For Ever and Ever (21 page)

“But, darling”—deliciously, experimentally, she called him that for the first time—”you know that’s quite illogical and unreasonable, don’t you?”

“I know it when I hold you,” he said, with a sigh. “You’re so real and dear and calm. One can’t be feverish and tormented in your presence.”

In all her life, Leonie had never expected to hear that she supplied such a need to any man. Least of all to the Senior Surgeon—to Simon Pembridge. But, as she heard these words, she knew suddenly that nothing anyone else would ever say to her could mean so much.

“My dear”—she took his hand, one of those clever, beautiful hands she loved so well—”you’ll never tell me anything sweeter than that, and if I really give you peace and happiness, I’ll ask nothing more of life.”

He put his cheek against her hair.

“I don’t understand in the least how happiness has suddenly been thrust into my hands like this,” he said tenderly. “But I’m holding it tight for ever more. Now explain to me, beloved, if you possibly can, why you seemed to find Stour’s company irresistible, why even the sight of your own pretty friend with him sent you into agitation, why you persistently refused, even after he quarrelled with you that morning in the surgery, to be saved from duty with him, and finally why he told me himself, only yesterday, that you and he were going to be married in Sydney the day after tomorrow.”

“He told you that?”

“Most certainly. That was when I finally gave up the last glimmer of hope.”

“Oh, Simon! For a clever man, and a more than clever surgeon, you really have been very silly. I suppose,” she said reflectively, “that was his final spiteful kick, because I rescued Claire from him.
That
was what he meant when he said he’d make me sorry.”

“Please—you said you’d explain,” Mr. Pembridge smiled down at her.

And so, standing in the circle of his arm, her head against his shoulder, Leonie told him the whole story, from the moment when she had seen Claire and Kingsley Stour together on the upper desk, that very first evening.

Like Sir James, he asked a question or two from time to time. And, unlike Sir James, he interrupted the recital with more than an occasional kiss.

“I do see,” he said in the end, “why you behaved the way you did. But you must also admit that I had some reason for being deceived.”

“But to believe that rat!” exclaimed Leonie reproachfully. “It wasn’t as though you didn’t know his type. How could you take his unsupported word that I was going to marry him?”

“It didn’t seem unsupported, darling,” said the Senior Surgeon humbly. “Not in view of all I had observed up to then. Besides, I suppose the truth is that I was so desperately anxious about everything to do with you, so wretched in my jealousy and despair, that I didn’t really exercise my common sense.”

She laughed and hugged him in the immensity of her relief and happiness. And at that moment Nurse Meech came in.

“Oh, sir—” She was so taken aback that she didn’t even have the sense to withdraw unobtrusively from what she evidently thought was a regrettable scene.

“That’s all right, Nurse. Come in and be the first to congratulate us,” said Mr. Pembridge affably.

At this Nurse Meech opened her mouth quite wide. For, as she told Nurse Donley with great originality afterwards, you could have knocked her down with a feather. But romance delighted her. And a romance which involved both a surgeon and a nurse (or even an ex-nurse) was the nicest thing possible.

So she wrung them both by the hand and said so much about her pleasure and joy that it was a few minutes before she remembered why she had come in at all.

“Oh, Miss Creighton, I forgot—Miss Elstone and her father are looking for you everywhere. They’re ready to go ashore.”

“Why, of course!
I
forgot all about them too! I must go,” Leonie declared to her beloved.

“Wait a moment. When do I see you again? And where are you staying?” He held her hand fast.

“At the Australia. I’m there for two weeks. And then—and then “ Her voice faltered and her face fell. “Then Sir James is sending me back to London by air.”

“Oh, no, he isn’t,” said the Senior Surgeon. “You tell him you’re engaged to me, and that I make the decisions for you in future.”

She laughed, in incredulous delight, at the picture of the future which this conjured up.

“I’ll tell him. He won’t mind. He’ll be thrilled! And so will Claire. Oh, there’s so much to tell them. And I mustn’t keep them any longer.”

Indeed, so sharp was her awareness of her employer’s authority that she gave Mr. Pembridge only the hastiest kiss before she almost ran towards the door.

But there was an authority more compelling than anything Sir James could employ.

“Nurse—” said Mr. Pembridge quietly.

“Sir?” She turned quickly, and he held out his arms to her.

“Oh—” She laughed and ran back into his arms, and Nurse Meech said afterwards that it was better than anything she had ever seen on the pictures.

“Tell me, darling—you’re mine for always now, aren’t you?” he whispered urgently.

“For ever and ever,” she promised, with all her heart. And she knew then that whether she went with him on the Pacific cruise, or stayed in Australia, or returned to London, home was, quite simply, here in his arms.