Chapter 3

Three

The single window in Cassie's office let in the bleak gray light of an early December snow fall. The small flakes were changing over to rain, and if the temperature dropped any further, the streets would be slick by the time she left for home.

When she and her partner, Miss Elyse Khan, had purchased the lease for the three-story building on Crispin Street, it had been nothing more than a collection of shabby rooms and landings covered in peeling wallpaper, water stains, and rubbish left by the previous tenants. In some places, holes had been knocked through the walls, exposing timber beams and plaster. Fixing it up and furnishing it had taken nearly two months and had cost more than she'd budgeted for, but at last, the rooms had been ready for the young women both Cassie and Elyse knew would come.

They had met at a Lyceum lecture the previous year. Cassie's former sister-in-law, Audrey had often attended the lectures before she'd married Hugh and started their family, and she'd convinced Cassie that some were much more interesting than one might expect. The topic that afternoon had been a discourse of social reforms for the city's laboring class. Cassie had been close to nodding off in her seat when she'd felt a little nudge against her shoulder. Coming to attention, she'd turned and found a woman of about thirty seated behind her, smirking. After the lecture, Cassie thanked her for saving her from the humiliation of drooling in public.

"It was a terribly boring sermon," the woman had replied, "and his ideas for reform are flawed. He champions the banning of children under age ten from working in factories but insists an increase in wages for adult workers is too radical. Children wouldn't be in the factories at all if their parents could earn a decent wage on their own."

At her clear and confident opinion, Cassie had felt woefully lacking. In fact, she could hardly recall anything the man had said. They'd exchanged introductions, and Cassie had invited her to a nearby coffeehouse. Over the next hour, she'd learned that Elyse had been trained as a midwife by her own mother, an Englishwoman who had gone to India as a missionary. She had returned to England ten years later with Elyse, whose father had been a soldier in India. He'd contracted a fever and died, leaving Elyse and her mother on their own. Eventually, Elyse's mother proved to be a much-trusted midwife in the East End. After her death, Elyse confidently stepped into her shoes.

"Doctors are already few and far between here," she'd explained when Cassie had been stunned by how many births Elyse had presided over. "They often choose not to attend unmarried women, or women who look like me. Or anyone else with darker skin."

"Oh," Cassie replied, rather lamely.

She knew so little of the world beyond her Mayfair life. Over the next few lectures, which she and Elyse attended together, she started paying attention to a common thread in the stories of births the midwife would tell her. Many of the women were young, under the age of twenty, and nearly half of them were not married. The unmarried ones, Elyse said, usually had no support at all from their families. They were often cast out if they dared to keep their child rather than send it to an orphanage or shuffle it off to an older relative.

"Is there no safe place for them?" Cassie had asked, thinking of her own safe place when she'd found herself in the same dire circumstances: unmarried, with child, and terrified.

A middle-aged couple, Mr. and Mrs. Olsson, who had been her late brother Philip's old friends, had welcomed her into their small but caring home in Stockholm. At the time, Cassie had felt like a prisoner, separated from everyone and everything she knew, facing a moment that she dreaded with all her heart. But looking back, she realized that the Olsson's home had been a blessing.

"Not yet," Elyse had answered.

By the following week, Cassie had formed an idea. When she presented it to her new friend, Elyse had accepted on the spot.

Now, the clock on Cassie's desk ticked softly toward two in the afternoon as she read a medical treatise Elyse had given her. It went in depth on childbirth and the unnecessary use of forceps, and to be honest, much of it turned Cassie's stomach. She rubbed her eyes, the tips of her fingers chilled. Her toes were beginning to grow uncomfortably cold too. The coal delivery had been delayed several days now, and she'd forgone a fire in her own office grate in favor of making sure their current residents had plenty to keep warm. For Elyse, too. She lived at Hope House, after all, and even though the rooms were updated and comfortable, the windows still let in drafts and poor insulation kept the walls cold. All fixable, of course, but after going through their accounts, they'd agreed not until the spring. Cassie had just five hundred a year from her inheritance, and she needed to reserve what little was left of it, at least for the next five months.

