The Doctor’s Proposal Read online

  It was amazing-but it was great, Kirsty thought, looking around her in awe. There were aspidistra plants winding up every column-and there were many, many columns. Grecian columns. If she looked closely, she could see the plants were plastic. Made in China. The Louis XIV chairs scattered along the wall were of a construction about three classes below chain-store.

  What was she doing, being distracted by furnishings? She was still annoyed. She decided to go back to being furious. But before she could resurrect her indignation, he let loose with his own.

  ‘Do you mind telling me what you’re doing, travelling the world with a woman who is eight months pregnant? A woman who has a shattered back and who’s anorexic to boot? What madness propelled you to bring her halfway across the world? I’m not talking lightly when I say we’re working on saving three lives. She’s risking her life and her baby’s life.’

  ‘You think I don’t know that? She would have died if I hadn’t brought her here,’ she said flatly. ‘And there’s the truth.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You can see why. She fell for Rory so hard she couldn’t see anyone else, and when he was killed she wanted to die, too. I think she still does.’

  ‘Is she being treated for depression?’

  ‘She refuses. She can’t take antidepressants because of the baby, if she’d take them-which she wouldn’t. She won’t talk about Rory. She just sits. I hoped that by bringing her here, where people knew Rory, she might break her silence.’

  He reached the landing and said over his shoulder, ‘You said she’s a landscape gardener.’

  ‘That’s part of the problem,’ Kirsty told him. ‘Susie’s not fit to work. She has nothing, so she sits and thinks of what she’s lost.’

  ‘She still has the baby,’ Jake says. ‘It’s not altogether tragic.’

  ‘That’s easy to say,’ Kirsty said, and he flashed her a look that she couldn’t read.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To meet Angus.’

  ‘You said he’d be asleep.’

  ‘I’d said he’d gone to bed. There’s a difference. He’ll be waiting for us.’

  ‘He’s so ill he wouldn’t come to find out what’s happening?’

  ‘He’s a bit like Susie,’ Jake said, his voice softening. ‘He should be in a downstairs bedroom but he refuses. He refuses anything that might help. He just sits and waits.’

  ‘How close is he to death?’ she asked bluntly, and saw him wince. He really did care.

  ‘Until you arrived, I’d have said it’d be a matter of weeks.’ Suddenly he was slowing his stride, as if it was important that she hear what he had to say. ‘Days even. Once he’s in a nursing home I imagine he’ll lose any last vestige of will to live. He lives for this place.’

  ‘For this castle?’

  There was a wry grin at that. ‘No. Loganaich Castle gives him pleasure but, as amenable as he was to building it, this was his wife’s baby. He doesn’t love it. His vegetable garden, though, is a different matter. But now…’ He hesitated.

  ‘Now?’ she prodded, and he seemed to think for a bit before continuing.

  ‘Now we have a landscape gardener and a doctor on hand,’ Jake said. ‘Who knows what difference that could make?’ He paused before a pair of vast oak doors, set with two plastic plaques. DEIRDRE LIVES HERE was engraved on a teddy-bear-embossed plastic plaque hanging on the left-hand door and ANGUS LIVES HERE was hung with decorative fishing lines on the right.

  It was too much for Kirsty. She started laughing. Jake swung the door wide, and she was laughing as she met the Earl of Loganaich.

  Serious lung deterioration was difficult to disguise and Angus showed all the symptoms. He was seated at the window but he stood as they entered, a frail man who groped for his walking frame before taking a faltering step toward them. His breathing was shallow and rasping, and his lips had a faint blue tinge.

  If he was my patient, I’d have him on oxygen, Kirsty thought, and caught a flash of grim amusement from Jake.

  She wasn’t going to look at him any more.

  That was easy enough to arrange-for the moment. Angus was coming toward her, a quizzical smile on his wrinkled face.

  ‘Here’s my visitor,’ he said, his obvious pleasure giving lie to Jake’s declaration that he couldn’t have visitors. ‘But not…’ His face clouded in disappointment. She’d held out her hand to greet him and he stared down at her bare ring finger. ‘Not Rory’s widow? Jake’s made a mistake, hasn’t he? Rory never married.’

  ‘He did,’ Kirsty told him, confused. Why hadn’t Rory kept in touch with his family?

