Connor was the first to notice Bella’s arrival.
‘Hey! How’s it going? Did you find what you’d left at work?’
‘Mmm.’
Kate spoke without looking away from the pot she was stirring. ‘Really, Bella. You’ve got to start looking after your stuff a bit more carefully. You’ll lose something important one of these days.’
So true. Like her heart, maybe?
Kate gave a squeak then, and looked down. Bib was trying to climb up her jeans. ‘Ouch … where did you spring from? I’ve been wondering where you’d got to.’ She prised the kitten away from her leg and handed her to Connor. ‘Could you feed her, please, hon? That way she won’t try and eat my leg.’ She turned further to smile at Bella. ‘You going to eat with us?’
Bella hesitated. ‘I don’t want to get in the way of you two lovebirds.’
‘Don’t be daft.’ But the look that Kate and Connor exchanged was lingering and very exclusive. Bella couldn’t help feeling left out. Lonely, almost.
‘How was work?’ Kate asked. ‘Did you get into any trouble?’
‘Almost. I got busted taking a line-dancing class by none other than Oliver Dawson.’
‘Uh-oh.’ Connor was grinning. ‘You really know how to push his buttons, don’t you?’
Oh … she wished. If Connor hadn’t been there, she might have blurted out the whole story to Kate but the fact that Oliver’s mother was an inpatient was being kept under wraps, wasn’t it? She’d told Sally she was capable of being discreet. With an enormous effort, Bella put a lid on her inside information.
‘What’s his deal?’ she asked Connor, who had finished scooping cat food into a saucer and had now turned his attention to a rather nice-looking bottle of red wine. ‘Why is he so … uptight?’
Connor shrugged. ‘Goes with the territory, I guess.’
‘What territory?’ Bella remembered that Kate had said something similar once about Oliver’s background—excusing him when he’d contributed to a bad day by telling her off in public—but she was curious to hear Connor’s take on the man. Oddly, she was suddenly aware of a very intense curiosity about anything to do with Oliver Dawson.
‘Being a pillar of society. Number one on the rich list. Following in the footsteps of Sir David Matthews can’t have been an easy road. Especially when he didn’t go into the family business.’
‘Which was?’
Connor pulled the cork from the bottle. ‘Something that made a serious amount of money. Too many companies to list, probably. Commercial stuff, anyway. I should think it was quite a rebellion to take up medicine.’
‘He died a while ago, didn’t he?’ Kate put in. ‘Sir David? I seem to remember that there was some big mystery about it all. Lady Dawson vanished from the social scene anyway and there was a rumour there was more to it than grief.’
‘Lady Dorothy.’ Bella couldn’t help the correction.
Kate raised her eyebrows. ‘How do you know her name?’
‘Must have heard it mentioned somewhere and remembered,’ Bella said vaguely. ‘Information is power and all that, you know.’
‘Mmm.’ Kate was trying not to smile. ‘Talking about information … shall we tell her, Connor?’
‘Might be a good idea,’ he said. ‘Seeing as she’s going to be chief bridesmaid.’
‘The only bridesmaid,’ Kate shot back. ‘This is going to be a quiet affair, remember?’
‘Oh, my God …’ Bella ran to hug her aunt. ‘You’ve set a date? For the wedding?’
Kate hugged her back, nodding happily. ‘In a month’s time. I didn’t want to risk you deciding to shoot off overseas early or something.’
‘Not much chance of that, the way my saving is going.’ But Bella shook off the depressing thought. ‘This is so cool. Where is it going to be?’
‘We’re thinking Piha beach.’
‘A beach wedding? Excellent. And are you having a honeymoon?’
‘For a few days maybe. At a beach where it’s a bit safer to swim. Rarotonga or Samoa. Would you be able to cat-sit if we were away?’
‘No worries. I’d love to. Ooh … what are you going to wear? Hey … what am I going to wear?’
‘I’m out of here,’ Connor groaned. ‘I’ll take my wine and go and sit in the garden while you two do the girly thing.’ He crossed the kitchen to hand Kate a glass of wine and plant a soft kiss on her lips. ‘Call me when dinner’s ready?’
Bella watched him go as she took a sip of her own wine. The countdown had really begun. No way could she still be living in this house when these guys came back from their honeymoon.
She’d have to find a flat to share and that meant she’d have to start paying rent. The delicious aroma coming from the pasta sauce Kate was currently creating reminded her that she would have to spend more on food than she was allowed to contribute here as well. If the money in her savings account was going up so slowly now, how much worse would it be when she had to factor in additional living costs? The dreams of going overseas to get her wanderlust out of her system before she settled down to get married and have babies was starting to look like a rather big ask.
Maybe she could get some extra shifts at work. Bella made a mental note to ask Sally about it tomorrow.
‘I’m sorry, Bella, as much as I’d like to cure my staffing problems this way, there are rules about how many hours you can do on the trot. Double shifts aren’t allowed.’
‘OK. It was worth a try.’
Sally sighed. ‘I can’t even use you on the ward this morning, so I’ll have to get a temp in.’
‘What?’ Bella bit her lip. ‘Have I done something wrong? Was it my line-dancing class?’ Or had Oliver dobbed her in about sneaking the kitten into the ward last night?
No. As much as she knew he might have liked to do the right thing about breaking such rules, Bella had complete confidence that a promise had been made that would be kept. What had gone on in that room would stay in that room. Maybe that went with all the privileged background stuff too. Bella was quite sure that Oliver Dawson was a man of his word.
Sally laughed. ‘Not at all. No … Lady Dorothy apparently pulled some strings and declared that she doesn’t want another nurse in her room. You’re it.’
‘Can she do that?’
‘When you come from a family that’s supported hospital fundraising to the extent the Dawsons have, I think you can pretty much call the shots. Do you mind?’
‘Not at all. I really like her. She reminds me of my nanna.’
‘That’s good. I get the impression that Lady Dorothy can be formidable if she doesn’t get what she’s set her heart on.’
What Lady Dorothy had really set her heart on became apparent a little later that morning, after Bella had helped her get dressed and sat with her while the physiotherapist put her through a range of exercises intended to keep her joints mobile. Bella went to fetch Lady Dorothy a cup of the Earl Grey tea she preferred when the session was finished and when she came back, she found that Oliver was visiting his mother.
They seemed to be finishing a rather intense conversation, in fact.
‘I can’t stop you,’ Oliver was saying in a low voice. ‘It’s your life and your house, after all, but I think it’s ill-advised.’ When he saw Bella enter the room, he turned