White Feathers (25 page)

‘I’m sorry, Keely,’ she said. ‘I’m worried about you, that’s all.’

‘Well, don’t be,’ Keely replied stubbornly. She stepped into her skirt, fastened the hooks at the waistband and reached for her blouse. ‘There’s no need. I’m old enough to take care of myself, thanks very much, and I’m certainly old enough to enjoy a man’s company.’

‘And what’s he enjoying in exchange?’ asked Erin with un-characteristic sharpness.

Keely shrugged into her jacket then fussed about finding just the right angle for her hat. ‘Not what
you’re
thinking,’ she replied, scrutinising the effect in the mirror. Well, not yet any way, she thought as she snatched up her bag and marched out, not even saying goodbye, vowing that this would definitely be the last time
she’d talk about her personal life with Erin.

Her outfit was new, purchased at great cost on leave in London a month ago, and this was the first time she’d worn it. The saleswoman in the shop had oohed and aahed over the contrast between her rich auburn hair and the deep burgundy of the suit, and Keely knew she looked good in it. The skirt fell straight and fitting to just above her ankles and the matching jacket with a black fur collar accentuated her small waist. Under it she wore a smart cream blouse with pearl buttons, and the outfit was topped off with an elegant black suede hat. She was freezing but didn’t want to wear her overcoat as she felt it spoiled her silhouette. She had bought the suit to impress Ross and, as she waited at the hospital gates for him to appear, stamping her cold feet and rubbing her gloved hands together, she hoped he appreciated it.

He arrived ten minutes late but, as always, she forgave him his tardiness.

‘Hello, darling,’ he said with his usual disarming smile. He glanced quickly around to make sure they weren’t being observed, then leant forward and kissed her cheek. ‘You look stunning. New outfit?’

‘This?’ asked Kelly disingenuously. ‘I’ve had this for ages.’

‘Well, the colour really suits you,’ he replied, taking her hands in his. ‘Now, are you sure about this? I’ve reserved a room at the Windsor, for Mr and Mrs McManus. I thought we might have a drink and a meal at the restaurant there first. It’s quite good, I’ve eaten there before.’

Keely nodded happily. ‘Yes, I am sure, and that sounds lovely.’

‘And you managed to wangle a late evening pass all right?’

‘Yes, Matron thinks I’m having dinner with a second cousin.’

Ross laughed heartily. ‘You must have almost used up your stock of long-lost relatives by now.’

Keely laughed with him, but a little uneasily. She was, in fact,
running out of excuses for permission to be out on her own, but he was so insistent she find a way to meet him unaccompanied, and so disappointed when she couldn’t, that she dared not tell him so. In fact, she was a little annoyed at his cavalier attitude towards her availability — and his apparent assumption that she always would be available — but she almost always had been, so she supposed she couldn’t really complain. And he was such a catch, she thought, as they set off down the street, and she couldn’t help feeling more than a little smug at the thought that of all the nurses at Brockenhurst, she’d been the one to snare him.

‘Where are we going? We’re not walking into town, are we?’ she asked in alarm as he steered her across the road. Her shoes, although elegant, were not made for long-distance walking.

‘No,’ he said as he stopped next to an automobile parked discreetly beyond the hospital gates. ‘We’re going in this!’

Keely’s eyes widened as she took in the sleek lines of the gleaming yellow sports car. ‘Is it yours?’ she asked, impressed.

‘Sadly, no,’ Ross replied as he helped her into the quilted red leather of the passenger seat. ‘Belongs to a friend of mine, bit of an auto enthusiast. It’s a Stutz Bearcat, brought over from America. Nice, isn’t it? I thought it would add an extra touch to our special evening.’

Keely was enchanted and flattered. ‘It’s wonderful.’

‘No top, I’m afraid. Didn’t you bring a coat?’

‘I didn’t think I’d need one,’ Keely lied.

Ross opened the small trunk and passed her a woollen rug. ‘Then put this over your knees, otherwise you’ll freeze before we get there.’

