Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Elyse had been invited back to Archambeau Manor to dine again the following Saturday—this time, with any luck, uninterrupted.
Madame Archambeau and Miss Stone had shown great interest in Hope House during her first short visit before she’d been summoned back to Crispin Street, and afterward, Elyse had been walking on air.
Cassie wished she could feel as buoyant, but her last few encounters with Grant had kept her trapped between rapturous bliss and agitated uncertainty.
He'd been slinking into her every thought over the last few days, and when the benefactress sent Elyse a second invitation, Cassie realized something. Having now met the marquess, Cassie knew the threat of severing Grant’s income was not an exaggeration in the least. However, at the art opening at Archambeau Manor, Grant hadn’t so much as uttered a word about Church Street.
Instead, he’d put forward Hope House. He’d put forward Cassie.
“I suppose we should find some way to thank Lord Thornton,” Elyse had said the day after Caroline Rawling had her baby. Then, with a wry twist of her lips, she added, “Or perhaps that is what you were doing in your office when I walked in?”
The blood had rushed to the tips of Cassie’s ears, and Elyse had broken out in laughter. But then, more seriously, she’d touched her arm. “Be careful. I worry about his intentions.”
She hadn’t known how to respond, so she’d just promised that Elyse needn’t worry.
However, that seemed to be all Cassie had done for the bulk of the next few days.
Like Elyse, she was to attend a dinner Saturday evening too, this one at Violet House. Afterward, Michael would drag Grant into his study, pour him a scotch, and demand he ask for Cassie’s hand.
After staying the night at Lindstrom House, Michael’s already thin patience had snapped.
Especially when a column earlier in the week in All the Chatter hinted that the unexpected snow had pushed “Lord T” and “Lady C” into an inescapable position, in which the lady’s honor may even hang in the balance.
Cassie was certain it was the marquess’s doing.
He’d probably sent word to the gossip rag himself.
With the rumors at play, Grant needed to offer at the dinner Saturday night or cease courting Cassie entirely. He, of course, would not offer—gossip or no gossip. Michael would then toss him out and warn him against speaking to his sister again. The false courtship would be at an end.
Cassie should have felt relieved. She should have felt happy. What she most certainly should not have been feeling was bereft.
If only she could go back to despising him.
To believing he was a shallow lordling who practiced medicine but was not especially serious about it.
But now… Now she knew Grant used riddles to distract his youngest patients from their pain.
She knew he employed his dead wife’s sister against his family’s wishes.
That he felt insecure about his father’s love and used humor to deflect those feelings.
Cassie knew that he hated to think of her with another man and that he shouted when he worried over her safety.
She knew that he gave pleasure freely, demanding nothing in return.
Most importantly, she now knew what it was like to be the object of his desire.
She’d seen parts of Grant that he kept hidden from everyone else. And she liked them. All week, she’d grappled with that realization, half wondering if she should send a note to Thornton House, telling him not to come to dinner. She didn’t want him to have to face her brother.
Heaven help her, she didn’t want it all to end.
It was nearing four o’clock when the correct sequence of knocks at the back door of Hope House announced Sister Nan’s arrival.
Cassie was glad for the timing. She needed to return to her residence to prepare for dinner.
She hadn’t sent the note to Grant, knowing deep down that it would only prolong the inevitable.
“How is Mrs. Rawling?” Sister Nan asked as she came inside.
She set a long wicker basket on the table.
Cassie eyed it, knowing what it would carry away from Hope House.
It was why she’d insisted on making the trip to Spitalfields that day.
She’d told Ruth that she was having tea with an acquaintance, leaving it vague, as she so often did.
However, she continued to feel the thinning of the barrier between her two worlds.
“She’s recovering well. No signs of any infection,” Cassie reported. Sister Nan looked sideways at her. Her health wasn’t what the nun had been inquiring after.
“She won’t hold him,” Cassie said. “Mrs. Powers is still here, so he’s at least content.”
Mrs. Powers was a wetnurse that Mabel and Elyse both knew from the area, and she provided her services to infants whose mothers had either died or were otherwise unable to feed them.
Sister Nan sighed and nodded. “The sooner we take him from here, the sooner Mrs. Rawling can begin to recover.” She started for the corridor leading to the stairs, but then stopped.
