Chapter 8
“Well,” said Mae as soon as the door swung shut behind the new doctor, rounding on Roland where he stood next to the central basin. “That ought to be a nice change of pace for you.”
He blinked at her, not quite certain he’d heard her correctly, or if, indeed, she was speaking to him.
“Pardon?” he managed to say, but she had already turned to the kits and was motioning them toward her, taking the brooms from their hands.
“Go on home,” she told them. “The patrolmen will keep watch tonight. You should all get some sleep. Winston, tell your mum you should stay tomorrow in the ward again. It seems you didn’t catch the bug last time.”
Roland narrowed his eyes, following her as she led the boys to the door and opened it for them, sending them out one by one.
Unless he was very much mistaken, and he was not, this woman was furious.
Any doubt to that effect was quickly cleared up by the way she slapped the door shut behind the children once they had crossed the street into darkness.
She spun away from him, jerking at the knot of her apron and yanking it up over her head, accidentally removing the band of cloth wound around her hair with it, letting all those delicate little curls spring up in wild freedom as a result.
“What do you mean,” he managed, utterly baffled, “a nice change of pace for me?”
She flashed her teeth at him, flinging the apron into the hamper with her hair band caught between her fingers. “A direct question? Really, Roland, you forget yourself.”
He stared. What else was he meant to do? Her color had gone up, her cheeks shining and her eyes glinting in the low light of the burned-down candles.
She gave him a slow, venom-tipped smile, those dimples digging into her cheeks as she did. “Now that Dr. Ravi has joined us, you’ll finally have someone around that you respect well enough to speak to directly. It will be a nice change of pace. For you.”
He felt his eyes narrowing before he could spare a thought for controlling his face. He took a step toward her, heat flaring up in his throat. “Respect?” he repeated, very softly, his eyes on those dimples, on that mouth of hers.
“What else would you call it?” she replied, not moving an inch, those dark eyes watching him draw nearer. “If I am in the room, you are determined to never say anything. To never do anything. Unless inescapably compelled, of course. Do not pretend otherwise.”
He gave a quick, humorless little laugh, running his tongue over his teeth and reminding himself of all the places they were sharp.
“Which would you like me to do, Mae?” he asked, low and impatient as he took another prowling step forward, watching the way she refused to move. “Say something? Or do something?”
She did falter then, drawing in a little slip of thin air.
She twisted the hair band around her palm, wrapping her hand like she was preparing to throw a punch.
Those tiny curls around her face quivered as she watched him move nearer, creating delicate little shadows that danced against the glint of her forehead and cheeks.
“You must have a preference,” he pressed, his blood loud under his skin. “I know I do.”
Her chest heaved, tossing out the narrow breath that she’d chosen before and dragging in a much larger one. “You came to my home,” she hissed, squeezing the fabric in her hand. “You walked all the way to my door and spoke to my grandfather instead of me.”
“I did,” he agreed, his gaze sliding down her throat, over the rise and fall of her breasts, and down to where she was squeezing that scrap of ivory fabric. “Does that displease you?”
“My grandfather’s name might be on the charter here,” she replied, tight and breathless, “but this is my clinic, Roland. You should have reported to me.”
“Perhaps I should have,” he agreed, and took one more step.
Too close, he knew. Close enough to smell the cloves and the talcum.
Close enough that he could touch those wayward curls if he wanted to.
“I suppose I could have slipped into your house that night. I could’ve found a way in, unseen, and delivered the message.
It might have been easy after following you home. ”
“You d…” She paused, giving her head a little shake, forcing herself to swallow. “You didn’t do that,” she said, trying again. “You came because of the pig. Because the boys went to get you.”
He couldn’t account for where it came from or why, but a smile was tugging at his lips, watching the way hers quivered. “Is that what happened?” he asked. “Are you certain?”
She watched him, those big eyes gleaming under the thick fringe of her glossy lashes. “How did you know where I live?” she asked softly, though it sounded like she was asking herself, not him.
“How, indeed?” he replied, reaching up absently to scratch at his forearm. He realized what he was doing before he could stop it and winced, stepping back with an annoyed huff that the damned scar was acting up now, of all times.
He hardened his expression, setting his jaw, and pointed at her. “You can’t walk home alone anymore. Not until this nonsense with drunken students and angry bureaucrats has ended. It isn’t safe.”
She blinked, shifting her weight as though he’d knocked her off balance with this sudden change. “I believe I can do whatever I wish,” she returned. “I’ve had no trouble walking home.”
He laughed then, a mocking, exhausted thing. “You’ve had no trouble that you’re aware of,” he corrected, “because you haven’t been alone. You’ve had at least a pair of kits with you every night, whether you realized it or not.”
“A pair of kits,” she repeated, notching her chin up, “or you, Mr. Reed?”
He flexed his hands, heat and static whipping through him at the desire to close the gap of space between them again and grab her. Shake her. Ravish her. Something. “Which is it?” he snapped. “Am I Roland, or Mr. Reed? You ought to decide, for I think it will determine what comes next.”
“Will it indeed?” she returned, her uncertainty igniting back into fury. “How very intriguing. Which are you just this moment, in fact? Which man is the one looking me in the eye and speaking in full sentences? I think I shall keep him, if I might.”
“Is that what you want?” he returned, clicking his teeth as he bit off the words. “This?”
