Chapter 23

Twenty-Three

Elyse had been invited back to Archambeau Manor to dine again the following Saturday—this time, with any luck, uninterrupted. Madame Archambeau and Miss Stone had shown great interest in Hope House during her first short visit before she'd been summoned back to Crispin Street, and afterward, Elyse had been walking on air. Cassie wished she could feel as buoyant, but her last few encounters with Grant had kept her trapped between rapturous bliss and agitated uncertainty.

He"d been slinking into her every thought over the last few days, and when the benefactress sent Elyse a second invitation, Cassie realized something. Having now met the marquess, Cassie knew the threat of severing Grant's income was not an exaggeration in the least. However, at the art opening at Archambeau Manor, Grant hadn't so much as uttered a word about Church Street. Instead, he'd put forward Hope House. He'd put forward Cassie.

"I suppose we should find some way to thank Lord Thornton," Elyse had said the day after Caroline Rawling had her baby. Then, with a wry twist of her lips, she added, "Or perhaps that is what you were doing in your office when I walked in?"

The blood had rushed to the tips of Cassie's ears, and Elyse had broken out in laughter. But then, more seriously, she'd touched her arm. "Be careful. I worry about his intentions."

She hadn't known how to respond, so she'd just promised that Elyse needn't worry.

However, that seemed to be all Cassie had done for the bulk of the next few days.

Like Elyse,she was to attend a dinner Saturday evening too, this one at Violet House. Afterward, Michael would drag Grant into his study, pour him a scotch, and demand he ask for Cassie's hand.

After staying the night at Lindstrom House, Michael's already thin patience had snapped. Especially when a column earlier in the week in All the Chatter hinted that the unexpected snow had pushed "Lord T" and "Lady C" into an inescapable position, in which the lady's honor may even hang in the balance. Cassie was certain it was the marquess's doing. He'd probably sent word to the gossip rag himself.

With the rumors at play, Grant needed to offer at the dinner Saturday night or cease courting Cassie entirely. He, of course, would not offer—gossip or no gossip. Michael would then toss him out and warn him against speaking to his sister again. The false courtship would be at an end.

Cassie should have felt relieved. She should have felt happy. What she most certainly should not have been feeling was bereft.

If only she could go back to despising him. To believing he was a shallow lordling who practiced medicine but was not especially serious about it. But now… Now she knew Grant used riddles to distract his youngest patients from their pain. She knew he employed his dead wife's sister against his family's wishes. That he felt insecure about his father's love and used humor to deflect those feelings. Cassie knew that he hated to think of her with another man and that he shouted when he worried over her safety. She knew that he gave pleasure freely, demanding nothing in return. Most importantly, she now knew what it was like to be the object of his desire.

She'd seen parts of Grant that he kept hidden from everyone else. And she liked them. All week, she'd grappled with that realization, half wondering if she should send a note to Thornton House, telling him not to come to dinner. She didn't want him to have to face her brother.

Heaven help her, she didn't want it all to end.

It was nearing four o'clock when the correct sequence of knocks at the back door of Hope House announced Sister Nan's arrival. Cassie was glad for the timing. She needed to return to her residence to prepare for dinner. She hadn't sent the note to Grant, knowing deep down that it would only prolong the inevitable.

"How is Mrs. Rawling?" Sister Nan asked as she came inside. She set a long wicker basket on the table. Cassie eyed it, knowing what it would carry away from Hope House. It was why she'd insisted on making the trip to Spitalfields that day. She'd told Ruth that she was having tea with an acquaintance, leaving it vague, as she so often did. However, she continued to feel the thinning of the barrier between her two worlds.

"She's recovering well. No signs of any infection," Cassie reported. Sister Nan looked sideways at her. Her health wasn't what the nun had been inquiring after.

"She won't hold him," Cassie said. "Mrs. Powers is still here, so he's at least content."

Mrs. Powers was a wetnurse that Mabel and Elyse both knew from the area, and she provided her services to infants whose mothers had either died or were otherwise unable to feed them.

Sister Nan sighed and nodded. "The sooner we take him from here, the sooner Mrs. Rawling can begin to recover." She started for the corridor leading to the stairs, but then stopped. A hesitant frown creased the wrinkles on the bridge of the older woman's nose. "I wanted to say again, how sorry I am to have sent Isabel's awful man here."

