Relative Ethics. Caroline Anderson
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to look at the figures. We’ll meet back here in an hour to discuss anything you want to raise, so please don’t waste your time—you aren’t here to have fun!’
A laugh rippled round the conference, and the delegates stood and shuffled towards the coffee-lounge. Beside Bronwen, Oliver stretched and grinned. ‘Hear that, little lady? We aren’t here to have fun! Let’s go and find a corner and look at his figures—although I’d much rather look at yours.’
‘Oliver!’ Bron blushed and laughed, and he grinned again.
‘I’ll be good,’ he promised.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ she muttered under her breath, and his startled grunt of laughter made her blush again. ‘You weren’t meant to hear that.’
‘I’ll bet! Come on, let’s go and lie on the grass by the lake and study this lot.’
‘I think we ought to stay here and concentrate.’
He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘If you insist. Let’s go over the top. Michael! Grab two more coffees, there’s a good lad. I’ll find a space outside.’
Michael waved acknowledgement and turned back to Jane.
‘Those two seem to have scored a hit with each other,’ Bron commented, and Oliver shook his head.
‘Just a holiday flirtation. I don’t think either of them is taking it seriously.’
Their eyes met, and for a long moment Bron felt herself drowning in the depths of those endlessly blue eyes, but then Oliver looked away and swore softly under his breath.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Wrong? Nothing. Everything’s in perfect working order—it’s just a little public to react quite so strongly to you, and when you look at me like that my body gets a mind of its own. Come on, let’s go over there on the grass and sit down.’
He grabbed her arm and steered her quickly through the crowd, then they sank down on to the cool grass in the shade of a tree. He leaned against the trunk and studied her flushed cheeks with a reluctant smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. It’s OK for girls, it doesn’t show. You don’t know how lucky you are. Hell, I thought by now I could control my reactions, but no one’s ever got to me the way you do.’
‘Oh, Oliver, don’t apologise. You aren’t the only one.’
Bron wrapped her arms around her knees to hide the hard jut of her nipples against the thin fabric of her dress, and looked out over the lake. ‘Why is this happening to us?’ she asked in a strained voice, and she felt his hand reach out and trace the line of her shoulder under the strap of her dress.
‘I don’t know. I can’t think of a single thing I’ve done to deserve you, but I can’t tell you how glad I am—hi, Michael. Drag up a blade of grass and join us.’
Bronwen looked up to find Jane watching her curiously. ‘What did you think of the lecture?’
Jane raised an eyebrow. ‘Excellent. Have you seen the figures?’
‘We were just getting round to that,’ Oliver put in, and Michael snorted with laughter.
‘Bull! Right, grab a coffee and let’s confer.’
Bron listened, putting in the odd comment, but content by and large to listen to Oliver’s voice and to learn from his remarks. He was obviously very aware of current trends, and Bron was willing to bet that he was an excellent and conscientious doctor.
The conversation became more general, and she gathered that Michael was a senior registrar in the A and E department of Guy’s, where Oliver was a surgical SR. She also learned that Oliver was waiting for the results of his FRCS exams, which he had completed recently.
‘Hard?’ she asked, and he raised his eyes to the sky.
‘I’ll say! I’ve never worked so hard in my life. They were killers. I don’t think I stand a chance, but one can only try. The vivas were foul.’
‘Rubbish. You can’t fail. You’ve never got less than a first yet—bloody star student, this boy. Made the rest of us look as if we’d spent all our time in the bar——’
‘I wonder why that was?’ Oliver teased, deflecting Michael’s praise. Yet another aspect of him that Bron found so appealing.
He unravelled his length and stood up, stretching his arms high above his head. A sliver of tanned, hair-scattered midriff peeked out under the hem of his shirt, and Bron dragged her eyes away from it and got to her feet, making a production of brushing the grass off her skirt to avoid his eye.
Jane attached herself firmly to Bronwen’s side, said, ‘We’re just going to freshen up—save us a place,’ and steered her through the bar towards the cloakroom.
There she took her comb out of her bag, dragged it through her hair and eyed Bron in the mirror.
‘So what’s with you two? You’ve been making sheep’s eyes at each other ever since you met. What’s going on?’
Bron shook her head in denial. ‘Nothing. We just—I don’t know. I’ve never met anyone like that before.’
‘Well, I’ve certainly never seen you behave like this—the cool, calm, collected Dr Jones? Good grief, Bron, I always thought you were an iceberg, and yet if Oliver so much as looks at you I can see the smoke pouring off you both.’
Bron laughed. ‘Is it that obvious? Sorry. We’ll try to ignore each other.’
Jane shook her head vigorously. ‘Uh-uh. Go for it—get it out of your system. I won’t tell.’
‘Sister Hardy, if you so much as hint to anyone that I’ve been behaving like a moonstruck teenager I’ll get you transferred to orthopaedics—as a patient.’
Jane snorted. ‘You and whose army? Come on. Let’s go and tie the lecturer up in knots.’
In the event it was Oliver who had the lecturer tied up in knots, and the other delegates in stitches, but it was entirely good-natured, and resulted in an excellent discussion with much in the way of relevant contribution from many of the delegates.
By the time they broke for lunch, Bron was feeling light-hearted and cheerful, and they all took their salads out into the grounds and carried on the discussion.
Bron lay back in the cool grass and let the conversation wash over her. She was feeling intoxicated with the air and the sound of Oliver’s voice, and she closed her eyes and drifted in and out of a light sleep.
She awoke slowly to awareness of him; he was lying beside her propped up on one elbow and watching her sleep, and she smiled lazily and shaded her eyes.
‘Hi. Where are the others?’
‘Hi yourself. Gone for a walk.’
He leaned over her, and his shoulders blocked out the sun. She watched, breathless, as his mouth came slowly down and brushed hers with careful deliberation. ‘I’ve been wanting to do that for ages,’ he whispered softly. His head came down again, and this time he deepened the kiss, his hand coming up to tangle in her hair.
When he lifted his head, his eyes were smoky with passion and he swallowed convulsively. He lifted a lock of her hair and wound it thoughtfully around one finger, then tugged it gently. ‘I want to drag you off into my cave and make mad, passionate love to you, but the lecturer would be so disappointed if I wasn’t there to stir things up.’
He laughed a little shakily, and as he lifted his hand to graze her cheek with his knuckles she noticed he was trembling.
‘Oh, Oliver, I want you, too,’ she whispered, and he gave a low groan and flopped back against the grass.
‘What the hell are we going to do about it, Bron? I can’t think, I