Page 43 of Courting Trouble
Her surprise at his easy acceptance of her scandalous behavior caused her to study him more closely. “How very progressive of you, Chief Inspector, to be so compassionate, even when my shame is another mark on your own wife’s reputation. All of England knows I paid the Stags of St. James for pleasure. Even though innumerable men openly keep mistresses and courtesans at their disposal or wile their nights away in brothels, it seems a woman’s desire is not to be tolerated.”
He let out a rather undignified snort, a ribbon of color peeking above his collar and crawling toward his cheeks. “I’m hardly one to throw stones, my lady, glass houses and all that. Surely you know how Prudence and I met.”
As if summoned by her name on his lips, Prudence threw the parlor door wide and swept in like an errant ray of sunshine in her buttercup yellow gown. “Look who I found lurking outside of the door,” she said airily, leading an obviously reluctant Titus into the room by his elbow. “He said your stitches come out today, isn’t that marvelous?”
“I was waiting for your conversation with Morley to finish,” he muttered.
It only took one look into his blazing eyes to know that he’d overheardeverything.
“I wish I had more to report,” Morley lamented. “Raphael Sauvageau is in the wind as far as we know, but I have my best men on it.”
“I have it on good authority that even the Knight of Shadows is searching for him,” Prudence said with a conspiratorial gesture.
Morley sent his wife a quelling look. “We have no reason to believe that you’re in immediate danger, as you are not spending a gangster’s gold. However, it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to remain here for the foreseeable future, if we might prevail upon the good doctor’s generosity for a few days more.” He turned to Titus with a familiar smile, one that stalled when he glimpsed his high color, tense jaw, and the dangerous gleam in his eye. “Unless…”
“Consider my generosity extended,” Titus clipped, setting his medical bag on a decorative table with more force than was necessary.
Morley glanced back and forth between them for a moment, his shrewd gaze narrowing with suspicion and no little amount of concern. “Are you quite certain that—?”
“She stays.” The way Titus stated the directive stirred something low in Nora’s belly. He was a man of unfailing consistency, but something masculine and fierce shimmered in the air around him, even as he stood unnaturally still and contained.
For the first time she could remember, he seemed unpredictable.
It occurred to Nora to be afraid, but the fear never rose within her.
Not of him. Never of him.
Prudence went to her husband and took the arm he offered. “Best we take our leave, darling, so Nora can prepare to have her wound seen to.” She bustled Morley toward the door, but not before arching a meaningful brow at Nora that said she would be asking questions about Doctor Titus Conleith at the first available moment.
“Yes, well, I’ll be in touch.” Morley slapped Titus’s shoulder on the way out, but he didn’t seem to notice.
He just stared at her without blinking, looking for all the world like a man who’d been punched out of the blue, and was shaking off the astonishment before winding up to throw his own fist.
“Do you need assistance with your buttons?” he queried through clenched teeth.
Her knees quivered, but not for the reason one might have assumed. “No. I can manage.”
Nora turned away from him, back toward the window, and lifted her fingers to the buttons of her bodice. Even though she still wore her sling most of the day, he’d encouraged her to use her arm to strengthen it, including getting dressed in the morning. She’d abandoned the sling for tea with Morley, and still felt fairly well off without it.
She’d only sent for dresses that buttoned up the front and—since she’d thought it unfair to ask a lady’s maid to hide away with her—generally prevailed upon one of her sisters to arrange her hair in a loose braid down her back.
As she gingerly shucked the bodice down her shoulders, she felt more exposed in her chemise and loose, low-slung corset than she had certain times when she’d been nude.
It might have been the way Titus’s gaze snagged the edge of her corset, where it barely came high enough to cover her nipple. He immediately looked away, his gaze affixing to some distant point behind her as a vein appeared on his forehead.
“You’ll excuse me for not attending to this earlier. I was escorting Mrs. St. John to Lady Trenwyth’s.” He made a terse gesture for her to sit on the chaise before him, which she did. “Higgins is still there getting her settled,” he offered by way of explanation as he rummaged in his bag for a minuscule yet wickedly sharp pair of scissors.
He pulled the table in front of her forward and perched on the edge. Their knees had to mingle in between each other’s in order for him to get close enough to reach her stitches.
She tried not to notice the outline of his thighs against the fabric of his trousers.
Despite his apparent ire and sharp, jerky motions, he was infinitely gentle and precise as he snipped through the stitches on her shoulder and plucked them out with clever metal tweezers.
He’d brought the scent of the city indoors with him, soot and the hint of crisp air as summer gave way to autumn. The aromas underscored other fragrances she was beginning to associate with him. Something sharp and clean, like stringent soap softened by the camphor-like essence of his aftershave.
He was fastidious with his hygiene, his teeth clean and cared for, his thick hair tamed by pomade, at least in the mornings. By this time in the afternoon, that wicked forelock, the color of burnt caramel, escaped to brush his eye, making him appear even younger than his thirty years.
Her fingers itched to smooth it out of his warm whiskey eyes. To trace the topography of his stern features with a cartographer’s fervor. To rediscover terrain she’d mapped just over a decade ago. Not just with her fingers, but with her lips, as well.
