Page 22 of Bite at First Sight

The moment they entered the laboratory, Wakley exclaimed in awe over every book and item. Rafe should have found it tedious. Instead he felt a warm surge of pride for his…prisoner. He frowned. She was his prisoner, nothing more.

“When will you give me the examination?” Cassandra asked suddenly.

Wakley smiled. “Right now if you like.”

“Now?” She looked around her laboratory in confusion. “Won’t we require a cadaver?”

The surgeon laughed. “No, though ideally you should have witnessed at least a few operations. I shall find out how knowledgeable you are during the examination. Shall we begin?”

“Yes.” Cassandra bit her lip, looking so nervous that Rafe had the urge to pull her into his arms.

“Do you speak Latin?” Wakley asked.

“Yes, my father hired me a tutor.”

“Greek?”

Cassandra nodded, a hint of pride gleaming in her eyes.

Wakley took one of her medical books from her shelf, opened it seemingly at random, and instructed her to read the page.

As her melodious voice poured out in flawless Greek, Rafe felt another wave of amazement. Along with his native tongue, he only knew Latin, French, and English, the last of which took him nearly a century to master. That was four languages in three centuries. Cassandra had learned as many in a fraction of the time.

“Now explain the treatment,” Wakley said when she finished.

Though the response was in English, Rafe could barely grasp the meaning of her words. The reply satisfied Wakley. He gave her another book and pressed her to do the same in Latin.

“Very good, Lady Rosslyn.” He proceeded to pose to her the same sort of questions as the one he’d first presented at Sir Patrick’s dinner party.

Her answers were so brilliant, knowledgeable, and practical that Rafe could believe she’d been a practicing physician for years. His fist clenched at his side as anger roiled through him. She should have been able to take this examination officially.

After Cassandra answered the final question, there was a long moment of silence before Wakley began to clap.

“Very good, Doctor Burton.”

She raised a brow and frowned in disbelief. “That was all?”

“For an Oxford-trained physician.” Wakley’s lips twisted in a bitter smile. “Gentlemen aren’t supposed to dirty their hands. Now if you wanted to become a surgeon, you would need to undergo an apprenticeship, which I’m afraid would be impossible. No surgeon would take you on, and no one would allow a woman to operate upon their person.”

Her chin lifted, eyes glittering with determination. “Could I learn on a cadaver? I’ve dissected them to learn anatomy as well as a few basic operations already.”

Wakley chuckled. “Why, Lady Rosslyn, don’t you know that it is illegal to harvest cadavers?”

“And dangerous,” Rafe added, clenching his fists. If she hadn’t been robbing graves, she wouldn’t be in this situation. And Wakley never would have been attacked.

The mirth bled from Cassandra’s sparkling green eyes, making him regret his words. Would she tell the surgeon who had been responsible for his attack?

A tense silence hung in the air before Cassandra uttered a strained laugh. “Come now, Mr. Wakley, do not attempt to deny that you do it as well.”

The surgeon darted a nervous glance toward Rafe. “I suppose I could give you a few lessons, though not many, for I am busy with The Lancet. What would you like to focus on?”

Rafe shook his head and opened his mouth to protest. Cassandra ignored him.

“The musculature of the arms,” she said firmly.

Wakley eyed Rafe’s disfigured limb with a knowing smile. “A wise choice.”

Cassandra also studied Rafe’s arm, and for the first time since he’d become crippled, he wasn’t discomfited by the scrutiny. This time he felt a gossamer thread of hope. What if he could be healed?

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