St Matthew's Passion - By Sam Archer Page 0,4
practical pony tail, which somehow accentuated her large blue eyes and her high cheekbones. Her mouth was wide, her nose pert. For an instant Fin pictured her hair free and tumbling around her face.
‘Sorry I haven’t had a chance to catch up with you before now.’
She shook her head, still smiling. ‘That’s quite all right. I prefer getting thrown in the deep end.’
‘Not much actual surgery for you today, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘If we get a chance, I’ll have you assist me tomorrow. See what you’re made of.’ Fin raised his eyebrows. ‘You come highly recommended. In the top three of your graduating class at Oxford, and references from Professors Murray and Gordon that aren’t so much glowing as solar.’
‘Thank you, Mr Finmore-Gage –’ she began.
‘Fin. Please. Though you’ve probably heard by now that I get called that.’
‘Fin.’ She seemed to taste the name on her tongue and find it to her liking. ‘It’s an honour to be here.’
She shifted in the chair and her white coat fell open a little, revealing the gentle curve of her breasts under a thin sweater. Fin kept his eyes on her face.
‘You’ve also probably heard, or noticed, that I run a tight ship. I expect nothing but the very highest standard of work from my trainees. In return, I promise to provide you with nothing but the very best training in trauma surgery.’ He softened the rather austere comment with a smile. ‘I’m aiming to produce surgeons who’ll knock me off my perch one day, odd though that might seem. I have a responsibility to the future of the specialty.’
‘I won’t disappoint you.’
They discussed practicalities for a few minutes. All the while, Fin was absorbing details: the shape of one slender leg as she crossed it over the other, her pump dangling off the toes; the discreet way the tip of her tongue moistened her full lips; the habit she had of smoothing the hair on one side of her head with a slim-fingered hand as though it wasn’t already tied back.
From far off, muffled through the walls, came the sound of Big Ben chiming ten o’clock. Fin stood.
‘Time you were heading home. Busy day ahead tomorrow.’
She rose and offered her hand again. Close up, he detected the faintest trace of perfume, the aroma of musk. He tried but failed to glance at her back as she left, noticing the soft sway of her hips beneath the coat. Fin stood for a moment after the door had closed, her scent lingering like a memory.
He walked over to the window and gazed out. It wasn’t a river view but over to the left he could just make out the spires of the Houses of Parliament.
Melissa Havers was going to have a tough time. Not only was she young, she looked even younger than her 29 years. Youthfulness was a handicap in medicine, with both patients and other staff members associating it with inexperience and lack of ability. She was also a woman, competing in an aggressively male-dominated arena. Regardless of the respect she was due for having come this far at all, her every decision would be to some extent judged in the light of her sex. It was stupid, it was grossly unfair… but it was the way things worked.
And she was beautiful. She’d be subject to all manner of crude remarks and behaviour, though that was something she’d no doubt faced and learned to cope with already. But as with her youth, her looks would affect her credibility. People would assume she was just a pretty face.
Fin certainly had no intention of making things easy for her. If anything, he’d have to drive her harder, hold her to an even higher standard than he had his other trainees. Anything less wouldn’t be fair on her. It would give her a false impression of the task ahead and just how difficult it was going to be.
In any case, he couldn’t in any way be seen to be favouring her or treating her with kid gloves because people would assume he was being swayed by her beauty. He’d seen it before: the male mentor losing all his objectivity and being reduced to a soppy wreck when in the presence of a pretty face. And it was pathetic.
Melissa was, though, attractive. Fin didn’t believe in self delusion and he knew it was as well to confront the fact at the start. She was an attractive, sexy young woman and he was stirred by her.