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      MILLS & BOON

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      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER ONE

      IT was going to be a lovely day, but Beth Partridge, tearing round the little kitchen, hadn’t had time to do more than take a cursory look out of the window; on duty at eight o’clock meant leaving the flat at seven-thirty sharp, and that entailed getting up at half past six—and every minute of that hour filled.

      She worked tidily as well as fast; the flat looked pristine as she closed its front door and tore down the three flights of stairs, ran smartly out of the entrance and round the corner to the shed where she kept her bike. A minute later she was weaving her way in and out of London’s early morning traffic, a slim figure with long legs, her titian hair, arranged in a great bun above her neck, glowing above the blue sweater and slacks. It took her exactly twenty minutes this morning; ten minutes, she thought with satisfaction, in which to change into uniform and take a quick look round the Recovery Room to make sure that everything was just as she had left it the evening before. She rounded one of the brick pillars, which marked the entrance to St Elmer’s Hospital, going much too fast and before she could stop herself, ran into a man; fortunately a large man, who withstood the shock of a bicycle wheel in his back with considerable aplomb, putting out an unhurried hand to steady her handlebars and bring her to a halt before he turned round.

      She had put out a leg to steady herself, and now, the bike slightly askew, she stood astride it, returning his calm, unhurried examination of her person with what dignity she could muster. He had a nice face; a little rugged perhaps, but good-looking, although the nose was too beaky and the mouth too large, even though it looked kind. His eyes were kind too, blue and heavy-lidded under thick arched brows a shade darker than his pale hair.

      ‘Oh, dear!’ she was breathless. ‘I am sorry—you see I was on the late side and I didn’t expect you.’ She smiled at him, her rather plain but pleasant face suddenly pretty, her astonishing violet eyes—her one beauty—twinkling at him.

      ‘If it comes to that,’ said the man, ‘I wasn’t expecting you, either.’ He smiled back at her. ‘Don’t let me keep you.’

      She was already a few yards away when she wheeled back again. ‘You’re not hurt, are you?’ she asked anxiously. ‘If you are, I’ll take you along to Cas. and someone will have a look at you.’

      His mouth twitched. ‘My dear young lady, yours is a very small bicycle and I, if you take a good look, am a very large man—eighteen stone or so. I hardly noticed it.’

      She beamed her relief. ‘Oh, good. ‘Bye.’

      She was off again, pedalling furiously for a side door, and because she was going to be late, she left her bike down the covered passage which led to the engineer’s shop; she would ring them presently and ask one of them to take it round to the shed where the nurses were supposed to keep their bicycles; it wouldn’t be the first time she had done it.

      She still had some way to go; through the old part of the hospital, across the narrow alley separating it from the new wing, and then up several flights of stairs; she arrived at the swing doors which led to the theatre unit only very slightly out of breath, her face, with its small high-bridged nose and wide mouth, flushed by her exertions.

      Sister Collins was in the changing room, buttoning her theatre dress. ‘Almost late,’ she commented as she went out, and Beth sighed as she tore out of her clothes. Sister Collins was the kind of person who said, ‘Almost late,’ when anyone else would have said, ‘A minute to spare.’

      Beth tucked her brilliant hair into the mob cap worn by theatre staff and made for the Recovery Room. There was a heavy list for the day and she wouldn’t be off until half past four; she cast a regretful look out of the window at the blue sky and sunshine of the April morning outside—Chifney would be looking its best, she thought, on such a morning, but her old home belonged to her stepbrother now, and she hadn’t seen it for a long time. Philip had inherited it when their father died, and neither she nor William, her younger brother, had been back since, not even for a holiday. Philip wouldn’t exactly turn them out if they chose to go there, but he and his wife would make it quite plain that they were only there on sufferance. She remembered how, when they had been quite small, and he ten years older, he had been at pains to explain to them that their mother was their father’s second wife and therefore they would have nothing at all when he died and that he, for his part, had no intention of giving them a home. He had always hated his stepmother, a quiet gentle woman who wouldn’t have harmed a fly, and when she had died he had transferred his bitter dislike to herself and William.

      And it had turned out exactly as he had said it would. Luckily William had been left just enough money to finish university and train as a doctor, and Beth, bent on being a nurse and having nowhere else to go, had joined forces with him, and for five years now had lived in