Dana compared her own gray suit with the woman’s obviously expensive emerald pantsuit and felt shabby by comparison. It was the best she had, of course, but hardly couture. If what Mrs. van der Vere was wearing was any indication, the family was quite wealthy.
“I brought my uniform, of course,” Dana said quickly. “I don’t want you to think…”
“Don’t be silly, my dear,” Lorraine said kindly. “Would you like to go upstairs and freshen up before I, uh, introduce you to my son?”
Dana was about to reply when there was a crash and a thud, followed by muffled words in a deep, harsh voice. Probably a servant had dropped something in the kitchen, Dana thought, but Mrs. van der Vere looked suddenly uncomfortable.
“Here, I’ll show you to your room,” she said quickly, guiding Dana to the staircase with its mahogany banister and woodwork. “Come with me, dear.”
As if I had any choice, Dana thought with muzzled amusement. Mrs. van der Vere acted as if she were running from wolves.
The room she was given was done in shades of beige and brown, with creamy curtains and a soft quilted coverlet in a “chocolate and spice” pattern. The carpet was thick, and Dana wanted to kick off her shoes and walk through it barefoot. She took her time getting into her spotless, starched uniform. She’d wanted to put her hair up, to look more professional, but she couldn’t cope with the pity in Mrs. van der Vere’s eyes if those scars were allowed to show. She left off her makeup—after all, her poor patient couldn’t see her anyway—adjusted her cap and went downstairs.
Mrs. van der Vere came out of the living room, hands outstretched. “My, don’t you look professional,” she said. “We’ll have to spend some time together, my dear, once you’ve gotten into the routine and adjusted to Gannon.” She looked briefly uncomfortable and bit her dainty lower lip. “Dana, if I may call you Dana, you…won’t…that is, you’re used to difficult patients, aren’t you?” she asked finally.
Dana smiled. “Yes, Mrs. van der Vere…”
“Call me Lorraine, dear. We’re going to be allies, you know.”
“Lorraine,” she corrected. “I was a floor nurse at Ashton General, you know. I think I can cope with Mr. van der Vere.”
“Most people do, until they’ve met him” was the worried reply, accompanied by a wan smile. “Well—” she straightened “—shall we get it over with?”
Dana followed behind her, half puzzled. Surely the little Dutchman couldn’t be that much of a horror. She wondered if he’d have an accent. His mother didn’t seem to….
Lorraine knocked tentatively at the door of the room next to the living room.
“Gannon?” she called hesitantly.
“Well, come in or go away! Do you need an engraved invitation?” came a deep, lightly accented voice from behind the huge mahogany door.
Lorraine opened the door and stood aside to let Dana enter the room first.
“Here’s your new nurse, darling: Miss Dana Steele. Dana, this is my stepson, Gannon.”
Dana barely heard her. She was trying to adjust to the fact that the small, mustached Dutchman she had been told was to be her patient was actually the man she saw in front of her.
“Well?” the huge man at the desk asked harshly, his unseeing gray eyes staring straight ahead. “Is she mute, Mother? Or just weighing the advantages of silence?”
Dana found her voice and moved forward, her footsteps alerting the tall blond man to her approach. He stood up, towering over her, his shaggy mane of hair falling roguishly over his broad forehead.
“How do you do, Mr. van der Vere?” Dana asked with more confidence than she felt.
“I’m blind—how do you think I do, Miss Steele?” he demanded harshly, his deep voice cold and cutting, his unseeing wintery eyes glaring at her. “I trip over the furniture, I turn over glasses, and I hate being led around like a child! Did my stepmother tell you that you’re the fifth?” he added with a bitter laugh.
“Fifth what?” she asked, holding on to her nerve.
“Nurse, of course,” he replied impatiently. “I’ve gone through that many in a month. How long do you expect to last?”
“As long as I need to, Mr. van der Vere,” she replied calmly.
He cocked his head, as if straining to hear her. “Not afraid of me, miss?” he prodded.
She shifted her shoulders. “Actually, sir, I’m quite fond of wild animals,” she said with a straight face, while Lorraine gaped at her.
A faint movement in the broad face caught her attention. “Are you presuming to call me a wild animal?” he retorted.
“Oh, no, sir,” Dana assured him. “I wouldn’t flatter you on such short acquaintance.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Nervy, aren’t you?” he murmured. “You’ll need that nerve if you stay here long.” He turned away and found the corner of the desk, easing himself back into his chair.
“Well, I’ll leave you two to…get acquainted,” Lorraine said, seizing her opportunity. She backed out the door with an apologetic smile at Dana, and closed it behind her.
“Would you like to get acquainted with me, Miss Nurse?” Gannon van der Vere asked arrogantly.
“Oh, definitely sir. I do consider it an advantage to get to know the enemy.”
He chuckled. “Is that how you see me?”
“That’s obviously how you want to be seen,” she told him. “You don’t like being nursed, do you? You’d much rather sit behind that great desk and brood about being blind.”
The smile faded and his gray eyes glittered sightlessly toward the source of her voice. “I beg your pardon?”
“Have you been out of this house since the accident?” she asked. “Have you bothered to learn braille, or to walk with a cane? Have you seen about getting a Seeing Eye dog?”
“I don’t need crutches!” he shot back. “I’m a man, not a child. I won’t be fussed over!”
“But you must see that the only recourse you’ve given your stepmother is to find help for you…” she said, attempting reason “…if you won’t even make the effort to help yourself.”
He lifted his nose in what Dana immediately recognized as the prelude to an outburst of pure venom.
“Perhaps I would if I could be left alone long enough,” he replied in a voice so cold it dripped icicles. “I’ve been ‘helped’ out of my mind. The last nurse my stepmother brought here had the audacity to suggest that I might benefit from a psychiatrist. She left in the middle of the night.”
“I can see you now, flinging her out the front steps in her bedclothes,” Dana retorted, unperturbed.
“Impertinent little creature, aren’t you?” he growled.
“If you treat your employees this way, Mr. van der Vere, I’m amazed that you still have any,” she said calmly. “Now, what would you like for dinner and I’ll show you how to start feeding yourself. I assume you don’t like being spoon-fed…?”
He muttered something harsh and banged his fist down on the desk. “I’m not hungry!”
“In that case I’ll tell the cook not to bother preparing anything for you,” she said cheerfully. “When you need me, do call.”
She started out the door, trying not to hear what he was saying to her back.
“Sticks and stones,