Edwin had been disappointed when his carriage had arrived the night before with only his driver. He had foolishly hoped Rayne would be inside, ready to talk, and perhaps even to tell him she’d broken her engagement and would now consider his offer of marriage.
Not one to let things rest when he wanted something, once he’d finished his breakfast he called for his carriage and directed the driver to the infirmary. He hated the nervousness that he was continuously forced to push to the back of his mind as they made their way through the traffic.
The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that he wanted Rayne for his wife. Did he deserve her? No. Did that make a difference in his plan to pursue her? No. Not one whit of a difference.
He’d been miserable and doing everything in his power to destroy his life since Lydia’s death. When he opened his eyes in the infirmary and looked at Rayne for the first time, something moved inside him, as much as he hated to admit it at the time.
And those feelings grew over the time they’d spent together. He didn’t even miss his brandy, friends, and the debauched lifestyle he’d been engaging in. It was time to move on, and he would do his best to make sure Dr. Rayne Stevens was alongside him for the journey.
He nodded to Walter who opened the door for him. “Is Dr. Stevens about?”
“Yes, sir. She is in her office.”
Edwin nodded and limped his way to the office. Although his leg seemed better each day, as long as there remained a cast on his leg, he needed the cane for balance.
“Good morning.” He studied her carefully as he made his way to the desk.
“Good morning,” she answered. Then folded her hands on the desk and stared at him. “You are here early, today.”
“Yes. I might vacillate and say the reason is so I can get an early start on your weekly bills, but you would know it for a lie.” He shifted in his seat. “How did your meeting with your father and Mr. Faulkner-Jones go?”
Rayne leaned back in the chair and tapped the desk with the end of a pencil. “Not well, I’m afraid.”
He tried to tell himself the sinking feeling in his stomach was unnecessary since she did not seem happy with the outcome, which meant…
“What does that mean?”
“Father refused to listen to my reasons for not wanting to marry Mr. Faulkner-Jones.”
Edwin leaned forward. “I don’t understand. You are a grown woman. A doctor running your own business. Why would you allow your father to bully you into something so important?”
A sudden thought almost brought him to his knees. He licked his suddenly dry lips. “Unless you’ve decided you want to marry this man?”
“No.” She sighed. “I don’t know what to say.” She turned to stare out the window at the drizzling rain casting even more of a gloom over him. “Mr. Faulkner-Jones wanted the wedding in two weeks. I managed to put it off an additional week.”
“Why put it off, Rayne? Why not just step up and say, ‘no’?”
She turned back to him and he was stunned to see tears standing in her eyes. “You don’t understand. My father has been a major influence in my life forever. I was his third daughter and he was disappointed and disgusted that my mother had the audacity to present him with another girl.
“I wouldn’t exactly say he treated me like a son—I didn’t wear pants or have a short haircut, but he did treat me differently than my sisters. While they were allowed to buy fancy ribbons and new frocks, spend time doing watercolors and embroidery, and other feminine pursuits, I was told my brain was far more important than my body, and I should just concentrate on my studies if I wanted to be admitted to a medical training program.”
“And your mother permitted this?” He was disconcerted at the manipulation her father had done to her. Even more amazing was that she hadn’t rebelled.
She offered him a sad smile. “My mother passed away shortly after my birth.”
So that answered the question as to how her father got away with what he’d done to Rayne.
“He even named me Rayne because he said that name could be considered either a girl or boy, and it would help me get past the application stalwarts who would never admit a woman to the medical program.”
Even though he’d never met the man, Edwin already detested the elder Dr. Stevens. It was one thing to encourage a child to embrace a parent’s profession, but the fervor he had exhibited, and the planning apparently from her birth, bordered on the obsessive and almost fanatical side.
“It sounds like what you are telling me is you have never stood up to your father?”
“That would be correct. I have never done anything he forbade me to do, or not do something he ordered me to do.”
“My God, Rayne. You’re his puppet! This is incredible.” He shook his head, feeling totally helpless as a few tears escaped and slid down her cheeks.
Rayne drew in a shuddering breath. “You can see why it’s not an easy thing to simply say ‘no’ to my father.”
“I understand. However, you must take a stand one day. I want very much to marry you. I’ve gone from thinking it might be a good idea to not wanting to spend the rest of my life without you. After what you’ve told me, I believe you need me as much as I need you.”
