Hello Stranger (The Ravenels #4)(30)

“Because I’m trying to attract patients,” she said, “not scare them away.”

Ethan rubbed the lower part of his jaw, brooding. “Strangers coming and going,” he muttered, “with nothing to stop them from doing as they please. What if you let a lunatic in here?”

“Lunatics need health care too,” Garrett said reasonably.

He gave her a speaking glance. “Do the windows have sash locks, at least?”

“I think some of them do . . .” she said vaguely. At his quiet curse, she said in a soothing tone, “You really mustn’t worry: it’s not as if we’re keeping the crown jewels in here.”

“You’re the jewel,” he said gruffly.

Garrett stared at him with wide, unblinking eyes, while the moment turned awkwardly intimate.

No one in Ethan’s adult life had ever truly known him, not even Jenkyn. But as he stood there on Garrett Gibson’s doorstep, caught in her searching gaze, he realized he could hide nothing from her. Everything he felt was there for her to read.

Hell and damnation.

“Come inside,” Garrett said gently.

Ethan followed her, worried about what else he might do or say. After closing the door, he stood in the entranceway with his cap in hand and watched, fascinated, as she removed her gloves with little tugs at the fingertips. Her beautiful hands emerged from the dyed kid leather, her fingers slender and elegantly precise, like a watchmaker’s tools.

The sound of footsteps heralded the approach of someone from the basement level. A mob-capped and white-aproned woman appeared, plump and buxom, with ruddy cheeks and lively brown eyes. “Evenin’, Dr. Gibson,” she said, taking Garrett’s gloves and hat. “You’re home late tonight.” She glanced in Ethan’s direction, and her eyes widened. “Sir,” she said breathlessly, and bobbed a curtsy. “May I take your cap?”

Ethan responded with a shake of his head. “I’ll be leaving soon.”

“This man is a patient,” Garrett told the cookmaid, removing the posy of violets from the buttonhole of her walking jacket before handing the garment to her. “I’ve brought him here for a consultation—please see that we’re not disturbed.”

“Consultation for what?” the maid asked slyly, her gaze traveling from Ethan’s head to his toes, and back up again. “’E don’t look all that peaked to me.”

Garrett’s brows lowered. “You know better than to comment on a patient’s appearance.”

Leaning toward her, the cookmaid said in a stage whisper, “I meant to say I ’opes you can do something for this poor, sickly wreck of a man.”

“That will be all, Eliza,” Garrett said firmly. “You may go.”

Amused by the cookmaid’s impudence, Ethan studied the floor and fought to suppress a smile.

After Eliza had gone back downstairs, Garrett said with chagrin, “She’s not usually so impertinent. No, never mind: she is.” She led him to the open room at the right of the entranceway. “This is the waiting area for patients and their families.”

As she busied herself with closing the raised-panel shutters, Ethan wandered through the spacious room, which was furnished with a long, low settee, a pair of deep upholstered armchairs, and a pair of small tables. There was a fireplace with a white painted mantel, an escritoire desk, and a cheerful painting of a country scene. Everything was immaculate, the woodwork polished and gleaming, the glass windows sparkling. To Ethan, most houses were stifling and uncomfortable, the floors crowded with furniture, the walls lined with fussy wallpaper. But this place was serene and soothing. He went to look closely at the painting, which portrayed a parade of fat white geese strolling past the doorway of a cottage.

“Someday I’ll be able to afford real art,” Garrett said, coming to stand beside him. “In the meantime, we’ll have to make do with this.”

Ethan’s attention was drawn to the tiny initials in the corner of the work: G.G. A slow smile broke over his face. “You painted it?”

“Art class, at boarding school,” she admitted. “I wasn’t bad at sketching, but the only subject I could manage to paint adequately was geese. At one point I tried to expand my repertoire to ducks, but those earned lower marks, so it was back to geese after that.”

Ethan smiled, imagining her as a studious schoolgirl with long braids. The light of a glass-globe parlor lamp slid across the tidy pinned-up weight of her hair, bringing out gleams of red and gold. He’d never seen anything like her skin, fine and poreless, with a faint glow like a blush-colored garden rose.

“What gave you the idea to paint geese in the first place?” he asked.

“There was a goose pond across from the school,” Garrett said, staring absently at the picture. “Sometimes I saw Miss Primrose at the front windows, watching with binoculars. One day I dared to ask her what she found so interesting about geese, and she told me they had a capacity for attachment and grief that rivaled humans. They mated for life, she said. If a goose was injured, the gander would stay with her even if the rest of the flock was flying south. When one of a mated pair died, the other would lose its appetite and go off to mourn in solitude.” Her slim shoulders hitched in a shrug. “I’ve liked geese ever since then.”

“So do I,” Ethan said. “Especially roasted with chestnut stuffing.”