âYou havenât been around much, have you?â His voice was as gentle as his fingers.
She knew what he meant. âNo, I suppose not, thereâs not a lot of time for a social lifeâone comes off duty tired and only longing to kick off oneâs shoes and make a pot of tea. I used to go out more often before I met Philip.â
âYou didnât go out with him?â Pieter sounded surprised.
âWell, yes, of courseâI meant we didnât go dancing or to shows or anything like thatâ¦.â
There was no expression on her companionâs face. She gave another tug at her hand beneath his.
âNo, leave it where it is. Youâre a pretty girl, Phyllida. You should have your chance to play the field, meet people, and by that I mean men of your own age. Who knows? If you go into the wide world and fall in and out of love a few times, you may go back to your Philip after all.â
She didnât fancy the idea somehow. Philip seemed far away, belonging to another world. The thought crossed her mind that it might be fun to fall in love with Pieter. Just a little, of courseâ¦.
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.
MRS GREGSONâS elderly voice, raised in its never-ending vendetta against the nurses making her bed, penetrated throughout the entire ward; it even penetrated Sisterâs office, so that its occupant rose from her work at her desk with a sigh, opened the swing doors and made her way down the long ward to where her troublesome patient lay. She was a very pretty girl, tall and slim and nicely curved in her navy uniform. She had corn-coloured hair, cut short and swinging around her neck, with a fringe over her blue eyes and a nose which tilted very slightly above a softly curved mouth so that despite her twenty-six years she reminded anyone meeting her for the first time of a small eager girl wanting to be friendly with everyone.
She reached the bed just as its occupant, sitting in a heap in the middle of it clutching a blanket round her frail person, drew breath to begin on a fresh round of abuse. âYer ter leave them blankets,â she shrilled, âme bedâs fineâit donât need making.â
âAnd what is our Doctor Thorpe going to say when he comes presently and finds you in that untidy heap?â Phyllida Cresswellâs voice was quiet and quite unworried by Mrs Gregsonâs tantrums.
âE wonât saynothinâ, âeâll be too busy looking at yer pretty face.â
Phyllida wasnât in the least put out. âThere you go again, making up stories. You just wait until I tell his wife!â
Mrs Gregson cackled happily. âJust me little joke, Sister dear, though you mark my words, some fellerâll come along one day and run orf with yer.â
âIt sounds exciting,â agreed Phyllida. âAnd now how about this bed?â
âWell, if yer say soâ¦â
Phyllida smiled at the old lady, smiled too at the two student nurses and started off down the ward again. It was a good thing that Philip Mount was the Surgical Registrar and rarely came on to her ward; Mrs Gregsonâs sharp eyes would have spotted that they were rather more than colleagues within minutes. Phyllida frowned slightly. Philip was getting a little too possessive just lately. It wasnât as though they were engaged. Her frown deepened; perhaps it would have been better for them both if they had been, although she couldnât remember that he had ever suggested it, merely taken it for granted that one day they would marry. And he was a good man; there werenât many like him, she knew that; not particularly good-looking, but well built and pleasant-faced and rarely bad-tempered, ready to make allowances for everyoneâshe wasnât good enough for him and she had told him so on several occasions. But he had only laughed at her, refusing to take her seriously.
She went back into her office and sat down at her desk again and picked up the telephone. There was the laundry to warn about the extra sheets she would need, the dispensary to argue with over the non-arrival of a drug she had ordered, the office to plead with for the loan of a nurse because one of her student nurses had gone off sickâshe sighed and lifted the receiver.