Hello Stranger (The Ravenels 4)

Eliza sped to the entranceway, exclaiming beneath her breath about people knocking fit to wake the dead. “Evenin’,” Garrett heard the cookmaid say. “What business are you about?”

A muffled conversation ensued.

Unable to make out what was being said, Garrett frowned and half turned in her chair to look at the sitting-room doorway.

Eliza came into view, holding a folded card. She frowned and chewed at her lips before saying, “It’s one of Lord Trenear’s footmen, Doctor. He bid me to give you this while he waits.”

Garrett extended her hand for the note. Breaking the wax seal, she saw a few lines written in a hasty forward slant, the t’s crossed to the right of the stems, the dot of one of the i’s missing. It was from Kathleen, Lady Trenear, the earl’s wife.

Dr. Gibson,

If you are able, I beg you to come to Ravenel House with all possible haste. There has been an accident involving a guest. As the matter is sensitive, I ask your discretion in keeping this matter entirely private. Thank you, my friend.

—K

Garrett stood up so abruptly that her chair nearly toppled backward. “Someone’s been injured,” she said. “I’m off to Ravenel House. Make certain the surgical kit is in my bag, and fetch my coat and hat.”

Eliza, bless her, wasted no time with questions, and scampered off. She had helped Garrett on many occasions when speed was of the essence in seeing to a patient.

Although Garrett was Lady Helen’s doctor as well as Pandora’s, the rest of the Ravenels usually relied on the services of a trusted family physician. Why hadn’t they sent for him? Was he unavailable, or had they decided Garrett was better equipped to deal with the situation?

The footman, a tall, fair-haired fellow, obeyed instantly as she gestured for him to follow her to the surgery.

“Who’s been injured?” Garrett asked briskly.

“Afraid I don’t know, miss . . . er, ma’am. Doctor. A stranger.”

“Male or female?”

“Male.”

“What happened to him?” At his hesitation, Garrett said impatiently, “I must know the nature of the injury so I can bring the right supplies.”

“It was an accident with a firearm.”

“Right,” she said briskly, snatching up a wire basket filled with odds and ends, and dumped it out on the floor. Hurrying to a supply shelf, she began selecting bottles and putting them in the basket. Chloroform, ether, carbolic acid, iodoform, collodion, bismuth solution, cotton lint, gauze, rolled bandages, glycerin, catgut ligatures, isopropyl alcohol, metallic salts . . . “Carry this,” she said, shoving the basket at the footman. “And this.” She hefted a large jug of sterilized water and gave it to him. He curved his free arm around it, staggering slightly. “Come,” she said, striding to the entranceway, where Eliza was waiting with her hat and walking coat.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be away,” Garrett said to the cookmaid, tugging on the coat. “If my father complains about his stomach, give him a dose of the digestive tonic in his bedroom cabinet.”

“Yes, Doctor.” Eliza handed her the heavy leather doctor’s bag and cane.

The footman hurried to the front door and struggled to open it with both arms full, until Eliza darted forward to do it for him.

Garrett stopped at the threshold as she saw the plain black carriage with no identifiable insignias or designs. Glancing at the footman suspiciously, she asked, “Why is it unmarked? The Ravenel carriage has the family crest lacquered on the side.”

“It was Lord Trenear’s decision. It’s a private matter, he told me.”

Garrett didn’t move. “What are the names of the family dogs?”

The footman looked slightly affronted. “Napoleon and Josephine. Little black spaniels.”

“Tell me one of Lady Pandora’s words.”

Pandora, one of the twins, often used made-up words such as frustraging or flopulous, when the ordinary ones didn’t suit her. Despite her attempts to curb the habit, they still slipped out from time to time.

The footman thought for a moment. “Lambnesia?” he ventured, as if hoping that would satisfy her. “She said it when Lady Trenear misplaced her basket of wool knitting yarn.”

That sounded like Pandora. Garrett gave him a decisive nod. “Let’s proceed.”

The drive from King’s Cross to Ravenel House, on South Audley, was approximately three and a half miles, but it felt like three hundred. Garrett simmered with impatience as she held her doctor’s bag on her lap and kept a hand on the basket of rattling, sloshing bottles beside her. She was eager to do whatever she could for the Ravenels, who had always been gracious and kind, and had never put on airs despite their elevated social status.

The current earl, Devon, Lord Trenear, was a distant Ravenel cousin who had inherited the title unexpectedly after the last two earls had died in quick succession. Although Devon was a young man with no experience at running a large estate and managing its attendant financial obligations, he had shouldered the burden admirably. He had also taken responsibility for the three Ravenel sisters, Helen, Pandora, and Cassandra, all unmarried at the time, when he could have easily thrown them to the wolves.

At last the stately Jacobean house came into view, its squared-off shape ornamented with lavish scrolls, pilasters, arches, and parapets. For all its great size, the residence was welcoming and warm, comfortably mellowed with age. As soon as the carriage stopped, one footman was there to open the door while another reached in to assist Garrett.

“Take this,” Garrett said without preamble, handing the basket of supplies to him. “Be careful—most of these chemicals are caustic and highly flammable.”

The footman shot her a glance of suppressed alarm and gripped the basket carefully.

Garrett alighted from the carriage by herself and strode across the flagstone tiles to the front steps of the house, almost running in her haste.

Two women waited for her at the threshold: the plump silver-haired housekeeper, Mrs. Abbot, and Lady Cassandra, a fair-haired young woman with blue eyes and the kind of face that belonged on a cameo. Behind them, the grand entrance hall bustled with a sense of controlled panic, housemaids and footmen running back and forth with cans of water, and what appeared to be dirty toweling and linens.

Garrett’s nose twitched as she caught an ambient scent in the air, a taint of some kind of organic matter mixed with caustic chemicals . . . whatever its source, the smell was rank and rotten.

The housekeeper helped Garrett remove her hat and coat.

“Dr. Gibson,” Cassandra said, her pretty features drawn and anxious. “Thank goodness you arrived so quickly.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I’m not altogether sure. A man was brought here earlier by the river police, only they asked us not to tell anyone about it. He was thrown into the river, and they said when they pulled him out, they thought he was dead, but then he started coughing and groaning. They brought him here because he was carrying one of Cousin West’s calling cards in his wallet, and they didn’t know where else to take him.”

“Poor fellow,” Garrett said quietly. Even a healthy man who’d been exposed to the toxic waters of the Thames would become seriously ill from it. “Where is he now?”