Page 17 of The Lady's Last Mistake
“The man attacked you. I want his name.”
Cassie widened her eyes with another silent warning, but again, he ignored it.
Isabel looked up from her lap, her eyes red and tearful. “I’m so sorry, I never meant for him to find me. I don’t know how he did!”
“I’m not hurt,” Cassie assured her. “We’re only worried for your safety.”
“What about your own safety?” Grant argued. “And the other women here?—”
“Our concern is forIsabel,” Cassie snapped, the color rising in her cheeks as her temper flared.
Isabel stood, pushing off the midwife’s arms. “No, no, the doctor is right. I’ve put you in danger coming here. I should have known he’d find me.”
“Who is he?” Grant asked. “Give me a name. We can go to Bow Street?—”
“No!” Her shriek practically shook the walls. Isabel’s chin quivered, and she broke out in fresh tears. “I’m so sorry, I’ll go.”
She started swiftly for the door. He stepped forward to block it. “That would not be wise. He could still be on the street, waiting.”
No matter what had just happened in the alley to Cassie, he couldn’t allow a vulnerable young woman to be frightened off, directly into the clutches of a violent man.
“You’re safer here, with us,” Miss Khan told her.
“But we can help you more if we know what we are up against,” Cassie added.
Isabel sniffled. “Trust me, you’ll be safer if I leave. If he tracked me down, he will be back.”
Cassie sent Grant a pleading look. She was at a loss for how to stop Isabel from fleeing. The young woman was correct. The man would be back. Selfish instinct screamed for him to grab Cassie by the arm and drag her from thisplace to the safety of Mayfair and the world in which she belonged. But then, what would become of the others here?
He swore an oath under his breath, unable to believe what he was about to say. “I know of a safe place where Isabel can stay.”
Grant closedthe back door that led to the mews behind Church Street and threw the lock.
“I don’t believe we were followed,” he said while turning to the two women standing within the cold kitchen. Cassie and Isabel appeared tense, and for good reason. Getting from Hope House to his clinic had been a complicated operation.
Assuming the man who attacked Cassie still had eyes on the Crispin Street safe house, Grant sat in the driver’s box with Tris as they departed the alley. Tris avoided the main road, instead turning off the alley and cutting through narrow passageways between street blocks. Finally, he turned onto another road and took an extended, circuitous route to the clinic. All the while, Grant kept his eyes on the conveyances behind them, making sure no single one appeared to be following.
“You’re Lord Neatham’s friend,” Tris had said while they’d been making chaotic loops. “The physician lord.”
Grant nodded. “However, here and now, I am Doctor Brown.”
“Just as her ladyship is Miss Jane Banks?” At Grant’s next nod, Tris had muttered, “All right, then” and continued driving. He was now staying with the carriage and horses in the mews, to make certain no one approached.
It was getting dark, and the shadows of the kitchen stretched corner to corner.
“This is your clinic?” Cassie glimpsed around the small kitchen. It wasn’t much smaller than Hope House’s space, but it felt vacant. Desolate.
“I only open it on Saturdays,” he replied.
The rest of the week, the building lay dormant. There were three levels in the narrow residence, with room enough downstairs for the kitchen and a receiving room, which Grant had employed as his surgery. On the first floor were two bedrooms, each about the size of Cassie’s little office at Hope House. A drafty attic stretched from the front of the house to the back, but Grant hadn’t touched it during the five years he’d been at Church Street. He barely went upstairs at all but had at least outfitted the two bedrooms in case patients needed to stay over for observation or recovery.
He lit a lamp and gave it to Isabel, telling her to select a room and get settled in.
“I’ll come with you,” Cassie said, but Grant cleared his throat.
“Miss Banks, I’d like a word.”
Isabel cast a wary look between them before leaving. Cassie avoided looking directly at him, and instead went to the stove and opened the grate. “I’ll start a fire.”
