‘I’ve...just been talking with Hetti.’
‘So I saw.’
She pursed her lips. ‘Did you ask her to stall me?’
If only she wasn’t willing him to say yes. Instead he offered a wry smile, and that long, slow ache started up inside her all over again.
‘I did not. But I did just receive a call from her saying that she needed me down on this floor.’
So Tak hadn’t actually been looking for her. They’d merely been set up. Then again, Tak had come anyway. Was that a good thing or a bad one?
Effie was sure her stomach had no business vaulting and somersaulting the way it was.
‘You didn’t leave a patient?’ she asked feebly.
He eyed her disdainfully. ‘Of course not.’
‘No,’ she cut in hastily. ‘Foolish question.’
They stood, the silence stretching uncomfortably between them, whilst Effie tried, and failed, to find something—anything—to say.
‘What about the boiler?’ He finally broke the silence. ‘Did your landlord send someone round the next morning?’
She hesitated as a hundred different thoughts raced through her head. It was barely a beat but it seemed to hang between them for an age, and when she finally spoke her voice was strangled. ‘It’s in hand.’
‘It isn’t fixed?’ he said sharply.
Another beat.
‘It’s being fixed.’
‘Effie—’
‘Actually...’ she cut him off hastily ‘...since you’re here, I do owe you a thank-you.’
For a moment, she thought he was going to argue.
‘What for?’ he ground out instead.
‘For Nell. We went to the shop together this morning. You were right—they took one look at her white face, heard her shaky confession and apology, and were more than prepared to let her pay and let her off with a warning because it was her first—and only—time. But they were clear that if they see her in there again with those girls stealing then she won’t get off so lightly.’
‘And she understood that?’
‘I made sure of it.’
She had made sure Nell understood. She’d spelled it out in no uncertain terms. But she’d also chatted to her daughter, just as Tak had suggested, and just as she’d known she needed to do all along. And she was confident in her own mind that it had been a stupid, ill-judged, one-time mistake. It wasn’t the start of Nell going off the rails.
Not the way she herself had, anyway.
‘Am I the first man you’ve ever taken home, Effie?’
The question came out of nowhere, pulling the proverbial rug out from under her.
‘I... Sorry...what does that mean?’
‘Exactly what it sounds like.’ He sounded amused. ‘Am I the first man you’ve ever taken home?’
‘Does it matter?’ Not an ideal way to buy herself some time, but it would have to do.