and started up the stairs. There were voices, loud angry voices, and then Miss Savage’s all too familiar sobbing. Louisa took the rest of the stairs two at a time, opened the inner door quietly and made for the half open sitting room door. Miss Savage was lying on the sofa, making a great deal of noise. She had been crying for some time if her puffy pink eyelids were anything to go by and from time to time she let out a small gasping shriek. She saw Louisa at once and cried in a voice thick with tears: ‘Louisa—thank God you’ve come!’
Louisa took stock of the man standing by the sofa. He was tall and spare, with dark hair and an aquiline cast of feature. Moreover, he looked furiously angry, in a towering rage in fact, so that she took a deep breath before she spoke.
‘I don’t know who you are, but you will be good enough to go at once. Miss Savage has been ill and whoever you are, you haven’t any right to upset her in this way.’ She held the door open and lifted her chin at him and met dark eyes glittering with rage.
‘The nurse?’ His voice was crisp. ‘I’m Miss Savage’s brother, and since this is strictly a family argument, I will ask you to mind your own business.’
‘Well, I won’t,’ said Louisa stoutly. ‘You may think you can bully her, but you can’t bully me.’ She opened the door a little wider. ‘Will you go?’
For answer he took the door away from her and shut it. ‘Tell me, what is my sister suffering from, Nurse? Did the doctor tell you? Did she explain when you were engaged? And the doctor here? Has he said anything to you?’
Louisa opened her mouth to speak, but Miss Savage forestalled her by uttering a series of piercing cries and then dissolving into fresh sobs. Louisa brushed past the man, wiped Miss Savage’s face for her, sat her up against the cushions and only then turned her attention to him.
‘Your sister has a blocked bile duct, she also has dyspepsia. That’s a kind of severe indigestion,’ she added in case he didn’t know, ‘I believe you wanted her to come to Norway, presumably to convalesce. We had made some progress during the last week, but I doubt if your visit has helped matters at all. Quite the contrary.’
It was annoying to see him brush her words aside as though they didn’t mean a thing. ‘You’re young. Recently trained, perhaps?’
She supposed she would have to answer him—after all, it was probably he who was paying her fees. ‘About six weeks ago.’
His laugh wasn’t nice and she flushed angrily. ‘Probably you’re a good nurse,’ he observed in a voice which gave the lie to the statement, ‘but you’re inexperienced—just what Claudia was looking for.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘No? I suggest that you put Claudia to bed—she must be exhausted after such a display of emotion. Tell Eva to give her some tea and then come back here. I want to talk to you.’
‘I don’t think there’s much point in that.’
His voice was soft. ‘Probably not, but I must point out that I employ you, even if it was my sister who engaged you.’ He went to the door and opened it and stood waiting. He had his temper under control by now, and he looked dangerous. Louisa helped Miss Savage on to her feet and walked her out of the room. She said in a voice which shook only very slightly: ‘You’re despicable, Mr Savage.’
He gave a short laugh. ‘Shall we say half an hour, Nurse?’
She didn’t answer.
CHAPTER THREE
HALF AN HOUR wasn’t nearly long enough in which to regain her cool, thought Louisa, and walked, outwardly composed and inwardly quaking, into the sitting room. Mr Savage was standing at the window, looking out and jingling the loose change in his pockets, and she brightened a little. Perhaps he had recovered from his nasty temper—but when he turned round she saw with regret that she was mistaken; his mood was as black as ever although at the moment he had it under control. She didn’t much care for the iciness of his voice when he spoke, though.
‘Ah, Nurse, I was beginning to wonder if your courage had deserted you.’
Louisa was, for the most part, a mild-tempered girl, prepared to give rather more than she took, but only up to a point. ‘I can’t quite see,’ she observed in a reasonable voice, ‘what I have to be courageous about. True, I dislike being bullied, but a loud voice and a nasty temper don’t count for much, when all’s said and done.’
She crossed the room and sat down on a small hard chair because it was easier to be dignified like that. Her companion’s eyes narrowed. ‘Clever, are you?’ he wanted to know. ‘I’ve a few questions to ask, and I want truthful answers.’
She stared back at him. ‘I can lie with the best of them,’ she assured him, ‘but never about patients.’
He laughed unpleasantly. ‘I’ll have to take your word for that. Tell me, why did my sister engage you?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Well, she wanted a nurse to accompany her here.’
‘There were other applicants?’
‘Oh, yes—she told me, but they were all older and she wanted someone younger.’
‘Ah, and inexperienced.’
She let that pass. ‘Why?’
‘I’m asking the questions, Nurse. What’s your name?’
‘Evans—Louisa Evans.’
‘Well, Nurse Evans, presumably you saw my sister’s doctor?’
‘Naturally, and he gave me my instructions and informed me as to the nature of Miss Savage’s illness.’
He gave her a sharp look, eyebrows lifted in faint surprise. ‘So you know all there is to know about her?’
She surveyed him coolly. So he thought her incapable of doing her job just because she was young and not greatly experienced, did he? She drew a breath and recited the details of her patient’s condition, adding kindly, ‘If you don’t understand the medical terms I’ll explain…’
He turned a fulminating look upon her. ‘It would be unwise of you to be frivolous, Nurse Evans. I shouldn’t try if I were you.’
‘I’m not. You’re not a doctor, are you?’
‘I’m a civil engineer, I build bridges. The reason I asked you that question may not be apparent to you at the moment.’
‘It’s not.’ She got to her feet. ‘At least, I daresay you think I’m not old or wise enough to look after your sister. I hope you feel better about it now. She’s making a little progress, or was… I don’t know why you had to upset her, Mr Savage, and I don’t want to be impertinent, but your visit hasn’t helped much, has it?’ Her tongue tripped on, speaking the thoughts she had no intention of uttering. ‘I can’t for the life of me think why she had to come to Norway. She must have a home somewhere in England; I don’t believe she lives in a London hotel; she told me that she came because you made her…but there’s no reason for that, surely? You work miles away, don’t you?’
He had come to stand close to
