watchful eyes grew thoughtful. ‘You think I’m exaggerating the tendencies of your predecessors?’
He was regarding her with interest, as though he actually cared about what she might think, and she felt her cheeks grow a little hot, irritatingly flustered by this quirky individual.
‘They probably did do some of those things—if not all of them. But perhaps they filed their nails because they were bored. Have you asked yourself whether you gave them enough work to do? Maybe they tried to chat to you because you were so prickly and they were trying to cheer you up. Their bad telephone manner could have just been insecurity. They probably hated being here as much as you hated having them here.’
He had shoved a whole pile of books aside and had perched on the edge of the desk, his long cord-clad legs spread in front of him. Poppy had to concentrate very hard not to stare at his awful tie.
‘Do go on,’ he murmured. ‘This is fascinating.’
She glanced at him suspiciously. Was he being sarcastic? But what the hell? She’d finish what she was going to say now.
‘You obviously don’t like having a secretary,’ she offered, ‘being reliant on someone else—and so you treat them badly; and everyone knows that if you treat people badly then they behave badly!’
The eyebrows retreated still further into a lock of the light brown hair. ‘Do they, indeed?’
She couldn’t believe he could be so stupid! ‘Of course they do!’ she declared. ‘If you kick a dog, then the dog becomes bad-tempered and aggressive and neurotic. If you mistreat a child it won’t develop normally, and pu-punitive punishments handed out to juvenile delinquents are far more likely to have a bad effect—than involvement and hard work.’
‘Punitive, hm? That’s a good word, Miss Henderson,’ he remarked.
‘I read it in a newspaper last week,’ she told him proudly, before returning his gaze mulishly. Was he making fun of her?
The long legs had shifted slightly. ‘I trust that you’re not comparing yourself to a dog, or a child, or a juvenile delinquent? How old are you, by the way?’
She really couldn’t see the point of prolonging this interview. ‘Twenty.’
A brief smile. He should do that more often, she thought.
‘Well, you nearly qualified, didn’t you?’ he remarked.
‘What for?’
‘The juvenile part, naturally,’ and he began to laugh.
‘Very funny!’ The surprising thing was that she didn’t feel any awe about talking to him so frankly. She still couldn’t believe that he was really a doctor, to her he seemed more like some overgrown schoolboy, and one who had had his own way for far too long.
‘How old are you?’ she asked.
‘How old do you think I am?’
Poppy sighed. ‘If you knew how many times I’d heard that! I’d say you were about thirty.’
‘Excellent! You’re a year out—I’m thirty-one.’
‘I’m good on ages,’ she said smugly, remembering the countless times that crêpe-lined faces had been thrust over the counter towards her at Maxwells with a plea for a foundation to hide the blemishes, usually accompanied by the lie that ‘I’m only just forty’.
She blinked after her little reverie to find him tapping one long finger on the side of the desk. He wore no gold band and she found herself wondering whether or not he was married. Pity the poor woman who found herself saddled with Dr Browne!
‘So, Miss Henderson, beneath that marshamallow appearance of yours beats a heart of steel, does it?’
She looked at him indignantly. ‘Marshmallow? What’s that supposed to mean?’
By now he definitely looked as though he was enjoying himself. ‘All that pale, fluffy hair—and all that muck you’ve got plastered around your eyes. And that sticky-looking stuff on your mouth—you look just like a sugar-coated piece of confectionery!’
There was a long pause.
Well. She could tell him what he could do with his typewriter and head for the door. Or could she? Hadn’t Miss Webb told her that this was the only job she had? And Miss Webb was a good friend of her tutor; she had gone to her highly recommended. No other agency would touch her, with such little experience. And she did need the job. She had left Maxwells now, and it might have been boring but at least it had paid very well. How else was she going to find the rent?
She dropped her handbag over the back of the nearest chair with a fluid movement. She needed the job, and he needed a secretary. She would work for the obnoxious man, but she was going to take Miss Webb’s advice literally—and damn the consequences!
She gave him the benefit of a sweetly innocent smile. ‘If I look like a sugar-coated piece of confectionery, Dr Browne, then your shirt looks like the crumpled-up bit of wrapper from it! And now, if we’ve finished our little chat, perhaps we could get on with some work?’
He opened his mouth, and shut it again. How wonderful to see him looking so nonplussed!
‘You’ll have to do it without me,’ he said carelessly. ‘I’m off to a meeting now. Perhaps you’d like to tidy up a bit?’
The way he said it suggested that she was little more than a skivvy, and Poppy gritted her teeth, but said nothing.
‘I’ll be in early Monday morning, so I’ll show you the ropes then. That is, if you’re coming back on Monday?’
Put like that, it sounded like a challenge. There was nothing more she would have liked than to have told him she was never going to set foot in his dark, untidy mausoleum of an office again, but she was not going to give him that pleasure. That was what was known as cutting off your nose to spite your face.
‘Oh, don’t worry about that, Dr Browne,’ she told him. ‘I’ll be back.’
She bent over her handbag as if she’d found something tremendously important in it, and didn’t look at him once as he strode out of the room.
AFTER he had disappeared, Poppy heaved a huge sigh of relief and sat back in one of the chairs to survey the contents of his office more closely. Thank heavens she had worn her leggings! There was dust everywhere—generated, no doubt, by the heaps of books. She picked up the book he had been reading and regarded it with interest. It was entitled Diagnostic Dermatology and was indeed written by the man for whom she now worked.
The book was new, the dust cover shiny, and the whole volume had that delicious smell which all new books have. Poppy loved books. She lived for them. And books had taught her almost everything she knew. When you’d missed chunks of your education because teachers would never stay in the remote part of the country you’d grown up in, you quickly realised that there was a lot of catching up to do!
On the inside of the dust cover there was a short piece about the author. It told her that Fergus C. Browne—she wondered idly what the ‘C’ stood for—had been educated at Cambridge and then at King’s College Hospital. That, as well as being one of the youngest consultant dermatologists in the country, he had also written papers on infectious diseases, and the psychological effects of having a chronic skin condition diagnosed.
Poppy frowned. It was a pity he didn’t apply some psychological reasoning to the way he treated his staff—or, better still, use a bit of common sense. What was it going to be like working for such a capricious individual? Were they going to be engaged in running verbal battles all day long? Would he continue to be so incredibly rude about the way she looked?
She gave a long