The thought of money reminded her of the previous week, when Lord Thornton had so casually implied that she was nothing more than a pampered female, frittering away pin money. She gnashed her teeth. The bigheaded boor! She still simmered over his ludicrous claim that he'd been checking Lady Brookfield for a mole. Utter nonsense. The widow's hem had practically been up around her waist!

Her heart still stuttered when thinking of the several minutes she'd endured in the closet, pressed against him, as they hid from discovery. The moment she'd put her hands against Lord Thornton's chest, she'd regretted it. The hard muscle underneath his evening clothes had made her feel too hot. His scent—a rich amalgam of cinnamon and sandalwood—made her head swimmy. Cassie had been painstakingly aware of her bosom against him, and of his bare hands drifting down the backs of her arms. And then, worst of all, of the rock of his thighs as her leg stumbled between his, during their tussling. Her breathing had grown stilted when the bully had covered her mouth with his palm. And then he'd had the audacity to be furious with her!

A single pert knock on her office door was all the warning Elyse gave before coming in. Cassie was too slow to wipe away her grimace.

"Are you thinking about that horrible man again?" she asked.

The office was small and cold, but it was still cozy. On numerous occasions, Cassie had considered sleeping on the couch instead of returning to her home on Grosvenor Square. However, her staff would undoubtedly report her absence to the duke. Michael was the one who employed them after all.

Cassie closed the treatise and stood, regretful that she'd told Elyse about the encounter. But she'd still been beside herself the morning after the ball, and her friend had noticed. Elyse was aware that she was a lady of the peerage and that she was keeping her work at Hope House a secret. She'd been skeptical at first, uncertain if Cassie could maintain a double life, but here they were, one year later, and the rhythm of Cassie's two lives had settled in rather well.

"Any thought of Lord Thornton is firmly in the darkest recesses of my mind," she fibbed.

"Exactly where he should be. Men like him are the very reason this house exists."

The urge to deny the accusation leaped to her tongue, but Cassie swallowed it. Why should she defend him? For all she knew, the man had sired a dozen by-blows. His reputation was cemented in the ton as a good physician but a scalawag who frequented the haunts of the demimonde rather than the typical social outlets of the peerage.

"Take Lila, for example," Elyse continued in the rising tone that usually signaled a brief ticking-off.

"What about her?" The young woman had arrived a few weeks ago, her abdomen just barely round enough to be noticeable.

A fresh purpling bruise on the side of her mouth, and an older one yellowing the fair skin at her temple, had not shocked Cassie when she'd entered the mock office in the front of the building. Many of the women and girls who arrived sported such marks, compliments of the men they were usually taking refuge from.

"I am looking for my friend, Hope," the young woman had said, repeating the code that had been confided in her by one of the nuns or midwives in the area whom Elyse trusted implicitly.

It hadn't taken more than a single conversation with Lila for Cassie to realize she wasn't from the East End. She was educated, most likely finished at a respectable school. Her clothing didn't look to be from any of the high-end shops on Bond or Oxford Streets, but they weren't cast offs either. They'd probably been purchased readymade at a clothier.

"She was probably compromised by someone just like your blackguard."

"He's not my blackguard," Cassie snapped. Elyse rolled her dark brown eyes.

"You know what I mean. An upper-class rake who didn't think twice before leading a young, impressionable girl to reach just above her station," she said. "I'm almost positive she is gentry."

She and Elyse had been trying to piece together Lila's story on their own based on what little the young woman had offered. She'd only given her first name and that she was around four months gone. Nothing more.

Cassie reached for the shawl on the back of her chair and stepped out from behind her desk. "Whoever compromised Lila, there is at least one thing that sets Lord Thornton apart from him."

"What is that?"

"He would never strike a woman." Cassie knew this with pure conviction. "He might be an egotistical idiot, but he is not a violent man."

Again, she recalled the gentle brush of his fingers down the backs of her arms while they stood in that darkened closet. The skin there tightened involuntarily at the memory. Cassie wrapped her shawl tighter around herself.

