Read Online The Surgeon's Miracle / Dr Di Angelo's Baby Bombshell by Caroline Anderson / Janice Lynn - Free Book Online Page A

there for show, not for him to sneak away with alone and have more fun than he’d had in years, frolicking in the folly surrounded by nymphs in gauzy gowns flitting through the fading scenery. The memory of her this morning with the sun streaming through her fine cotton nightdress hit him in the solar plexus, and his breath jammed in his throat.
    ‘It’ll be warmer outside,’ he said, suddenly desperate to get away from the paintings, so they went back out into the sunshine and sat down on the steps, looking out over a bend in the river in the distance, and they ate the picnic slowly, savouring the view, somehow not needing to talk. So refreshing, he thought, to sit with her and not have to fill the silence.
    A squirrel came up to them, head tilted slightly on one side, and she threw it a tiny crumb of quiche.
    ‘Feeding the wildlife?’ he murmured, and thesquirrel grabbed it and fled, darting up a tree and disappearing.
    ‘It’s probably got young,’ she said.
    ‘Probably. Are you all done?’
    ‘Mmm. That was lovely, thank you. Much nicer than being polite to poor little Charlotte. So what now?’
    ‘I can show you the bits we didn’t get to this morning, if you like?’
    ‘Sounds good.’
    ‘Let’s go, then,’ he said, packing up the things and getting to his feet. They walked and drove and walked again, and despite everything he’d said about the place, she could see that he loved it.
    It was in his blood, in his bones. How could he not love it? And yet he was right, it was an awesome responsibility, and as he talked about it, about how they were merely caretakers for the future generations, about the struggle to make ends meet, the difficulties of opening the house and gardens to the public, the rules and regulations, the health and safety implications, she could see how it could be a love-hate relationship.
    ‘It must be a nightmare opening to the public,’ she mused as they stood and looked at the house across the wide expanse of the park. ‘I can’t imagine anything more stressful than having people wandering through my home touching everything. Do you use all the rooms and have to clear them up the night before?’
    He laughed softly and shook his head. ‘No. The ones we open are the big rooms that we don’t use that much, and now Will’s in the east wing and I don’t live here any more it’s much easier. Visitors don’t have access to all the house, by any means, and the walkways are all roped off to corral them a bit, but there’s always the oddone who tries to escape from the guides. There’s a bedroom Queen Victoria stayed in and the old nursery, and the drawing room and dining room we used last night, and of course the ballroom, which you’ll see later. That’s gorgeous. And the old Victorian kitchen. That’s next to the family kitchen and it’s lovely, but it’s never used. It’s just a museum piece now, like one of the bathrooms and some of the other bits like part of the stable block and the old coach house, but it’s all pretty strung out so they feel they’ve seen more than they have, really.’
    Another kitchen? That made three—four if she counted Will and Sally’s. ‘Don’t you ever get lost?’ she asked, slightly dazed, but he just smiled and shook his head.
    ‘No. I grew up here, don’t forget, and Will and I had the run of the place.’
    ‘I bet you were a nightmare.’
    ‘Who, me? No way,’ he said, eyes alight with mischief, and she could just imagine him as an eight-year-old, all skinned knees and sparkling eyes and wicked little grin, ricocheting from one scrape to another.
    And just the thought was enough to make her heart ache. If she was lucky, then one day she might have a son, a little boy like Andrew must have been—but that all depended on which way the dice had fallen, and until she knew…
    She shivered as the wind picked up and the temperature dropped, and he realised he’d rambled on and kept her out in the wind for ages. ‘I’m sorry,