needed to do some shopping. And I wanted to talk to you about Giles—away from the house. He doesn’t know I’ve been feeling poorly. And…’ she looked at Jonathan sternly ‘…he’s not to know.’
‘Sophia, everything that you tell me is always in complete confidence,’ Jonathan said firmly. He placed an arm under her elbow and without appearing to add any pressure, eased her to her feet. Despite the look of resolve on the older woman’s face, Rose could tell the movement caused her some discomfort. Probably arthritis. Or something like it.
‘Do you mind awfully keeping Mr Chips while I’m in with the doctor? He gets so restless if I don’t pay him my full attention,’ Lady Hilton asked Rose.
It wasn’t really a question. Dog-sitting hadn’t been in the job description. But, hey, it wasn’t as if she was overrun with work, and he seemed to have gone to sleep in her arms.
Rose smiled. ‘Don’t worry. He’ll be fine with me. If he wakes up and starts looking for you, I’ll bring him in.’
While Rose waited for the next patient to arrive, she looked around for something to do. She liked to keep busy. Not that she could do much with a dog asleep in her arms. Spotting her discarded cardigan hanging on the back of the chair, she used one hand to form it into a little bed on the floor under her desk. She placed the sleeping dog on top. He looked at her with one eye, then gave a contented sigh and settled back down to sleep. Okay, what next? Perhaps she should ask Jonathan whether he would mind if she brought in some textbooks and did some revision in between patients? She couldn’t see why he’d object. Unless she had more to occupy her, she’d go mad with boredom.
Her glance fell on the pile of magazines Lady Hilton had picked up in the short time she’d been in the waiting room. They were a mix of high-fashion glossies and society-gossip magazines, the type Rose never ever looked through—or at least never bought. She had to admit taking a sneaky look once or twice when she was at the hairdressers, but that wasn’t the same as buying them. Other people’s lives didn’t really interest her, not unless they were doing something remarkable, like climbing Everest or walking unaccompanied to the South Pole. Now, those were people with intriguing lives, not folk who were famous, well, because they were married to a footballer or had a rich father.
Casually she flicked through the first magazine she picked up, curious despite herself. She came to a few pagesnear the middle, which had photographs of celebrities out on the town. Suddenly she stopped. Staring out at her, his arm around the waist of a woman with long wavy red hair, a figure to die for and a dress that would have cost Rose a year’s salary, was Jonathan. He was dressed in a dinner jacket and a white shirt and appeared relaxed and at ease. Rose peered closer. Although he was smiling, there was something in his eyes that suggested he wasn’t best pleased to be photographed. The caption underneath read ‘The Honourable Jonathan Cavendish and his girlfriend, actress Jessamine Goldsmith, at the premiere of her film One Night In Heaven. ’
Rose was having a hard time getting her head around it. He was an honourable, the son of a lord, his girlfriend was a movie star. And he was her boss. A GP. She felt her lips curl in disapproval. That wasn’t the kind of doctor she approved of. People should go into medicine to help others, not to finance some gad-about lifestyle. However, it was nothing to do with her. She was here to do a job and as long as her new boss didn’t actually go around killing his patients with his incompetence, who was she to judge?
The door swished open and she dropped the magazine as if it were a hot potato.
A woman with short curly hair and a look of panic rushed into the room. She ran past Rose without saying anything, heading straight for the staff bathroom. Once again, Rose was bemused. It was beginning to feel