She watched him closely as he started the motor. He was a ruggedly good-looking, charismatic man in his mid-thirties with dark brown hair, a moustache and piercing light grey eyes. He towered over her at six foot one, and was muscularly
built — more like an athlete than the talented surgeon he was. He hailed from Auckland, had volunteered for service with the NZMC, and Keely had fallen in love with him the moment they’d met. That had been six weeks ago now, and as far as Keely was concerned every minute since had led directly and inexorably to this evening’s encounter.

It had started with him catching her staring at him during ward rounds, then covert, private little winks and grins from him, and demure smiles from her. They started spending more time together discussing the progress of various patients, then she began saving him a seat in the staff lounge whenever she knew their breaks would coincide. His rank was major and hers only staff nurse, but expediency and limited space at the hospital encouraged ranks and genders to mix relatively freely, so that in itself was not considered too noteworthy, although the frequency with which they were seen together had raised eyebrows. A fortnight ago he had invited her into town for a drink; she had accepted and their mutual attraction had flared from there.

Last week he had followed her into the supply room, kissed her passionately, fondled her breasts through her uniform and thrust himself urgently against her and she’d never experienced anything so thrilling. She was hardly innocent in this area — she had kissed boys before — but Ross McManus was a
man
, big, powerful and blatantly virile, and it made her almost sick with excitement to think she aroused him to such an extent.

And tonight their relationship would reach new heights of intimacy. When he suggested booking a room at a hotel, she had barely hesitated. Losing her virginity to him was the logical next step, and she had no qualms about the wisdom of doing so. If lust was an indication of love, and Keely sincerely believed that it was, then Ross McManus was head over heels about her.

She hadn’t said anything to Erin, whom she was convinced
wouldn’t understand, although she had wondered from time to time exactly how close she and Joseph had become when he had been in hospital in Egypt. Erin could be very private sometimes, and had steadfastly refused to divulge any of the more interesting details of their liaison, which suggested there was more to the story than Erin was prepared to confess. Erin had, of course, noticed something was up between Ross and Keely, and quite early on, too. Erin had been able to read her like a book ever since they were little girls growing up together at Kenmore. This had always been a comfort to Keely, but lately she had begun to find it more than a little irritating. She loved Erin dearly, but did not appreciate her cousin’s rather blunt admonition that she was making a very big mistake. She’d also hinted that Keely’s behaviour was causing increasing disapproval and rancour among her colleagues, who believed her infatuation with the dashing doctor was affecting her work, and that consequently it was unlikely to escape Matron’s notice for much longer.

Keely, who
had
detected a certain coolness in the other nurses, believed they were jealous, and she couldn’t blame them: Ross was an eligible and very attractive man. But she was convinced that none of her peers would be so small-minded as to inform the senior nursing staff of her clandestine romance. After all, if any of the other girls had been lucky enough to find the man of her dreams, Keely would be genuinely delighted. This apparent resentment of her good fortune hurt her, but it did not stop her from seeing Ross.

She had, though, hoped for at least some support from Erin. She wasn’t even sure why her cousin was still in England — Keely would have been off home at the first opportunity to marry her man. Privately she was jealous of Erin’s situation, her joy and her quiet, steady confidence in her future with Joseph. But why was Erin being so censorious and reluctant to share in her happiness?
Surely their experiences of love should have made them even closer.

Keely was tired of nursing. It had been wonderful to start with, that warm and gratifying feeling that came from being needed by sick and wounded young men, but there had been so many of them since then, and lately hopelessness and sometimes even indifference had crept into her attitude. She no longer saw her patients as people, but tagged them in her mind as ‘the chest wound’, or ‘the double amputee’, or the ‘head injury’. If she did allow herself to contemplate them as individuals, they reminded her of poor dead Ian, who had never even had the chance to lie in a hospital bed, or of James, and those were images she refused to entertain. A perceptive psychiatrist might have recognised her malady as a product of chronic overwork, and her infatuation with Ross McManus as an unconscious but misguided attempt to escape it. But there were no psychiatrists at Balmer Lawn.

The damp evening air had turned Keely’s feet into blocks of ice despite the heavy rug tucked around her legs, and she stumbled as Ross helped her down from the motor. Wishing she’d worn her coat after all, she scoffed silently at her own vanity.

‘All right?’ Ross asked solicitously as she righted herself awkwardly.

