âYou wouldnât like to live here?â
Just for a moment she forgot that she didnât like him overmuch. âOh, but I would.â Then continued sharply, âWhy do you ask?â
She was annoyed when he didnât answer. Instead he observed in a silky voice that annoyed her very much, âYou would find it very tame after London.â
Judith said sharply, âNo, I wouldnât. And now if youâll let go of my arm, I should like to go.â She added stiffly, âI shanât see you again, Professor Cresswell. I hope your book will be a success. Itâs been nice meeting you.â She uttered the lie so unconvincingly that he laughed out loud.
âOf course the book will be a successâmy books always are. And meeting you hasnât been nice at all, Judith Golightly.â
She patted the dogsâ heads swiftly and went down the path without another word. She would have liked to have run, but that would have looked like retreat. She wasnât doing that, she told herself stoutly. She was getting away as quickly as possible from someone she couldnât stand the sight of.
Romance readers around the world were sad to note the passing of Betty Neels in June 2001. Her career spanned thirty years, and she continued to write into her ninetieth year. To her millions of fans, Betty epitomized the romance writer, and yet she began writing almost by accident. She had retired from nursing, but her inquiring mind still sought stimulation. Her new career was born when she heard a lady in her local library bemoaning the lack of good romance novels. Bettyâs first book, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, was published in 1969, and she eventually completed 134 books. Her novels offer a reassuring warmth that was very much a part of her own personality. She was a wonderful writer, and she will be greatly missed. Her spirit and genuine talent will live on in all her stories.
HALF PAST two oâclock in the morning was really not the time at which to receive a proposal of marriage. Judith Golightly swallowed a yawn while her already tired brain, chock-a-block with the nightâs problems, struggled to formulate a suitable answer. She was going to say no, but how best to wrap it up into a little parcel of kind words? She hated hurting peopleâs feelings, although she was quite sure that the young man sitting in the only chair in her small office had such a highly developed sense of importance that there was little fear of her doing that. Nigel Bloom was good-looking in a selfconscious way, good at his job even though he did tend to climb on other peopleâs shoulders to reach the next rung up the ladder, and an entertaining companion. She had gone out with him on quite a number of occasions by now and she had to admit that, but he had no sense of humour and she had detected small meanesses beneath his apparent open-handedness; she suspected that he spent money where it was likely to bring him the best return or to impress his companions. Would he be mean with the housekeeping, she wondered, or grudge her pretty clothes?
He had singled her out for his attention very soon after he had joined the staff at Beckâs Hospital as a surgical registrar, although she hadnât encouraged him; she was by no means desperate to get married even though she was twenty-seven; she had had her first proposal at the age of eighteen and many more besides since, but somehow none of them had been quite right. She had no idea what kind of man she wanted to marry, for she had seldom indulged in daydreaming, but of one thing she was sureâhe would have to be tall; she was a big girl, splendidly built, and she had no wish to look down upon a husband, if and when she got one.
She leaned against the desk now, since there was nowhere for her to sit, and remarked with a little spurt of unusual rage, âWhy do you sit down and leave me standing, Nigel? Do you feel so very superior to a woman?â
He gave a tolerant laugh. âYouâre tired,â he told her indulgently. âIâve been on the go all day, you know, and you didnât come on duty until eight oâclock last eveningâand after all, you donât have the real hard work, do you? Two night Sisters under you and I donât know how many staff nurses and students to do the chores.â
Judith thought briefly of the hours which had passed, an entire round of the Surgical Wingâninety beds, men, women and childrenâevery patient visited, spoken to, listened to; the reports from each ward read and noted; at least five minutes with each nurse in charge of a ward, going over the instructions for the night, and all this interrupted several times: two admissions, one for theatre without delay, a death, anxious relatives to see and listen to over a cup of tea because that made them feel more relaxed and gave them the impression that time was of no account, a child in sudden convulsions; housemen summoned and accompanied to a variety of bedsides, phone calls from patientsâ familiesâit had been never-ending, and there were more than five hours to go.