Home for Christmas (23 page)

‘He may not.’

‘I’m sure he will.’

‘So! Is this goodbye?’ She sounded petulant.

Roused from his brooding thoughts, Eric jerked up his head. He looked appalled at the prospect of parting from her.

‘No!’ he said, her comment finally annihilating the persistent frown. ‘I couldn’t live without you, Kate. You know that.’

Kate tossed her mane of auburn hair teased upwards tonight into a full style forming a halo around her lovely face. ‘Then let us forget about Rudolfo and his sister. Maybe he will keep his mouth shut.’

Doctor Miller smiled though he remained concerned. ‘Maybe.’

Now she looked thoughtful, her eyes carefully avoiding his.

‘What is it, Kate?’

‘Paris,’ she said with a sigh. ‘It was a beautiful day, so typical of late June in Paris. People were marching up and down, waving flags. Eric, they were baying like dogs for war. Welcoming the prospect of men dying.’

Eric shook his head. ‘Let us hope it never happens. It is so needless. All these ridiculous treaties with one country and another, and all over the Balkans. I cannot see our leaders being so foolish as to lay men’s lives on the line for the Balkans.’

He shook his head, imagining how terrible it would be and how pointless. He was no expert on weapons, but knew enough to surmise that modern weaponry and traditional tactics could be a lethal combination.

Kate had fallen into silence. On raising his eyes, he saw that hers seemed too big for her face, and her skin – her complexion – had turned incredibly pale.

‘What is it, Kate?’ he asked gently. It crossed his mind that she might be ill. He hoped not. Kate had made a huge difference to his life. She made him feel alive again.

‘What will you do if war is declared on Germany, Eric?’

Her voice was huskier than it normally was, as though the words were catching in her throat.

He stared at her at first, wondering what she could possibly mean.

He shrugged. ‘I will continue to practise medicine. What else should I do?’

Kate’s expression never wavered. Her eyes stayed fixed on his and were full of meaning.

He blinked as that meaning hit him. If Britain went to war with Germany, he would be an enemy alien.

On the following Thursday he was summoned to the London house in Belgravia where Lady Julieta had taken up residence in plenty of time for the London season.

The interior was unchanged except there were flowers and tubs of tropical plants everywhere.

The perfume from a bunch of arum lilies came from a large urn. Doctor Eric Miller attempted to take shallow breaths in order not to breathe in an overabundance of their scent. Lilies were greatly favoured by funeral parlours to mask the smell of decaying bodies and he hated them.

He had brought his medical bag, though he suspected the old girl wished to discuss more than just her health. At the back of his mind he wondered if he was about to be dismissed because of the situation with Germany. He reminded himself that, although of Spanish ancestry, she was an American by birth and the Americans preferred to distance themselves from European squabbles.

Quartermaster, his shoulders more stooped than ever, wheeled her ladyship into the room. She looked frailer than usual; her small frame encompassed in a pale mauve stole run through with silver thread. Tendrils of fine, grey hair clung like feathers around a thin face. He supposed her hair was growing sparse, which explained why she was wearing an old-fashioned cap covered with black lace – as though she were grieving for her dead husband – a fact he disbelieved.

Her eyes glittered like chips of colourless glass. The colour of her lips matched the stole.

A tartan blanket covered what other clothes she was wearing, tucked tightly around her knees and down into the sides of the wheelchair.

The suffocating perfume of the lilies intensified when the butler left, closing the door behind him, having given her ladyship her walking stick.

Although it was early July and the weather outside was warm, a banked-up fire of glowing coals threw out an intense heat.

The doctor helped her ladyship into a comfortable armchair positioned to one side of the fire.

‘Would you like me to open a window?’ he asked, aware of sweat breaking out on his forehead. ‘The fresh air will be good for you.’

Her lips curled with contempt. ‘English air is damp. I need sunshine. I should never have come to this country. If I could, I would return to California. Even New York was better than this and of course New York society helped me cope with its cold winters and humid summers.’

‘As you wish.’

