Nurse for the Doctor by Averil Ives Read Free Book Online

not of course really wish to consult you about our method of receiving our guest,” he said as they crossed the forecourt. “All arrangements so far as that is concerned are complete. But I did wish to ask you about his progress. He looks fitter than I imagined, but has quite a long way to go yet.”
    “Yes,” Josie agreed, as they stood in the white-hot sunshine beside his glittering car, and the uniformed chauffeur held open the rear door. “He is improving every day, but he has, as you say, a long way to go.”
    “It was, I believe, a nasty accident he survived?”
    “A very nasty accident.”
    His slim fingers extracted a cigarette from his case, and he lighted it thoughtfully.
    “Sometimes it is a disadvantage for a man of his type to possess an over-devoted mother.” He looked at her, his black eyes soft, yet probing. “You know what I mean when I say ‘over-devoted’? It is no disparagement to Mrs. Duveen.”
    “I—well, I——” Josie sounded uncertain, while the light breeze stirred her curls, and he did not remove his eyes from her face. “No, I can’t say I do,” she concluded, with more firmness.
    The cigarette was alight, and he put it between his shapely lips. An aroma of expensive tobacco surrounded them like incense.
    “In that case it is a little awkward for me to explain. But mothers sometimes have ideas—especially about only sons. And my sister’s future is entirely her own affair, do you understand at least that much? She has suffered in the past ... In future I wish her to make her own decisions, without interference from anyone, even members of her own family circle.”
    “I see,” Josie said, as she had said once before, when he had tried to make something clear to her. But she didn’t really see at all—until all at once light broke over her. And then she decided that his perception was uncanny, unless it was something more than perception that he was working on. And he certainly had a forthright method of dealing with problems as they arose.
    “But do you see?” His eyes were a little impatient. “Perhaps I have made a mistake, but it struck me that you and your patient—that you and he...”
    “Yes?”
    He frowned, and then turned away.
    “I am being unpardonably inquisitive. Please forgive me,” he said, and bowed to her formally. As his car rolled away out of the forecourt Josie had a strange recollection. She remembered Michael for some reason holding her hand very familiarly at the coffee table, patting it as if he liked the feel of it—smiling at her with warmth and humor and a touch of—intimacy? But there had never been anything intimate in their relationship!
    And Michael had never held her hand quite like that before, while other people could see what he was doing. Why had he done it today? And what had the marquis deduced from it?
    After dinner that night Michael suggested a stroll in the gardens. Mrs. Duveen had retired to her room with one of the blinding headaches that afflicted her occasionally, and she had not even been capable of facing up to dinner. Josie had done all that she could for her, and seen that a tempting tray was sent to her room, and then she and Michael had shared their table in the dining room while the third chair remained empty.
    It might have been Josie’s imagination—or the lingering hypnotic influence of the Marquis de Palheiro—but it did seem to her that the doctor was definitely less inhibited when his mother was not there to observe his every reaction. And tonight he was obviously feeling much more like himself than he had felt for weeks. He had rested well in the afternoon, bathed, shaved, and put on a superbly fitting dinner jacket which lent him the Englishman’s air of being effortlessly distinguished, and there was high good humor in his eyes.
    “I’m feeling fine,” he said. “Another few weeks and I’ll be back to normal, and you won’t see me leaning on a stick again for the rest of my life.” He consulted