"How is Dorie faring?" she asked Elyse, eager to move away from the topic of the vexing physician.

The downward turn of her friend's mouth wasn't promising. "Her fever has worsened. She's becoming insensible. It's time we sent for a doctor."

Dorie had been with them for only a week, arriving with a head cold that had progressed into a fever.

"But I thought you said no doctor would see her," Cassie replied as she and Elyse left her office. It was tucked into the back of the house, above the kitchen. The narrow landing outside her door had a low, angled ceiling that she often accidentally smacked her head against, but once clear of it, the hallway led to two guest rooms and a central sitting room.

"Most doctors won't," Elyse said as they made their way to Dorie's room. She was from a family of Algerian immigrants, and when her father learned the man who'd gotten her with child was an Irish sailor who'd disappeared with the tide, he'd turned her out.

"However," Elyse continued, "Mabel knows of a doctor known to treat any person who needs it, regardless of their color—or their ability to pay."

"We will pay him."

Elyse nodded, entirely cognizant of their dwindling funds. Mabel, however, was not. She'd joined them six months ago, when there had been five women under their roof and Elyse had needed the help of another trained midwife. Cassie could do little more than assist and run the keeping of the house. Mabel D'Costa had been Elyse's mother's friend and had helped to train Elyse too.

"He's in the East End?" Cassie asked.

Elyse frowned. "I'm not sure. Neither is Mabel. She says he runs a free clinic each weekend on Church Street in Whitechapel, and if you need him on other days, you must send word to an address on Shoreditch Road. The person there takes the information and passes it along to the doctor. We've already sent a messenger to begin the process."

"How odd. He must live outside this part of town."

They entered Dorie's room and found Mabel holding a cloth to the young woman's forehead. Mabel's silver hair was tied up into a knot and covered with a kerchief. She raised an equally silver brow. "She keeps mumbling. I can't understand a single word."

Cassie went to the water ewer. It was nearly empty. "I'll fetch more from the well."

There was one water pump out back of the house, in the alley that supplied the whole block. Cassie had never given a moment's thought to where her water came from before. That one realization had made her feel inordinately spoiled. Now she knew that if anyone wanted to drink well water, it was wisest to boil it first. Elyse even sometimes strained it through broken clumps of charcoal.

"Thank you, Miss Jane," Mabel said, calling Cassie by the name she used at Hope House. Even Elyse called her Jane, at least when others were with them.

Miss Jane Banks was a middle-class woman from Cheapside, whose father had left her with a tidy sum of family money and a wish to do good in the world. Hope House was the realization of that. At least that was the story she and Elyse had whipped up to tell anyone who asked. But the truth was, the women here usually had too many troubles of their own to pry too deeply into the lives of the few caring for them.

That being said, being open that she was the sister of a duke and a lady of the peerage would have been a folly. No one would trust her, or feel they had anything at all in common with her. Such irony. Cassie had more in common with these women than she did with most of the ladies she knew in the West End of London.

She returned from the common well and over the next hour or so, assisted Mabel as she soothed Dorie. It was Cassie's task to encourage her to sip broth, which Sister Agatha, a nun from a church in Spitalfields who came in daily to cook, had made. It was difficult work, as Dorie was nearly insensate. Mabel and Elyse had already told her that she could go for the evening, that they would handle everything when the doctor arrived. However, Cassie wanted to stay. She felt a true purpose here, even if she was just lifting a cup to Dorie's lips or changing the sheets on her bed. What would she do at home? Take supper. Have a glass of brandy. Read. And wonder how Dorie was faring. No, she may as well just stay put.

Downstairs, the bell connected to the front office chimed.

"I hope that's the doctor," Elyse said before hurrying for the stairs.

Dorie had about a month before she was expected to deliver. After the child was born, she would decide whether to keep the baby or place it out. No matter her choice, she could stay for another month to recover. During that time, they would help Dorie plan for after she left. If she kept her baby, as a single mother, she would need an income. That was Cassie's primary duty at Hope House—to help each woman begin again. She found them lodging, employment, and continued to check in every few weeks. Only if the women wanted it, of course. Some didn't. Many turned their newborns over to the sisters at St. Paul's Church in Shadwell or St. Mary's in Bishopsgate and returned to their lives. But at least so far, all the women had abided by the foremost rule of Hope House—to only share its existence with those in need.

