here by their GPs for initial assessment, and the team, working with Dr Benedict, would decide what treatment would help them best.
‘We deal with people who might sometimes have what appear to be obscure symptoms,’ he said, ‘but it’s vital that you always take a full medical history—and try to remember that one of your best diagnostic tools is simply to listen.’
That was very much what Megan had always believed. So much could be missed by not giving the patient a chance to talk. She had come across examples herself, several times, when she had been working through her six-month house officer placings.
There had been the woman who had complained of an odd assortment of aches and pains and headaches, and she might have been treated for a simple viral infection until she’d happened to add that she worked with chemical substances. It had turned out that it had been those that had been affecting her.
Then there was the man who—
A sardonic, dark-edged voice broke into her errant thoughts. ‘Are we boring you, Dr Llewellyn?’
Megan came back to the present with a start. She stared wide-eyed at Dr Benedict and said in a flustered tone, ‘I—I’m sorry… Did I miss something?’
‘I was asking,’ he said in a low drawl, ‘whether there were any questions you wanted to ask.’
‘Er—um…none that I can think of at the moment,’ she managed weakly. She didn’t doubt there were bound to be a whole load of things she wanted to know once she got her brain back together again, by which time it would be way too late.
His mouth made a taut line. He turned back to the group. ‘Then I think that’s all I want say for the moment,’ he said briskly. ‘I suggest that you take the next hour or so to glance through your patients’ files and familiarise yourself with them. This afternoon we’ll do a ward round and you can help each other out with possible diagnoses. Tomorrow we shall be running a clinic and you will be assigned to work with either myself or Dr Sanderson.’
He gave a brief smile. ‘Thank you, everyone, for your time and your…attention.’ He flicked a glance towards Megan. ‘Perhaps you’ll be good enough to stay behind for a few moments, Dr Llewellyn.’
‘Of course.’ She winced inwardly. Was she in trouble? She hadn’t exactly made a good start.
The others filed slowly out of the room, picking up folders of case notes that had been allocated to them as they went.
Megan waited until the room was empty before she said in a halting tone, ‘I must apologise again for arriving late. It’s just that I’ve only been here once before and everything seemed so strange. It’s such a huge building and the signs aren’t all that easy to follow.’
His grey eyes narrowed. ‘Lucky for us, then, that the patients seem to know where to come,’ he remarked dismissively, and instantly Megan felt chastened.
She cleared her throat. ‘You said that you wanted to see me?’ she queried, lifting her chin and deciding that she had done enough apologising for one day. Flyaway strands of her hair, defying her attempts to tame it with pins, drifted with the movement, and he shot her a dark glance. Perhaps the sun, filtering in through the window blinds, had caught the tawny strands and condemned her even more in his eyes. That auburn, fiery tint often reflected the underlying obstinacy of her nature that could one day be her undoing.
‘That’s right. I do.’ He came to half sit, half lean on the table by her side, and his proximity alarmed her momentarily. She felt dwarfed by him. He was tall, just as she’d expected. His legs were long, and as he stretched them out beside her she could see the fabric of his trousers stretching against taut thighs. She blinked and tried to clear the sudden heat haze that fogged her mind. Get a grip, Megan, she told herself. He already thinks you’re an idiot, without you giving him any more cause for complaint.
‘We haven’t had a chance to meet before today,’ he was saying, ‘because, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to interview you myself.’
She noted that he put a faint emphasis on the word ‘unfortunately’. He was obviously regretting that omission already.
‘I had to go to an emergency meeting that afternoon,’ he went on, ‘and I had to ask a colleague to take my place. As I recall, you weren’t able to make the journey a second time.’ He studied her. ‘All of which means, of course, that I know very little about you except what is in your references and my colleague’s report.’
‘What is it that you want to know?’ Megan asked.
His eyes lanced into her, but revealed nothing of what he was thinking. They were as dark and unfathomable as the North Sea. ‘You were doing a house officer job in the Midlands—what was it that made you want come up here? And why did you choose psychiatry? As far as I can gather, you haven’t had any experience in that field up to now.’
‘My last house officer stint was in paediatrics, which I love,’ she explained, ‘but I wanted to widen my experience. I wanted to know more about psychiatry, and I thought there might also be the possibility of my working with children, here in Wales.’
‘We do have a paediatric unit, that’s true, and I’m sure you’ll find yourself working with children some of the time. I must say, though, that I’m not altogether sure that you will be suited to this kind of work. I’ve seen nothing in your background that suggests that you have any interest in it. You’ve studied accident and emergency, obstetrics, general medicine, but nothing so far that points to a leaning towards psychiatry. Is it possible that you are thinking of changing course at some point and training as a GP?’
‘Up to now,’ Megan said huskily, brushing an invisible speck from her skirt, ‘I have concentrated on becoming a hospital doctor. I don’t know whether I would change my mind and want to work in general practice.’
His glance followed the movement of her hand and slid down to dwell on the shapely curve of her legs. He looked away and then stood up abruptly. ‘You might find it better to think ahead and come to a decision about which branch of medicine you want to specialise in. It won’t do your career any good if you flit about.’
She cleared her throat. ‘You’re right, of course, but at the moment I see nothing wrong in widening my areas of expertise. That way, when I finally decide what I want to do, I’ll know that I’ve made the right choice in the end.’
‘Perhaps.’ He looked at her thoughtfully, and then walked over to the coffee-machine that stood on a shelf in a corner of the room and started to fill a mug. He glanced across at her. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee? The others had some earlier.’
‘Thank you, yes, I would.’ She realised suddenly that she was parched. Nervous anxiety was drying her throat and perhaps it showed in her voice. Maybe that was why he had made the offer.
‘Do you have family here in Wales?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘As a matter of fact, I do. I have a sister who lives not far from here. I’ve been staying with her for a week or so while I look for a place of my own.’
‘What about the rest of your family? Do your parents live around here?’
‘My mother lives in central Wales, so I should be able to see her on a fairly regular basis.’
She was too far away to be able to help Jenny as much as she would have liked, and Megan knew that her mother was relying on her to do what she could for her younger daughter while she was going through trying times.
He handed her a cup of coffee. ‘Help yourself to cream and sugar.’ He stirred his own coffee carefully, with deliberation. ‘You say that you’re looking for a place of your own—haven’t your arrangements with your sister worked out?’
‘They’ve worked perfectly well,’ she answered coolly. Was he determined to look for faults? ‘It’s just that she only has a small house and things are rather crowded, since she has two children, my nephews, living there as well, and I don’t want