  ‘But you’re not…’

  ‘My sister married your nephew,’ she told him.

  ‘And she’s not here.’

  ‘Susie’s here, but she’s ill herself,’ Jake said softly. ‘We’ve popped her into bed. She’s exhausted.’

  ‘She’s ill?’ This old man was anxious on her sister’s behalf, Kirsty thought with more than a little incredulity as she listened to his laboured, painful breathing.

  ‘My sister’s looking forward to meeting you very much,’ she told him. ‘Jake seems to think it’s OK for us to stay the night.’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘We won’t bother you. And we’ll leave first thing in the morning.’

  His face fell. ‘So soon?’

  ‘We don’t want to disturb you.’

  ‘No one wants to disturb me,’ he snapped, so harshly that he made himself cough. ‘Why didn’t Rory tell me he was married? Why didn’t Kenneth tell me Rory was married?’

  Kirsty had no answers. She knew Rory had a brother, but she’d never met him. As far as she knew, there was a deep and abiding dislike that had been the major decision behind Rory’s decision to emigrate.

  ‘Maybe Susie knows more than I do,’ she murmured. ‘You can talk to her in the morning.’ She cast an uncertain glance at Jake, and then looked back at Angus. His lips were still tinged blue and his distress was obvious. He was struggling to stand. As she turned back to him he staggered slightly. She caught his hand and helped him sit on the bed.

  ‘Th- Th-’ It was too much. He lay back on the pillows and gasped.

  ‘You need oxygen,’ she said urgently, and turned to Jake. ‘Why isn’t he on oxygen? It’d surely help.’

  Jake sighed. ‘Thank you, Dr McMahon. The US has heard of oxygen, then, has it?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, backing off in an instant. What was she about, interfering in a doctor-patient relationship that had nothing to do with her? ‘Of course it’s none of my business. And Angus-your… I’m sorry, I don’t know what to call you.’

  ‘I haven’t done the introductions,’ Jake said. ‘Dr Kirsty McMahon, this is His Grace, the Earl of Loganaich.’

  She glowered, and then shot a cautious smile at Angus. ‘Gee, that makes it easier to know what to call you.’

  Angus managed a smile back-and so did Jake.

  ‘Call me Angus,’ the old man managed. But then he started to gasp again and Jake’s smile died.

  ‘Angus, you need to let me help you,’ Jake said urgently, and Kirsty could hear the raw anxiety in his tone. This was something much deeper than a doctor-patient relationship.

  ‘Angus won’t use oxygen,’ Jake added, startling her by referring to a conversation she thought he’d effectively closed. ‘I know it’s none of your business, Dr McMahon, but now you’ve brought it up we may as well give Dr McMahon an answer, don’t you think, Angus?’

  ‘No,’ Angus gasped, and struggled for some more breath.

  ‘Angus won’t use oxygen because he’s decided to die,’ Jake said, still roughly. ‘Just like your sister. Just like Susie.’

  ‘Susie wants to die?’ Angus gasped. ‘Rory’s wife wants to die? Why?’

  ‘The same reason you do, I expect,’ Jake growled. ‘No point in going on.’ Then, as Angus started coughing again, he lifted the old man’s hand and gripped, hard. �
��Angus, let us help. Stop being so damned stubborn.’

  Kirsty took a deep breath. She glanced sideways at Jake-and then decided, Dammit, she was going in, boots and all.

  ‘You know, the way you’re looking, without oxygen you could well die in the night,’ Kirsty said softly. ‘Susie’s travelled half a world to meet you. She’d be so distressed.’

  ‘I’m not… I’m not likely to die in the night.’

  Kirsty cast another cautious glance at Jake but for some reason Jake had turned away. Go ahead, his body language said. This may be none of her business but he wasn’t stopping her.

  ‘Jake’s told you I’m a doctor,’ she said, and Angus took a couple more pain-racked breaths and grunted.

  ‘Aye. Too many of the creatures.’

  ‘He means two too many,’ Jake said. He’d crossed to the window and was staring out at the sea. ‘Until you arrived I was the only doctor within a hundred miles. Why he should say there’s too many doctors when he won’t even agree to see a specialist…’

  ‘No point,’ Angus gasped. ‘I’m dying.’

