Chapter 6

Six

Grant followed Cassie and Miss Khan as they chased after the young woman. His muscles were strung tight, his body thrumming with pent up ire. This was exactly why Cassie should not have been in this part of London. For Christ's sake, she'd been attacked, and if her driver had not been there to intervene…

He clenched his molars as he turned into a small and modestly furnished sitting room. The young woman, probably a year or two younger than Cassie, paced the carpet, her palms covering her cheeks. He'd seen the bruises right away when he'd entered through the false front of the accountant's office and met her as she came off the stairs. She'd scrambled back up a few steps, nearly tripping before Miss Khan held out a placating hand.

"Lila, this is Doctor Brown. He's been treating another resident here. You need not be afraid of him."

If the attacker in the alley had been looking for her, he could now understand her instant fear.

"Isabel?" Cassie said, testing the name. "Is that your real name?"

Her composure had returned. In the kitchen, she'd been pale with shock, her blue eyes wild and unfocused. Grant had dropped to one knee before her without thinking, and only afterward considered his reaction might have appeared too familiar.

"Lila was my mother's name," she whispered before backing up to a chair and collapsing into it. The young woman's pupils had sharpened to pinpricks. The fear she'd shown upon Grant's arrival was nothing in comparison to what transformed her face now.

"The man in the alley," Cassie said. "You are hiding from him?"

"How did he find me?" Isabel's voice was reedy and panicked. She bent forward and leaned her forehead into her hands. Her shoulders began to shake.

Miss Khan went to her side and put an arm around her, while Cassie turned to Grant. She mouthed, Give us a moment? He shook his head and set his jaw. "Miss Isabel," he said as he came further into the room. He ignored the warning glares from both Cassie and Miss Khan. "Is this man the father of your child?"

"Doctor Brown." Cassie clipped his name. "At Hope House, women aren't required to answer questions they aren't comfortable with."

"The man attacked you. I want his name."

Cassie widened her eyes with another silent warning, but again, he ignored it.

Isabel looked up from her lap, her eyes red and tearful. "I'm so sorry, I never meant for him to find me. I don't know how he did!"

"I'm not hurt," Cassie assured her. "We're only worried for your safety."

"What about your own safety?" Grant argued. "And the other women here?—"

"Our concern is for Isabel," Cassie snapped, the color rising in her cheeks as her temper flared.

Isabel stood, pushing off the midwife's arms. "No, no, the doctor is right. I've put you in danger coming here. I should have known he'd find me."

"Who is he?" Grant asked. "Give me a name. We can go to Bow Street?—"

"No!" Her shriek practically shook the walls. Isabel's chin quivered, and she broke out in fresh tears. "I'm so sorry, I'll go."

She started swiftly for the door. He stepped forward to block it. "That would not be wise. He could still be on the street, waiting."

No matter what had just happened in the alley to Cassie, he couldn't allow a vulnerable young woman to be frightened off, directly into the clutches of a violent man.

"You're safer here, with us," Miss Khan told her.

"But we can help you more if we know what we are up against," Cassie added.

Isabel sniffled. "Trust me, you'll be safer if I leave. If he tracked me down, he will be back."

Cassie sent Grant a pleading look. She was at a loss for how to stop Isabel from fleeing. The young woman was correct. The man would be back. Selfish instinct screamed for him to grab Cassie by the arm and drag her from this place to the safety of Mayfair and the world in which she belonged. But then, what would become of the others here?

He swore an oath under his breath, unable to believe what he was about to say. "I know of a safe place where Isabel can stay."

Grant closedthe back door that led to the mews behind Church Street and threw the lock.

"I don't believe we were followed," he said while turning to the two women standing within the cold kitchen. Cassie and Isabel appeared tense, and for good reason. Getting from Hope House to his clinic had been a complicated operation.

Assuming the man who attacked Cassie still had eyes on the Crispin Street safe house, Grant sat in the driver's box with Tris as they departed the alley. Tris avoided the main road, instead turning off the alley and cutting through narrow passageways between street blocks. Finally, he turned onto another road and took an extended, circuitous route to the clinic. All the while, Grant kept his eyes on the conveyances behind them, making sure no single one appeared to be following.

"You're Lord Neatham's friend," Tris had said while they'd been making chaotic loops. "The physician lord."

Grant nodded. "However, here and now, I am Doctor Brown."

"Just as her ladyship is Miss Jane Banks?" At Grant's next nod, Tris had muttered, "All right, then" and continued driving. He was now staying with the carriage and horses in the mews, to make certain no one approached.

It was getting dark, and the shadows of the kitchen stretched corner to corner.

"This is your clinic?" Cassie glimpsed around the small kitchen. It wasn't much smaller than Hope House's space, but it felt vacant. Desolate.

"I only open it on Saturdays," he replied.