All week, Cassie had been frustrated by the fact that Mr. Youngdale had not been at his residence, and that Isabel had yet to be found. Hugh had kept her informed on the lack of news, as since Tuesday night, she hadn't seen or heard from Grant. It was, of course, for the best. She still reeled from how Elyse had nearly found them on her desk. Her lack of decorum had been insupportable, her thoughtlessness disconcerting.

"You didn't send Mr. Youngdale here," she said. But the nun wouldn't have it.

"Yes, I did. Not to worry, though." She reached out to pat Cassie's arm. "The young woman is safe again."

At her coy wink, the small hairs on Cassie's arms raised. "Do you mean you know where she is?"

Sister Nan nodded. "She got away from those ruffians after they snatched her from the doc's. Said they didn't lock her into the carriage properly and went to get a pint. Bloomin' idiots."

Of course!Mr. Youngdale had followed Cassie from the boxing club in Limehouse not to terrorize her, but because he hadn't had Isabel in his possession after all. He'd thought Cassie would be able to lead him to her.

"She's been at the church?" At the sister's confirming nod, she leaned against the wall, lightheaded with wonder.

"Just for a few days. She was hiding in some abandoned house but then she started feeling ill and decided to risk coming to the church," Sister Nan said with a grimace, popping Cassie's bubble of elation.

"Fever?"

The sister nodded, and Cassie worried her bottom lip. Grant had expressed concern for a fever going around the slums.

"Mr. Youngdale isn't going to stop looking for her," she said, "and if she is ill, she should have a doctor."

Isabel could not come back here, to Hope House. Neither could she go to Church Street again. As Mr. Youngdale had followed Cassie home, she could not take her to the safety of Grosvenor Square either. Hugh had suggested getting her out of London altogether. Michael had Fournier Downs in Hertfordshire and Greenbriar in Kent, but each of those estates were fully staffed. She could never sneak in a pregnant, unmarried woman.

But she was getting ahead of herself.

Cassie checked the clock. Grant would still be at the clinic, though not for much longer.

"Sister Nan, did you bring your rig?" The older woman nodded. "Excellent. I'll come with you and the baby to the parish church."

While the nun went to collect the baby from Mrs. Powers, Cassie opened the back door and flagged down Tris. He had relieved Patrick just that morning, the bruising on his face still evident but explained away to the other servants as the result of a neighborhood brawl while he was caring for his sick mother.

"Drive to Lord Thornton's clinic," she told him, "and tell him to meet me at St. Paul's Church in Shadwell. Isabel is there, and she needs our help."

His expression brightened, but with some reserve. "Is she hurt?"

She shook her head. "Feverish. Inform Lord Thornton. And tell him she needs a new safe place, preferably out of London."

Grant reachedinside the lantern in the surgery and raised the wick. The resulting light over the patient bed was nowhere near enough by which to see properly. Swearing under his breath, he fiddled with a few of the reflective lenses.

"Did you move the lenses, Hannah? I've told you before, leave them where they are." He jostled one glass lens set on a pin hinge. It had most assuredly not been angled like this the last time he'd been at the clinic.

Last week. Before the snowstorm. Before spending the night with Cassie at Lindstrom House. Before everything had started to unravel.

"I was attempting to give you more light with which to look up Mr. Brinkley's nostril," his assistant explained. It was the third time she'd done so, but it didn't erase his irritation.

Damn Mr. Brinkley and damn the rock he'd somehow gotten lodged in his nasal cavity. Grant had spent nearly an hour digging it free and the man had complained and howled the entire time.

Suddenly, the pin hinge snapped, and the squared beveled lens broke free into his hand. A groan scraped up his throat as Grant dashed it toward the floor. Hannah watched him warily, a hint of reproval on her raised brow and pursed lips.

"You've been doing that all day," she said, continuing to calmly roll a ball of cotton linen.

He stomped to where the broken lens had landed, scooped it up, and brought it to his desk. He'd repair the damn thing another time. "Doing what?"

"Grunting."

He frowned at her. "I have not."

"Yes, you have. You were even grunting while you were pulling that stone from Mr. Brinkley's nasal cavity."

He tossed up his arms. "Of course I was grunting, I couldn't get the bloody thing out!"

Hannah set down the roll of gauze. "Does this have to do with the rumors?"

Grant chucked the lens into a drawer and slammed it shut. He sent Hannah a baleful stare. "No."

