Hello Stranger (The Ravenels 4)

Nothing went right. The way the nurses trilled “Good morning” set her teeth on edge. The medical supply cabinets and closets were disorganized. The staff talked too loudly in the hallways and common rooms. At lunchtime, she ate at the staff commissary, and the cheerful bustle she usually enjoyed was profoundly irritating. Oblivious to the conversation around her, she picked morosely at an artful arrangement of cold sliced chicken, watercress-and-cucumber salad, and a tiny dish of cherry tapioca.

There were more patient appointments in the afternoon, some correspondence and bill paying, and then it was time to return home. Glum and weary, Garrett descended from the hansom, walked up to her front door . . . and paused to look at it with a bewildered frown.

The familiar name plate was still there, but a heavy bronze mortise lock had replaced the old outdated one. There was a new cast-bronze doorknob, and a lion’s-head knocker, its jaws clamped on a heavy ring. Unlike the standard snarling, squinty-eyed design, this lion looked rather friendly and sociable. The door’s casing had been repaired and reinforced. Old hinges had been replaced with sturdy new ones. A draft-proof weather strip had been added to the bottom edge of the door.

Hesitantly Garrett reached for the door knocker. The ring hit the handsome engraved bronze backplate with a satisfying clack. Before she could continue knocking, the door opened smoothly, and a beaming Eliza took her bag and cane.

“Evenin’, Dr. Gibson. Look at this door! It’s the finest one in King’s Cross, I’ll warrant.”

“Who did it?” Garrett managed to ask, following her into the house.

Eliza looked puzzled. “Didn’t you hire a locksmith?”

“I most certainly did not.” Garrett removed her gloves and hat, and gave them to her. “What name did he give? When did he come?”

“This morning, after you left. I took your father out for a constitutional in the park. We were gone no more than an hour, but when we came back, there was a man working on the door. I didn’t ask his name. He and Mr. Gibson exchanged a few pleasantries while he was finishing up, then gave us a set of steel keys and left.”

“Was it the man from last night? My patient?”

“No, this one was old. Gray-haired and stoop shouldered.”

“A strange man let himself into the house and changed the lock, and neither you nor my father asked for his name?” Garrett asked with an incredulous scowl. “Good God, Eliza, he could have robbed us blind.”

“I thought you knew about it,” the cookmaid protested, following her into the surgery.

Anxiously Garrett went to see if any of her supplies or equipment were missing. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed. Folding back the partition to her laboratory, she checked to make certain the microscope was safely in its case. Turning, she ran her gaze over the shelves of supplies, and froze.

The dozen glass test tubes in the wooden rack had been filled with violets. The blue petals were as vivid as jewels in the utilitarian environment. An intoxicating scent drifted from the row of tiny bouquets.

“Where did those come from?” Eliza asked, standing beside her.

“Our mysterious locksmith must have left them as a prank.” Garrett removed one of the blossoms and touched it to her cheek and lips. Her fingers were trembling. “Now my test tubes are all contaminated,” she said, trying to sound cross.

“Dr. Gibson, are you . . . are you about to cry?”

“Of course not,” Garrett said indignantly. “You know I never do that.”

“Your face is all red. Your eyes are watery.”

“An inflammatory reaction. I’m hypersensitive to violets.”

Eliza looked alarmed. “Shall I toss ’em for you?”

“No.” She cleared her throat and spoke more softly. “No, I want to keep them.”

“Is everything all right, Doctor?”

Garrett let out a slow breath and tried to reply in a normal tone. “I’m just tired, Eliza. Nothing to worry about.”

There was no one she could confide in. For Ethan’s sake, she had to stay silent. She would do as he’d asked, and forget him. He was only a man.

The world was full of men. She would find another one.

“A good, decent husband of the ould stock, who’ll give you a fireside of children . . .” Would Ethan ever want children? Would she? There was no logical reason for her to have children, or marry at all, but she was astonished to realize it was something she might consider.

A humbling thought occurred to her. When you meet the right man, the list of things you would never do suddenly becomes much shorter.

Chapter 9

The door to Jenkyn’s office had been left slightly ajar. Ethan paused to knock on the jamb, trying to remain outwardly relaxed despite the weight of foreboding at the pit of his stomach. His ability to shut away his emotions—one of his most useful assets—had disappeared. He was all exposed nerves and raw appetite. He felt as transparent as glass, and there were too many lies he had to keep straight.

He’d been like this for the past week, ever since the night he’d spent with Garrett Gibson. The thought of her was deep inside him, at the center of every thought and sensation, as if he existed only as a vessel to contain her.

Life had been a damned sight easier when he’d had nothing to lose. It was killing him not to go to her. The only thing that stopped him was the need to keep her safe.

“Enter,” came Jenkyn’s relaxed voice.

Ethan let himself inside. He’d come into the new government building by way of the back entrance used by servants and junior clerks. Even without the need for discretion, he would have preferred that to going through the brazenly elaborate main entrance and reception rooms, with their plasterwork thickly coated in gilt and the stands of marble columns rising from lapis floors. Ethan found it suffocating. The ostentatious interiors were intended to proclaim the power and grandeur of an empire that ruled almost one quarter of the earth’s surface and refused to yield even an inch of its territory.

It had been at Jenkyn’s insistence that the collection of contiguous offices under the roof of the newest building at Whitehall had all been shut off from each other. The Home Office kept all connecting doors perpetually locked, so no one could walk from there directly to the Foreign Office, India Office, or Colonial Office. Instead, visitors had to go down into the street, walk the outside length of the building, and ascend another staircase. Free communication between offices would have made Jenkyn’s scheming and plotting more difficult.

The corner office provided a view of a nearby building that had originally contained a cockfighting pit. Ethan suspected Jenkyn would have preferred it if the cockpit still existed: he was the kind of man who enjoyed blood sports.

The air was hot enough to braise a plucked capon. Jenkyn always kept a fire lit, even in summer. The spymaster cut an elegant figure, his build long and stiletto thin as he occupied one of two heavy leather smoking chairs positioned in front of the fireplace. Orange flickers played over his thinning blond hair and austere features as he regarded Ethan through distal spirals of cigar smoke. His eyes were a shade of cinnamon brown that should have appeared warm, but somehow never did.

“Ransom,” he said pleasantly, nudging a table-top cigar stand toward him. “We have much to discuss this evening.”