The rest of the week, the building lay dormant. There were three levels in the narrow residence, with room enough downstairs for the kitchen and a receiving room, which Grant had employed as his surgery. On the first floor were two bedrooms, each about the size of Cassie's little office at Hope House. A drafty attic stretched from the front of the house to the back, but Grant hadn't touched it during the five years he'd been at Church Street. He barely went upstairs at all but had at least outfitted the two bedrooms in case patients needed to stay over for observation or recovery.

He lit a lamp and gave it to Isabel, telling her to select a room and get settled in.

"I'll come with you," Cassie said, but Grant cleared his throat.

"Miss Banks, I'd like a word."

Isabel cast a wary look between them before leaving. Cassie avoided looking directly at him, and instead went to the stove and opened the grate. "I'll start a fire."

Grant frowned; it was on the tip of his tongue to ask how the devil she'd learned that skill when maids and footmen had done it for her since she'd been born. However, he bit back the comment and lit a few candles as she fed kindling and crumpled broadsheets into the cookstove. He touched a lit taper to her work and heard the rush of fire consuming the dry wood and paper. Cassie moved back, brushing some soot from the sleeve of her dress. Their eyes clashed briefly before she averted hers.

"Tell me what happened." Grant was surprised by how calm he sounded. He didn't feel it. He smoldered every time he envisioned some faceless, violent man attacking her in that alley.

"I've already told you," she replied, walking the circumference of the room, pretending to inspect the small kitchen with its few cabinets and shelves and its even fewer food stores.

"You haven't. All that has been said is that you were attacked. What does that mean? How did he…" Grant ground his jaw. "What did he do?"

She paused at the fireplace and glanced toward him. "He came up behind me. Covered my mouth, so I couldn't scream. Then he asked where she was. That is all. Honestly, I am not the one in danger, Isabel is. He was there for her."

"And yet, you were the one he put his hands on." Fire breathed to life in his chest.

She eyed him warily, as though she could see the glow of it through his shirt and waistcoat. But then gave a dramatic sigh. "I have only a few scraped knuckles, while he may have some deeper gashes to his face. I'd say he bore the brunt of the encounter, not me."

Grant had to admit, it had been swift thinking to defend herself with that hair comb.

"He's quality," Cassie said after a moment. "I could hear it in his speech, and he smelled of soap and cologne. I was too startled in the moment to think of it, but I remember now. And his gloves." She covered her lips as the man had done, as if trying to remember more clearly. It sparked another ember of fury in Grant's chest. "They were kid. Soft and expensive."

Needing to move and disburse the bottled-up ire, he went to the fireplace and crouched.

"Isabel is terrified of him," Cassie added.

"And sheltering her has made you a target." He tossed kindling into the grate. "How many other women at Hope House are you hiding from violent men? You're putting yourself in danger."

"So, I should kick them all to the street? Protect myself, not them? Are they not worth helping?"

He straightened and faced her. "I didn't say that."

"What are you saying?"

"That you shouldn't have been in that alley to begin with! You don't belong there!"

The words burned as he let them fly, and his gut cinched with instant regret. Especially when her eyes dulled from fire to ice.

She gave him her back. Then, after some silence, said, "Isabel cannot stay here alone."

He'd expected some other cutting retort, some argument. But instead, she'd shut him out.

A knocking on the back door—two raps, a pause, then three more—severed the tense moment.

"It's Tris," Cassie said, going to unlock it. "That's our code at Hope House."

The driver entered, his hat in his hand. "It's safe. No one's followed."

Cassie shut the door again. "Good. As I was just saying to Doctor Brown, Isabel cannot stay here alone. I would stay?—"

"Your driver knows who I really am, and there isn't a chance in hell you are going to stay here."

She sliced him with a glare. "I would stay," the little hellion began to say again, "but if I do not come home, my staff will worry. And as they report to the duke, he may hear of it before dawn."

Grant almost wished Fournier would hear of it. The duke would certainly put a stop to this madness.

"I need to leave. I have a dinner I cannot miss tonight," he said, even though the last thing he wanted to do after this tangle of an afternoon was play nice for the marriageable ladies the marquess had invited.

Pick a wife,James had told him. Be done with it.

As he watched Cassie, nibbling her bottom lip as she tried to solve the problem of who would stay with Isabel, Grant's pulse slowed. If Fournier did hear of her connection to Hope House and her precarious work there, she'd be finished.

What would she do to prevent that from happening?

A wicked, diabolical idea began to weave its way through his mind. It was low, greasy, and unquestionably offensive. But it might just get him out of this pickle with the marquess.

Tris raised his hand, lifting his hat. "I can stay. My brother, Patrick can drive for you while I'm here, my lady. It wouldn't be a problem."

Cassie exhaled. "That's an excellent solution, Tris. Thank you."

The driver nodded. "I'll go to my brother's now. It's not far from here. I'll bring him back, and then he can drive you home tonight."

It was a muddle, but it sounded like their best option for the time being.

"I'll just go inform Isabel and make sure she's settling in." Cassie started in the direction of the front hall and stairs.

"Don't take long, my lady," Grant said, earning another tightening of her back and neck. He smiled at the reaction. "There is something more we need to discuss."