The rumors she referred to were the inevitable aspersions being cast against Cassie's character for her overnight stay at Lindstrom House. It did not matter if Mother Nature had given them no other choice, or that his entire family had also been required to stay the night. Hell, had Cassie had a bed made up in the entrance hall and been guarded all night by half a dozen footmen, there would still be whispers about Grant ruining her.

The problem was that the rumors were utterly true.

Of a fashion, at least.

"They say you must propose," Hannah said. "Or that you already have." She tried not to sound very interested, but he knew her too well.

There had been a time after he'd stopped actively mourning her older sister when she had soured toward him. The rumors of his lascivious behavior had reached her, and she'd told him it might be best if she resigned her post. They'd had a frank discussion, where he'd explained he would not be taking another wife, but he also would not be living a sad and celibate life. Grant promised not to flaunt women in front of her, and she'd given him a second chance. It had worked, and over the years, she'd loosened up considerably.

But some member of his family—most likely the marquess himself—had fed the betrothal news to the gossips, and the rumor was quickly tangling itself up with another rumor—that he'd ruined the lady.

Pangs of conscience locked up inside his chest, and he stepped away from his desk. "I have not proposed," he told Hannah. It was the truth. After a bracing breath, he exhaled, and then told Hannah everything about the courtship scheme. About the marquess's demands and ultimatums, and how he'd used Cassie to put off his father, at least for a little while.

Used Cassie. A slick twist of his gut accompanied those words as they came out of his mouth, Hannah's puckering expression increasing. When at last, he'd finished explaining, Grant held out his arms in defeat. "So, no, the rumors that we are betrothed are not true."

Hannah continued to pucker her brow. "What of the other rumor?"

That he'd ruined her. Grant rubbed his chin, discomfited. "That is a complicated answer."

"It's not. The answer is either yes or no."

He trusted Hannah, but Cassie's past with Renfry was off limits. He would not attempt to explain it away. If he needed to take responsibility for that, too, he would. "Yes."

She set her hands on her hips. "And yet you will not marry her?"

"Cassie doesn't wish to marry," he replied. "And without going into detail?—"

"I thank you for that," she muttered with a nauseous grimace.

"She made it more than clear before the fact."

The corner of her mouth pressed downward, hinting at disbelief. But she moved on. "All right. She doesn't wish to marry you, and you don't wish to marry her. So why have you been in such a high dudgeon all week?"

It hadn't been all week. The exhilaration of delivering a baby had stayed with him for at least a few days. Despite his fear, he'd done something he'd firmly believed he would never be able to do again. But Cassie had needed him that night at Hope House; his fear had not. After, when she'd praised him, he'd reveled in it, while his fear had never given him anything in return but more weight on his soul.

The whispers and printed lies regarding the need for a hasty union between him and Cassie had dulled that exhilaration considerably. A decorous courtship could have gone on for some time. One dogged by rumors of iniquitous behavior, however, could not. Fournier would expect Grant to formally propose tonight, at the dinner. A dinner that he now could not attend. He also could not see Cassie again. The courtship was over.

And to top things off, the previous evening, a message from James had arrived.

"James's wife has delivered their new child," Grant said to Hannah now. "A perfectly healthy baby boy. Mother and infant are well," he added because Hannah would want to know. She liked Vera and James the most out of his family.

Her eyes popped with glee. "A boy! Well then, that is wonderful news. The marquess has his grandson. Surely this means his demands of you are unnecessary."

Grant took out his fob to check the hour. The afternoon was closing in on five o'clock, when he would shutter the clinic for the rest of the week.

"Yes. Good news. I'm sure the marquess is in raptures and has forgotten entirely that he threatened to see me destitute should I not fall in line."

The false courtship would have ended anyway, he reminded himself, with or without the chatter about Cassie's night at Lindstrom House. Everything was always supposed to go back to normal, and now it would. Tonight, Grant would go directly to Lindstrom House after closing the clinic and abolish the betrothal rumors. He'd tell his father that Cassie had cried off when she found him kissing another woman, or some such rubbish. He would believe it, and that was all that mattered.

"Perhaps you should speak to Lady Cass?—"

A few quick knocks on the clinic's front door bowled over Hannah's comment. Thank God. No, he could not speak to Lady Cassandra outside of a letter to inform her that she was released from his scheme. She would be pleased. He'd been an arse to her from the start. He'd lied through his teeth too. He'd have never told the duke a thing about Hope House, but how was Cassie to have known? He'd exploited her doubt, and for that, he would likely rot in hell.

