Doctor...to Duchess?. Annie O'Neil

lay her hand to and make it better. You should meet her. Birds of a feather, you two!”

      Birds of very different feathers, is more like it. He had always been hands-off when it came to the estate, and she was anything but.

      He drummed his fingers along the stove top, rattling through options. When he’d come home, his remit had seemed so clear: start the long-put-off handover of the estate with his father and decide once and for all how he would take on the mantle of Duke of Breckonshire.

      Home or away?

      Sell up or stay put?

      Suffocate under the aristocratic code or live freely as a conflict zone surgeon?

      Bish, bash, bosh.

      He knew he didn’t want to be here and so did everyone else. All he had to do was find a way to make cutting ties permanently as painless as possible. And what had things been from the moment he’d arrived? The polar opposite.

      How had Julia managed to get everyone here to don rose-tinted glasses? Even he’d been sucked in! Wild horses couldn’t have kept him from joining in that fun run.

      “Scooch. I have another batch of buns in the oven.”

      Oliver found himself being unceremoniously moved to the side as Clara bustled about the oven doors.

      “Are you sure there isn’t just one tiny bun free for me?”

      “What? And rob the village of a heart attack machine? Oliver!” Clara’s eyes went wide in mock horror before slipping one of the steaming currant buns onto the counter. “There you go, but I’ll leave you to tell Dr. MacKenzie why we won’t have hit our target if we’re twenty-five pence short.”

      Add fuel to Julia’s fire that he didn’t give a monkey’s about the locals? Hardly.

      “I’ll pay for it right now.” Oliver dug into his pocket and pulled out a bit of lint with a sheepish grin. “Put it on my account?”