‘Yes, I think so. Just pins and needles.’

‘Best we get you inside then,’ he replied, and turned and guided her up the hotel steps.

Inside it was significantly warmer, much to Keely’s relief, and she surreptitiously blotted her dripping nose with a gloved hand as a waiter led them to a table near the roaring fireplace. Ross pulled her chair out for her and she sat down gratefully, hoping her face hadn’t gone too pink from the cold.

The waiter returned with menus and a wine list and rattled off the evening’s specials, then left them to make their selection.

‘Shall I order for you?’ Ross asked after he had scrutinised what was on offer.

Keely nodded. ‘Yes, please.’

‘Well, I don’t fancy any of this. I wonder what else they’ve got?’

He clicked his fingers rather imperiously in the general direction of the waiter hovering a polite distance away. The man hurried over.

Ross asked, ‘Anything available but, you know, not on the menu?’

The waiter made an ostentatious show of incomprehension. ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

Ross sighed at the obvious charade. ‘Does the chef have anything special up his sleeve?’ He slowly withdrew his wallet from his tunic pocket, placed it on the white damask tablecloth and tapped it deliberately.

‘Oh!’ exclaimed the waiter, as if it had only just occurred to him what was being implied. ‘One moment, please, sir.’

He scuttled off and returned a minute later. ‘Pheasant, sir, in a brandy sauce,’ he said out of the side of his mouth.

‘Yes, that will be fine thanks. For both of us.’ When the waiter had gone, Ross leant over and whispered to Keely, ‘I don’t know what all the secrecy’s about. The black market’s rife and everyone knows it.’

She giggled. ‘It’s rather nice here,’ she said, looking around at the décor.

‘Well, it’s not the Savoy, but it’s comfortable. The rooms are nice.’

‘Are they?’ Keely said, raising her eyebrows in only semi-playful query.

‘Yes, and before you come to the conclusion that I make a regular habit of entertaining women in hotel rooms, I had a look before I made our reservation. There’s a sign at the reception desk that says “We invite inspection”, so I did.’

Keely laughed again. ‘And what makes you think I
would
come to such a conclusion?’

He leant forward again, and Keely thought he was about to take her hand, but he didn’t. Instead, he said in a low voice, ‘Just so there aren’t any misunderstandings, my dear. I wouldn’t want that.’

Before she could ask him what he meant, their meals arrived. The pheasant was succulent and tasty, and went well with the claret Ross had chosen. Not that Keely was interested in the food — she was far too nervous. She was captivated by the sight of Ross deftly cutting his food, the strength of his long fingers with their neatly trimmed nails, and the way the silver cutlery accentuated the fading tan on the backs of his hands. He ate elegantly but with enthusiasm, and paused from time to time to dab with his napkin at non-existent traces of food on his lips. Keely approved — she couldn’t stand a man with messy table manners — and wondered if he did everything with such confident and deliberate precision. Then she smiled to herself and almost shook her head as she recalled the frenzied touch of his questing hands on her body. Occasionally he would look up from his food and deliver one of his devastatingly slow smiles that made her stomach flip and her face burn. She pretended interest in her meal in the hope he hadn’t noticed her reaction but knew by his amused gaze, which she felt rather than saw, that he had.

Keely had two glasses of the claret, and a brandy after dessert, and was feeling light-headed as they stepped into the lift that would take them up to their room. The lift was rather small, with a brass screen that had to be closed before the thing would move, and she didn’t like the way everything jolted and rattled when it did. She was absurdly relieved to get out and follow Ross down the carpeted, subtly lit hallway. He unlocked the door of room number eleven and, before she realised what he intended to do, picked her up and carried her over the threshold.

‘My God, Mrs McManus, you’re heavier than you look,’ he grunted as he carried her over to the wide bed and set her down with a bump. ‘You don’t mind being Mrs McManus for a few hours, do you?’

It was on the tip of Keely’s claret-loosened tongue to say, ‘What, only a few hours?’, but really there was no hurry; after tonight there would be all the time in the world to plan their future. She sat up and looked around.

The room was quite luxuriously furnished and very cosy with the open fire. Ross took off his uniform jacket and tie, lit a cigarette and sat down next to her.