At the sounds of Elyse's return, and the low tenor of the doctor's voice, Cassie collected the basket holding the stripped bed linens and started for the door. The room was far too small for all of them. She would only be in the way.

"I'll bring these to the wash," she told Mabel as Elyse reentered. Cassie stood aside for the doctor to come through, and when he did, her heart stuttered to a stop.

"Mabel, Jane, this is Doctor Brown," Elyse said. His eyes went first toward the bed and his patient. Then, he turned his attention toward Cassie. Recognition flared in his peridot eyes.

Lord Grant Thornton went motionless as he stared, awestruck. She tried to breathe, tried to move, but her feet had as good as sealed to the floor. His lips parted, the space between his brows furrowing.

"Doctor Brown?"

Elyse's voice cut through the roar of panic in Cassie's ears. She'd been speaking, apparently, but neither Cassie nor Lord Thornton had been listening.

He blinked and broke his fierce stare. "Yes, forgive me. You were saying, Miss Khan?"

His eyes jumped back toward Cassie, though only for a moment, before he set down his doctor's bag.

"This is Mrs. Mabel D'Costa, another midwife here, and this is Miss Jane Banks." Elyse shot her a concerned glance. She'd noticed their mutual shock. Well, of course, she had! The whole world had come to a screeching halt. Cassie still hadn't drawn breath.

Lord Thornton acknowledged Mabel, and then turned to Cassie again. "Miss Banks," he said, drawing out her name.

She hitched her chin. "Doctor Brown."

His eyes narrowed to slits then refocused on Elyse as she explained Dorie's condition. Cassie slipped out of the room, her fingers strangling the basket handles. Her heart re-started as she set off at a charge.

Doctor Brown?What in the name of King George was he doing calling himself that? And what was he doing here, in Spitalfields? Cassie's ears continued to chime as she blindly made her way to the washroom, absentmindedly murmuring hello to Sister Agatha along the way. Once alone, she set the basket of linen down and leaned against the washroom's cold stone wall. How could this have happened?

She should have left when Mabel and Elyse suggested it. But she hadn't imagined any doctor who'd deign a charity home worthy of his time would possibly have ties to the peerage. The notion that it could be him had not even crossed her mind.

She needed to leave now, before he could finish with Dorie. Cassie hurried back to her office to collect her things. Her driver, Tris, had arrived in the alley behind Hope House at four o'clock, as usual, to pick her up. He was the only member of her staff who knew of her secret life across town. Although he was officially employed by the duke, Tris had vowed his silence. His sister, Anita, had been one of Hope House's first residents, and he'd said his confidence and trust was the least he could give Cassie in return.

Tris could whisk her back to Mayfair, away from this conundrum. But it would only follow her. If she didn't face Lord Thornton now, he would find some other time to corner her and demand answers. Who knew where that would be, or who else might be there? He was infuriating enough to make a show of it. So, instead of dashing off as her instinct shouted for her to do, she lingered in the hallway outside Dorie's room. The sound of his voice coming through the door was a continual stroke of alarm down her spine. Not very unlike the tremors that had come alive under her skin last week when they'd been squeezed into that wretched closet together.

Eventually, Elyse exited the room, again followed by Lord Thornton. With his bag in his hand, he looked to be leaving. He fixed his attention on Cassie, but the shock that had softened his features earlier was nowhere to be found. Wrath hardened the corners of his mouth and lit his irises like a green inferno.

"Doctor Brown, if you don't mind, I'd like a word in private," she said, and at Elyse's surprised frown, added, "It's to do with payment for your services."

"Yes, I did want to speak to you about that," he replied tightly. "Miss Khan, I'll be back tomorrow afternoon, unless you send for me earlier."

