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Flynn was already walking towards the door when Marigold said urgently, ‘Mr Moreau? Please, I need to explain—’
‘First things first.’ He turned in the doorway, his face unsmiling and his voice cool. ‘I need to get Wilf and John along to the car before it’s completely dark, and you need that foot seen to. And the name’s Flynn, as I told you before.’
‘But you don’t understand…’ Her voice stopped abruptly. He had gone. Marigold looked up at the housekeeper, who was peering down at her over her apron, and said dazedly, ‘I need to talk to him.’
‘All in good time, lovey. You look like you’ve been in the wars, if I may say so. Now, let’s get your things off and then we’ll try and ease that boot off your poorly foot, all right? I’ll be as careful as I can but I reckon we might have a bit of a job with it if your ankle’s swollen.’
At least there was someone who didn’t think she was horrible, Marigold thought gratefully as she returned the older woman’s friendly smile. And after the last hour or so that felt wonderful.
In the event they had to cut the wellington boot off her foot, and when her ankle was displayed in all its glory the housekeeper drew the air in between her teeth in a soft hiss before saying, ‘Oh, dear. Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear. You’ve done a job on that, lovey.’
‘It will be all right.’ Nothing was going to keep Marigold in the house a second longer than was absolutely necessary. ‘Once it’s strapped up and after a good night’s rest I’ll be fine.’
The housekeeper shook her grey head doubtfully as she looked at the puffy red and blue flesh, and then bustled off to get two bowls of hot and cold water—‘to bring the bruise out’, she informed Marigold before she left.
Marigold thought it was coming out pretty well all on its own. She lay back on the sofa, her foot now propped on a leather pouffe, and shut her eyes, trying to ignore the sickening pain in her foot. What a pickle, she thought despairingly. She was an unwelcome guest in the home of a man who loathed her—or loathed the person he thought she was at least—and if she wasn’t careful she’d impose on him over Christmas. But she wouldn’t, no matter how her ankle was tomorrow, she promised herself fervently. She’d make sure she went to the cottage tomorrow if she had to crawl every inch of the way. But it was going to be a pretty miserable Christmas by the look of it. At least she’d had the foresight to call her parents from a big old-fashioned red phone box at the side of the road just after the pub, and let them know she was within a few miles of the cottage and that she was all right but that she wouldn’t be calling them again.
Once she’d got herself sorted at the cottage she could sit in front of the fire and read Christmas away while she nursed her ankle. There were people in much worse situations than she was in, and she had plenty of food in the car, and now she was going to have an excess of fuel by the sound of it. She’d pay him for the logs and coal, and his trouble, she thought firmly. If nothing else she could do that. And thank him. She twisted uncomfortably on the sofa, more with the realisation that she hadn’t even acknowledged his—albeit reluctant and grudging—kindness in offering her sanctuary for the night.
‘When Bertha said it was bad, she meant it was bad.’
Marigold’s eyes shot open as she jerked upright. Flynn had reappeared as quietly as a cat and was now standing surveying her through narrowed silver eyes. For a moment she thought he was going to be sympathetic or at least compliment her on her stoicism, but she was swiftly disabused of this pleasant notion when he continued, his tone irate, ‘What the hell were you thinking of, trying to walk on it once you’d hurt yourself so badly? Didn’t you realise you were making it a hundred times worse with each step, you stupid girl?’
‘Now, look—’ a moment ago she’d been feeling weak and pathetic; now there was fire running through her veins ‘—I didn’t know you were going to come along, did I? What was I supposed to do? Hobble back to the car and freeze to death or try and reach the cottage where there was—?’
‘Absolutely no heat or food,’ he cut in nastily. ‘And why didn’t you try phoning someone anyway? Anyone! The emergency services, for example. Do you have emergency insurance?’
‘Yes.’ It was a snap.
‘But you didn’t think of asking for help? It was easier to march off into the blizzard like Scott in the Antarctic?’
She bit hard on her lip. He was just going to love this! ‘I’d left my mobile at home,’ she admitted woodenly.
He said nothing at all to this—he didn’t have to. His face spoke volumes.
‘And my ankle’s not that bad anyway,’ she added tightly.
‘It’s going to be twice the size it is now in the morning and all the colours of the rainbow,’ he said quietly.
The cool diagnosis irritated her. ‘How do you know?’ she returned churlishly. ‘You’re not a doctor.’
‘Actually I am.’ She blinked at him, utterly taken aback, and the carved lips twitched a little at her amazement.
The knowledge that he was laughing at her brought out the worst in Marigold, and now she said, in a tone which even she recognised as petulant, ‘Oh, really? A brain surgeon or something, I suppose?’
‘Right.’
Her eyes widened to blue saucers. Oh, he wasn’t, was he? Not a neurosurgeon? He couldn’t be!
She said as much, but when he still continued to survey her steadily and his face didn’t change expression she knew he wasn’t joking. And of course he couldn’t have been a normal doctor, could he? she asked herself acidicly. A nice, friendly GP dealing with all the trials and tribulations that the average man, woman and child brought his way. Someone who was overworked and underpaid and who had a vast list of patients demanding his attention.
She knew she was being massively unfair. She knew it, but where this particular individual was concerned she just couldn’t help it.
She forced herself to say, and pleasantly, ‘Not your average nine-to-five, then?’
‘Not quite.’ He was still watching her intently.
‘Do you work from a hospital near here or—?’
