Free Spring Proposal in Swallowbrook by Abigail Gordon Page B

vanities and ploys that some of her sex had attempted to use to get him into bed…without succeeding. Any moves in that direction would come from him, when if ever he felt that the time was right.
    Ruby made him smile, and at the same time made him curious about what was underneath the mixture of competence that she displayed in the surgery and her lack of confidence otherwise. Yet she’d obviously found herself a partner for the night of Gordon’s party, as there had been no softening on her part in their unspoken determination to cool it between them and he hadn’t felt the need to ask who.
    Sufficient that he had been lumbered with Bryony Matthews, who he was far from keen on as she always brought personal matters into the conversation when she called at the surgery to push a new drug that her company was merchandising.
    No doubt it would be the same tonight, he thought grimly as he dressed for the evening ahead, but Libby had asked him to partner Bryony as a favour because she belonged to one of the top pharmaceutical firms in the country and always gave Swallowbrook priority regarding what was going on in the world of medication.
    Yet there could be one consolation during the evening ahead. If he could get her alone he was going to explain to Ruby what his intention had been before he had been shanghaied into entertaining Bryony.
    It was against his nature to allow himself to be put in a situation like the one with the pharmaceutical rep when he was wanting to get to know Ruby better. Apart from the fact that she was the junior doctor at the practice and had once lived in the village, he knew very little about her. She kept information about her family to a minimum as well as everything else she’d been involved in before appearing in his life, yet why shouldn’t she keep her affairs to herself if she wanted to? Ruby was doing a good job as one of the doctors of the Swallowbrook Medical Practice, so why couldn’t he accept that was all that mattered?
    Patrice rang from Canada just as he was about to leave the house and by the time she’d finished chatting he was on the last minute for the party.
    The apartment was in darkness so obviously Ruby had already left and there would be no time to speak to her before the meal, which was before the presentation that the practice was making to Gordon, so it would be halfway through the evening before he got the chance to be near her.
    When he entered the dining room of the hotel the first thing he saw was a pouting Bryony patting the seat of the empty chair beside her. As he hurried across to join her his eyes were raking the room to find Ruby and it soon registered that she wasn’t there, and neither was the opportunity to find out why as the hotel staff were already coming round with the food.
    The meal was over, the presentation had been made, and the guests were mingling by the time he got the chance to ask Libby where Ruby was. He had a ghastly sinking feeling that she was ill, alone in the apartment or something similarly unpleasant, and was dumbstruck when she said, ‘Ruby had no one to come with, Hugo, and so offered to babysit for us to save us having to bring Toby to something that is far past his bedtime.’
    ‘Oh, I see!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why didn’t she tell me she had no one to partner her?’
    ‘She would have known you were going to be with Bryony, wouldn’t she? So obviously she wouldn’t push herself forward,’ she said mildly, surprised by his reaction.
    ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he agreed begrudgingly.
    ‘If you want to speak to her we’ll be going in about an hour and then she’ll be free,’ she informed him, ‘but don’t expect her to come here, Hugo, she isn’t dressed for it.’
    ‘No, of course not,’ he replied, and thought there was nothing to stop him from going there…now!
    After noting that Bryony had a circle of male guests gathered around her he said to Libby, ‘I’m going to pop round to your place if that’s all right