“It is an improvement,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest. “But it is hardly ideal, still.”
He grinned at her, all teeth and ire. “No, I agree. Not ideal. This man is not sustainable, little Miss Casper. He is moments from a loss of restraint.”
“Oho, restraint!” she said, returning his faux amusement. “Do you wish to punch me like one of your cheating gamblers, then? Are you lost in your ruffian’s toolkit?”
“I am,” he confessed. “But not the way you think.”
She scoffed. “However you think you could punish me, creative as it may be, is futile against my skill to repair the damage. Do not forget that I am a healer.”
“I never forget that,” he ground out, one of those fragile cords holding him back finally snapping as he strode forward until their toes were touching, until their noses were brushing, looking down at her.
“I am no doctor. That is true. But do you really think I don’t know how to unmake a body?
That I couldn’t leave my mark on yours?”
“I never make assumptions,” she returned, softer at this proximity, meeting his eye over the tips of their noses. “Hypotheses must be tested. If you were a doctor, you would know that.”
He grunted, wrapping his fingers around her neck, his thumbs tracing the lines of her jaw as he tilted her face up to look at him, every nerve in his body abuzz.
She did not resist. She did not stop him at all.
But he could feel her pulse. He could time the thrum of her heart beating under the pads of his fingers. He could measure the temperature of her skin, hot and dewy, under his touch.
He knew she was not unaffected.
He breathed it in deeply, preparing to taste it. At long last, to taste it.
And then the crack of gunfire shattered them apart.
He moved before he could think, pushing his hands down to her shoulders and tackling her to the ground of the clinic as the gentle clink of breaking glass accompanied the crack of ignition.
He felt her under him, a confusing melange of instincts, turning on the splitting of a single second as the context of the moment evolved.
He held her still, her squirming beneath him further muddying his reaction to what had sounded, and looked down into her face for a single, clear, time-stopping moment. “Hush,” he instructed.
And she did.
He watched her as he quickly ran his hands down her sides, feeling for injury. Feeling more than he accounted for, one way or another.
“You’re bleeding,” she whispered. “Not me.”
“I’m not,” he protested, looking down at himself, shocked to see a blossom of blood just under his left arm, a streak soaking through his jacket. He released a hiss of annoyance, shaking his head slightly, and listened again to see if more shots were coming.
“Stay here,” he said, searching her face for assent before he climbed off.
She gave a short, jerking nod and stayed on the floor as he lifted himself up, bunching up the fabric against his ribs as he inched toward the door.
He pulled his lips tight and whistled through his teeth, pressing his body tight against the thickest part of the wall, trying to see through the two windows nearest to him, though one was now glinting oddly through the little hole that had been made in it.
After a moment, one of the patrolmen whistled back. His footsteps drew closer and rapped against the door, which Roland then wrenched open, pulling back and allowing both men to come inside, sweaty and panting.
“Just a warning shot,” the first immediately blurted out. “Scared them off.”
“A warning shot,” Roland repeated sharply. “Into the clinic? You could have shot a patient. You could have killed someone.”
“I shot into the air,” the other man said, ragged and proffering his gun, which was still sizzling at the muzzle. “There was a ricochet on the scaffolding for that new staircase. One-in-a-thousand chance.”
“One in a thousand can still kill someone!” Roland snarled. “You are dismissed. Leave.”
“But, sir,” he protested.
“Live rounds were never approved,” he snapped, taking a step forward.
“I did not even know you had a pistol. Even if you had shot a student, can you imagine the hell you would have rained down on this place? If you had harmed some pampered prince with a Cambridge diploma and a bag full of cow guts?!”
The patrolman looked suddenly a decade younger than he had when he came in through the door, wide-eyed and stammering. The pistol sagged at his side, his face gone white.
“You could have been hanged,” Roland whispered. “For that ricochet. For that one-in-a-thousand mishap, but only if it had hit someone important. Lucky for you, it only hit me.”
Both patrolmen stared. For a moment, no one moved.
“I changed my mind,” said Roland. “Stay. Finish your shift. You will not err again.”
“I won’t,” said the lad. “I won’t, sir.”
“No,” he agreed, snatching the pistol from his hand and slamming it on a nearby sideboard. “You won’t. Get back out there.”
They snapped to straight posture, nodding with gratitude through their ashen faces and sweaty brows, and scrambled back out into the night.
Roland kicked the door shut behind them, shaking his head in disgust.
“Roland,” Mae said, bringing his attention back around to where she was still sitting on the floor, her yellow skirts spread out around her like a buttercup. “It probably did scare them off. Maybe for good.”
He tilted his head to the side, allowing that this was a fair point. “Perhaps. But he still shot me.”
“Oh my God,” she said, slapping her hands to the ground and shoving herself up to her feet in a tangled scramble of yellow skirts. “Oh my God! Let me see. Sit down! Take the jacket off. Oh my God!”
He looked down at it, dropping the crumpled and bloody fabric from his fist and smoothing it to get an idea of the damage done. It was clear, even without removing his jacket, that he hadn’t been actually punctured by the bullet. His clothes were slashed where it had flown against his ribs.
“Just a graze,” he said, blinking down at the way the blood had started to seep out again, marveling at how he could not feel it.
“Oh my God!” she shouted again, suddenly directly in front of him and gripping him by the collar. “Sit down!”