A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)(69)

“Hetta. Can you truly be so cold, so devoid of sympathy?”

“I’m not cold, I’m competent. I’m a physician.”

“A physician treats people, not merely injuries and illnesses. You would be a better doctor if you gave some consideration to your patients’ feelings. And you would be a better person if you allowed yourself to feel.”

She laughed bitterly. “You would encourage me to feel. Of course—by your accounting, one cannot claim true suffering without a proportional measure of public grief. Not all of us have the luxury of indulging our emotions, Captain Grayson. Don’t you know Lucy is my dearest friend? I do not enjoy watching her in pain, any more than Lord Kendall does. Should I come join you gentlemen, then? Spend the evening cursing into my brandy? Perhaps that would give you sufficient proof of my sympathy, but it would not help Lucy deliver her child.”

“Miss Osborne, you’re the most educated woman I know. Surely you’re more clever than that argument implies.” Joss inhaled slowly, tempering his frustration. Why did this woman affect him so? Every time he was in her presence, he felt compelled to defend his behavior, explain himself in ways he shouldn’t need to explain himself to anyone. He didn’t know why it should matter what she thought of him, but somehow it did. It mattered a great deal. “You needn’t choose between the two,” he said. “Can’t you be both a physician and a human? Both Lady Kendall’s doctor and her friend?”

She stood silent for a long moment. Joss waited for her to speak.

“My mother,” she began at last, “was ill, bed ridden for more than a year. My father personally saw to her treatment. He consulted specialists, spent long nights scouring medical journals for new treatments. Not once—not even toward the end, when she forgot our names—did my father indulge in a moment’s self-pity. Not once did he allow her to see his distress. And the day she died, did he sit by her bedside and weep useless tears, just to prove his love for her?

No, he went to tend victims of a mining explosion the next county over. Because he was the doctor, and they needed his help.” The sparks of green flashed in her hazel eyes. “Everyone has wounds, Captain Grayson. Some of us do our bleeding on the inside.”

Suddenly, she raised a hand to her temple and closed her eyes. Her posture softened, and Joss finally glimpsed what he’d been waiting to see since the day of their introduction. At that moment, she wasn’t a doctor. She wasn’t efficient or headstrong or abrasive or cold. She was simply a woman—and an exhausted one, at that. The long hours of work weighed heavy on her shoulders. Eyes still shut, she swayed slightly on her feet. She desperately needed a rest. More than that, she needed to be held.

He could hold her. He had two strong arms, and her slender frame would fit quite neatly in their circumference. On another day, she might be strong enough to hold him in return. But it couldn’t be that easy. Nothing was ever that easy. There were questions and enmity and ghosts between them. And Joss knew from experience that taking a woman in his arms was a great deal simpler than letting her go.

“I’m sorry.” He rested a hand on the banister, sliding it slowly higher until it rested an inch from hers. “I realize this day has been a trial for you as well. It’s just that I know what a living hell it is to be in Lord Kendall’s place. In many ways, his misery is my own. If you cannot have a care for his feelings, perhaps you could have a care for mine.”

“You would ask me to care,” she said, eyes still shut. “Care for you.”

“Yes, damn it. Do I not deserve as much? Am I not just as human as Lord Kendall, as any man?”

“Lord. You are just as much a fool, as any man.”

Her eyes opened and looked to his. There was something there. Not the respect he’d been seeking, but something better and worse at once. Emotion, raw and intense. She did care for his feelings. She cared a great deal. Good Lord, the girl was half in love with him, the devil knew why. For weeks now, he’d been searching for her weakness, and the truth had been staring him in the mirror all the while. He was her weakness. And now that they both knew it, she trembled.

“Oh,” he said softly. “Forgive me. I didn’t realize.”

She made a choked sound, rather like a swallowed sob.

Some tender, protective impulse uncoiled in his heart. Leaning forward, he slid his hand along the banister until his thumb rested in the crook of hers. A warm pulse fluttered there, where her skin was chafed and cracked from frequent scrubbing. He soothed the spot with his thumb, at every moment expecting her to pull away. She didn’t.

“Could you, Hetta?” he asked quietly. “Could you care for me?” He hadn’t known, until that moment, how much he’d been wanting to ask her exactly that. Neither had he realized how much of his rudeness had been aimed at avoiding the answer.

“Captain Grayson …”

“Joss,” he corrected, raising his other hand to cradle her smooth, flushed cheek. Closing her eyes, she leaned ever so slightly into his palm. “My name is Joss.”

Then a low moan sounded above them. Hetta bristled away from his touch. Joss dropped his hand from her face, but he kept the other twined with hers. They stared into one another’s eyes for a few seconds more, and in that remarkable shade of hazel, Joss read possibilities and questions and fears. And then—he saw the moment of her decision.