Country Doctor, Spring Bride. Abigail Gordon

concerned.’

      She nodded, wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and huddled down in the seat beside him as he drove off. When they reached the gates of a big stone house that had been converted into a home for the elderly, Daniel said in the same gentle tone, ‘Kate, I did warn you that it could be a bit hasty, sending your dress to the charity shop so soon after your return to the village.’

      Still without speaking, she nodded again and he thought that the smiling and confident interviewee of not so long ago was red-eyed and hurting and the same concern that he’d felt when they’d walked home from the pub was there.

      He wanted to comfort her, hold her close, tell her that one day a man would come along who would love her as she deserved to be loved. Someone who wasn’t wrapped around with memories of the past, and he, Daniel, would envy him.

      He hadn’t held a woman in his arms since he’d lost Lucy. That way he was able to keep to the commitment he had promised himself, so he just patted her hand and said anxiously, ‘Promise me you won’t budge while I’m in the home. I’ll try not to be too long but can’t be sure.’

      ‘I’ll be here,’ she promised. ‘Don’t rush on my account, Daniel. Patients come before personal matters in the life of the GP during surgery hours.’ And when he glanced at her sharply she managed a smile. ‘I know I’m not a GP yet, but I’m hoping.’

      It was Elizabeth Ackroyd, the oldest inmate of Furzebank, that he’d been summoned out to see, and when he saw her Daniel’s expression was grave. She had been a highly intelligent woman and still was to some degree in spite of her ninety years.

      She had sacrificed the chance of marriage or a career to look after younger brothers and a sister when they’d lost their mother while only young, and she had outlived them all.

      Elizabeth had been at Furzebank four years and until recently had been well and happy. Until an elderly widower that she had become very close to had died suddenly and the will to live had left her.

      The first time Daniel had been called out to her, he hadn’t been able to find anything organically wrong with her. Helen, the sister-in-charge, had nodded her agreement, and told him that Elizabeth had said to her that she’d found the love of her life seventy years too late, and that she would die of a broken heart.