Her few tears turned into a steady stream, competing with the raindrops sliding down the window. Edwin rose from his seat and made his way over to Rayne and pulled her up, wrapping her in his arms.
As usual, he pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket it and handed it to her. She wiped her nose and leaned back to smile at him. “How can I be such a decisive doctor and then fall completely apart when my father enters my life?”
He brushed the fallen curls back from her forehead. “Parents have a tremendous influence on children. I’ve known men who had horrible, abusive fathers who turned into horrible, abusive men themselves. Others have gone the other way once they met a woman who opened their heart.”
She grinned, looking very much like a little girl with clumps of tears on her eyelashes. “Are you suggesting I’ve opened your heart?”
“Sweetheart, you have no idea what you’ve done to my heart. As well as my soul.” He bent his head and kissed her with all the pent-up feelings he’d been holding back. Now that he was determined to make her his, no matter what they had to do to accomplish it, he would have her for his own.
Her lips were sweet, full, moist, as well as salty from her tears. The scent from her hair drove him crazy, and he wanted more than anything to find the nearest bed and do all the things to her he’d been thinking and dreaming about for weeks.
He pulled her even closer and felt her heart pounding right next to his. Two hearts beating in rhythm. He pulled back and scattered kisses along her jawline, then the incredibly soft skin under her ear.
A slight moan from her lips brought him back to her mouth where he continued to plunder while his hands ran up and down her sides, dipping in and out along her curves.
Rayne’s breath hitched as Edwin’s mouth covered hers. This. This was what she wanted, what as a young girl had hoped for. Did she love him? Most likely not, but there was a strong attraction and she grew to admire him more every day. She believed he cared for her and despite his prior activities he was no longer the man who had been dumped at her front door and he was on his way to recovering the man he’d been.
He pulled her closer, so her breasts were pressed up against his hard chest. Despite his raucous lifestyle he had managed to maintain some of his musculature. He nudged her lips and she opened, not sure what he intended to do.
Her knees gave way as he swept into her mouth, touching, tasting, teasing. He held her tighter around her waist which was a good thing because her knees decided to turn to jelly.
“Wot ‘re ya doin’?”
Edwin and Rayne jumped apart as Glory’s voice broke into Rayne’s fog. She grabbed his arm and held on fearful she would collapse at his feet. She was breathing heavily and, goodness, she’d even forgotten where she was. She stared at the little girl, too confused and befuddled to answer.
“We were testing a new medicine. How would you like to visit with Mrs. Foster in the kitchen? It smells to me like she just took some biscuits out of the oven,” Edwin said as calm as a feline sleeping in the sun.
Her eyes lit up. “Lor’ luv a duck! Vank you, mate.”
Before they could respond, the urchin turned and ran off, calling to Mrs. Foster.
Rayne could not believe how quickly Edwin had recovered from their kiss. If threatened with her life, she couldn’t put together a complete sentence right now. Had it not affected him the way it had her? He’d probably kissed so many young ladies that she was just another woman—another kiss. She glanced sideways at him as he watched Glory leave the room and decided that was not so.
He was flushed and breathing hard. He’d been affected. She grinned. Good.
“We really must do something about the girl’s speech,” Edwin said as Glory disappeared through the doorway.
Thankful for the young girl’s interruption so she could regain some semblance of dignity, she was happy to grab onto a diverting conversation. “That is another issue that needs to be addressed. We need to make some sort of permanent arrangement for the girl. Mrs. Foster has been wonderful about keeping her busy helping in the kitchen and has even tried to teach her a bit of reading, but Glory needs more than that. She needs a home. A family.”
“Yes.” Edwin adjusted his cravat and looked as though he was also relieved to have another subject to discuss. “Do you have any ideas?”
“I would love to keep her here with me, but when I was a child raised at the infirmary, we had a lovely housekeeper who made it all seem like a normal home. Given a choice, I would not raise children here.”
“And if you marry?”
She snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, were I to marry Mr. Faulkner-Jones, I would have no married life. No husband. No children. He intends to leave right after the wedding for parts unknown while I will return to my duties and he would pop back once in a while to check on me.”
Edwin stared at her for almost a full minute his mouth agape. Then he shook his head. “The men in your life have certainly not inspired a great deal of warmth and fondness in you, have they?”
