Page 22 of Taken By the Ripper
Something between a stutter and a pained whimper escaped Mr. Harvey’s mouth. “She did this to me. It’s her fault.”
The detective twisted a little harder until Mr. Harvey yielded by hanging his head. “Up to thirty percent of people die after contracting scarlet fever. It’s not uncommon to go blind should you survive. But do you know what’s not curable? Your conscience if you strike a woman.” He shoved the man forward and scowled. “You look well enough to walk on your own. I think you can find your own way home from here.”
Clara could do nothing other than watch in shock as her patient stumbled away as if he had a predator on his heels. He ran into the wall a couple of times and then a door frame. But hedidmanage to leave the house on his own.
“You discharged a patient without my permission?” Clara hissed the moment La Cour turned back to her. “This ismyinfirmary. You had no right!”
His defensive scowl stared back at her as he crossed his arms over his chest. “And I should have just let him hit you? Should he have stayed, he may have tried to strike you again.”
“It wouldn’t have been the first time.”
His eyes widened with shock. “He’s done it before?”
With a shake of her head, she sighed and fixed the strand of hair that had come loose from its pins. “Unfortunately, people who work in the medical field occasionally get hit by their patients. And with the added lack of respect for a woman providing care, it has happened to me more than it had my father. It happens, Detective. That still doesn’t mean you had any right to discharge my patient for me.”
“I had no right?” Despite hunching over his cane, he still towered over her. But his presence wasn’t threatening. Rather, it was…comforting. “I work on the police force, and right now, I am an extension of the Whitechapel authorities while I’m here. As such, I have every right to escort a threat off the premises.”
They glared at one another, each silently battling for the upper hand in their argument. She refused to budge. Then again, he seemed determined to be just as stubborn as she.
“Would you like some tea?” she asked angrily.
“Yes, thank you,” he replied in a curt tone.
The glare continued until she finally conceded with a huff. Infuriating man! She’d had the situation handled. Mostly.
She led him back toward the drawing room…
…but then stopped short when she found the glass vase shattered across the ground and flower stems and petals strewn about as if a gust of fierce wind had ripped through the window and destroyed the bouquet.
Her pulse slowed. Shock slowly dissipated into defeat. An ache beat hard against her chest. And no matter how hard she tried to tear her gaze away, she couldn’t stop it from roaming over the crumpled petals, the broken stems, the shards of glass.
Behind her, the detective made a tsking noise with his mouth. “Hmm… It seems as if my gift was ill-received.”
The first flowers she had ever been gifted from a man, and it was strewn all over the floor. For some reason, despite La Cour’s intentions, the sight created a pang of disappointment in her chest, enough for her eyes to water with unexplainable grief.
Her gaze darted toward the flicker of blue moving in the corner in time to find Mazie staring at her with hatred burning in her eyes and green and yellow stains on her fingers. The sister she knew had never been cruel. But this?
This was unimaginably cruel, especially after everything she’d sacrificed for Mazie and Norma.
Clara averted her gaze moments before Mazie slipped out of the room. The detective didn’t seem to notice the quick exchange, and she wanted to keep it from him as well.
To hide the tears pooling in her eyes, she knelt to the ground and gingerly picked up each mutilated stem and petal and placed it into a nearby basket.
“I-I-I must have knocked the vase over when I heard my patient scream,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“There is no need to apologize, I assure you.” To her shock, he also knelt beside her despite favoring one leg and helped her clean up the mess. The corner of his mouth twitched, and she braced herself for whatever wit was about to escape. “Are you positive you don’t own a puppy? This mess is quite thorough.”
“I’m sure,” she replied with a laugh, turning her head to dab at her tears without him noticing.
“Do you like dogs?”
She shrugged, still attempting to hide her smile with a turned head. “My father always said that a dog had no place in a hospital. It would be great company, however.”
More tears pricked her eyes, and she internally berated herself for her lack of composure. She was lonely. Had been for along time. A canine companion would be nice to help quell that loneliness.
The soft press of a handkerchief in her palm startled her, and her gaze involuntarily snapped toward La Cour, but he was already on the opposite end of the table with her basket picking up shards of glass. Not once did he glance her way, almost as if giving her privacy.
Gratitude swelled within her chest as she dabbed at her eyes with his handkerchief. So much had happened in the past several weeks that it was difficult to maintain that composure she so desperately wanted. Death. Vampires. A ghoul. A sister who hated her. Almost getting struck by a patient. It was a lot to take in.
