Bella didn’t need Oliver’s barbed, indirect comment to hammer the guilt home.
She couldn’t look at him either because she didn’t want to see the look that told her how hopeless he thought she was.
‘I’ll go and get the glucometer,’ she muttered, scrambling to her feet. They would need to check Lady Dorothy’s blood-sugar level to be sure that whatever measures they were taking now were effective enough to ensure that her patient didn’t lapse into a coma later tonight.
And die in her sleep.
No wonder Oliver was so furious with her. How stupid had it been to follow directions that had left Lady Dorothy on her own straight after an insulin injection? There were all sorts of reasons why a reaction could be stronger or more rapid than usual, and the control of Lady Dorothy’s diabetes had been noticeably more fragile since she’d become ill. If she’d been there, she might have heard the elderly woman’s speech become slurred or noticed that her behaviour was unusual. Or seen the sheen of perspiration on pale skin.
Noticing that kind of change was precisely why Lady Dorothy needed a nurse with her and not just a companion who could encourage her to do her exercises and keep her spirits up while she coped with the aftermath of the episode of acute rheumatoid arthritis.
Even Kate had been annoyed with her that morning. Virtually accused her of being unable to focus. Scatterbrained. Always losing things.
Oliver was making a cheese sandwich for his mother by the time she got back to the kitchen. Lady Dorothy had clearly recovered. ‘It was my own fault,’ she was saying to her son. ‘I sent Bella away to look for my necklace.’
‘What necklace?’
‘The lovely garnet one, you know? You found it in a junk shop when you were about ten and gave it to me for my birthday.’
Bella cringed inwardly as she peeled open the foil packet containing a test strip and then fished a lancet from the kit. So the necklace had been a gift from Oliver? A sentimental treasure?
Her day was just going from bad to worse. She twisted the tiny plastic square from the base to expose the hidden pin of the lancet.
‘Sorry, Lady Dorothy,’ she murmured, reaching for a hand that still had painfully swollen joints. ‘Small prick coming.’
The fact that the reading was already within a normal range failed to lift Bella’s spirits.
‘I’ll have my dinner and then a bath,’ Lady Dorothy declared. ‘And then I’m going to watch all the episodes ofCoronation Streetthat I’ve missed this week. You can have the night off, Bella. I’m sorry to have given you a fright, dear.’
Bella didn’t meet the glare she could feel coming from Oliver’s direction. ‘I’ll have to check your BGL every so often,’ she said apologetically, ‘but I’ll try not to disturb you if you want an evening to yourself.’
‘I do,’ Lady Dorothy said firmly. ‘I’m embarrassed that this happened. It won’t happen again, I promise. Can I have my dinner now, please, Bella?’
‘Of course.’
‘Will you join me, Oliver?’
‘I’ll have to eat later, at the gala,’ he said. ‘And I’d like to get a workout in but I’m all yours for a while, Mother. Remind me who I need to be polite to tonight.’
Bella served dinner in the dining room but left Oliver alone with his mother. She wasn’t hungry herself and she certainly didn’t want to hang around. She ran a bath for Lady Dorothy and made sure the recorded episodes of her favourite television programme were ready for her in her private sitting room. She checked Lady Dorothy’s blood-sugar level again, ignoring the elderly woman’s impatience with the procedure.
‘I’ll be back to do it again in an hour,’ she warned.
Bella went to her own room, but it felt like a prison. What was she doing here when she couldn’t even do her job properly? When she couldn’t even look after her patient’s precious, sentimental piece of jewellery?
With nothing better to do and a determination to put at least one thing right today, Bella set off, tracing every single footstep she’d taken on the day the necklace had gone missing.
A path that led, inevitably, to the gymnasium with its swimming and spa pools.
It was just after 8p.m. and the last rays of a blood-red sunset were bathing the gymnasium in a glow that needed no artificial enhancement.
Bella hadn’t expected the area to still be in use. Okay, Oliver had said something about needing a workout before he went off to some glitzy function but that had been hours ago. Surely he’d had time to get himself exercised and cleaned up and drive off to meet up with whoever the woman was that she’d overheard Oliver mention when she’d been serving dinner?
Monique. The name sounded as posh as the charity ball or whatever it was. He’d ‘arranged a suitable partner’, Oliver had been telling his mother in response to an unheard query. He’d said it with a finality that had seemed like yet another rebuke in Bella’s day. As if she might have been thinking he could have asked her.
As if!
Bella was on a different planet as far as the social circle the Dawsons moved in was concerned. Right now she could feel the space between herself and Oliver as clearly as if there was a solid glass panel in place. Maybe that was why she didn’t run away when she saw that Oliver was still using the exercise machines in the gym. It felt safe to stop for a moment and stare through the invisible window.
