Rags To Riches: Her Duty To Please: Nanny by Chance / The Nanny Who Saved Christmas / Behind the Castello Doors
NANNY BY CHANCEJust as Araminta Pomfrey was to begin her nurse’s training, her parents volunteered her as a nanny to Dr. Marcus van der Breugh’s twin nephews. Outraged, Araminta decided to personally inform Marcus she would not do it. But after meeting him—and learning that she could help and be a student at his hospital—she changed her mind. Perhaps nursing wasn’t really what she wanted to do…THE NANNY WHO SAVED CHRISTMASThis Christmas, Nicola McGillroy will:1. Be a great nanny to Cade Hindmarsh’s two adorable little girls, and give them the best Christmas they've had since their mother left.2. Enter into the Christmas spirit and forget the fact she should have been planning her own wedding right now.3. Keep a straight head in her attraction to her gorgeous off-limits boss… Surely this is just a rebound thing and not true love—for both of them?BEHIND THE CASTELLO DOORSCesario Piras, brooding master of the Castello del Falco wasn’t prepared for the visitor that turned up on his doorstep during a raging storm – or with a little bundle bearing the Piras name she has in tow. Cesario’s head screamed run, but his damaged heart began to betray him.Beth Granger knew that the moment she knocked on the castle door that there was no going back. She had a job to do, but the moment Cesario looked deep into her pleading eyes her faultless plan crumbled around her…
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Rags to Riches: Her Duty to Please
Nanny by Chance
Betty Neels
The Nanny Who Saved Christmas
Michelle Douglas
Behind the Castello Doors
Chantelle Shaw
Table of Contents
Betty Neels
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 epitomised 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. Betty’s 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, and her spirit and genuine talent live on in all her stories.
ARAMINTA POMFREY, a basket of groceries over one arm, walked unhurriedly along the brick path to the back door, humming as she went. She was, after all, on holiday, and the morning was fine, the autumn haze slowly lifting to promise a pleasant September day—the first of the days ahead of doing nothing much until she took up her new job.
She paused at the door to scratch the head of the elderly, rather battered cat sitting there. An old warrior if ever there was one, with the inappropriate name of Cherub. He went in with her, following her down the short passage and into the kitchen, where she put her basket on the table, offered him milk and then, still humming, went across the narrow hall to the sitting room.
Her mother and father would be there, waiting for her to return from the village shop so that they might have coffee together. The only child of elderly parents, she had known from an early age that although they loved her dearly, her unexpected late arrival had upset their established way of life. They were clever, both authorities on ancient Celtic history, and had published books on the subject—triumphs of knowledge even if they didn’t do much to boost their finances.
Not that either of them cared about that. Her father had a small private income, which allowed them to live precariously in the small house his father had left him, and they had sent Araminta to a good school, confident that she would follow in their footsteps and become a literary genius of some sort. She had done her best, but the handful of qualifications she had managed to get had been a disappointment to them, so that when she had told them that she would like to take up some form of nursing, they had agreed with relief.
There had been no question of her leaving home and training at some big hospital; her parents, their heads in Celtic clouds, had no time for household chores or cooking. The elderly woman who had coped while Araminta was at school had been given her notice and Araminta took over the housekeeping while going each day to a children’s convalescent home at the other end of the village. It hadn’t been quite what she had hoped for, but it had been a start.
And now, five years later, fate had smiled kindly upon her. An elderly cousin, recently widowed, was coming to run the house for her mother and father and Araminta was free to start a proper training. And about time too, she had reflected, though probably she would be considered too old to start training at twenty-three. But her luck had held; in two weeks’ time she was to start as a student nurse at a London teaching hospital.
Someone was with her parents. She opened the door and took a look. Dr Jenkell, a family friend as well as their doctor for many years.
She bade him good morning and added, ‘I’ll fetch the coffee.’ She smiled at her mother and went back to the kitchen, to return presently with a tray laden with cups and saucers, the coffeepot and a plate of biscuits.
‘Dr Jenkell has some splendid news for you, Araminta,’ said her mother. ‘Not too much milk, dear.’ She took the cup Araminta offered her and sat back, looking pleased about something.
Araminta handed out coffee and biscuits. She said, ‘Oh?’ in a polite voice, drank some coffee and then, since the doctor was looking at her, added, ‘Is it something very exciting?’
Dr Jenkell wiped some coffee from his drooping moustache. ‘I have a job for you, my dear. A splendid opportunity. Two small boys who are to go and live for a short time with their uncle in Holland while their parents are abroad. You have had a good deal of experience dealing with the young and I hear glowing accounts of you at the children’s home. I was able to recommend you with complete sincerity.’
