The Gemel Ring

Dr. Everard van Tijlen didn’t look in the least fatherly. He looked shockingly handsome, very sure of himself and slightly amused. Charity’s tongue spoke the words she had thought but never intended to voice. “You didn’t look in the least fatherly the other evening.”

Her green eyes sparkled with rising temper, not improved at all by his laugh. “I’m flattered you were sufficiently interested to notice us,” he said smoothly, “but I must point out that I said I was fatherly toward my nurses.”

She bit savagely into a sandwich. If that wasn’t a snub, she would like to know what one was. “I’m not in the least bit interested,” she began haughtily.

He was smiling faintly. “A pity….”

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. 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 will live on in all her stories.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

THE QUEUE of cars waiting to go aboard the ferry which would take them across the River Schelde to Breskens, so that they might continue their journey to the Dutch border, was large, untidy and impatient, and not the least impatient of the car drivers was Lieutenant-Colonel Dawson, retired, whose somewhat peppery disposition was ill-equipped for delays of any kind. After only a few moments of coming to a halt behind an enormous trans-continental transport, he was already drumming on the wheel with his fingers, poking his head out of the window, and snorting in a rising indignation, actions which caused his wife, sitting in the back of the car with their younger daughter, to murmur soothingly: “Think of your blood pressure, dear,” and exchange a wary glance with her companion. Her well-meaning remarks did nothing to help, however her husband began a growling diatribe about foreigners and blew out his military moustache, a sure sign of growing ill-temper—a sign noted by the girl sitting beside him, for she said with an affectionate matter-of-factness: “Don’t worry, Father—I’ll go and see what the hold-up is—it can’t be anything much.”

She got out of the car as she spoke and began to make her way towards the head of the queue. She was a tall, well-built girl, her rich, red-brown hair tied back with a silk scarf, her attractive face, with its straight nose and nicely curved, too-big mouth, made almost beautiful by a pair of green eyes, fringed by lashes whose curly length, while genuine, gave rise to a good deal of speculation amongst those who met her for the first time.

She made her way now through the press of cars, intent on finding the cause of the delay, feeling a little guilty about it, for it was at her suggestion that her father had agreed to return across Holland from Bremen, where they had been visiting an old friend, instead of driving down through Germany to Cologne and across to the coast to catch the ferry. It wasn’t the first time they had made the trip; each time she had wanted to see more of Holland and each time there had been some reason why they shouldn’t. And now she had had her own way and it looked as though it was to result in her fiery parent having a fit of bad temper.

She sighed and caught the admiring glance of a lorry driver as she wormed her way between the cars; he called to her and she answered him readily in his own language in her well-taught boarding-school French. She could see the cause of the delay now—the small group of people crowding round an Opel Rekord, peering in at a man lying back in the driver’s seat, while one of the dock police bent over him. Charity sighed again, foreseeing a lengthy delay before they could get on to the ferry; the man, if he were ill, would have to be taken away by ambulance or taxi; his car would have to be moved too, for it was the first in line and was blocking one lane of traffic… She edged her way to the policeman’s side and enquired if she could help. “I am a nurse,” she explained, and at his blank look repeated the remark in tolerable German.

The man understood her this time and broke into voluble talk, half German, half Dutch—the driver of the car had slumped across the wheel of his car with no warning, he explained, luckily he was at a standstill—no one had noticed at first, not until he had made no move when the barrier was raised for the cars to start going on board the ferry.