The Doctor’s Girl

BETTY NEELS sadly passed away in 2001.

As one of our best-loved authors, Betty will be greatly missed, both by her friends at Mills & Boon and by her legions of loyal readers around the world. Betty was a prolific writer and has left a lasting legacy through her heartwarming novels, and she will always be remembered as a truly delightful person who brought great happiness to many.

This special collection of Betty’s

best-loved books, are all available in Large Print, making them an easier read on your eyes, and ensuring you won’t miss any of the romance in Betty’s ever-popular novels.

The Betty Neels Large Print Collection

September 2007

Nanny by Chance

The Vicar’s Daughter

Henrietta’s Own Castle

The Hasty Marriage

October 2007

The End of the Rainbow

The Magic of Living

Roses and Champagne

Never While the Grass Grows

November 2007

Hannah

Heaven is Gentle

Once for All Time

Tangled Autumn

December 2007

No Need to Say Goodbye

Cruise to a Wedding

A Kind of Magic

The Final Touch

January 2008

A Match for Sister Maggy

A Winter Love Story

The Edge of Winter

The Fifth Day of Christmas

February 2008

Esmeralda

Grasp a Nettle

An Apple from Eve

At the End of the Day

March 2008

An Unlikely Romance

A Secret Infatuation

Dearest Love

When May Follows

April 2008

The Bachelor’s Wedding

Fate Takes a Hand

The Right Kind of Girl

Marrying Mary

May 2008

Polly

A Kiss for Julie

The Fortunes of Francesca

Making Sure of Sarah

June 2008

An Innocent Bride

Discovering Daisy

A Good Wife

Matilda’s Wedding

July 2008

Always and Forever

An Independent Woman

Dearest Eulalia &

The Doctor’s Girl

Emma’s Wedding

TheDoctor’sGirl

Betty Neels

MISS MIMI CATTELL gave a low, dramatic moan followed by a few sobbing breaths, but when these had no effect upon the girl standing by the bed she sat up against her pillows, threw one of them at her and screeched, ‘Well, don’t just stand there, you little fool, phone Dr Gregg this instant. He must come and see me at once. I’m ill; I’ve hardly slept all night…’ She paused to sneeze.

The girl by the bed, a small mousy person, very neat and with a rather plain face enlivened by a pair of vivid green eyes, picked up the pillow.

‘Should you first of all try a hot lemon drink and some aspirin?’ she suggested in a sensible voice. ‘A cold in the head always makes one feel poorly. A day in bed, perhaps?’

The young woman in the bed had flung herself back onto her pillows again. ‘Just do as I say for once. I don’t pay you to make stupid suggestions. Get out and phone Dr Gregg; he’s to come at once.’ She moaned again. ‘How can I possibly go to the Sinclairs’ party this evening…?’

Dr Gregg’s receptionist laughed down the phone. ‘He’s got three more private patients to see and then a clinic at the hospital, and it isn’t Dr Gregg—he’s gone off for a week’s golf—it’s his partner. I’ll give him the message and you’d better say he’ll come as soon as he can. She’s not really ill, is she?’

‘I don’t think so. A nasty head cold…’

The receptionist laughed. ‘I don’t know why you stay with her.’

Loveday put down the phone. She wondered that too, quite often, but it was a case of beggars not being choosers, wasn’t it? She had to have a roof over her head, she had to eat and she had to earn money so that she could save for a problematical future. And that meant another year or two working as Mimi Cattell’s secretary—a misleading title if ever there was one, for she almost never sent letters, even when Loveday wrote them for her.

That didn’t mean that Loveday had nothing to do. Her days were kept nicely busy—the care of Mimi’s clothes took up a great deal of time, for what was the point of having a personal maid when Loveday had nothing else to do? Nothing except being at her beck and call each and every day, and if she came home later from a party at night as well.

Loveday, with only an elderly aunt living in a Dartmoor village whom she had never met, made the best of it. She was twenty-four, heart-whole and healthy, and perhaps one day a man would come along and sweep her off her feet. Common sense told her that this was unlikely to be the case, but a girl had to have her dreams…

She went back to the bedroom and found Mimi threshing about in her outsize bed, shouting at the unfortunate housemaid who had brought her breakfast tray.

Loveday prudently took the tray from the girl, who looked as if she was on the point of dropping it, nodded to her to slip away and said bracingly, ‘The doctor will come as soon as he can. He has one or two patients to see first.’ She made no mention of the clinic. ‘If I fetch you a pot of China tea—weak with lemon—it may help you to feel well enough to have a bath and put on a fresh nightie before he comes.’

Mimi brightened. Her life was spent in making herself attractive to men, and perhaps she would feel strong enough to do her face. She said rudely, ‘Get the tea, then, and make sure that the lemon’s cut wafer-thin…’