn't deserve to be loved so much. Robin didn't deserve to be loved so little. And did she deserve to be so wretched and so miserable when all she had done was fall in love with the wrong man?

Doubting that Mark was alone and lonely that night, wondering if he thought of her at ail she remembered the magic that they had too briefly known. Gillian clenched her hands so fiercely that the nails dug tiny crescents into her palms. She didn't notice the hurt. She hurt all over.

Later, she might be able to re-discover her pride and determine never to cry again for Mark or to allow him to break her heart. Just now, she was a crumpled heap of misery.

She was huddled on the shabby sofa in her dressing-gown, clasping a steaming mug of coffee in both hands for comfort, when the telephone rang just after nine o'clock the next morning.

She reached for the receiver without enthusiasm, expecting Robin.

It was Steve.

'Hallo, love. I'm just off to the golf course but I wondered if you'd heard the news?'

'What news?' She was too tired to care.

'About Mark?' He was gently probing.

'Oh, that! I know!' she said quickly, defensive, not wanting to talk about Mark or anything that affected him. She hadn't thought that Steve could be so insensitive, she thought bitterly. Or was he just trying to be kind, to forewarn her, to protect her from betraying dismay when someone else informed her that the long-expected engagement was finally fact? She suspected that Steve had always known that her stubborn dislike of Mark was a defence.

'You know?'

She was too cold and too dispirited to notice the surprise. 'Yes.'

'What's your reaction?' he asked with the genuine interest of a caring friend.

'Complete indifference,' she said on a surge of pride. 'I don't know him well enough to care one way or the other. Frankly, I'm just not interested!' Wishing him an enjoyable game of golf, she rang off before the conversation could develop any further—and it was some minutes before she realised that she hadn't told him of her own wedding plans.

Well, it wasn't the kind of news to break over the telephone to a man who was fond of her and showed it. It wouldn't break his heart, she knew—and thanked heaven for it. He was a good friend who really cared that she should be happy. All she had to do was to convince him that marrying Robin would make her happy. The red-haired anaesthetist could be unexpectedly perceptive and much too shrewd for comfort at times.

Half an hour later, the telephone shrilled its loud summons throughout the flat once more. It really had to be Robin this time, Gillian decided.