Hannah went to open the clinic door and brought in the next patients. Grant's spirits lifted marginally to see it was Mr. Mansouri and Amir. The boy limped in, but he had a crooked grin on his face as he avidly leaped onto the table.

"We couldn't make it last week, what with a busy day at the wharves," Mr. Mansouri said, extending a newspaper-wrapped bundle to Hannah. She was accustomed to taking the offerings some of the prouder patients made in place of money and left to deliver the fresh catch to the kitchen.

"You made it this week, that's what matters," Grant said. "How is your wound healing, Amir?" It was promising, at least, that he'd not heard from Mr. Mansouri.

"My scab's tight and itchy," Amir answered. His father said, "He is hoping the sutures can be removed."

Grant rolled up the boy's trouser leg and was relieved to see the shin was wrapped in clean bandages. He'd sent plenty home with them, and it appeared they'd kept up with the changings. Unraveling the cotton linen, he prepared to see infection. But the gash was healing well, without swelling or weeping.

"You're in luck," Grant said. "The sutures can be removed, and it looks like the most you'll suffer is a wicked scar to tell tales about when you're old."

Amir's toothy grin gave him another infusion of good spirits. But not enough to lift him entirely from his high dudgeon, as Hannah had called it.

She returned to the surgery and brought forth the required tools. The boy grimaced in preparation for pain.

"It won't hurt half as much this time," Grant promised him.

"I came prepared anyhow," Amir said.

"Prepared in what way?" Grant made the first snip of the black floss.

"What can you break, even if you never pick it up or touch it?"

Ah.A riddle. Grant smiled. "That is a challenging one. Let me think…" He snipped another section of floss and pulled it from the scabbing wound. He'd heard this one before but took his time. "A promise," he answered after another moment. Amir groaned.

"All right. What about this: Why do bees have such sticky hair?"

He chuckled. "Do bees have hair?"

"Just answer it," Amir said, though his father scolded him for being rude. Grant snipped and pulled more of the stitches, unbothered by the boy's impatience. It was rather endearing.

"It must have something to do with honey," he mused aloud.

"They use honeycombs," Hannah said smugly, and Amir clapped.

"Know-it-all. I nearly had it," Grant said. "Very well, Amir, we've time for one more before you're ready to run out of here, completely healed."

He swung his legs over the edge of the patient table. "This one's hard: You keep me even after you've given me to someone else. What am I?"

Grant cocked his head and pushed back onto his heels as the answer came to him instantly. It might not have, had he not been wallowing all week. His mind had been spinning around the truth of his foul mood, refusing to stop and acknowledge it. But Amir's riddle had finally brought him to a standstill.

He should have been overjoyed to have a nephew, as he'd wanted. To be off the hook with the marquess. He should have been relieved to know things could now go back to normal.

But he wasn't any of those things.

"Well?" Amir prodded. "You don't know, do you? Giving up?"

Grant shook his head, but his throat was too thick to speak.

He didn't want it to be over. He didn't want Cassie to walk away. To leave him. Grant wanted to be with her every night and every morning. He wanted her everywhere, wherever he was. The thought of her somewhere else, with someone else… Bloody hell.

He was in love with the woman.

When in Christ had this happened?

"Doctor Brown?" Hannah said softly. He blinked and turned, meeting her stricken gaze. "What is wrong?"

"A heart," he said, looking to Amir. "You keep your heart even when it belongs to someone else."

Amir clapped again and whooped as he hopped down from the table. "You got that one, doctor! I'll think of more for next time."

"Amir, as much as I like riddles, let us hope there is no next time."

Mr. Mansouri shook Grant's hand, thanking him, and they left. He stayed where he was, still rocked by the revelation that had just smacked him in the back of the skull. What was he going to do?

The clamor of the front door opening and shutting, then footfalls coming toward the surgery, distracted him from the overwhelming question.

Tris barreled into the room, and Grant snapped to attention.

"Lady Cassandra has found Isabel," he panted. "She wants me to bring you. She says Isabel is sick, too."

Grant broke from his numbed hold and hurried to his desk, for his medical bag. "Where?"

"A church in Shadwell. St. Paul's."

He knew of it, and it wasn't far. "Hannah, close up the clinic and have Merryton bring you home."

"Grant—" she began, but then stifled her objection. "Just be careful."

He kissed her cheek and nodded, then followed Tris as he raced from the clinic.