He wanted to say that there was no baronet in New York and in the last century rich American families had wanted their daughters to marry men with titles.

Her gnarled hands gripped the chair arms; her skin as thin as rice paper and speckled with spots – like a mottled egg. She pursed her lips, staring into the fire whilst choosing her words.

‘On the death of my husband I took you on as my physician.’

He nodded attentively, taking the liberty of sitting himself in the chair opposite hers even though she had not invited him to sit. ‘I trust you are satisfied with my attention.’

Her tiny nostrils disappeared when she sniffed and tossed her head.

‘On a medical level, yes. You have suited me very well.’

‘I do hope so.’

He contemplated the service he had given her. Lady Julieta had a weak chest. On one particular occasion, she’d been at death’s door. Following a powerful prescription and prescribed rest, she had improved greatly and assured him that she would have died without the treatment he’d given her.

However, she had a reputation of being a fickle woman. Sir Avis, her late husband, had confided to his doctor that his wife was as changeable as the English weather. ‘Prepare yourself for a storm and you get sunshine; prepare yourself for sunshine and there’s thunder in the air.’

Bearing Sir Avis’s judgement in mind, he braced himself for the deluge to come.

‘Your reputation as a doctor is impeccable and you have served me well enough,’ she said in a voice that was as thin as she was, a whine like something that lacks strength but keeps going anyway. ‘I have to consider my disposition to a weak chest of course. However, I have never patronised the services of those lacking in basic morals. I now find myself questioning yours. Rumours have reached my ears regarding your personal life. I am of strict morals, Doctor Miller. I abhor men who consort with loose women.’

Eric stiffened as fury rushed through him and got up from the chair. This was not what he’d been expecting, but he was ready to defend both his reputation and that of Kate Mallory. If the old girl wanted a battle, then she’d get one. He wouldn’t give information freely; damn it, but he’d make her worm it out of him bit by bloody bit.

He stood with his legs slightly parted, hands clasped behind his back and his head held high.

‘Loose women? To whom do you refer, your ladyship?’ he said through a smile that hid his gritted teeth.

Strings of tiny diamonds swung from her ears as she turned her head this way and that, the wrinkles in her neck deepening.

She also pulled out a handkerchief trimmed with lace and smelling of perfume, and dabbed it at one nostril then the other.

‘I hear this woman is an actress. I also hear that you are not married to her but are seen in her company on a regular basis.’ And you are an actress too, thought Eric, recognising that the dabbing of her nostrils had been a delaying tactic, a ruse that had given her time to think. If she had not married well, Lady Julieta might have achieved a passable career on the stage.

Eric kept his anger under control, though God knows he felt he could quite happily place both his hands around her scrawny neck and throttle the life out of her.

‘How does your brother know this for sure – that I am in this woman’s company on a regular basis?’

Lady Julieta’s head jerked round to face him at the mention of her brother. ‘You do not deny this?’ she said.

Eric cleared his throat in an effort to swallow the spiteful words he really wanted to say, but he wished to keep her on as a patient. Her patronage was worthwhile.

‘I am denying nothing. It is my business surely, not that of either my patients or their relatives. I am a grown man, not a young fool who doesn’t know what he’s doing.’

Black eyes inherited from the Spanish side of her family darkened with disapproval.

‘Your morals matter to me, Doctor, especially seeing as your daughter and my nephew are unofficially engaged. Anyone who marries Robert must be of the right family and impeccable reputation. I’m sorry, but you have to tell her that Robert is not for her. Either that, or I’m afraid I will have to find another physician.’

Doctor Eric could hardly believe what he was hearing. The effort to control his anger caused his voice to tremble. ‘Are you trying to blackmail me, Lady Julieta? If so, I fear you are going to fail miserably.’

He read arrogance in the toss of her head, the thin meanness about her mouth as it stretched in a malevolent grimace. Her ladyship loved the power her status and title had bestowed on her. That’s what these American heiresses had married into: the wealth and rank of centuries, the superiority of having a title even though Sir Avis’s was of the lower order – not a duke or earl.

