Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
His head had not throbbed this wretchedly in months.
Not since the absinthe incident of the previous June.
The green liqueur was poison to Grant, and yet he’d been persuaded to drink far too much of it one wild evening at the Fallen Arch, a club that catered to London’s demimonde.
June the seventh crept up on him each year.
The black storm that had once accompanied the date had lessened to a dreary, cold drizzle, and Grant admitted that was probably the reason he’d blinded himself with the green fairy at the Fallen Arch.
It was only natural that the day he’d lost his wife and infant child should be shrouded in black.
Eight years had passed, and with each one, the memories of Sarah continued to fade.
That night at the club, he’d tried to drown his guilt, and yet he’d only succeeded in debilitating himself for the next two days.
Last night, Grant hadn’t indulged in anything stronger than whisky. His head didn’t ache because of that, but because he hadn’t slept. All night, into the early morning hours, he’d fluctuated between tossing in bed and pacing his room, as well as the halls of his home on St. James’s Square.
Miss Jane Banks. What the devil was Cassie thinking?
To hide a pregnant woman from her family, or her husband, or even just the father of her unborn child was a dangerous risk.
It might very well be illegal. And Cassie’s safe house sheltered several of these women at a time.
Miss Khan, the midwife, had briefly explained about their endeavor and purpose after allowing him out back of the accountant’s office that fronted the address.
Grant had come to a stop at the base of a stairwell.
“The woman is with child?” His messenger, a former patient whom he paid well to conceal the truth of his identity, had only said that a feverish woman needed seeing to, fast.
“That’s correct, doctor.” Miss Khan had taken the first step up, but Grant stayed planted to the floorboards.
“Is she in labor?” he’d asked, his heartbeat beginning to increase.
He did not oversee deliveries. Since Sarah’s death, he hadn’t been able to so much as think about them without feeling the onset of shivers and sweat.
For that reason alone, he’d whittled down his patients in the ton to include just men and a few older women who couldn’t bear children—and who wouldn’t faint over his reputation.
“Not at this time,” Miss Khan had said, her keen eyes narrowing. No doubt she’d noticed his brush with panic.
Once he’d started to follow her up the steps, she’d asked for his confidence; the safety of their residents depended on his silence. Grant had given his word—and then, he’d entered the upstairs room and come face to face with Lady Cassandra Sinclair.
The onslaught of shock and stark confusion, then the slow boil of understanding had left his limbs buzzing with restlessness.
It had taken all his training and focus to calm himself enough to see to the feverish woman, to put her front of mind instead of the chit he’d so recently been in a closet with at Lady Dutton’s ball.
After, in the drafty back room she’d preposterously called an office, Cassie’s impertinence and her refusal to grasp the reason for his anger had only further stoked his temper.
And now, the bloody woman knew his secret.
For the last five years, ever since he’d quit his daily routine of wallowing in despair, he’d run the Church Street free clinic.
Every Saturday, without fail, he’d arrive with his assistant, Hannah, and from ten o’clock until five in the evening, they would be inundated with all manner of situations.
From simple cuts to festering wounds; cancerous masses to ingrown hairs; severed fingers to put-out eyes; swollen abdomens to broken bones.
The variety of ailments was unending, and most people in Whitechapel were content to suffer until Saturday.
Emergency calls were rare, but Grant had arranged a system so that he could protect his identity. It had worked. Until now.
“Four boxes,” Hannah said from where she stood at the supply cabinets in his home surgery.
Grant looked up from the medical logbook he’d been reading through. “Four boxes of what?”
“Cotton linen.” Her forehead creased. “You asked me to take inventory?”
“Oh, right. Yes. I did.” He barely remembered his assistant entering the room while he’d been reading through the notes he’d taken about his fever patients over the last month. “Four boxes should be plenty for now, thank you.”
Hannah turned back to the cabinets. “Did the emergency call last night not go well?”
Grant closed the logbook. “How did you know I went out?”
Miss Hannah Matthews only attended emergency calls with him during daylight hours, and only when she was at Thornton House, which was usually four times every week.
