Page 33 of Courting Trouble
Initially, he’d assumed that in the five-story Gregorian mansion he’d turned into a private surgery facility, Nora would be easy to both protect and avoid.
Stashed in his personal suite situated in the lush living quarters on the top floor, she’d have her every physical and medical need addressed by an army of staff, and she would only require his presence to see to her post-surgical care in decreasing increments until she was healed.
It was the least he could do, under the circumstances.
For his part, Titus’s hours were so occupied, he barely had time to sleep, let alone think of her.
At least, that was the lie he told himself.
Using his current clinic to finance the start of five others dominated his every waking hour. He and Higgins visited at least one in each borough before the sun came up, and another at sunset, so they could spend the bulk of their time here at the Alcott Surgical Specialty Hospital.
He’d unfolded a cot in the corner of his first-floor office, and had defended the decision to Higgins’s raised eyebrows thusly, “It’s nearer the entrances in case of emergency, and deucedly convenient. I can’t imagine why I haven’t done so before.”
She’d pursed her lips and rolled her eyes, wisely neglecting to mention his guest rooms upstairs.
Hedidn’thave to remind her that to sleep in the same house as their guest would be scandalous and inappropriate.
To which shedidn’treply that no one in the world knew the former Viscountess of Woodhaven was in residence, and that she couldn’t possibly be the subject of more scandal than she currently was.
And hedidn’ttell her to mind her own bloody business.
Though he did employ orderlies and security on his staff, he still felt it necessary to keep an eye on things. If someone was coming for Nora, they’d have to get through him and a bevy of sharp implements first.
It was the dragon in him that made such foolhardy decisions. The same one that blazed with the instinct to wrap himself around her and breathe fire on whomever would put her in danger. He’d done so in many an exhaustion-induced dream.
But he woke to reality—and an aching back—each morning. And in said reality, he was no dragon.
And she was no maiden.
Which was why he never allowed himself to be alone with her. When Nora wandered down to the surgery as she did every evening, he made certain she was accompanied by one of her sisters, or Higgins. Titus would check her wound in this partitioned examination room, divulge the prognosis and progress, and then leave her to dress and be escorted discreetly back.
Because he couldn’t trust himself to remember what sort of woman she truly was. A victim. A liar. A patient. A lover. A formative portion of his past he’d done his utmost to turn his back upon, lest he become lost to bitterness and regret.
Yes, to invite her here was to court trouble. Not only because she might be in danger, but because, despite everything, he’d come to live for these moments with her.
Moments when his fingertips found her flesh and the contact electrified him like nothing and no one else on this planet.
A doctor shouldn’t feel like this, he reprimanded himself.
Shouldn’t enjoy the silken strands of her hair as he pushed the midnight curls aside. Shouldn’t thrill to the undoing of the intricate silk-covered buttons of her nightdress, if only to expose something as innocuous as her shoulder blade.
People were just parts. Just machines of intricate design, and he was like a machinist. A student of whatever chaotic engineer crafted such imperfect structures capable of miraculous feats of healing. He wondered sometimes that a supposedly benevolent being might build such an instable system that one tiny shift in the mechanisms and the entire thing turned on itself.
But Nora.
She’d always been something more. She wasn’t simply an apparatus, she was a work of fucking art. In a world where nothing seemed to shock or thrill him, where he’d thought himself incapable of incredulity anymore. Just the sight of the improbable precision of her symmetry struck him with a sense of awe he hadn’t known since he was a child discovering the newness of the entire world.
It affected him tonight just as utterly as it had done on the night he’d brought her here. Even though they’d both endured this odd routine for over three weeks, each time she appeared on his examination table elicited a strange sort of tremulous emotion. Something caught on the border of anticipation and antagonism.
Today, Mercy had kept Nora company, and was now holding a lively chat with Higgins as he examined Nora’s shoulder from behind.
Titus enjoyed Mercy’s company and appreciated her vivacity, especially now. She kept them from saying anything important to each other. Which was vital, because if he and Nora were alone, he might ask her why she seemed increasingly morose today.
And she might ask any one of the cryptic questions he’d seen lurking in the dark hollows of her eyes.
She might ask him what he thought of her, or how he felt. And he…hell, he couldn’t answer that question in the mirror, let alone now. Furthermore, he wasn’t about to unleash any sort of emotion on a woman who’d been through the trauma she had.
“Are you in pain?” he couldn’t help but inquire.