She shrugged. “Honestly, I had never given it a great deal of thought. It was always, study, study, study and then work.”
“No fun, no beaux, no dances, no parties?”
“Now you’re making me out to be some poor soul who had a terrible childhood. I did other things. I played with my sisters, we had games and dolls. We even did tea parties. But once we all got older, their interests changed from my interests.
“As far as Glory is concerned, I wrote to one of my sisters to see if she could take her in.”
“She would do that?”
“I believe so. Mary Beth has been married for more than ten years and has only one child, a boy, who is eight years. Thomas is the light of her life, but she’s always wanted at least one more child. I believe she would jump at the chance to raise Glory.”
“That seems like a perfect solution. Where does she live?”
“Her husband owns equestrian property in Staffordshire. He buys, trains, and sells horses. He is a baron and holds some prestige in the area. Mary Beth is a wonderful mother, and I believe she has a tutor who comes to the house for Thomas.”
“Do you think Glory will have a hard time adjusting to leaving here?”
“No. Not at all. Don’t forget the poor girl came to us from the streets. As long as I assure her that she will be safe and well-taken care of by my sister I’m sure she will be happy to go.”
“Dr. Stevens, a man is at the door with a woman who has been shot. They don’t want to take her as far as the hospital.”
“Oh, goodness, yes, have them bring her in.”
Two men carried in an older woman, the loose clothes on her body evident that she had been larger at one time. Blood dripped on the floor in a trail from the doorway to the table Rayne had them place her on.
Rayne bent over the woman and spoke over her shoulder to the man who brought her in. “Did you witness the shooting?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The other man stepped forward. “The woman was walking along Avon Street when a carriage stopped alongside her. A man got out and pointed a gun at her. She yelled for help and ran, but before anyone could do anything, the man shot her in the back, then jumped back into the carriage and it sped away.”
“How terrible for the poor woman,” Rayne said. She looked over her shoulder at the man. “Can you help me turn her?”
Edwin had also moved to her side, so with the two men and Rayne, they managed to get the patient turned onto her stomach.
Whoever shot the woman had done so at close range since the wound was larger than Rayne expected. “Miss Kincaid, please gather some things for me to clean the injury and then sew it up.”
Without hesitation, the nursing assistant moved around the infirmary, placing cloths, sewing implements, tweezers, bandages, and salves into a clean pan, and then brought them to Rayne. She reached up to the shelf over the sink and pulled down another pan and headed to the kitchen, no doubt to fill it with the boiling water Mrs. Foster always kept handy for tea and emergencies.
The two men shuffled their feet, obviously uncomfortable now they’d done their Christian duty and brought the woman to a doctor. Rayne turned from the woman. “Thank you very much for bringing her in.”
They both nodded and quickly took their leave.
Once Miss Kincaid returned to the infirmary, she said, “We must get her dress off.” Luckily, the dress buttoned down the back, so they were able to remove it and push it down to her hip, along with her chemise and stays.
It was an ugly wound and Rayne feared it might affect the woman’s legs, since it was at the bottom of her spine. A bit of prodding told her the bullet was still in her back. She would do her best to remove the bullet, stop the bleeding, clean out the wound from particles from her clothing, and then sew her up. Whether this would affect the woman’s ability to walk was yet to be seen.
Once she completed her examination, the woman groaned and opened her eyes. She looked around, the pain she suffered evident on her face. “Where am I?”
Rayne squatted so she could look in the woman’s eyes. “I am Dr. Stevens, and you are in my infirmary. You were brought in with a bullet wound to your back. Do you remember being shot?”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes and a lone tear leaked down her cheek. “I remember, and I know who did it.”
“Do you want us to summon the police?”
It took a minute for the woman to answer, almost as if she were wrestling with the answer and not sure what to do. “No.”
Rayne leaned back on her heels and glanced up at Edwin who studied the patient, also. Although quite odd to not want the authorities involved, Rayne did not pursue it. Perhaps in a day or so she would change her mind. “What is your name? Do you have family I should contact?”
The woman began to shake her head, then stopped. Most likely any movement caused additional pain. “No family.” She hesitated for a moment, then said, “My name is Mrs. O’Leary.”
Mrs. O’Leary. Why did that name sound familiar?