Hello Stranger (The Ravenels 4)

“What does that mean?” Garrett asked.

“‘Not even Apollo keeps his bow drawn all the time.’” Havelock regarded her kindly. “You’ve been in a sour mood of late. I don’t know the specifics of your problem, but I have an idea as to the general cause. You’re a dedicated physician who has shouldered many responsibilities in such a capable manner that all of us, including you, tend to forget something: You’re still a young woman.”

“At eight and twenty?” Garrett asked bleakly, and took another swallow. Still holding the beaker, she reached for a box of adhesive plasters and dropped it into her bag.

“A mere babe in the woods,” he said. “And like all young people, you tend to rebel against a harsh taskmaster.”

“I’ve never thought of you that way,” Garrett protested.

Havelock’s mouth twisted. “I’m not the harsh taskmaster, Doctor, you are. The fact is, recreation is a natural necessity. Your work habits have turned you into a wet blanket, and you will continue being a wet blanket until you find some leisure activity outside of this clinic.”

Garrett frowned. “I have no outside interests.”

“If you were a man, I’d advise you to spend a night at the best bawdy house you could afford. However, I have no idea what to recommend to a woman in your position. Look at a list of hobbies and pick one. Have an affair. Go on holiday to a place you’ve never been before.”

Garrett coughed on a sip of whiskey, and regarded him with wide, watering eyes. “Did you just advise me to have an affair?” she asked hoarsely.

Havelock let out a rusty chuckle. “I’ve surprised you, haven’t I? Not as stodgy as you thought. There’s no need to stare at me like a dyspeptic nun. As a physician, you’re well aware that the sexual act can be separated from procreation without descending to prostitution. You work like a man, you’re paid like one, and you might as well take your pleasures like one, so long as you’re discreet about it.”

Garrett had to drain the last of her whiskey before she could reply. “Moral considerations aside, the risk isn’t worth it. Being caught in an affair wouldn’t ruin a man’s career, but it would ruin mine.”

“Then find someone to marry. Love is not something to be missed, Dr. Gibson. Why do you think I, a comfortable widower, made a fool of myself over Mrs. Fernsby until she finally consented to be my wife?”

“Convenience?” she guessed.

“Good God, no. There’s nothing convenient about joining your life to another person’s. Marriage is a sack race: you may find a way to hop together toward the finish line, but you would still reach it more easily without the sack.”

“Then why do it at all?”

“Our existence, even our intellect, hangs upon love—without it, we would be no more than stock and stones.”

Inwardly astonished by such a sentimental speech coming from Havelock, of all men, Garrett protested, “It’s no simple task to find someone to love. You make it sound as easy as shopping for a good melon.”

“Obviously you’ve done neither of those things. Finding someone to love is considerably easier than finding a good melon.”

Garrett smiled wryly. “I’m sure your advice is well-intentioned, but I have no use for melons or grand love affairs.” She handed the empty beaker to him. “However, I’ll try to come up with a hobby.”

“That’s a start.” Havelock went to the doorway and paused to glance over his shoulder. “You’re very good at listening to other people, my young friend. But you’re not nearly as good at listening to yourself.”

Night was falling by the time Garrett had finished her rounds at the Clerkenwell workhouse infirmary. Fatigued and hungry, she removed her white apron and donned her dark brown walking jacket, trimmed with silk braid and cinched with a thin leather belt around the waist. After gathering up her cane and doctor’s bag, she left the workhouse and stopped just beyond the iron gate, on a front walkway mottled with light and shadow.

In the weary hush of the summer evening, she started on the walk back to the main road. The wail of a distant train rode on the dull thunder of churning rods, hissing boilers, and metal wheels. Her steps faltered as she realized that she was reluctant to return home. There was no compelling reason to be there: Her father was playing his weekly game of draw poker with his friends and wouldn’t miss her. But she couldn’t think of where else to go. The clinic and the department store were closed, and it certainly would not do to appear uninvited at someone else’s home. Her stomach growled beneath the confines of her light corset. She realized she’d forgotten to eat lunch.

One of the cardinal rules of navigating through the dangerous areas of the city was to appear confident. And here she was, pausing at a street corner, her feet as heavy as lead. What was she doing? What was this terrible feeling inside? Sadness, wrapped around yearning. A hollow feeling that no blasted hobby or holiday was ever going to fix.

Perhaps she should go visit Helen unannounced, manners be damned. Helen would listen to her worries, and know what to say. But no . . . that would only lead to more urging to meet Weston Ravenel, a substitute for the man she truly wanted to see . . . an amoral, oversexed government assassin with a dimple in one cheek.

Garrett’s mind sifted through remnants of conversations she’d had during the past week.

“No one knows what side he’s on. But he’s not a man you should have anything to do with.”

“Ransom is a cold-blooded cutthroat whose soul is bound for hell . . .”

“If he did meet you in secret, where would it lead?”

And Ransom’s low voice . . . “I see no fault in you.”

As Garrett stood there, trapped in that mysterious ache of a mood, she could hear a couple quarreling on a nearby street, the bray of a donkey, the cries of a watercress seller as he rolled his handcart along the pavement. The accumulated hum of city noise filled each passing second as London eased from the tumult of the day to the seething excitement of a warm summer night. It was a mean, big-bellied, prosperous city, shod in brick and iron, wearing a thick overcoat of factory smoke, carrying a million secrets in its pockets. Garrett loved it, all of it, from the dome of St. Paul’s down to the lowest sewer rat. London, her friends, and her work, had always been enough for her. Until now.

“I wish . . .” she whispered, and bit her lip.

Where was Ransom at this moment?

Maybe loving the sewer rat was taking it a bit far.

I wish . . . a phrase she never used.

If she closed her eyes—which she was not idiotic enough to do in a parish containing three prisons—she felt as if she might actually be able to see him, like an image trapped in a fortune-teller’s crystal ball.

Garrett was bemused to discover the silver police whistle was in her hand. Without even being aware of it, she had fished the whistle from her jacket pocket. The pad of her thumb rubbed across the gleaming surface.

Obeying a lunatic impulse, she raised the whistle to her lips and gave an abbreviated blow. Not enough to produce a shrill alarm that would alert a constable, just a little chirp. She closed her eyes and counted to three, waiting and listening for an approaching footstep.

Oh, I wish, I wish . . .