“Your bag is missing a tincture of Peruvian bark,” she answered.
“Ah. Yes, of course.” Had his mind not been boiled down to suet, he would have been able to deduce her reasoning for himself. “I was summoned for a fever patient.”
In any other situation, he would have imparted much more about it to his assistant.
As his late wife’s younger sister, Hannah was family.
And Grant was the only family she had left.
Their mother died in childbirth when Hannah was just three.
Their father then left her and Sarah to be raised by their grandmother, who’d passed away shortly before Sarah became his wife.
Hannah had been just eighteen when Sarah died and was suddenly entirely dependent upon her brother-in-law.
Unfortunately, he’d become an utter wreck.
Knowing this, his eldest brother, Lawrence, and his wife, Mary, had taken in Hannah.
Over time, she began to express an interest in Grant’s work, and then, had offered to assist him when he needed another pair of hands.
Mary had been adamantly against it, saying the young lady should be getting married, not working—and with a physician, at that.
It was beyond the pale! However, neither Hannah nor Grant had felt the need to regard Mary’s complaints, shrill as they’d been, and she’d happily stayed on the fringes of the marriage mart while assisting Grant.
Hannah was steady and serious and had a methodical sort of behavior that suited a clinic.
He trusted her with all aspects of his patient logbook.
But now there was Lady Cassandra to think about.
Something of which he’d already been doing too much of over the last week.
He would be bathing, or reading, or eating, and on one occasion, even listening to a patient’s heart rhythm through his stethoscope, when he’d realize he was not paying attention to what was going on around him.
Instead, he’d be thinking about that damned closet in Lady Dutton’s house.
Cassie’s heaving breaths, her palms against his chest. Her thigh tangling between his, her smell of apricots.
He couldn’t seem to stop his mind from reliving those several minutes.
Or from imagining what other things could have happened, had he not fought his body’s desire for her.
But it was just base lust. Had it been any woman shoved against him in that closet, he would have felt the same, he was sure of it. Probably even Lady Brookfield with her mole.
“The tincture should help,” Hannah said, interrupting his increasingly cluttered thoughts. “Unless this fever is as serious as the other cases we’ve seen.”
After their first fever patient had stumbled into the free clinic, Grant had insisted that Hannah keep her distance for a time. He was ultimately responsible for her and didn’t want her to take ill. But she’d ignored his request and continued to join him.
“I fear it is.”
He’d planned to wait until at least noon to return to the disguised location but now felt an increased sense of urgency. If he found Cassie in that room again, he’d wring her insolent neck.
Goodwin, his butler, appeared in the surgery entrance, and in his usual measured tone, announced a caller. “Lord James Thornton is here, my lord. I’ve shown him into the study.”
Grant groaned and scrubbed his fingers through his hair.
Two years his senior, James was closest to him in age, and by far his favorite brother.
However, he never called this early in the day unless it had something to do with their father.
The marquess’s most recent complaints that his youngest and least preferred son was not carrying his weight when it came to providing the family title with its future heir had fallen to the back of his mind since last evening at Hope House.
“I’ll return shortly,” he said to Hannah, who only sealed her lips to bite back a smirk. She didn’t yet know of the marquess’s ultimatum, but she was perfectly aware that Grant was the black sheep of the family and was regularly hauled over the coals for his infractions.
He entered his study to find his brother seated at his desk, arms folded behind his head, and muddy riding boots up on the blotter.
“Ah, baby brother.” A grin stretched James’s face into the mischievous expression he wore when he knew he was being a pest.
“Get your shite-covered boots off my desk.” Grant swiped them off, and James sat forward, laughing. “I take it you’re here with some new decree from our loving father.”
“Maybe I’ve just dropped in after my morning ride to say hello,” he replied, standing up from the chair.
“I am not in the mood, James.” Grant grabbed the decanter of single malt he kept on his desk, intending to pour himself a drink. But then slammed the stopper back in. It was too damned early, and he needed to return to Hope House.
“I can see that.” James turned serious, something he could manage to do from time to time if he truly tried. “What has happened?”