Specialist In Love

His mouth, which she automatically noted was quite a nice shape, set itself into a thin, uncompromising line. The light grey eyes allowed themselves a humourless glint.

‘I doubt it,’ he returned, continuing to stare at her with a kind of fascinated horror.

Time, without doubt, to let Mr High and Mighty know exactly to whom he was speaking. Poppy set her own glossy mouth into a line which unconsciously imitated his own.

‘Do you realise to whom you’re speaking?’ she enquired archly, anticipating his discomfiture with glee, when his lazy reply completely threw her.

‘Certainly. The latest in a long line of extremely unsatisfactory temporary secretaries which have been dredged up by your agency, I imagine.’ He raised his very dark eyebrows and smiled. ‘Am I correct?’

Poppy had rarely in her life been speechless, but she was now. Surely he couldn’t be. . .?

‘But you don’t look a bit like a Professor!’ she protested, her long, pink-painted nails gripping on to the table for support.

The dark brows grew together in a frown, and the grey eyes glared. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he asked coldly.

Poppy laughed nervously. ‘You! You aren’t what I expected! When they said I’d be working for the Professor, I imagined someone much older.’

What had she said to offend him? The grey eyes were sending out sparks which could have ignited the desk.

‘Are you trying to be funny?’ he demanded.

‘How so?’ She was genuinely bewildered and she knew that her reply was casual and ungrammatical, but she was still trying to forget that this brute of a man wasn’t someone who had come to tamper with the central heating.

‘Who told you I was a Professor?’ he snapped.

For a moment Poppy wished she was back at Maxwells, handing out sapphire eye-shadow to corpulent women of sixty who should have known better. She tried a smile which used to melt the general floor manager’s heart.

‘The girl on the reception desk,’ she explained. ‘I asked her where I could find Dr Browne and she said “working for the Professor, are you?”’ Poppy’s lips clamped hastily shut, as she recalled the next comment, which had been ‘rather you than me!’ She began to get a good idea what the receptionist had meant! ‘Have I said something wrong?’ she asked, fixing her huge violet eyes on his face.

‘It’s a joke,’ he told her flatly.

‘Well, you’re hardly doubled up laughing yourself,’ she quipped, and was rewarded with a look which could have rivalled Medusa’s.

‘A poor joke.’ He pulled one of the textbooks on the desk towards him, glancing down at the open page before returning his gaze to her. ‘It dates from my days as a student—Miss——?’

‘Henderson,’ said Poppy helpfully. ‘But you can call me Poppy.’

‘Miss Henderson,’ he continued, ignoring her friendly overture. ‘Do you have much experience of hospitals, Miss Henderson?’

‘None, I’m afraid,’ she said brightly.

‘I thought not.’ He gave a weary sigh. ‘Then allow me to enlighten you about some fairly typical behaviour. If, as a student, you tend to commit that awful sin of enjoying your work, and pursuing it with any degree of vigour, then you’re labelled a bore. Or a swot. I was known as the “Professor”.’

Poppy’s heart sank. Trust her to have revived some ancient and hated nickname!

‘If, on the other hand, you do as little work as possible, date every woman in your year, and are never to be seen without a glass of beer in your hand, you’ll win the admiration of your peers and be labelled a jolly good chap!’ The rather nicely shaped mouth twisted again, and Poppy tried, and failed, to imagine him in this second role.

Oh, well. It had been a good try, but poor old Miss Webb was going to have yet another temp leave—and this one was probably going to break the record for having been there the shortest time.

Grumpy seemed to have forgotten she was there—his attention had switched suddenly from moaning at her to scanning a page of the textbook he’d just moved, and muttering ‘mmm’ just as if he’d bitten into an unexpectedly delicious cake. Poppy began to hitch her bag over her shoulder, uncertain of how best to get out of there.

She cleared her throat, but he didn’t even look up. She coughed quietly, but still he took no notice, just carried on reading. The sooner she was out of there the better—the man was a lunatic!

‘Er—I suppose I’d better be going, Dr Browne.’

He looked at her then, and she got a good idea of how some poor unsuspecting mouse must feel before the cat pounces on it.

‘What?’ he demanded.

‘I said I’d better be going now. I’m sorry if I appeared rude. . .’

‘Going?’ He slung the book down, and Poppy blinked with surprise to see ‘Fergus C. Browne’ on the front of it. ‘And just where do you think you’re going, Miss Henderson?’

‘Well, you won’t want me now, will you?’ she asked bluntly. ‘Not now that I’ve reminded you of what a rotten time you had as a student.’

And suddenly he laughed, showing superb white teeth. The relaxed movement affected his whole stance, so that for the briefest second he looked so—so gorgeous, there was no other way to describe it, that her heart did a funny little dance all on its own. There was even a twinkle in the forbidding eyes.

‘On the contrary, Miss Henderson,’ he drawled, ‘I had a very happy time as a student. Very happy indeed.’

And, witnessing this astonishing transformation, she could well believe it.

‘As for my “wanting” you,’ the smile had switched off more quickly than the Christmas tree lights on Twelfth Night, ‘what I want, and what I’ve been wanting for over fourteen months now, is a secretary who can type without making a mistake every other word. Someone who can be pleasant on the telephone, and helpful. Someone who will listen to what’s being asked of her. Someone who will not terrify or intimidate my patients. Someone who will not sniff, or sulk, or file her nails and look bored. Someone who will not attempt to engage me in what I believe is popularly known as “chit-chat”.

‘I don’t care what you’ve watched on television. I am not interested in soap operas, or the Royal Family. I want someone with more than two neurones to rub together.’ He watched her questioningly. ‘Do you think that what I’m asking is unreasonable, Miss Henderson?’

Poppy could hardly believe what she was hearing. What an insufferable pig! She remembered Miss Webb’s parting words, that on no account was she to let him bully her. Damn right, she wouldn’t!

She glowered at him. ‘Yes, I do! And more than that—it’s the most patronising thing I’ve ever heard!’

The 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.