  ‘You are,’ Kirsty said, almost cordially. ‘But don’t you think dying tonight when Susie’s come all this way to see you might be just a touch selfish?’

  There could have been a choking sound from the window, but she wasn’t sure.

  ‘Selfish?’ Angus wheezed and leaned back on his pillows. ‘I’m not… I’m not selfish.’

  ‘If you let Dr Cameron give you oxygen then you’d certainly live till morning. You might well live for another year or more.’

  ‘Leave me be, girl. I won’t die tonight. No such luck.’

  ‘Your lips are blue. That’s a very bad sign.’

  ‘What would you know?’

  ‘I told you. I’m a doctor. I’m just as qualified as Dr Cameron.’

  He gasped a bit more, but his attention was definitely caught. The veil of apathy had lifted and he seemed almost indignant. ‘If my lips were blue then Jake would be telling me,’ he managed.

  ‘Jake’s told you,’ Jake muttered from his window, and glanced at his watch. And did his best to suppress a sigh. And went back to staring out the window.

  There was a moment’s silence while Angus fought for a retort. ‘So my lips are blue,’ he muttered at last. ‘So what?’

  Kirsty considered. Back home she worked in a hospice and she was accustomed to dealing with frail and frightened people. She could sense the fear in Angus behind the bravado.

  Maybe he wasn’t ready to die yet.

  Another glance at Jake-but it seemed he was leaving this to her.

  ‘Let us give you oxygen,’ she said, wondering how she was suddenly taking over from an Australian doctor, with a patient she didn’t know, on his territory-but Jake’s body language said go right ahead. ‘And let us give you some pain relief,’ she added, guessing instinctively that if he was refusing oxygen, he’d also be refusing morphine. ‘We can make a huge difference. Not only in how long you’re likely to live but also in how you’re feeling.’

  ‘How can you be knowing that for sure?’ he muttered.

  ‘Angus, I have a patient back home in America,’ she said softly. ‘He’s been on oxygen now for the last ten years. It’s given him ten years he otherwise wouldn’t have had-ten years where he’s had fun.’

  ‘What fun can you have if you’re tied to an oxygen cylinder?’

  ‘Plenty,’ she said solidly. ‘Cyril babysits his grandson. He gardens. He-’

  ‘How can he garden?’ Angus interrupted.

  And Kirsty thought, Yes! Interest.

  ‘He wheels his cylinder behind him wherever he goes,’ she told him. ‘He treats it just like a little shopping buggy. I’ve watched him weeding his garden. He used a kneepad ’cos his knees hurt, but he doesn’t even think about the tiny oxygen tube in his nostril.’

  ‘He’s not like me.’

  ‘Jake says you have pulmonary fibrosis. He’s just like you.’

  ‘I haven’t got a grandson,’ Angus said, backed into a corner and still fighting.

  ‘No, but you’ll have a grand-niece or-nephew in a few weeks,’ she said with asperity. ‘I do think it’d be a shame not to make the effort to meet him.’

  The effect of her words was electric. Angus had been slumped on the bed, his entire body language betokening the end. Now he stiffened. He stared up at her, disbelief warring with hope. The whistling breathing stopped. The colour drained from his face and Kirsty thought maybe his breathing had totally stopped.

  But just when she was getting worried, just when Jake took a step forward and she knew that he’d had the same thought as she had-heart attack or stroke-Angus started breathing again and faint colour returned to his face.

  ‘A grand-nephew.’ He stared up, disbelief warring with hope. ‘Rory’s baby?’

  ‘Susie’s certainly pregnant with Rory’s child.’

  ‘Kenneth would have said-’

  ‘Kenneth-Rory’s brother-doesn’t want to know Susie,’ Kirsty told him, trying to keep anger out of her voice. ‘He’s made it clear he wants nothing to do with us. So we came out here hoping that the Uncle Angus who Rory spoke of with affection might show a little affection to Rory’s child in return.’ She steadied then and thought about what to say next. And decided. Sure, this wasn’t her patient-this wasn’t her hospice-but she was going in anyway. ‘And you can’t show affection by dying,’ she told him bluntly. ‘So if you have an ounce of selflessness in you, you’ll accept Dr Cameron’s oxygen-and maybe a dose of morphine in addition for comfort-you’ll say thank you very much, and you’ll get a good night’s sleep so you can meet your new relative’s mother in the morning.’

