Bella tried to see beneath the sweet smile and the sincere interest that had had her talking about herself for days now. Had Oliver been warning her that his mother was still embarked on a campaign to get what she had decided she wanted?
‘It’s my time to travel,’ Bella said.
She tried to keep an apologetic note from her voice, but this was making her feel guilty. She had become enormously fond of Lady Dorothy over the last few days. She’d love to give her exactly what she wanted but it simply wasn’t possible.
‘And it is urgent because if I don’t go now, I never will.’
‘Of course you will, dear. Europe isn’t going to disappear, you know.’
She really didn’t understand. Bella sank onto the chair beside the bed, only too aware of Oliver standing at the end.
‘I had planned to go when I left home,’ Bella told Lady Dorothy. ‘But that was when Nana came to live with us and I couldn’t leave. And then I did my nursing degree and ever since then I’ve been trying to save up enough to go but…’
She didn’t need to go into details in front of Oliver about how bad she was at saving her money, did she? Confess to the impulsiveness that made a new dress or killer pair of shoes an absolute must-have?
‘Anyway, that’s why I came to Auckland. So I could live with Auntie Kate and finally save enough to get away.’
She could see that this argument wasn’t hitting the right note. She could almost see Lady Dorothy gathering her breath to tell her again that if she became her private nurse, she could save the money she needed in no time. She’d dropped that subject the other night and had distracted Bella into talking about weddings, but it hadn’t gone away, had it? Maybe she’d been simply gathering more ammunition so that she could fire it all at the same time.
‘And it’s urgent now,’ Bella continued, ‘because I’m twenty-six. Going on twenty-seven, in fact, and I intend to be married and having my first baby by the time I’m thirty. And I want to spend at least three or four years travelling the world,’ she added with a touch of desperation.
‘Oh, my…’ Lady Dorothy’s eyes were wide. ‘You have a fiancé?’
‘No.’ Bella closed her eyes for a moment, wishing Oliver would go away. ‘Not yet,’ she muttered.
She opened her eyes to see that Lady Dorothy was looking at her son and that she was smiling again.
Oliver also muttered something that sounded remarkably likegive me strength…
Good grief… surely Lady Dorothy didn’t think that Oliver would be remotely interested in the fact that she was single? How embarrassing!
‘Quite apart from that,’ Bella said crisply, ‘I’m not qualified. I don’t know about the kind of rehabilitation programme you’re going to need. Occupational therapy and so on.’
‘We can learn together, then,’ Lady Dorothy said calmly. ‘You already know far more than I do, dear. Because of your nana.’
‘There’s physiotherapy, then. Specialist exercises.’
‘We could learn those together, too. And’ – Lady Dorothy’s eyes twinkled – ‘maybe I want to learn line dancing.’
Oliver did more than mutter this time. He actually groaned.
Bella ignored that one. ‘Physios have access to things that you might need. Like hot pools.’
‘We have a hot pool at home, don’t we, Oliver? There’s a spa beside the indoor swimming pool.’
There was an indoor swimming pool? Separate wings of the house? There were probably converted servants’ quarters that would be available as a private apartment, too. Bella’s head was spinning slightly.
It stopped spinning abruptly, thanks to the loud crash directly outside Lady Dorothy’s door.
There was a moment’s shocked silence inside the room and then Oliver took two long strides and flung the door open.
‘What the?—’
Bella didn’t let him finish his outraged query about what might be going on because she’d seen the figure on the floor.
‘Oh, my God…Wally.’
Her favourite line-dancing pupil had collapsed and he was lying flat on his back. Bella flew to his side.
