on skin diseases, without which he couldn’t hope to write the kind of well-founded article the Journal would naturally expect from him. Thank goodness he’d remembered before he’d gone all the way home.
He was pleased to be able to arrive at the door to his office without encountering anyone he knew. He had been dreading running into Veronica Entwistle—the staff nurse on one of his wards, who had told him at least four times that she was on an early Saturday, followed by a late on Sunday, ‘so if you’re short of company, Fergus. . .’ The woman was about as subtle as a sergeant-major!
As he turned the handle of the door he became aware of two discrepancies—a muffled expletive assailed his ears and he heard some tinny kind of banal rubbish playing, which he assumed was the radio.
He flung the door open and the first thing he saw was the sight of a very long, very slender leg, clad in faded denim so clinging that he was immediately convinced that the wearer’s circulation would be seriously affected. The shapely thigh became an extremely attractive bottom and in turn a tiny waist topped by the most splendid bust he’d ever seen.
Fergus had been many things in his life, but he had never before been quite so taken aback, and it took a few seconds for it to dawn on him that he was standing staring like an idiot at the curvaceous shape of his new secretary. She was standing frozen into immobility, screwdriver in her hand. In the corner stood a worried-looking fair-haired young man whose huge shoulders and stature marked him out as a born rugby player.
Fergus set his mouth in a grim line. ‘Perhaps you’d care to explain what you’re doing hanging off a step-ladder, Miss Henderson? No, don’t tell me, let me guess! Your local amateur dramatic society is holding auditions for its production of Peter Pan, and you’re just getting in a bit of practice?’
Sarcastic so-and-so! thought Poppy as she carefully picked her way down to his level, peering up at him with a fixed smile on her face.
‘I’m putting up some bookshelves for you, Dr Browne,’ she informed him brightly. ‘Do you like them?’
It was true. He could see symmetrical shelves, four rows of them already in place on one side of the fireplace, and at the same moment he realised that she’d changed his whole office round.
‘What?’ he boomed, so loudly that Poppy took a step back. ‘What have you done with my books?’
Poppy smiled as patiently as if she were dealing with a simpleton. ‘I’ve been sorting them out for you, Dr Browne. Obviously we couldn’t have them lying around in piles on the floor, could we?’
‘Oh, couldn’t we?’ he snapped petulantly. ‘Well, I want a copy of. . .’ He rattled the name of the textbook off quicker than a laser. ‘And I don’t want it next week—I want it now. So either you produce the book within the two minutes I’m giving you, or you find yourself back in the dole queue first thing in the morning!’
Damn cheek, thought Poppy rebelliously as she scurried over to the alcove—she’d never been in a dole queue in her life.
The silence in the office was like a time-bomb waiting to go off. Fergus stood looking out of the window, his back to the giant in the corner, studiously avoiding all contact with him.
Mick Douglas watched as Poppy scrabbled to find the list she’d made of all the volumes. To think he could have been down the pub with his mates, instead of stuck in this chilly room with this hotheaded maniac! The guy needed locking up. Fancy speaking to her like that! Mick sighed. Poppy had a lot to answer for. She had a way of looking at you that made it impossible to refuse her anything, and she had meant it when she’d said that she wanted to put the shelves up, not him. ‘You’re just here in an advisory capacity,’ she had told him grandly. Mick eyed the brooding figure by the window warily. He must be a good twenty pounds lighter, but he’d hate to get on the bad side of him.
Fergus had begun drumming his fingers on the windowsill as the final seconds ticked away, when Poppy gave a great shout of delight.
‘Here we are! Dermatological Disorders Discovered by Professor Donald Jacob.’ She held the book out with smiling eyes, the laughter quickly leaving them when she saw the expression on her boss’s face as he strode over from the window to take the book from her.
‘I wonder if you’d be good enough to step outside for a moment?’ he asked in a deliberately polite voice which did nothing to disguise his ill-humour.
‘Certainly, Dr Browne. I shan’t be more than a moment, Mick,’ she called to her friend. I hope. She had been reading 1984 by George Orwell last night, the bit where they had recited the old nursery rhyme: ‘Here comes a candle to light you to bed. Here comes a chopper to chop off your head’. How appropriate that seemed just at this moment, following old Grumpy out into the corridor. ‘Chip-chop. Chip-chop. The last man’s. . .’
‘Miss Henderson?’
‘Dead!’ she blurted out, before she could stop herself.
He frowned. ‘I beg your pardon?’ She realised what she’d said. ‘I’m so sorry, Dr Browne—I was miles away.’
‘Obviously.’
He looked as if he’d spent the morning sucking a lemon—he was so sour-faced, she thought as she waited. He was bound to get rid of her now.
He was about to tell her not to bother coming in tomorrow when he caught a glimpse of such a resigned expression on the na
And hadn’t he rather admired the spunky way she had spoken to him on Friday? It was a sad but inevitable fact that the higher up your particular ladder you got, the more distance it created between you and the people around you. He disliked people toadying to him—simpering sycophants who thought that tacking ‘yes, sir’ on to the end of every sentence would make them an instant crony.
Apart from Catherine, he couldn’t remember anyone who had spoken to him as directly as this girl in a long time.
He forced himself to be pleasant. ‘It was good of you to give up your weekend to rearrange my office, but I would have preferred it if you’d consulted me first. . .’
‘I will in future,’ Poppy butted in eagerly.
Fergus sighed. She was like an exuberant young puppy, completely unsquashable. He rearranged the softer expression which had crept over his features and looked down at her sternly.
‘In future, however, you will not bring your boyfriend into my office, not without my permission.’
‘But he’s not my. . .’ she protested, but he shook his head.
‘I’m not interested in your private life, as I hope you’ll be uninterested in mine. And, now if you’ll excuse me, I have an article to write. I’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning.’
Weakly she nodded, leaning against the wall of the corridor as she watched him walk away, unsure whether to cheer or howl.
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