Page 36 of Courting Trouble
“Like hell you will go out there.” Titus dropped his arm like that of a bridge gate to block her. “If you consider him a dangerous or violent man,I’llget rid of him. You’ll stay here where it’s safe and see to Lady Woodhaven.”
Higgins pushed against him, but he was planted to the ground, immovable as an old oak. “Don’t be daft. He’d know something was amiss if the head surgeon came out to inform him of the visiting rules.”
Nora’s chest heaved with what he assumed was a multitude of emotion. “Men like him do not like to make a fuss in public. He’ll be back tomorrow, trying a more manipulative tactic. He’ll be as charming as you’ve ever seen,” she predicted.
Higgins looked across at Nora, eyes soft in her uncompromising features. “You would know, child, as you had a bastard like that of your own to contend with.”
Nora attempted a smile, as if she couldn’t stand for her pain to be visible, but was unable to disguise it properly. “I’m two and thirty, hardly a child.”
Higgins nodded, accepting that Nora didn’t want her pity. “We’ll save Mrs. St. John. Believe you me.”
“Make certain you take that new orderly with you,” Titus called.
“Very well,” Higgins called back. “If only because you’ll be an insufferable nag if I don’t.”
And then they were alone.
Titus looked around as if he might find someone to save him from her.
From himself.
All he found in the white examination room was an unhelpful skeleton…and the love of his life.
He raked a hand through his hair, scratching at his scalp. What…had just happened?
Nora began to struggle to pull her simple white nightgown up from the elbow of her injured arm with her other hand.
Galvanized, Titus went to help her, brushing her trembling hand aside so he could draw the sleeve over her shoulder in a way that didn’t disturb it.
He stood behind her once again, sliding exactly one million silk buttons into place. All the while, he cursed every modiste and seamstress who decided anybody could sleep in such a silly contraption.
Silently, he lamented every slip of skin that disappeared.
“I would like to do something,” she murmured.
His fingers stalled. “Anything in particular?”
She shifted with a restlessness he could sense growing in his own body. “I’m not used to being useless. I always have a charity for which to raise funds or some event to organize for…”
“For…” he prompted when she let the silence stretch for too long.
“For the Viscount,” she mumbled before touching her chin to her shoulder to look back at him. “I’ve done nothing but read and visit with my sisters while I’ve been recovering, but I feel well enough to be up and about. Suppose I could sit with a few patients, or help some of the women through a hard row. I don’t have anything in the way of medical training, but perhaps I could provide them comfort and understanding, like Mrs. St. John, for example.”
How charming and lovely, that she desired to help. He understood her need to be useful, they were alike in that way. Compatible.
“I wouldn’t be doing a very good job at keeping you safe and hidden if I paraded you around my surgery, now would I?” he asked, attempting to put her at ease without batting her idea out of the sky. “Your safety is paramount, but perhaps I can find you something to occupy your time so you don’t go mad.”
“You’re kind.” She turned to look straight ahead, and he wished he could read her expression. “Chief Inspector Morley will be here tomorrow. He sent a note saying he had news about my case…” She drifted off as he lifted her hair off of her neck and settled it down her back in a curtain of ebony silk. “Perhaps it’s good news, and I’ll no longer be your problem.”
Was that what she was? A problem? A conundrum?
Something he had to figure out before he could sleep.
They stood like that for a moment, and Titus inhaled mightily, pulling the familiar scent into his lungs. She still used rose water, and smelled of a late-summer garden.
He became a hollow creature, only separated from the object of his yearning by the space of a breath.
And the chasm of a decade.
