said she heard you talking about marriage!’
What the…? ‘She was mistaken.’ He turned to face her, willing his expression to be bland.
‘She was sure.’
‘We spoke in English. How’s Luisa’s English?’
‘Poor,’ she admitted. ‘But she was adamant marriage was in the mix somewhere. She said you sounded intense. If not marriage… You weren’t being accusatory, were you?’
‘I wasn’t.’ He sighed and decided to be honest. ‘We do have…baggage. Anna and I met at med school when I didn’t know who she was. We were in the same class for six months. I haven’t heard of her for years.’
‘And you didn’t tell us because…’
‘Because, as I said, we have baggage,’ he said, exasperated. ‘We dated. Not for long, but what teenager spreads the word about his love life?’
‘You had a love life with a Castlavaran?’ Carla eyed him with incredulity. But then she winced.
Her wince had him distracted. He wanted to be distracted—he wanted Carla to be distracted—but not like this. ‘Carla, your headache…’
‘It’s nothing.’ She sounded annoyed with herself. ‘It’s almost gone.’
‘Is there anything else wrong?’
‘Apart from too many patients to see? So what’s new?’
There was nothing new. The hospital normally had two fully trained doctors and two nurse-practitioners, nurses trained by Carla and Leo to take over many of their responsibilities. It was all they could manage when the cost of sending people abroad for medical training was prohibitive. But Bruno was on leave because his small son had fallen from a tree and fractured his leg. The little boy was currently undergoing corrective surgery in Italy. Freya was recovering from a filthy bout of the flu that had swept through the town, doubling their workload.
Carla had coped brilliantly during their absence, but for the first time ever Leo thought she looked…fragile?
‘Carla, you look strained. Are you sure it’s just a headache?’
‘Truly, I’m better, but thanks for asking.’ Their friendship went back a long way, and now she reached up and gave him a swift kiss on the cheek. ‘There. A kiss better and I’m done. But a love affair with a Castlavaran? See me astonished. I demand that you take time later to tell me all about it. By the way, you’re scratchy and I still think you should charm her. Teenage romances can be resurrected and if you want to charm our heiress you’d better go and shave.’
‘I know where I’m going,’ he growled. ‘Off to check the morning list.’
‘I didn’t even look,’ she told him. ‘It’s enough to terrify a woman stronger than me. But our heiress—your ex-girlfriend!—is a doctor? Maybe we could ask her to see a few coughs and colds before she goes back to her castle.’
‘A Castlavaran? Treating peasants? In your dreams.’
‘Don’t be so cynical,’ she told him. ‘It isn’t like you, and dreaming doesn’t cost anything. I might just pop in and introduce myself.’
‘You know there’s no time.’
‘There’s no time for anything but medicine in this place,’ Carla said, and suddenly she was deadly serious. ‘But this woman holds our fate in her hands and she needs to be onside. I know what triage is, Dr Aretino, and triage says being nice to the Castlavaran is top of the list, for all our sakes. And you… I’m thinking a shave is the least of it.’
‘Carla…’
‘I know. I need to shut up and see the next patient, like I do all the time.’
The snap was so unlike her that he took her shoulders and forced her to meet his gaze. ‘Carla? What is it? You’re not coming down with the flu, are you?’
‘Of course not,’ she said defensively. ‘It’s just a headache.’
‘How bad?’
‘Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t fix. Or another doctor. This country…this health service… I try to be cheerful but sometimes it gets me down.’
‘It gets us all down but we need to cope with what we have.’
‘Or try and charm a Castlavaran,’ she said grimly. ‘I can but try, even if you won’t. Off you go and start our list, Leo. I’ll talk to the heiress and join you when I’m done.’
VICTOIR WAS BRINGING a car back from the castle. It’d be here in ten minutes, the nurse had told her. Anna was ready to go.
She practised sitting and standing a few times. No dizziness. Breakfast seemed to have settled her. Facing Leo should have settled her even more, and in a way it had.
For ten years she’d wondered what she’d say to him, and somehow she’d said it. It felt empty, desolate even, but it was done. It was time to head back to the castle and cope with the enormity of what lay before her. That was enough to make anyone dizzy.
She wasn’t dizzy now, though. She was being realistic. What had been landed on her shoulders was far too much for one woman to take in.
Her life waited for her back in England—her dogs, her friends, her lovely little cottage. Her friends had been coaxing her to try a dating site. Maybe she could.
But relationships never seemed to work out for her. Her solitary childhood, her mother’s constant abandonment and then Leo’s bombshell rejection seemed to have left scars in the trust department. She dated men who were safe and steady, but then there was always that element of…boredom? Whatever it was, it seemed to stop things moving to the next level. She needed to get over it. It was time she dated someone who thought the world was fun.
And this? She didn’t need to tell a prospective date about the enormity of her inheritance, she decided. There was nothing she could do about it for another twenty years. She’d hand it back to Victoir and set out to enjoy her uncomplicated life.
She’d have fun without the baggage her mother and then Leo had left her with.
‘Can I come in?’
A woman peered around the door, short, rounded, her glasses perched low on her nose. She was wearing sturdy shoes and a white doctor’s coat. A stethoscope dangled from her pocket, her white hair was bundled into a tousled bun and her face made Anna feel instinctively that here was someone she should welcome.
‘Of course,’ Anna told her. She was perched on the bed but stood up. Anna wasn’t overly tall but the newcomer barely reached her shoulders.
‘I’m Dr Rossini,’ the woman said. ‘Carla. I’m Leo’s colleague.’
‘It’s
