staying there long enough to make sure she was being attended to. And he would have given coppers to her kids, ordering them to the chip shop, since it would not have escaped his all-seeing eye that they hadn’t been fed that day, due to their mother’s incapacitation and their father’s sheer selfishness.
The new doctor certainly seemed to know his stuff, though. Only seconds into examining Win, he’d announced she was suffering from severe pneumonia. Fanny herself had seen enough cases of that terrible illness during her time to agree with his diagnosis, though his manner had left a lot to be desired, to her mind. He seemed so detached, strangely matter-of-fact … could have been examining a side of beef rather than a human being. And he’d definitely been looking down his nose at them all, giving the strong impression he deeply begrudged having to mix with this sort of family.
Well, if that was the case, why on earth had he chosen to ply his trade in this area, instead of choosing to minister to people of his own class? Fanny’s brow creased in thought. What had brought him to these parts when it was very apparent it was the last place he wanted to be?
Her curiosity, though, was going to have to remain unsatisfied for now. She had far more pressing matters on her mind. Spinning on her heel, she returned upstairs to offer what comfort she could to her gravely ill friend while they waited for the ambulance to arrive, both of them praying that it wouldn’t be too late.
CHAPTER TWO
Ty Strathmore emitted a deep sigh as he sank down in an antiquated leather captain’s chair behind the desk of his surgery.
A year ago he’d had everything he could ever have aspired to: an income that afforded him a high standard of living; a lovely home to which he’d have been proud to welcome the most affluent among society; a beautiful wife he adored who, like himself, possessed all the desirable social skills. She’d also been expecting their first and much longed-for child.
And now what did he have?
No lovely home, no loving wife or expected baby, and certainly no prospects … definitely not in this hell-hole of a place he’d unwittingly landed up in.
In his mind’s eye a vision of Anthea, the very last time he had seen her, rose to torment him. She stood framed in the doorway of the house they had lived in so happily together, seeing him off to work as she had done every morning, her red-gold hair cut into a fashionable bob framing a face that never failed to take his breath away each time he caught sight of it. Her tawny-green eyes were sparkling with good humour, her full lips curved into the smile she displayed only to him. Her ‘Mona Lisa smile’, he had termed it, because like Leonardo Da Vinci, he was the only man who knew what lay behind it: her unstinting love and devotion to him. Her arms were cradling her swollen belly, protecting the precious cargo she carried.
The vision vanished as quickly as it had arisen. Pain at his overwhelming loss, so great it could be likened to a hand being plunged inside him and ripping out his insides, consumed his being while simultaneously a surge of pure hatred flooded through him against the man who had single-handedly taken Anthea from him, along with everything else he had held dear. What that man had done was not out of any sense of vengeance against Ty, but through sheer unadulterated selfishness. Ty didn’t believe that violence resolved anything, but in this case it had been fortunate the man in question had seen to it that he wasn’t around to be punished for his crime, or Ty himself would have faced the gallows for murdering him.
Taking a deep breath and forcing away excruciating memories, he leaned back in his chair and took a slow, despondent look around him. The last surgery he had worked from had been spacious, light and airy, owning the very latest in medical equipment and employing a highly qualified nurse to help with the care of the patients. It had been housed in its own late-Edwardian villa in a tree-lined street in an affluent suburb. He would drive the short distance to it from his home each morning in a leather-seated black Daimler sedan, and on arrival he’d be greeted with a tray of tea delivered by his smartly attired receptionist. They’d had