Hello Stranger (The Ravenels #4)(25)

“No, I can’t. I truly can’t.” Garrett blanched as she watched him twirl a long strand around the fork tines. “Dear God, please don’t eat it in front of me.”

Ransom was laughing. “Are you so squeamish? And you a doctor?”

“Take it away,” she begged.

He shook his head with a rueful grin. “Wait here.” After handing the tin plate to a pair of boys standing near the stall, he paused to purchase something else. He returned and gave her a beverage in a brown glass bottle.

“Ginger beer?” she guessed.

“Brachetto rosso.”

Garrett took a tentative swallow and gave a little hum of appreciation at the taste of sweet red wine. She continued to drink from the bottle as they walked along the edge of the crowd that had gathered in the center of the green. “What is everyone waiting for?” she asked.

“You’ll find out soon.” Ransom led her to the west side, where the imposing sessions house loomed, its classical pediment supported by gigantic columns.

“My former headmistress, Miss Primrose, would be appalled if she could see me,” Garrett commented with a grin. “She always said that eating in the street was evidence of low breeding.”

“Where did you go to school?”

“In Highgate. My Aunt Maria paid for my tuition at an experimental boarding school. They taught girls the same subjects taught to boys: mathematics, Latin, and science.”

“So that’s how the trouble started,” Ransom said. “No one told you that girls can’t learn science.”

Garrett laughed. “As a matter of fact, my father’s entire family said that. They were outraged by the idea of sending me to such a place. My grandmother said education would strain the female mind so severely, I would be left mentally and physically enfeebled for the rest of my life. Not only that, my future children would be debilitated as well! But Aunt Maria persisted, bless her. My father eventually went along with the plan, mostly because I’d reached the age of ten and he didn’t know what to do with me.”

They came to the sessions house, and Ransom drew her into a sheltered space between a gigantic column and the grand flight of stone stairs. It was cool and dark, and slightly dank with the scents of stone and rust.

After setting down the doctor’s bag and cane, Ransom turned to face her, his gaze steady and interested. “Did you like boarding school?”

“I did. I was grateful to be given a real education. It changed my life.” Garrett set her back against the staircase wall and took another swallow of wine before continuing pensively. “Of course, living at boarding school wasn’t the same as having a family. The students were discouraged from forming attachments to the teachers. If we were distressed or sad, we kept it to ourselves and tried to stay busy. Miss Primrose wanted us to learn endurance and self-reliance.” She paused, her teeth catching lightly at her lower lip. “Sometimes I think . . . perhaps . . . I may have taken those lessons too much to heart.”

“Why do you say that?” Ransom leaned a shoulder against the wall as he looked down at her, his big, sheltering form very close.

Garrett was chagrined to realize how much she’d been talking. “I’m being tiresome, babbling on and on about my childhood. Let’s change the subject. How do you—”

“I like the subject,” Ransom interrupted, his voice lowering to a velvety pitch. “Tell me what you were going to say.”

Garrett drank again to bolster her nerve before replying. “It’s only that I . . . tend to keep others at a distance. Even with a good friend like Lady Helen, I hold back things that I know would shock or distress her. My work . . . the way it’s shaped me . . . and perhaps having lost a mother . . . I can’t seem to be close to people.”

“’Tis a habit, is all.” The glow of a streetlamp found sapphire gleams in the depths of his eyes. “Someday you’ll trust someone enough to let down your guard. And then there’ll be no holding back.”

They were interrupted as a young girl walked along the pavement in front of the sessions house, calling, “Flowers! Fresh-cut flowers!” She stopped in front of them. “Posy for the lady, sir?”

Ransom turned to the girl, who wore a colorful scarf over her long dark hair and a patchwork apron over her black dress. She carried a flat basket filled with posyes, their stems wrapped with bits of colored ribbon.

“There’s no need—” Garrett began, but Ransom ignored her, browsing over the tiny bouquets of roses, narcissus, violets, forget-me-nots, and dianthus.

“How much?” he asked the flower girl.

“A farthing, sir.”

He glanced at Garrett over his shoulder. “Do you like violets?”

“I do,” she said hesitantly.

Ransom gave the flower-girl a sixpence and picked out one of the posyes.

“Thank you, sir!” The girl scurried away as if fearing he might change his mind.

Ransom turned to Garrett with the cluster of purple blossoms. Reaching for the lapel of her walking jacket, he deftly tucked the ribbon-wrapped stem of the posy into a buttonhole.

“Violets make an excellent blood-purifying tonic,” Garrett said awkwardly, feeling the need to fill the silence. “And they’re good for treating cough or fever.”

The elusive dimple appeared in his cheek. “They’re also becoming to green-eyed women.”