Nurse for the Doctor Read Online Free PDF Page A

difficult to please. Michael alone would have been all that many women would have asked for.
    Josie, at twenty-two, had never been in love in her life, and no man had been in love with her, but sometimes she ventured to think about Michael ... She caught herself recapturing mental images of him when he was sitting alone in the library, his head bent over a book, and the sunlight picked out that bronzish patch in his hair. She saw him when he was plainly growing a little tired, and every womanish impulse in her longed to do something to help him ... to take away that exhaustion. Alone in her own room she recalled the grasp of his fingers when he caught at her arm for support, and the way his dark blue eyes smiled at her apologetically in case he was burdening her with too much weight. Sometimes at night she found it difficult to sleep because she thought she heard the tap of his stick on the polished boards, and the slight dragging noise his foot made when he moved about the house, and she wanted to leap out of bed and make sure that nothing was wrong with him.
    As the nurse who was responsible for his continued progress she knew that she could always go along to his room and make sure that he was all right. But there was a bell he could ring if he needed her. Over-absorption with the wellbeing of a patient was something that could hardly prove beneficial to the patient himself, and Josie began to be a little alarmed because there could be no denying that she was over absorbed with the wellbeing of Dr. Duveen.
    She began to be afraid that he might notice it, or his mother might notice it—and of the two she knew she would prefer that the man himself should suspect her acute anxiety where he was concerned rather than the immensely shrewd Irish widow.
    In order to protect herself from suspicion, therefore, Josie seized every opportunity to keep well out of the reach of them both, and it was Michael himself who protested at last that she was as elusive as a will-o’-the-wisp save when she was actually needed, and he wanted to know what she did with herself when she was alone.
    “I like being alone,” she answered defensively, “and there are always the walks. There are wonderful walks here, and I love them.”
    “Then you must permit me to accompany you sometimes.”
    “You can’t do that. Your foot isn’t strong enough.”
    He seemed very tall when he was standing near to her, and without looking at him, she could feel him gazing down at her with an odd expression in his eyes: an amused, but also, in some curious way, frustrated expression.
    “Then you must take shorter walks. I can hobble across the lawn at your side, and we can watch that family of ducks who live on the island in the middle of the lake.”
    “Wouldn’t that be very boring?” she suggested, smiling up at him.
    “Then we’ll get out a boat—there is one in the boathouse—and you can paddle me across to the island. How about that?” he asked.
    She continued to smile as if she was quite certain he was merely joking.
    “And supposing I upset you? What would Dr. Arbuthnot say to that?”
    “So long as you didn’t drown me he couldn’t say very much. The time is rapidly approaching when I shan’t be a patient of his much longer, and if you did upset us I might even now be up to rescuing you.” And then he shook his head at her. “You’re making excuses, young woman! It’s my belief that you like your own company. I selected you for a nurse because I was certain you wouldn’t try to organize my every waking moment, but I didn’t bargain for your carrying out your duties with monotonous conscientiousness and washing your hands of me between whiles. Do you like your own company?” he demanded, as if he thought of her doing so intrigued him.
    For once she was not wearing a uniform, and her slim light woollen dress that was a kind of autumn brown made her hair look honey-gold by contrast. The country air had brought a peach-like glow to her