speaking in the House of Lords you’re liable to drop dead.”
Geraldine gasped. “You have a terrible bedside manner, Mr. Ashwood.”
Lord Twinsbury chuckled and patted Geraldine’s hand. “Nonsense. I’m used to his behavior. I like his frank talk, my dear. It keeps me on my toes.”
Geraldine frowned and Thomas winked at her.
“I’ll have you admitted, Lord Twinsbury, and then we’ll get you ready to go up to the operating theater today.”
Lord Twinsbury nodded and then turned to Geraldine. “I do hope you’ll stay, my dear. Your father has been treating my heart for so many years and I want to make sure I have someone I can trust in there.”
Thomas groaned and walked out of the room.
Lord Twinsbury was an eccentric character. He was also pompous and arrogant. Never took his advice. Probably because he still saw Thomas as that little boy who’d destroyed his Tudor hedge maze during Royal Ascot when he was ten.
“Mr. Ashwood, can I speak with you a moment?”
Good. Lord.
His day had been going so well. He’d done a great LVAD surgery to extend the life of a patient and was planning on returning to his office to get some charting done. He had not planned to deal with Charles Collins’s daughter today.
He turned around. “How can I help you, Dr. Collins?”
“Do you treat all our patients in such a manner?”
“I do, as a matter of fact, because most of them I’ve known for quite some time. I haven’t had any complaints yet.”
“Do you think that he warrants a coronary artery bypass graft? Wouldn’t another angioplasty or perhaps an endocardectomy work in this case? Is surgery really the answer for a seventy-three-year-old man in poor health?”
This was a little too much.
“Have I missed something, Dr. Collins? Are you or are you not a surgeon?”
Red tinged her cheeks and he’d hit a tender spot on her hardened walls. A chink in the armor, as it were. So perhaps there was a weakness, a crack in her icy facade. “I am a cardiologist so, no, I am not a surgeon.”
“Then do not question my surgical opinion.”
“Lord Twinsbury is as much my patient as yours.”
“Your father would never question my surgical decisions,” Thomas snapped.
“Perhaps he should.”
Thomas took a step closer to her. “How long have you been treating Lord Twinsbury, Dr. Collins? A few hours, perhaps. I have been treating him for five years and over that five years I’ve done numerous angioplasties and made a failed attempt at a carotid endocardectomy, which almost killed him. I have informed my patient that he would need a coronary artery bypass graft. I have tried to keep the procedures as minimally invasive as possible for the sake of my patient, who has been in congestive heart failure for a long time, but there is no other option, so unless you’re able to perform in the operating theater and have discovered a new, minimally invasive way of doing a coronary artery bypass graft, I would suggest you head back to our surgery in Harley Street and leave the surgical procedures to the qualified individuals.”
He turned on his heel and left her, hating himself for taking her down like that in the hallway, in front of the A and E department and other physicians. Physicians she’d be working with.
He hated himself for making her feel that way.
If it had been anyone else, he wouldn’t feel as bad as he did now. He’d given dressing-downs like that before and they had never eaten away at his conscience, but this was different.
He didn’t know why, but it was and he didn’t like it one bit.
I SHOULD LEAVE.
Geri bit her lip as she paced the viewing gallery of the operating theater where Thomas Ashwood was currently performing a coronary artery bypass graft on Lord Twinsbury. How she wished she could be in there, assisting. She’d read so many papers Mr. Ashwood had written. A few hours ago she would have given anything to learn from him.
Now she knew that would be a mistake. Just like Frederick had been a colossal mistake. She was here to start afresh. To prove herself. There was no way she was going to become entangled in a dalliance at work because the last time it had cost her her surgical career.
It didn’t have to.
Geri shook that thought away and closed her eyes, thinking about the surgery and how she wished she was in that operating theater. Only Mr. Ashwood had made it perfectly clear that he did not want her around.
She’d been embarrassed and after her temper had cooled she’d realized he was right. She wasn’t a surgeon; she may have seen and done surgeries during her residency, but she wasn’t a full-fledged surgeon and she never would be. Besides, she’d only known Lord Twinsbury for a week and even though she read over his file she hadn’t worked with him as long as Mr. Ashwood had.
She wanted to apologize to him.
“Apologizing is a sign of weakness.”
Geri shook her mother’s voice from her head. Apologizing in this case was not a sign of weakness but respect. She’d been wrong.
Geri had been less than thrilled to learn that the arrogant, pompous surgeon who had come sweeping into the doctors’ lounge, making assumptions about her, was her new partner. And she’d been taken a little off guard by the fact that he was a devilishly handsome, well-spoken man of breeding. As well as a surgeon she admired.
Which meant he was completely off-limits.
Definitely.
She had been hoping that she wouldn’t have to see him again, but to find out that he was the cardiothoracic surgeon and partner in the practice was too much to bear. She’d been expecting Mr. Ashwood to be someone like her father. Older and possibly on the verge of retirement.
If Mr. Ashwood was venerable she’d eat her hat and try to find out where he kept the youth elixir. She couldn’t help but wonder what her father saw in him. Her father only seemed to associate with those of his own class, members of society, what would’ve once been affectionately referred to as “the ton” if all those historical romance novels she’d read as a girl were correct.
She had been surprised to see her father’s partner was someone so young and his complete opposite. Her father was reserved, awkward and well-bred. Mr. Ashwood had a relaxed, devil-may-care attitude. A definite rogue. Then again, her father had partnered with her mother, a common daughter of a Glasgow teacher, and had produced her.
Yeah, but that didn’t last too long, did it?
Geraldine paused in her pacing to look down at him, operating on Lord Twinsbury. Even in the operating theater he had a commanding presence and she couldn’t help but admire his technique. She may not be a surgeon, but she’d watched many surgeries and Mr. Ashwood knew exactly what he was doing and he was doing it with finesse.
“There you are, Geraldine.”
Geri turned to see her father enter the observation room.
“I thought you went back to the office?” she said.
Her father shrugged his shoulders. “I was going to, but then I heard a rumor that Thomas gave you quite a dressing-down in the hall.”
Heat bloomed in her cheeks. Great. She was already making the rumor mill here. She swallowed her pride. “And rightfully so. I stepped out of line.”
“I should say so.” A smile played on her father’s lips and she couldn’t help