A hesitant frown creased the wrinkles on the bridge of the older woman’s nose.
“I wanted to say again, how sorry I am to have sent Isabel’s awful man here. ”
All week, Cassie had been frustrated by the fact that Mr. Youngdale had not been at his residence, and that Isabel had yet to be found.
Hugh had kept her informed on the lack of news, as since Tuesday night, she hadn’t seen or heard from Grant.
It was, of course, for the best. She still reeled from how Elyse had nearly found them on her desk.
Her lack of decorum had been insupportable, her thoughtlessness disconcerting.
“You didn’t send Mr. Youngdale here,” she said. But the nun wouldn’t have it.
“Yes, I did. Not to worry, though.” She reached out to pat Cassie’s arm. “The young woman is safe again.”
At her coy wink, the small hairs on Cassie’s arms raised. “Do you mean you know where she is?”
Sister Nan nodded. “She got away from those ruffians after they snatched her from the doc’s. Said they didn’t lock her into the carriage properly and went to get a pint. Bloomin’ idiots.”
Of course! Mr. Youngdale had followed Cassie from the boxing club in Limehouse not to terrorize her, but because he hadn’t had Isabel in his possession after all. He’d thought Cassie would be able to lead him to her.
“She’s been at the church?” At the sister’s confirming nod, she leaned against the wall, lightheaded with wonder.
“Just for a few days. She was hiding in some abandoned house but then she started feeling ill and decided to risk coming to the church,” Sister Nan said with a grimace, popping Cassie’s bubble of elation.
“Fever?”
The sister nodded, and Cassie worried her bottom lip. Grant had expressed concern for a fever going around the slums.
“Mr. Youngdale isn’t going to stop looking for her,” she said, “and if she is ill, she should have a doctor.”
Isabel could not come back here, to Hope House.
Neither could she go to Church Street again.
As Mr. Youngdale had followed Cassie home, she could not take her to the safety of Grosvenor Square either.
Hugh had suggested getting her out of London altogether.
Michael had Fournier Downs in Hertfordshire and Greenbriar in Kent, but each of those estates were fully staffed.
She could never sneak in a pregnant, unmarried woman.
But she was getting ahead of herself.
Cassie checked the clock. Grant would still be at the clinic, though not for much longer.
“Sister Nan, did you bring your rig?” The older woman nodded. “Excellent. I’ll come with you and the baby to the parish church.”
While the nun went to collect the baby from Mrs. Powers, Cassie opened the back door and flagged down Tris.
He had relieved Patrick just that morning, the bruising on his face still evident but explained away to the other servants as the result of a neighborhood brawl while he was caring for his sick mother.
“Drive to Lord Thornton’s clinic,” she told him, “and tell him to meet me at St. Paul’s Church in Shadwell. Isabel is there, and she needs our help.”
His expression brightened, but with some reserve. “Is she hurt?”
She shook her head. “Feverish. Inform Lord Thornton. And tell him she needs a new safe place, preferably out of London.”
Grant reached inside the lantern in the surgery and raised the wick. The resulting light over the patient bed was nowhere near enough by which to see properly. Swearing under his breath, he fiddled with a few of the reflective lenses.
“Did you move the lenses, Hannah? I’ve told you before, leave them where they are.” He jostled one glass lens set on a pin hinge. It had most assuredly not been angled like this the last time he’d been at the clinic.
Last week. Before the snowstorm. Before spending the night with Cassie at Lindstrom House. Before everything had started to unravel.
“I was attempting to give you more light with which to look up Mr. Brinkley’s nostril,” his assistant explained. It was the third time she’d done so, but it didn’t erase his irritation.
Damn Mr. Brinkley and damn the rock he’d somehow gotten lodged in his nasal cavity. Grant had spent nearly an hour digging it free and the man had complained and howled the entire time.
Suddenly, the pin hinge snapped, and the squared beveled lens broke free into his hand. A groan scraped up his throat as Grant dashed it toward the floor. Hannah watched him warily, a hint of reproval on her raised brow and pursed lips.
“You’ve been doing that all day,” she said, continuing to calmly roll a ball of cotton linen.
He stomped to where the broken lens had landed, scooped it up, and brought it to his desk. He’d repair the damn thing another time. “Doing what?”
“Grunting.”
He frowned at her. “I have not.”