Hello Stranger (The Ravenels #4)(103)

“For your wife,” Garrett repeated, her stomach filling with butterflies.

Ethan nodded, reaching into his pocket. “I’m not going to do this the conventional way,” he warned, and she laughed breathlessly.

“That’s perfect, then.”

He pressed something smooth and metallic into the palm of her hand. She looked down and saw a whistle cast in silver, strung on a glinting, glimmering silver chain. Noticing there was something engraved on it, she looked more closely.

Whenever you want me



“Garrett Gibson,” she heard him say, “you’ve a rare skill at healing—I’m living proof of that. But if you don’t marry me, you’ll have my broken heart to mend. Either way, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me, as I love you too much to be without you. Will you be my wife?”

Garrett looked up at him through bright, blurred eyes, too overwhelmed with joy to summon a single word.

She soon made the discovery that it was hard to blow a whistle when you were smiling.

But she managed it anyway.





Author’s Note




Dear Friends,

Although all my books are a labor of love, this one is especially close to my heart because it was inspired by a magnificent real-life woman, Dr. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. Against great opposition, she earned a medical degree at the Sorbonne in 1870. In 1873, she managed to become the first licensed female physician in Britain. The British Medical Association promptly changed its rules afterward to prevent any other women from joining for the next twenty years. Dr. Anderson went on to co-found the first hospital staffed by women and became the first dean of a British medical school. She was also active in the women’s suffrage movement and became the first female mayor and magistrate in England, serving in the splendid town of Aldeburgh.

The Thames was so contaminated by sewage and industrial chemicals in Victorian times that tens of thousands of London residents were killed by cholera. In 1878, a pleasure steamship called the Princess Alice collided with another boat and sank. Over six hundred passengers died, with many of the deaths blamed, not on drowning, but asphyxiation. According to an account of the time, the Thames water was “hissing like soda water with baneful gasses.” In modern times, the Thames has been transformed into the cleanest major river that runs through a major city in the world and is teeming with fish and wildlife.

Although the conspiracy plot in Hello Stranger is, of course, fictional, there really was a secret and unauthorized team of agents, supervised by Edward George Jenkinson. He ran clandestine operations from the Home Office, often competing with Scotland Yard. Jenkinson was dismissed in 1887 and his force was replaced by the official “Special Irish Branch.”

As someone who gets a little weak-kneed at the sight of blood, it wasn’t always easy to research various aspects of Garrett’s work, but it was always fascinating. The history of blood transfusions was especially interesting. Early recorded attempts at transfusion used sheep or cows’ blood, transfused into human patients. The experiments didn’t go well, to put it mildly, and the practice was banned for about 150 years. Scientists and doctors began working on the problem again in the 1800s, with varying results. Then in 1901, Dr. Karl Landsteiner of Austria discovered the three human blood groups—A B, and O—and found that you couldn’t mix blood from incompatible individuals. Until then, successful blood transfusions depended on whether you were lucky enough to receiving blood from a compatible donor.

Thank you, as always, for your encouragement and kindness—you make my job a joy!

—Lisa





Garrett’s Refreshing Lemon Ice




Some people are surprised to learn that ices, sorbets, and ice creams were served at afternoon teas or soirees in the Victoria

era. Ices were actually popularized in England back in the mid-1700s by French and Italian confectioners who had settled in

London. A wonderful variety of flavors was available, such as elderflower, pineapple, apricot, rosewater, pistachio, and even

brown bread ice! Here is a simple and easy recipe for Dr. Garrett Gibson’s favorite: lemon ice.


Ingredients





6 lemons (or 1/2 cup lemon juice)





1 orange (or 1/4 cup orange juice)





2 cups water





2 cups sugar





Directions





Zest one of the lemons (only the yellow part of the rind, the white is bitter).





Squeeze the juice out of the orange and lemons.





Mix water and sugar, and simmer until sugar is completely dissolved.





Add lemon zest, lemon juice, and orange juice.





Pour into a metal pan (loaf pan worked well for us).





Place in freezer and stir it with a fork every half hour, for about three hours, or until lemon ice has a heavy, slushy texture

that you can scoop out.





Note: If you don’t care about historical accuracy, replace one of the cups of sugar with Karo syrup—it makes the texture

of the ice much smoother.