The old lady was unrepentant. ‘Of course I am. I have the power to do so and, frankly, if you wish to retain my patronage, I think I’m being very fair. So far, I have not dismissed you as my physician despite your dalliance with a common actress. Robert is a different matter. You have to understand that your reputation has damaged your daughter’s prospects. She cannot have Robert if you persist in your relationship with that sort of woman.’

In the past, Eric would have gone out of his way to pour oil on to troubled waters, but that was in the days when he’d strived to better himself. To do so had meant sucking up to the upper classes because they were his betters. Although it came as something of a surprise, he realised things had changed since he’d met Kate.

Standing there, towering over her, he noticed, with unrepentant glee, that she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. He hoped she had an aching neck tonight.

‘Mrs Kate Mallory and I are of an age when we both know what we want. We both have chosen careers that we love, but dedication to one’s career can be lonely. We have chosen not to be lonely.’

‘A career! Do you call acting a respectable career?’ she trilled, sounding as though acting was as bad as admitting to being a professional murderer.

‘Respectable enough, though fortunes have been made from far more reviled professions than acting. There’s a saying in the north of England that where there’s muck there’s money. I hear the same can be said for things in America.’

He saw that the barb had hit home. He’d heard that Julieta’s family had made a fortune gathering up scrap metal following the American Civil War. Men, women and children, they’d scoured every battlefield, taking scrap metal to be smelted down, until they’d set up their own smelter, buying scrap metal from other lowly immigrant families. In time, they became very rich.

Realisation flashed into her ladyship’s eyes then was gone. Her pale mauve lips set into grim resolution.

‘What matters is that you flaunt your relationship in public …’

Just as she had resolved to attack him, Eric had resolved to defend himself regardless of the outcome and he had not lost sight of that resolve.

He glanced at the vase of flowers, his nostrils dilating in response to the heady perfume.

‘As I have just pointed out to you, Mrs Mallory and I are around the same age and are great friends. Ours is not just a physical relationship, Lady Julieta. Or perhaps I should take a leaf out of your brother’s book and pursue freshly cut lilies?’

He could tell by the puzzled frown that she knew nothing of her brother’s tastes.

She eyed him indignantly, her chin receding into the frilled collar of her blouse.

‘What do you mean?’ she demanded. Her voice was crisp and shrill.

Feeling as though he had the upper hand and meaning to play one last card, Eric headed for the door.

‘I like mature women of my own age, your ladyship. Unlike your brother who prefers very young girls. Ask him the age of the young girl he was with the other night, a child made up to look like a woman. I do believe investigation might prove his habits illegal.’

‘I say again, what do you mean?’ bellowed Lady Julieta, her pale eyes suddenly dark and frightened.

Eric turned the door handle, opening the door ever so slightly, just enough that anyone outside – especially the servants – could overhear.

‘I believe her name is Flora and that she is little more than thirteen years old. Let’s put it this way, I would not leave my daughter in the same room as Rudolfo Credenza!’

He bid her good day and headed for the front door where Quartermaster was waiting with his hat and coat. It was obvious from his expression that the servants had heard the remark about her ladyship’s brother. Servants, thought Eric, are not stupid and docile. On the contrary, they know everything their employers would prefer they did not know.

Halfway along the passageway from Lady Julieta’s room, he almost collided with a maid bearing her ladyship’s tea tray. The maid had given him a nervous smile then averted her eyes. He guessed she’d heard what he’d said. He also guessed everyone in the servants’ hall would know before the day was out.

The anger continued to boil inside of him. Damn the English upper classes! Did they think they could dominate forever?

Suddenly he felt the outsider, the foreigner who belonged elsewhere. Why had he assumed acceptance into this insular society? The only spark in it had been Sir Avis, a clear-sighted man of deeper scruples than people gave him credit for.

Quartermaster was his usual solicitous self while handing the doctor his hat and coat, his head slightly inclined.

‘Do have a good day, Doctor. It’s been so very nice to see you again. I know the old master always looked forward to seeing you. He liked the little chats you had once the more serious business was over.’