Hello Stranger (The Ravenels #4)(29)

“Acushla,” he began gruffly, “I can’t—”

“I have an operating room, and a small laboratory,” Garrett continued in an offhand tone.

His curiosity was sparked by the mention of the laboratory. “What do you keep in there?” he couldn’t keep from asking. “Rats and rabbits? Dishes of bacteria?”

“I’m afraid not.” Her lips quirked. “I use the laboratory for mixing medicines and sterilizing equipment. And viewing microscopic slides.”

“You have a microscope?”

“The most advanced medical microscope available,” she said, seeing his interest. “With two eyepieces, German lenses, and an achromatic condenser to correct distortion.” She grinned at his expression. “I’ll show it to you. Have you ever seen a butterfly’s wing magnified a hundred times?”

The cabbie had been following the conversation attentively. “Lad, are you daft a’thegither?” he asked from his perch. “Don’t stand there like stuffed beef—go inside with the lady!”

Giving him a narrow-eyed glance, Ethan handed up a few coins and sent the hansom away. He found himself following Garrett to the front of the house. “I won’t stay for long,” he muttered. “And devil take you if you try to introduce me to anyone.”

“I won’t. Although we won’t be able to avoid my cookmaid.”

As Garrett fished a key from the pocket of her walking jacket, Ethan ran an assessing glance over the front door. A brass plate emblazoned with the name Dr. G. Gibson had been affixed to one of the upper panels. His gaze slid lower, and he was almost startled by the sight of an iron rim-mounted box lock beside the door handle. He hadn’t seen a design that ancient since he’d apprenticed for the prison locksmith.

“Wait,” he said before Garrett unlocked the door. Frowning, he handed her the bag and cane, and lowered to his haunches to have a better look. The primitive lock was laughably inadequate for a street door, and had probably been installed when the house had first been built. “This is an old-fashioned warded lock,” he said incredulously.

“Yes, a good, stout one,” Garrett said, sounding pleased.

“No, there’s nothing good about it! It doesn’t even have tumblers. You might as well not have a lock.” Appalled, Ethan continued to examine the ancient contraption. “Why hasn’t your father done anything about this? He should know better.”

“We’ve had no problem with it.”

“Only by the grace of God.” Ethan became more agitated by the second as he realized she went to sleep every night with nothing but a crude rattletrap lock between her and the entire criminal population of London. His heart began to beat fast with anxiety. He’d seen what could happen to women who didn’t have sufficient protection from the predators of the world. And Garrett was a public figure who attracted both admiration and controversy. Someone could enter the house so damned easily, and do whatever they wished with her. He couldn’t bear to think about it.

Garrett stood there with a skeptical smile, seeming to think he was overreacting.

In his agony of worry, Ethan couldn’t find the words to make her understand. Still crouching in front of the door, he gestured toward Garrett’s tiny hat, which was little more than a flattened velvet circle decorated with a twist of ribbon and a knot of small feathers. “Give me that.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “My hat?”

“Your hatpin.” He waited with his hand extended upward.

Looking mystified, Garrett extracted the long pin that attached the hat to her coiffure. It was topped with a small brass medallion.

Taking the pin, Ethan bent the blunted needle tip into a forty-five-degree angle. He inserted it into the lock and twisted deftly. Five seconds later, the warded lock clicked open. After withdrawing the makeshift pick, he rose to his feet and gave it back to her.

“I believe you unlocked that door more quickly with a hatpin than I could with my key,” Garrett exclaimed, regarding the bent hatpin with a slight frown. “How skilled you are.”

“That’s not the point. Any clumsy halfwit of a burglar could do what I just did.”

“Oh.” Her lips pursed thoughtfully. “Perhaps I should invest in a new lock?”

“Aye. One that was made this century!”

To his exasperation, Garrett didn’t appear alarmed in the least. Her eyes crinkled at the corners. “You’re very kind to be concerned for my safety. But my father is a former constable.”

“He’s too old to leap a gate,” Ethan said indignantly.

“And I can defend myself quite—”

“Don’t,” he warned in an ominous tone, certain he would explode if she gave him another of her confident little speeches about how well she could look after herself and how indestructible she was, and how she had nothing to fear from anyone because she knew how to twirl a cane. “You need to change the lock right away, and take down that brass plate on the door.”

“Why?”

“Your name is on it.”

“But all doctors have these,” she protested. “If I removed it, my patients couldn’t find me.”

“Why don’t you just paste an advertisement on your door saying ‘Defenseless Woman with Free Pharmaceutical Supplies’?” Before she could reply, he continued, “Why aren’t there iron window guards on the basement and ground-floor levels?”