Hello Stranger (The Ravenels #4)(7)

As they waited, Garrett considered Ransom’s words. Clearly the man knew far more about street fighting than her fencing master. His maneuvers with her cane had been impressive. While half of her was inclined to tell him to go to the devil, the other half was more than a little intrigued.

Despite his previous nonsense about “sweethearting,” Garrett was certain he had no romantic designs on her, which suited her perfectly. She had never wanted a relationship that might have interfered with her career. Oh, there had been a minor dalliance here or there . . . a stolen kiss with a handsome medical student at the Sorbonne . . . a harmless flirtation with a gentleman at a dance . . . but she had deliberately avoided anyone who might have posed a real temptation. And any involvement with this insolent stranger could lead to trouble.

However, she did want to learn a few of his street-fighting maneuvers.

“If I agree to let you teach me,” she asked, “would you promise to stop following me on my Tuesday rounds?”

“Aye,” Ransom said easily.

Too easily.

Garrett gave him a skeptical glance. “Are you a truthful man, Mr. Ransom?”

He laughed quietly. “With my job?” Looking past her shoulder, he saw an approaching hansom, and signaled it. His gaze returned to her face and held intently. “I swear on my mother’s grave, you have nothing to fear from me.”

The hansom rolled to a jangling, rattling halt beside them.

Abruptly Garrett made a decision. “Very well. Meet me tomorrow at four o’clock, at Baujart’s fencing club.”

Ransom’s eyes flashed with satisfaction. He watched as Garrett ascended to the footboard of the two-wheeled vehicle. With the ease of vast experience, she ducked beneath the overhanging reins and climbed up to the passenger seat.

As Ransom handed the doctor’s bag to Garrett, he called up to the driver. “Mind you take care not to jostle the lady.” Before Garrett could object, he stepped onto the footboard and gave the driver a few coins.

“I can pay my own fare,” Garrett protested.

Ransom’s midnight-blue eyes stared steadily into hers. Reaching out, he pressed something into her hand. “A gift,” he murmured. Easily he descended to the ground. “Tomorrow, Doctor.” He touched the brim of his hat, letting his fingers linger in that way he had, until the vehicle pulled away.

Feeling slightly dazed, Garrett looked down at the object he’d given her. The silver whistle, slightly warm from the heat of his body.

What nerve, she thought . . . but her fingers closed gently around it.





Chapter 2




Before going to his flat on Half Moon Street, Ethan had one more appointment to keep. He took a hansom to Cork Street, which was almost entirely occupied by Winterborne’s, the famous department store.

A few times in the past, Ethan had done private work for the store’s owner, Rhys Winterborne. The jobs had been easy and quick, hardly worth his time, but only a fool would turn down a request from such a powerful man. One of them had involved shadowing Winterborne’s then fiancée, Lady Helen Ravenel, when she and a friend had visited an orphanage in a hazardous area near the docklands.

That had been two years ago, when Ethan had first met Dr. Garrett Gibson.

The slim chestnut-haired woman had been battering an assailant twice her size with precisely aimed strikes of her cane. Ethan had loved the way she’d done it, as if attending to some necessary task, like carrying a household bin out to the rubbish carter.

Her face had been unexpectedly young, her complexion clean-scrubbed and as smooth as a tablet of white soap. All cheekbones and cool green eyes, with a sharp little rampart of a chin. But amidst the elegant angles and edges of her features, there was a valentine of a mouth, tender and vulnerable, the upper lip nearly as full as the lower. A mouth with such pretty curves that it did something to Ethan’s knees every time he saw it.

After that first encounter, Ethan had taken care to avoid Garrett Gibson, knowing she would be trouble for him, possibly even worse than he would be for her. But last month he’d gone to visit her at the medical clinic where she worked, for information concerning one of her patients, and his fascination had ignited all over again.

Everything about Garrett Gibson was . . . delicious. The dissecting gaze, the voice as crisp as the icing on a lemon cake. The compassion that drove her to treat the undeserving poor as well as the deserving. The purposeful walk, the relentless energy, the self-satisfaction of a woman who neither concealed nor apologized for her own intelligence. She was sunlight and steel, spun into a substance he’d never encountered before.

The mere thought of her left him like a stray coal on the hearth.

He had already sworn to himself that he would take nothing from her. All he intended to do was keep her safe on her visits to the Clerkenwell workhouse, or the Bishopsgate orphanage, or wherever she chose to go on her Tuesday rounds. That much he would allow himself.

It had been a mistake, arranging to meet her tomorrow. Ethan still wasn’t sure how that had happened—he’d heard the words leaving his lips as if they were being spoken by someone else. Once he’d made the offer, however, he couldn’t retract it, and then he’d found himself longing for her to accept.

One hour in Garrett Gibson’s company, and then he would never approach her again. But he wanted, needed, craved those minutes alone with her. He would hoard the memory for the rest of his days.