She gave a kind smile. ‘And on no account are you to allow him to bully you.’
Poppy gulped. Did she have any choice? ‘OK, Miss Webb. I’ll do it. When do I start?’
Miss Webb gave another smile, more apologetic this time. ‘In about ten minutes?’
The hospital was within walking distance of the agency, and it was the first time Poppy had ever been inside. She shivered a little. The long corridor seemed to be very dark and draughty. She felt as though she needed a dregree in map-reading to find Dr Browne’s offices, and she was slightly taken aback by the information proffered by the jokey girl at the reception desk whom she had asked for directions.
‘Working for the Professor, are you?’ She pulled a face. ‘Rather you than me!’
Poppy set off in search of the lift. A Professor! Miss Webb hadn’t told her that. He must be really high-powered, and ancient, no doubt. What was he going to say when he discovered that the girl they had sent him had only recently passed her typing test after a year of going to evening classes?
The offices on the tenth floor of the building were like a labyrinth, and she got lost about four times, wandering around in circles through identicallooking corridors before eventually locating an undistinguished door which bore the legend ‘F. Browne—Dermatology’. Poppy was surprised. For a Professor’s it looked a very dismal kind of office. Why, when she had worked at Maxwells, even the catering supervisor had resided in a far grander-looking room than this one!
She knocked on the door and waited, but no one replied. She tried again, but there was still no answer. Well, there was no doubt that Professor Browne was expecting her. She turned the handle and walked in.
It was not as she expected—inside there was total chaos, with books absolutely everywhere. Poppy had never seen so many books. They stood in high piles on almost every inch of the floor, so that she had to pick her way over them gingerly. They almost obscured every bit of the surface of the enormous mahogany desk that stood at the far corner of the room. And there was still no sign of her new boss.
At that moment the door flew open, and Poppy turned round to confront a very tall, lean man who was staring at her as if he’d just seen an apparition. Light grey eyes came to rest first on her ear-rings, and then, with open astonishment, on the high black patent shoes she wore.
‘Good grief,’ he said faintly. ‘Don’t tell me you actually walked here in those things?’
She didn’t know who he was, but judging from the extremely crumpled shirt he wore and the faded cords she guessed he was one of the maintenance men. And one who needed putting in his place too—he needn’t think he could be so rude to the Professor’s new secretary!
‘How do you think I got here?’ she demanded. ‘Flew?’
‘I should think that if you shook your head violently enough, the centrifugal force generated by the momentum of those ridiculous ear-rings would be enough to propel you into the outer stratosphere!’ he returned.
She could see that sarcasm was going to be wasted on him. And on second thoughts, he didn’t sound a bit like a maintenance man—why, the sentence he had just snapped back at her sounded as if you would need an ‘A’ level in physics just to understand it! Surely he couldn’t be. . .?
No. She quashed the idea firmly. Well-spoken he might be, but a doctor he most definitely wasn’t. Doctors wore suits, and looked responsible. Staid and trustworthy—like dear old Dr Evans at home. They certainly didn’t tower at over six feet, lean and fit, making them look as if they’d be more suited to skiing down the side of some mountain. And quite apart from the crumpled shirt and the too-casual cords, no doctor on earth would be seen wearing a pink tie with purple spots all over it!
She decided to try a different tack. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked him, rather primly.
His mouth, which she automatically noted was quite a nice shape, set itself into a thin, uncompromising line. The light grey eyes allowed themselves a humourless glint.
‘I doubt it,’ he returned, continuing to stare at her with a kind of fascinated horror.
Time, without doubt, to let Mr High and Mighty know exactly to whom he was speaking. Poppy set her own glossy mouth into a line which unconsciously imitated his own.
‘Do you realise to whom you’re speaking?’ she enquired archly, anticipating his discomfiture with glee, when his lazy reply completely threw her.
‘Certainly. The latest in a long line of extremely unsatisfactory temporary secretaries which have been dredged up by your agency, I imagine.’ He raised his very dark eyebrows and smiled. ‘Am I correct?’
Poppy had rarely in her life been speechless, but she was now. Surely he couldn’t be. . .?
‘But you don’t look a bit like a Professor!’ she protested, her long, pink-painted nails gripping on to the table for support.
The dark brows grew together in a frown, and the grey eyes glared. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he asked coldly.
Poppy laughed nervously. ‘You! You aren’t what I expected! When they said I’d be working for the Professor, I imagined someone much older.’
What had she said to offend him? The grey eyes were sending out sparks which could have ignited the desk.
‘Are you trying to be funny?’ he demanded.
‘How so?’ She was genuinely bewildered and she knew that her reply was casual and ungrammatical, but she was still trying to forget that this brute of a man wasn’t someone who had come to tamper with the central heating.
‘Who told you I was a Professor?’ he snapped.
For a moment Poppy wished she was back at Maxwells, handing out sapphire eye-shadow to corpulent women of sixty who should have known better. She tried a smile which used to melt the general floor manager’s heart.
‘The girl on the reception desk,’ she explained. ‘I asked her where I could find Dr Browne and she said “working for the Professor, are you?”’ Poppy’s lips clamped hastily shut, as she recalled the next comment, which had been ‘rather you than me!’ She began to get a good idea what the receptionist had meant! ‘Have I said something wrong?’ she asked, fixing her huge violet eyes on his face.
‘It’s a joke,’ he told her flatly.
‘Well, you’re hardly doubled up laughing yourself,’ she quipped, and was rewarded with a look which could have rivalled Medusa’s.
‘A poor joke.’ He pulled one of the textbooks on the desk towards him, glancing down at the open page before returning his gaze to her. ‘It dates from my days as a student—Miss——?’
‘Henderson,’ said Poppy helpfully. ‘But you can call me Poppy.’
‘Miss Henderson,’ he continued, ignoring her friendly overture. ‘Do you have much experience of hospitals, Miss Henderson?’
‘None, I’m afraid,’ she said brightly.
‘I thought not.’ He gave a weary sigh. ‘Then allow me to enlighten you about some fairly typical behaviour. If, as a student,
