The Fire's Center (22 page)

"And I say you have some sort of bias against them, Lucien, an inverted snobbishness if you like, which makes you think they won’t be suitable," Mr. Benn stated impatiently.

In the end, after a great deal of wrangling, the three men decided to pick the top ones on each of the two lists.

"But are you sure you want O’Shea?" Lucien demanded. "After all, if we've all agreed on Menteith and Somerville.... "

Benn protested, "But if you don’t hire O’Carroll and O’Shea together, there might be friction. I can tell you right away he will not like to work with Somerville. They were rivals all through college, or so I’ve heard."

"I think there is going to be friction anyway," Lucien interposed. "I don’t think I can work well with either of them, and at the end of the day, as the medical man, I should get the deciding vote."

Edward, who had remained relatively silent, suddenly stated flatly, "The committee appointed you, Lucien. They can just as easily replace you."

"Are you threatening me, Edward?" Lucien asked, aghast.

"Not me, no." Mr. Sturton shook his head, but refused to look at Lucien or indeed say any more.

Lucien looked from Edward to Stewart and back again, and said angrily, "I have a written contract, water-tight if Mr. Durance has anything to do with it, which he has since he drafted it. So all I can say again is, that though those men have powerful friends, I doubt they are much good. But if you are forcing me to accept O’Carroll and O’Shea, I will, but only on the proviso that I get Kennedy and Briggs."

"But Briggs’ family...." Benn began to argue again.

"I am appalled that you would let those sort of considerations indicate you choice. It is bad enough you insist upon O’Carroll and O’Shea, but any more than that is simply too much!"

Riona put her hand on Lucien’s wrist to calm him, while the two men glowered at each other.

"Look, let’s not get too heated here, please," Edward Sturton protested "Two and two, for a month’s trial. Agreed? And we can inform Mentieth and Somerville that there might be further interviews at the end of the month, just to keep our options open. We’ll take it from there, shall we?"

With that they men shook hands and parted, leaving Riona alone in the room to gather up the papers and look at the list.

"They’re making a terrible mistake!" shouted Lucien when he came back into the room.

"A month should be more than enough to prove it to them," Riona said in a reasonable tone. "At least we got Kennedy and Briggs."

At the back of her mind she couldn’t imagine the snobbish O’Carroll and O’Shea working happily with Briggs and Kennedy, especially not Briggs, whose father was mere draper, but who had qualified as one of the top doctors in Dublin.

"But they're wrong, you know they are!" Lucien said agitatedly, running his fingers through his thick dark hair.

Riona had never seen him looking so angry. He was like a tiger on the rampage.

"You don’t have to prove it to me," Riona said soothingly as she patted him on the shoulder, and sat down next to him on the leather sofa.

Lucien threw himself down on the sofa, took her hand in his own, and sat with his eyes closed in the deepening twilight.

"It just makes me so angry! They pretend to be charitable on the one hand, and have their own hidden motives on the other."

Riona squeezed his hand warmly. "As I said, a month should show us what they're all really made of. Don’t worry, it will all work out in the end."

"I can’t help but worry. O’Shea seems harmless enough, just vain and arrogant to a fault. But O’Carroll..." He shook his head.

"You found something out the other day, didn’t you, something bad. Then why didn’t you tell them?"

"Because it wasn’t proven, and hushed up at the time."

"What was?"

Lucien looked at her, embarrassed now, and shook his head. "Let’s just say some irregularities with the female patients, and leave it at that. And the fact that whilst he is a brilliant diagnostician, when it comes to surgery, well, many of his patients died."

"And let me guess, these patients were at the hospital where he was practising, training, and they were all poor," Riona said coldly.

"Nothing was ever proven! I certainly can’t go around telling people, you do see that, don’t you?" Lucien looked at her pleadingly.

Riona stood up and went to the window, and sighed. "All right, we're stuck with him. But we can try to make sure he does a little damage as possible. Perhaps if you are an absolute beast to him, he will be quite glad to leave."

Lucien went over to her and put an arm around her waist. "Clever girl."

"Just so long as you don't appear unreasonable."

"Please, let’s try to talk about something more cheerful. It’s about time we gave you some supper, and a bone test."

"I love bone tests." Riona beamed as she turned to face him.

"I believe you do at that, you strange little thing." Lucien grinned as he ruffled her hair playfully and led her into the dining room by the hand.

Since they were eating alone, he moved her plate and glasses up to his end of the table, and he poured her some port afterwards.