  But he wasn’t going so far yet. He was still absorbing part one. ‘Rory’s wife is pregnant.’ It was an awed whisper.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And I need to live if I’m to be seeing the baby.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re not lying?’

  ‘Why would she lie?’ Jake demanded, wheeling back to the bed. ‘Angus, can I hook you up to this oxygen like the lady doctor suggests, or can I not?’

  Angus stared at him. He stared at Kirsty.

  His old face crumpled.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, please.’

  Jake had an oxygen canister and a nasal tube hooked up in minutes. He gave Angus a shot of morphine and Angus muttered about interfering doctors and interfering relatives from America and submitted to both.

  Within minutes his breathing had eased and his colour had improved. They chatted for a little-more time while Kirsty noticed Jake didn’t so much as glance at his watch again-and finally they watched in relief as his face lost its tension. He’d been fighting for so long that he was exhausted.

  ‘We’ll leave you to sleep,’ Jake told him, and the old man smiled and closed his eyes.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Jake said softly, and ushered Kirsty out the door. ‘A minor miracle. Verging on a major one.’

  ‘You really care,’ she said, and received a flash of anger for her pains.

  ‘What do you think?’

  There was only the matter of Susie’s omelette remaining.

  ‘I can do it,’ Kirsty muttered as Jake led her down to the castle’s cavernous kitchen. Somewhat to her relief, Deirdre’s love of melodrama and kitsch hadn’t permeated here. There was a sensible gas range, plus a neat little microwave. And a coffee-maker. A really good coffee-maker.

  ‘I’m staying here for ever,’ Kirsty told Jake the moment she saw it. She hadn’t seen a decent coffee since Sydney. ‘Dr Cameron, I can take over now. We’ll be fine.’

  ‘Call me Jake.’ Boris had followed them into the kitchen. The man and his dog were searching the refrigerator with mutual interest. ‘If you take your sister an omelette, will she eat it?’ he demanded. She stopped being flippant and winced.

  ‘Um…no.’

  ‘How did I guess that? I’ll take it.’

  ‘But you have more house calls.’


  ‘The girls will already be asleep,’ he muttered. ‘I may as well stay.’

  ‘Your wife goes to bed early?’ Kirsty asked, and he looked at her as if she was stupid. Which, seeing she was hugging a coffee-maker, might well be a reasonable assumption.

  ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘You. Toast. Me. Omelette.’ And he grinned down at the hopeful Boris. ‘And you-sit!’

  ‘Fair delineation.’

  ‘Speaking of delineation-you don’t want a medical partnership, do you?’ he asked, without much hope and from the depths of the refrigerator.

  ‘You don’t even know me,’ she said, startled.

  ‘I know you enough to offer you a job.’

  ‘You can’t be so desperate you’d offer a strange American a medical partnership.’

  ‘I’m always desperate.’ Backing out from the fridge with supplies, he separated eggs and started whisking the whites as if they’d offended him.

  Kirsty cast him a sideways glance-and decided his silence was wise. She’d be silent, too. She started making toast.

  For a while the silence continued, but there was obviously thinking going on under the silence. Kirsty was practically exploding with questions but Jake exploded first.

  ‘Where are you expecting Susie to have her baby?’ he asked at last, and his voice held so much anger that she blinked. He’d moved on from offering partnerships, then. He was back to thinking she was a dodo.

  ‘Sydney,’ she told him. ‘We’ve booked her into Sydney Central.’

  ‘You mean you’ve thought it through.’

  ‘I’m not dumb.’

  ‘You’ve towed a wounded, damaged, pregnant, anorexic woman halfway round the world-’

  ‘I told you. I had no choice. She was dying while I watched. Susie’s my twin and I love her and I wasn’t going to let that happen.’

  ‘So what did you hope to achieve here?’

  ‘Susie loved Rory so much. I thought she might just find echoes. And maybe she will yet,’ she added a trifle defiantly, flipping the toast onto a plate. ‘Angus’s smile…when he smiles, it’s Rory’s smile.’

  ‘He was very fond of Rory,’ Jake said, relenting a little.

  Maybe he’d been afraid she’d intended dumping Susie’s pregnancy on him, she thought, and if she were a medical practitioner in such a place, maybe she’d be angry, too.