Chapter 9 #3
“That don’t make no sense,” Amir said, then guessed, “Air?”
“Very close,” Grant said, lifting Cassie’s hand. “Thank you, Miss Banks,” he murmured, his eyes meeting hers for a moment.
How could he be so calm? He was entirely relaxed, moving about with confidence and dexterity.
“Here is a hint: if you fall into the Thames, you best do this quick.”
Amir smacked his head with his palm. “Hold my breath! That’s the answer. Breath.”
Grant praised him again, and then turned serious. “All right, Amir. I’ve got to place some sutures to close this wound. Are you ready? I promise to be as fast as possible.”
The boy squeezed his eyes shut and nodded.
“How about a contest between yourself and Miss Banks?” Grant proposed as he placed the first stitch. “Shall we see who can answer this next riddle first?”
Cassie shook her head. “I am terrible at riddles.”
“Amir is very good,” Grant replied, “so my money is on him. Here it is: Give me a drink, and I die. Feed me, and I grow bigger. What am I?”
He worked swiftly, his hands moving with ease and grace. Amir kept his eyes pinched shut, his nose crinkled.
“A drink of what?” the boy asked.
“Water.”
Cassie knew the competition was supposed to be between herself and Amir, but her mind couldn’t focus on the riddle. Instead, she watched Grant with burgeoning wonder. He was distracting the boy from the pain of the sutures with these riddles, putting him at ease. It was unexpectedly considerate.
“Do you need a hint?” Grant asked, the wound nearly closed.
“No,” Amir insisted. “Does Miss Banks?”
Grant laughed and shot her a quick glimpse. “Does she?”
She held up her palms. “I confess, I’m at a loss.”
“I know it!” Amir said before Grant could give a hint. “Fire! Water kills it, but feeding it makes it bigger.”
Cassie goggled at the boy, sincerely impressed, as Grant cheered him. He then snipped the ends of the floss and then went to his cabinets again. He returned with a small glass jar and a roll of cotton linen.
“Miss Banks is going to wrap your leg after I apply some ointment,” he said, handing her the roll before she could make any objection.
He applied liberal daubs to the puckered red wound, and Cassie then began wrapping Amir’s skinny calf and shin, careful not to pull too tightly.
It was awkward going, and she was certain she wasn’t nearly as efficient or skilled as Miss Matthews would have been, but when she tied off the wrapping, Grant nodded in approval.
“Well done. What do you think, Amir? Is Miss Banks’s work satisfactory?”
The boy turned his leg gingerly. “She’s good at knots. But rubbish at riddles.”
Mr. Mansouri hushed the boy as Grant cracked a laugh. Cassie parted her lips in mock offense.
“Thank you, Doctor Brown. And Miss Banks,” the father said. “Next week, I’ll bring you something fresh from my cart, reeled in that day.”
Grant helped Amir down, and as he walked Mr. Mansouri and his son into the front hall, gave instructions on keeping the wound clean, changing the bandage every day, and sending for him should the wound swell and weep anything other than clear or yellow pus.
He was to return next Saturday so Grant could look at the sutures.
Cassie’s stomach cinched again, her head swimming a little as she grimaced.
“How do you do it?” she asked as Grant re-entered the office alone.
He went to the bowl of water and washed his hands. “Medical school helped.”
“No, I mean how do you stay so calm? So composed?” She held up her own hands; they trembled, and she’d only placed the bandage on Amir’s leg!
Grant noticed, and after drying his hands, went to a cabinet. He opened it and pulled out a blanket. “You should have seen me the first time I placed sutures at university. My hands shook like mad. The sutures turned out a mess, too. The patient probably still curses my name.”
He brought her the blanket and draped it around her shoulders.
“I’m not cold,” she protested.
“The shivering isn’t from cold, it’s from a rush of nerves.
A bodily reaction to sudden stress.” Grant didn’t step away.
He kept his hands on her shoulders. “Bringing up your body temperature will help reduce the shivers.” He rubbed her upper arms, as if to help build friction and heat. It was oddly comforting.
“You did well,” he told her.
“I barely did anything of note. Which makes my stress shivers entirely ridiculous.”
“You could have refused to help me. Could have left. But you stayed.” He cocked his head, forcing her to meet his gaze.
He stood close enough for her to see an amber band around each pupil, the striations radiating through his green irises.
“You were good with him. Amir,” she said.
“So were you.” His hands rasped up and down her arms, through the blanket.
As promised, she began to warm, and the shivers started to ease. But something else grew in its wake. An uncoiling in her stomach.
“Where did you learn all those riddles?” she asked.
“My tutor, growing up. He liked to torture me with them.”
She could hear his distraction as he gave his answer, so different than how he’d been while attending Amir. His mind was somewhere else entirely.
She held her breath as one of his hands swept up her arm again, and this time, came off her shoulder.
The coarse pads of his fingers touched her cheek and stroked back, toward her ear.
Instinctively, she turned her cheek into his warm palm.
Cassie exhaled, her half-lidded gaze centered on Grant’s cravat.
The looseness of the neckcloth exposed some of his throat and, thanks to the still lit lantern, bright light reflected off his skin.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked in a restrained whisper.
His other hand drifted down her arm and continued, past the edge of the blanket and onto her gown. His fingers curved over her hip, igniting an electric current where he touched.
“Yes,” she breathed in answer. “Much better.”
His palm pressed against her, settling firmly onto her hip.
As his thumb lifted from her cheek and rubbed along her bottom lip, Cassie closed her eyes.
An involuntary sigh rose up her throat. A surge of desire muffled her hearing and beat through her body.
The blanket had turned her skin into a furnace.
The scuffing of boots coming down the stairs shattered the trancelike state.
Cassie gasped and jerked away from him so forcefully she backed into the examination table, rattling it. Grant’s heated gaze cooled as he spun away from her and went toward his desk a mere moment before Tris entered the office.
Tris narrowed his eyes, but acted like nothing was amiss. “My lady, Isabel was wondering if that was your voice she heard.”
Cassie tossed off the blanket, suddenly cold again, and charged toward her pelisse and gloves, where she’d left them on the chair.
“I’ll come up and say hello before I have Patrick drive me home.” She didn’t look at Grant as she started toward the sitting room exit.
“Do not forget the Tennenbright’s ball,” Grant said, his voice overly incisive and commanding.
It was all the reminder she needed for good sense to slap back into her. She could not afford to soften toward him, not even in the slightest. She’d lost her wits once with a rogue and look where that had gotten her.
She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.