"Are you sure you don’t want to try a cigar?" Lucien teased, after remarking on how well she had managed to get away with staying in the dining room with the men the day before.

"But I was very busy!" she defended herself.

"You’re sure you didn’t want to be left out of the excitement?"

She blushed, and admitted, "Well, there was that too, though I must say, I never intended for your sister-in-law to be left on her own."

"Well, she had plenty of male attention afterwards, you saw to that. Speaking of which, what did Durance have to say to you throughout the whole meal? I put him next to you because I thought he would be reasonably quiet, but he certainly had enough to say for himself," Lucien observed with a pang of jealousy.

"He was full of good ideas," Riona revealed as she took out her pocketbook, and began to read them aloud.

"Hmm." Lucien nodded at each idea. When she had finished the list, he stubbed out his cigar, and then rose, taking Riona’s arm to escort her from the room.

"A lot of these ideas we can’t act upon now, but in a few years' time, and with the right backing, who knows? You’ve done well."

Riona poured him coffee in the drawing room, and then Lucien sat back and sipped it slowly, savouring the warmth, for the night air had suddenly grown chill.

"Would you like me to send the maid for you shawl?" Lucien offered when he saw her chafe one of her arms up and down.

"No, I’m fine if I move up to the fire a bit."

 
Lucien slid over to get closer to her.

"We can always sit under a rug the way we did in the coach," he suggested, pulling the throw from the back of one of the sofas to drape over their laps.

"Better?"

"Aye, much better. Bone test?" Riona suggested, to keep the mood light, although she certainly didn’t know how she was meant to concentrate with him sitting so close to her that their legs were pressed together intimately. She could feel the warmth of his flesh burning though the thick fabric of her gown.

"No, muscles this time, just to be awkward, then liver and kidneys."

As Lucien put her through her paces, they heard a knock at the door, and then Bob came in to announce that Quentin and his wife were outside.

"Oh no, just what I need after a long day," Lucien said with a sigh as he rubbed his eyes wearily.

"Shall I show them in, sir?" Bob asked in a puzzled tone.

"Yes, yes, of course," Lucien agreed miserably.

"Um, I think I’d better go upstairs, then," Riona started to excuse herself.

"No, there’s no need."

But Riona wanted to do some more reading before she went to bed, so she rose and was just lifting the rug from around them to fold it and put it back on the sofa when Quentin and Antoinette entered the room.

"I’m sorry, are we interrupting anything?" Antoinette asked waspishly.

Lucien and Riona however, looked completely innocent, and smiled.

"Not at all. I’ll just order two more cups for coffee. Please sit," Riona said graciously, earning herself another murderous look from Antoinette.

Antoinette yanked off her velvet gloves ostentatiously, and threw back her cape to reveal an elegant silver gown with a rather daring décolletage.

"We were at the opera, but I couldn’t pass this way without popping in to find out how it went with the interviews," Quentin informed his brother.

Lucien explained all that had happened during the day, and concluded, "Riona and I had exactly the same list, but they held out for their top two candidates. In the end we compromised and got two apiece. I don’t like it one bit, but Riona reminded me that it is only a month’s contract initially. If we have ended up with unsuitable doctors, we have the next four weeks to put them through their paces and find out."

Antoinette again shot an evil look at Riona, resenting the fact that her name came up so much in the conversation. She also disliked intensely the way her husband was always staring at the girl.

Why had they never mentioned this clever little cousin of theirs before? And why did Lucien seem to hang upon her every word? Surely the almighty Lucien Woulfe couldn’t have actually fallen in love?

"If you’ll excuse me," Riona said, when she could bear the uncomfortable scrutiny no longer, "I’ll go on up to my room. It’s been a long day."

"What, breaking up the family party already, Riona?" Lucien said in a wheedling tone, not liking to be left with Quentin and Antoinette.

"Sorry, Lucien, but I'm sure you have a few more business things to talk over with Quentin. You can show him the lists I’ve left on the desk. Good night."

Lucien escorted her to the door. "Good night," he whispered, a small smile playing about his handsome mouth. "And thank you again for everything, my dear."

Riona went up to her room and got ready for bed, putting on in her flannel gown and floral dressing gown, and taking down her hair to give it a good brushing.

She was just about to get into bed when she realized that she had left her books in the study when Lucien had surprised her there that morning. Her own fire had gone down, but the one in the study was still blazing nicely, so she curled up in her chair by the fire and began to read.