Elyse thanked him before moving toward the stairs to the next floor, the curious arch of her brow persisting. She would have questions for Cassie later, that was for certain. However, dealing with the furious lord on her heels as she led him toward her office was her primary concern.

Lord Thornton stalked into the small, cold room, and Cassie shut the door behind him.

He dropped his bag with a thump on the floor and threw his hat onto the sofa. He set his hands on his hips and stared down at her. "I'm beginning to think you're determined to ruin yourself, Lady Cassandra. What in hell are you doing in this place?"

Suddenly, he seemed much taller than he'd been before. Then again, the ceiling in her office was quite low. The crown of his head was nearly at the cornices.

Cassie crossed her arms, refusing to cower. "Why are you here, pretending to be someone called Doctor Brown?"

Lord Thornton shook his head. "No. You will answer my question. This is a house for ruined women. You cannot be here."

She warmed, despite the chilled temperature of the office. "I know exactly what this place is, as Miss Khan and I are the ones who founded it."

His hands dropped from his hips and that softened, awestruck expression came back over his features. "You founded it?"

She held his glare. "Yes."

"Does the duke know?"

Cassie balked. "If Michael knew, he'd explode into a million pieces. He'd then cobble himself back together and murder me."

Lord Thornton cocked his head and seethed. "I share the temptation."

Cassie stepped past him, annoyed by his looming and frothing at the bit. "Hope House is important. The women who come here need help; they need care. Michael isn't cruel, but he wouldn't understand. He'd only care about protecting me."

"As he should." Lord Thornton followed her the few paces to her desk, which she placed herself behind. Putting some object between them seemed a good idea. "Cassie, if you are discovered here, you will be ruined. Not to mention you'll irreparably tarnish the Fournier name."

"That is why everyone here believes I am Miss Jane Banks. No one is going to discover me."

He threw out his arms. "I have!"

"Only because you are pretending to be Doctor Brown, the mysterious physician who pays house calls on the poor."

He hefted his chin, and the flames in his eyes banked. He'd as good as drawn shutters around himself.

"You run a free clinic in Whitechapel," she stated. "Secretly, I presume, considering not one of your upper-class patients would so much as allow you in through the front door if they knew what you were doing. Share a physician with the common poor? They wouldn't stand for it."

He shifted his jaw but said nothing as he turned to look through the window. The snow had changed to cold rain, flecking the thin, cracked glass.

"You must understand, then, why I am here," she said, somewhat more softly.

"I understand why I do what I do." He cut his eyes back to her. They sharpened. "But I cannot begin to comprehend why you would put yourself into this situation. Into this danger."

She groaned, her temper flaring. "I am not in any danger."

"You are a stone's throw from Whitechapel," he retorted, his voice rising. "You don't know the first thing about life in the stews."

"Do not patronize me, Lord Thornton." Cassie came out from behind the desk, now simmering for a fight. "We might be mutual acquaintances through Audrey and Hugh, but that doesn't give you the right to lecture me or tell me what I can and cannot do. Now, on the topic of your payment?—"

"I do not accept payment," he snapped, meeting her in the center of the room, practically fulminating. "Dorie is sick with a serious fever. It's running rampant in the stews, and it is highly contagious. She must not come into contact with the other women, and only one person should provide care. Not you. Even if you do not listen to another word I say, at least promise me you will stay away from her."

His eyes drilled into hers, and Cassie thought she saw a glimmer of worry underneath his anger. She bit her tongue against an instant retort that she would not stay away from a single woman at Hope House in need of care. It would only rile him further, and he needed to leave. She needed him to go. His finding her here was a catastrophe, and this outburst perfectly displayed why.

"Fine," she said at last.

He stepped back, looked around for his bag, and then picked it up. Then, he fetched his hat from the shabby sofa.

"How do you get back to Grosvenor Square? Please, for God's sake, woman, tell me you don't hire a hackney cab."

She gritted her molars. "I have a driver," was all she said before going to the door and whipping it open. A clear invitation for him to leave.

He slapped his hat on and glowered. "Good evening, Miss Banks."

"Goodbye, Doctor Brown."

She slammed the door on his heels.