Page 49 of Someone to Watch Over Me
“Nerves!” Grant’s mouth twisted in a sneer. “Her nerves are fine.” He glanced at Vivien’s averted face with a sudden flicker of concern. “Aren’t they?” he asked her.
She did not reply, only sat with her hands twisting in her lap.
“Out,” Linley commanded briskly, seeming to enjoy the rare privilege of telling Grant what to do. “You’re familiar with the house, old fellow. Go amuse yourself in the billiards room. Have a drink or a smoke. I’ll send for you in a few minutes.”
A warning grumble erupted from Grant’s throat, and he left reluctantly.
Vivien looked up warily as Linley approached her. She braced herself for censure, but found only kindness and concern in his gray eyes. Asking permission to sit in a nearby chair, Linley regarded her with a faint smile. “Beneath all that snarling and blustering is one of the finest men I have ever known,” he remarked. “Morgan is accomplished in many ways, but not where women are concerned. That is, he is not usually a seducer of innocents.”
“He wanted revenge for some slight that the real Vivien had done him,” she answered dully. “He planned to sleep with her and then cast her aside.”
Linley shook his head. “That is not like him,” he said thoughtfully.
“Now he intends to make amends, of course,” Vivien said. “I believe he is even trying to convince himself that he loves me.”
“After what has happened, I would say you deserve whatever compensation Morgan can offer.”
“No,” she murmured. “I don’t want compensation—I just want to know who I am.”
“Of course.” The doctor regarded her with frank sympathy. “I’m afraid there is not much I can do to help you. However, I would at least like to assure you that the discomfort you undoubtedly experienced is a temporary thing. It all becomes easier on subsequent occasions.”
Rather than tell him that there would be no subsequent occasions, Vivien nodded briefly. “I understand,” she said quickly. “No more need be said, Dr. Linley.”
He gave her a comforting smile. “Bear with me for one moment longer. I merely wish you to understand that in this act between a man and a woman, there should be honesty, affection, and trust. Don’t give yourself to a man unless you believe those things are shared between you. And then it is a wondrous experience, and something not to be missed.”
Vivien thought of the man pacing around the house as they spoke, and her insides ached with yearning. She wondered if she could somehow summon the courage to trust him again, or if he was even worthy of such trust.
“Morgan is a good fellow,” Linley assured her, seeming to read her thoughts. “Arrogant, stubborn…but also compassionate and courageous. I hope you won’t give up on him too easily, my dear. Especially considering the way he feels about you.”
“About me?” Vivien asked, startled. “I don’t know what you mean.”
The doctor smiled wryly. “In the five years that I’ve known Grant Morgan, I’ve never seen him in such a state over a woman. Guilt is the least of the emotions that are working on him.”
“If you’re trying to imply that he’s in love with me…” Vivien began warily.
“It doesn’t matter what I imply. The fact is, heisin love with you.” Linley stood and went to the door. Before opening it, he added prosaically, “What comes of that is up to you.”
Linley found Grant in the billiards room, seated on a chair at the baize-covered table with his arm and chin resting on the edge. One by one, he rolled a succession of ivory balls in varying patterns across the table, sending them to a corner pocket where a green braided silk bag waited to catch them. He surveyed the clicking orbs as he spoke. “How is she?”
“Considering the whole of what she has been through since the night she was rescued from the river…very well indeed. She is a resilent girl.”
Grant felt an easing in his throat. He trusted Linley. And in the course of treating the varied physical and emotional complaints of the women of London, the man should be an expert. Grant gripped the last ivory ball, engulfing it completely, then sent it rolling gently to the corner pocket. “I have an issue to take up with you, Linley,” he muttered. “Your silence on the matter of the real Vivien’s pregnancy—”
“I was obliged to keep silent,” Linley said matter-of-factly. “Miss Duvall made it clear on the day of the visit that the babe’s future, perhaps even its life, depended on secrecy. And although she seemed to be given to dramatics, I was inclined to believe her. She was none too happy about my confirmation of the pregnancy, and she left with suspicious haste. As if she were afraid of something…or someone.”
“You should have told me before!” Grant stood and scrubbed his fingers distractedly through his short hair. “For God’s sake, someone is trying to kill her. The fact of her pregnancy could be one of the most important clues about what happened to her and why.”
“Morgan,” the doctor said calmly, “do you know what would happen to my practice if it became known that I divulged private information without a woman’s consent? Do you know how many of my patients are obliged to keep the circumstances of their pregnancies secret for one reason or another?”
“I can only guess,” Grant said sardonically. The respectable ladies of London’s first society often escaped their loveless arranged marriages by taking lovers. Sometimes they foisted their illegitimate children off as their husbands’. No doubt the popular Dr. Linley was the keeper of many secrets.
“I understand the concept of confidentiality,” Grant continued tersely. “However, the real Vivien is probably alive and in hiding somewhere. She is most likely pregnant and definitely in danger…and the girl you’ve seen today is in danger as well. So if there is anything you can remember about what Vivien said to you that day, you’d do well to tell me.”
“All right. But before we return to the library to examine my files, I’d like to offer a word of advice. It concerns Vivien…that is, the young woman who is awaiting us. She was understandably disinclined to discuss her recent, er…experience with you, but she seems a sensible enough creature, and I don’t believe she suffered unduly.”
“You thought sleeping with me might be enough to frighten her into fits?” Grant inquired acidly.
A humorless smile pulled at Linley’s mouth. “You would be surprised at what a physician discovers about women, Morgan. I’ve attended some who are so refined that they can’t say words like ‘stomach’ or ‘breast’ aloud. There are women who can’t bring themselves to tell me what ails them, and so I keep a stuffed doll in a drawer of my desk, and let them point to the body part that is giving them pain. Fully grown, married women, mind you. At times I’m certain it’s mostly a pretense of delicacy, but there are unquestionably those who are acutely uncomfortable with all things pertaining to sex and physicality.”
