okay denying the attraction right up until then, but the smile sneaked through a crack in her defences and weakened not only her resistance but the muscles in her chest so she found it hard to breathe normally and had to remind herself—in, out, in, out!
‘A tour, good,’ she said, standing up and all but running out of the kitchen—anything to escape the man’s presence. Although he’d still be with her, but surely explaining the use to which they put the various rooms would take her mind off the attraction.
She led him through the ground-floor rooms first, then up the stairs to where she’d had two small bedrooms altered to make a larger meeting room.
‘We have playgroups for the children here,’ she said. ‘It’s wonderful to see them all singing nursery rhymes in English, and chattering to each other in a medley of languages that they all seem to understand. In the beginning the mothers usually come along as well, but as they grow in confidence themselves, they will leave the children and go off for a coffee. And as they get to know each other, they make arrangements to meet at places other than the centre, in a park at weekends, with their extended families. The centre has become a kind of cultural crossroads, and that pleases me enormously.’
Talking about the centre was good—Gemma was so wholehearted about what the place had achieved that she didn’t have to pretend enthusiasm. Neither did she have to look at her visitor—well, not more than an occasional glance.
‘And the other rooms on this floor?’
‘A bedroom and bathroom for on-duty staff. I was on-duty last night and although I only live next door I do a night shift here once a month.’
Now she did look at him.
‘We need a doctor on hand for obstetric emergencies. It doesn’t seem to matter how careful we are in our antenatal clinics and how often we take pregnant women to the hospital and show them the birthing suites, nurseries and maternity wards, some, like Aisha, will not go to a hospital.’
He nodded as if he understood, and the haunted look was back on his face, as if he’d seen things in hospitals in other places that he’d rather not remember.
She wanted to reach out and touch his arm, to offer comfort, though for what she didn’t know, but she shrugged off the silly notion as he evidently shrugged off his memories, asking, ‘And is there someone on duty in the other house?’
Gemma shook her head.
‘The other house is strictly week-days, day and evening appointments although most of the patients who attend don’t bother with appointments. From time to time, someone turns up here late at night or on a weekend, but it’s rare. I think the women who use the service consider it a bit special so they are reluctant to abuse it.’
She had no sooner finished speaking than the doorbell peeled, echoing through the empty rooms downstairs.
‘Surely not another emergency birth,’ she muttered as she headed down the steps. She could hear her visitor coming down behind her but her focus was on the door, beyond which she could hear shrill wails.
Gemma flung open the door to find two women grappling on the doorstep. The air smelt of old wet wool and blood, which was liberally splattered over both of them. As Gemma moved closer she thought she saw the flash of a knife, then she was thrust aside by a powerful arm and the man who’d followed her stepped past her, putting his arms around one of the women and lifting her cleanly off the step.
‘Drop the knife,’ he ordered, not loudly but with such authority the woman in his arms obeyed instantly, a battered, rusty carving knife falling to the ground.
Gemma scooped it up and shoved it behind the umbrella stand in the foyer, temporarily out of harm’s way, then she turned her attention to the woman who had had collapsed onto the floor just inside the door—Jackie, one of the older women who used the medical services at the house next door.
The sheikh—after his authoritative intervention Gemma found herself thinking of him that way—was talking soothingly to the attacker, whom he had settled into a chair.
‘What happened, Jackie?’ Gemma asked as she bent over the woman on the floor. Jackie didn’t reply but Gemma could see blood oozing between the fingers of her left hand, which were clasped tightly on her upper right arm.
‘Touched my things. She touched my things,’ Bristow, the second woman, roared from the other side of the room.
‘Jackie wouldn’t do that,’ Gemma said, turning to face the attacker, who was huddled in the chair, her damp and wrinkled layers of cardigans and coats making her look like an insect that had sunk back into its chrysalis. The sheikh stood beside her, perhaps perplexed by her retreat. ‘She’s your friend,’ Gemma added. ‘She knows not to touch your things.’
Gemma helped Jackie back to her feet and half carried her into the treatment room, the sheikh joining her and lifting Jackie onto the examination table. This time the patient didn’t object and Gemma was able to unfasten Jackie’s fingers and move enough clothing to see the long, deep gash in Jackie’s arm.
‘She needs to go to hospital—it’s deep, there could be nerve and ligament damage.’
The sheikh was right behind her, and Gemma turned, puzzled by his instant diagnosis.
‘I told you I was a surgeon,’ he said, but his voice was drowned out by Jackie’s cries.
‘No hospital, no hospital. I can’t go to hospital,’ she wailed, and Gemma turned towards the visitor.
‘There are reasons,’ she said quietly.
‘Then I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘You can get me what I need—I assume you have sutures—and assist me. Her friend will be all right?’
Gemma didn’t know how to answer that. She’d known Bristow for over a year and never seen any signs of violence, but now this had happened, who knew what the little woman might do?
‘You’ll do it yourself?’
It didn’t seem right. The man was a benefactor—not to mention a sheikh and apparently a highness, although that really wasn’t the point. Surely sheikhs had as much right to be surgeons as anyone else. It just seemed…unseemly somehow that the man in the beautiful suit should be—
‘Shall I look for myself to see what’s available?’ Curt words! The man had tied his handkerchief around Jackie’s arm to slow the bleeding and was obviously getting impatient.
Gemma hurried towards the cabinet. Jackie’s tremors were getting stronger and though a quick glance had shown that Bristow was still sitting on a chair in the foyer; if she disappeared further into her coat she’d be nothing but a bundle of rags. And, Gemma knew from experience, she wouldn’t emerge to answer questions or even move from the chair for some considerable time.
‘Here,’ she told the visitor, unlocking the cabinet and piling all she thought he might need onto a tray. Local anaesthetic, a bottle of antiseptic liquid, swabs, sutures and dressings joined a couple of pairs of gloves.
‘A gown—there must be a plain gown,’ she muttered, but as hard as she flipped through the folded gowns on the bottom shelf there was nothing that was really suitable for such a man.
‘Anything will do,’ he said, calling
