saw her wince, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had room for nothing but distress for his friend.
And she seemed to accept it. She looked at him for a long moment and then nodded.
‘Okay. But you will call me if Carla needs me. If you need me.’
‘I will.’ He hesitated. ‘But the castle won’t necessarily put my calls through.’
‘What the…? Of course they will.’
‘Try and see,’ he said wearily. ‘The outside world isn’t permitted to intrude on the castle and its occupants.’
‘That might have been then,’ she said briskly. ‘This is now. If there’s any problem, I have my own phone and it’s on international roaming. I’ll leave my number at the desk. Call me. Promise?’
And he looked at her, a long look where questions were being asked that he didn’t understand and maybe she couldn’t respond to.
‘I promise,’ he said at last. ‘Not that I think it’ll happen, but I promise. Thank you, Anna, but you need to remember you’ve been injured yourself. It’s time for you to leave.’
TO SAY VICTOIR was annoyed was an understatement. He’d come to collect her in one of the castle’s limousines. He’d been left kicking his heels for hours.
When she finally joined him he was leaning on the beautiful auto, glowering, looking almost startlingly out of place. The entrance to the hospital was serviceable but that was all that could be said about it. It was a narrow driveway, crammed with people coming and going, mothers and babies, the elderly in wheelchairs or Zimmer frames, people visiting with bunches of flowers or bags of washing.
The ambulance that had transported Anna to hospital the day before had backed into the entrance parking bay, in front of the limo. The limo was practically taking up the entire bay. Paramedics were trying to manoeuvre an elderly lady on a stretcher around Victoir. Victoir, in his immaculate dark suit and crisp white linen, with his hair sleeked back, a man in his forties in charge of his world, wasn’t about to move for anyone, not even a patient on a stretcher.
The sight made Anna wince. Not for the first time she thought helplessly about the terms of the castle Trust. Yes, she’d inherited but she had no power. Once upon a time one of her ancestors had mistrusted his heir and made the entailment bulletproof. It would be twenty years before she had any control over funds. She owned it all and yet she didn’t own it.
Her cousin hadn’t survived his inheritance for the twenty years needed to break the Trust. Her uncle and her grandfather…clearly by the time their twenty years had been up they hadn’t bothered. After all, why should they? All their needs were being met.
Men like Victoir had no doubt been lining their own pockets, but to find out how, to explore the complexities of things she probably could do nothing about…
‘Leave it and come home,’ Martin had suggested. ‘A decent legal team can look after your interests from over here. If in twenty years you wish to do something more, you can think about options then.’
It made sense. She knew little about this place except that she now—sort of—owned it. And it was poverty-stricken. And Leo was here and he was struggling.
Victoir was opening the car door for her. ‘You should have asked the nurses to carry your gear. That’s what they’re here for.’
Really? It was a small holdall. To ask one of the overworked medical staff to abandon their work to carry it…
‘I can’t believe they let you just walk out with it,’ he continued. ‘If they think they can treat a Castlavaran like—’
‘They treated me well.’
‘They asked you to work! When you’re ill yourself?’
‘I’m not ill and I asked to work.’
‘They’ve even demanded to come to the castle. A final check, the nurse said. As if we can’t take care of you.’
An offer of a follow-up visit by a district nurse was entirely reasonable, Anna thought. She’d have organised the same for a patient of hers. She didn’t need it, though. She was okay.
Except that she was angry.
Usually she was unflappable. She prided herself on her calm in the face of crises.
She didn’t feel calm now.
Get a grip, she told herself. Think of the whole situation.
Until now she’d floundered, bowing to Victoir’s assumed authority. What choice had she had? But his authority was starting to grate and grate badly. Surely she paid this man’s wages?
She didn’t know how much. By the look of his clothing and the gold rings on his flaccid fingers, a lot. She’d spent her short time here trying to come to terms with the vastness of her inheritance. Should she stay a few more days and check staff ledgers? She could do that as she lay on her day bed while the staff in question catered to her every whim, she thought, and then she grimaced. The only appealing part of that right now was the day bed.
‘You need to remember you’ve been injured yourself.’
That was what Leo had said and there had been gentleness in his tone.
Of course there had. She was his patient. His gentleness meant nothing.
She’d been judged ten years ago and he’d walked away. How much deeper would that judgement be now that she’d inherited?
‘Can you get that ambulance out of the way?’ Victoir called, power loading every word. And to Anna’s disgust, the paramedic left the old lady’s trolley where it was, and went to move the ambulance.
‘You’ll look after your patient first,’ she called, and Victoir’s authority was nothing compared to the power she put behind her words. Wow. Where had that come from? Was it the doctor in Anna, or was it the first stirrings of the long line of autocratic Castlavarans in her genetics? Regardless, her words held the weight of ancestry, plus a huge loading of a doctor accustomed to sorting chaos in the midst of medical emergency. It forced all those around her to go still.
The paramedic, the woman about to climb back into the driver’s seat, looked at her with doubt. Anna might sound authoritative but she surely couldn’t look it. Jeans, T-shirt, bandaged head. What remained of her copper curls tumbling every which way. No make-up. Compared to Victoir she looked a nothing.
But this was a test she needed to pass. Victoir was looking at her as if she’d passed the boundaries of what was permitted. Up until now he’d set the guidelines. He’d made it easy for her to follow his lead, impossible for her to do anything else.
Impossible had to start somewhere. Victoir was invoking the family name? So could she.
‘I’m Anna Castlavara and we wait until the needs of patients have been met,’
