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“As soldiers in Her Majesty’s service,” she said acidly, “has it occurred to you that your sacred duty is to protect a woman’s honor instead of violating it?”
Damn straight.
“Come out and show yourself,” she said aloud to the unseen presence, although she felt a bit foolish. “There’s no need to lurk like a rat at the back of the cupboard. I know you’ve been following me for weeks.” A masculine voice came from a direction she couldn’t detect, nearly causing her to jump out of her sensible shoes. “Only on Tuesdays.”
😏
“You could have given up.” “That is never an option,” she assured him, and he smiled.
“You’ve no need to fear my touch,” Ransom said. “I was only going to help you across the path.” “It’s not fear.” Garrett hesitated before adding a touch sheepishly, “I suppose my habit of independence is too firmly fixed.”
His smile lingered. “Ah, but that’s the price of it, if you want to hear an Irish brogue. You’ll have to put up with a bit o’ sweetheartin’.” “Sweethearting?” Disconcerted, Garrett resumed walking. “Compliments to your charm and beauty.” “I believe that’s called blarney,” she said crisply, “and I beg you to spare me.”
“’Tis a clever, stirring woman you are,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her, “and to be sure I have a weakness for green eyes—”
😌😌🫶🏻
After that first encounter, Ethan had taken care to avoid Garrett Gibson, knowing she would be trouble for him, possibly even worse than he would be for her.
Everything about Garrett Gibson was . . . delicious. The dissecting gaze, the voice as crisp as the icing on a lemon cake. The compassion that drove her to treat the undeserving poor as well as the deserving. The purposeful walk, the relentless energy, the self-satisfaction of a woman who neither concealed nor apologized for her own intelligence. She was sunlight and steel, spun into a substance he’d never encountered before.
One hour in Garrett Gibson’s company, and then he would never approach her again. But he wanted, needed, craved those minutes alone with her. He would hoard the memory for the rest of his days.
“Slowly. I’ve had my nose broken before, and it’s not an experience I’m after repeating.” “How did it happen?” she asked, envisioning some life-threatening situation. “Were you quelling a riot? Stopping a robbery?” “I tripped over a bucket,” he said wryly.
“I believe you,” Garrett said gently. “Your mother was mistaken. It is not men’s nature to commit violence against women, it’s a corruption of their nature.”
“I’m a former nurse as well as a physician. I daresay I’ve seen as many erections as a brothel madam.” She frowned. “But never one that had anything to do with me.” Helen hastily crammed a linen napkin against her lips, muffling a laugh.
“Even in the unlikely event that Mr. Ravenel and I formed an attachment, it would never work. I can’t live in the country.” Garrett tried a spoonful of sorbet, letting the tart, sugary frost dissolve into a cold flood on her tongue. “Among other things, I’m afraid of cows.”
So random 😂
Her father snorted and lifted the gazette to continue reading. His voice floated out from behind the rustling pages. “Just because you can look a man in the eyes when you lie doesn’t mean you’ve fooled him.”
“One more toast: Neque semper arcum tendit Apollo.” They drank again. “What does that mean?” Garrett asked. “‘Not even Apollo keeps his bow drawn all the time.’”
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.”
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.”
“Come,” he said. And she went with him, neither asking nor caring where they were going.
Garrett relaxed her usual vigilance, knowing that not a soul would dare approach her in the company of a big, healthy bruiser who was so obviously at home in the streets. In fact, he was the one who made other people fearful.
“I didn’t attack them. There was a bit of a scuffle at first, but that was only to get their attention while I spent a few minutes blistering their ears.” “You broke in to scold them?” she asked skeptically.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “This is the first time a man’s ever given me flowers.” “Ah, darlin’ . . .” His perceptive gaze searched her face. “Do you intimidate men so badly, then?” “I do, I’m horrid,” Garrett confessed, and a mischievous laugh broke out. “I’m independent and opinionated, and I love telling people what to do. I have no feminine delicacy. My occupation either offends or frightens men, or sometimes both.”
Ransom stared at her as if spellbound. “A queen, you are,” he said softly. “I could travel the world the rest of my life, and not find another woman with half your ways.”
A woman was singing somewhere nearby—one of the street entertainers, performing a ballad in Gaelic. Her voice was supple and airy, weaving an intricate melody that fell on the ear like an audible heartbreak.
“You really mustn’t worry: it’s not as if we’re keeping the crown jewels in here.” “You’re the jewel,” he said gruffly.
She was the one person he didn’t want to lie to.
“Forget me,” he whispered after their lips parted. And he left swiftly, without looking back.
A humbling thought occurred to her. When you meet the right man, the list of things you would never do suddenly becomes much shorter.
“I’m not irritable,” Ethan snapped.
🤔😂
“One of the reasons I entered the medical profession is so I would never have to be charming.” “A goal you’ve achieved with great success,” Havelock informed her sourly.
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and extended it to her. “I don’t need that,” Garrett said irritably. “Yes, you do.” “I’m not weeping.” “No. But you have pencil shavings on your forehead.”
Garrett laughed. “Carys, I would rather catch a cold than a husband. I have no wish to marry anyone.” Carys gave her a wise glance. “You will when you’re older.” Helen buried a smile amid the little rag-curl bundles on the child’s head.
Garrett smiled down into the girl’s upturned face. “There will always be people who say your dreams are impossible. But they can’t stop you, unless you agree with them.”
How about “treasonous bastard”? Garrett thought. But she kept her expression perfectly bland as she said demurely, “A pleasure, sir.”
“I prefer you to everything,” he said gruffly, and bent to take her mouth with his.
“What do you most want to see? The Tower? The British Museum?” His head lifted. “I’m looking at it,”
His gaze caressed her face. “Garrett Gibson . . . as long as I’m on this earth, I’ll want to be wherever you are.”
“You have the makings of a fine criminal mind, Doctor.”
Holmes and Watson vibes ✌🏻🫶🏻🕵️♀️
Disgruntled at having to leave his bed in the middle of the night, Felbrigg came down to his study with a dressing robe thrown over his nightclothes. With his ginger whiskers, short, spindly build, and the flaccid nightcap with a tasseled end dangling over the back of his head, he looked like an elf. An irate elf.
“I’ve dreamed of this for so long,” he whispered. “The first time we met, part of my brain said, ‘I want that one.’”
“The first moment I saw you, I knew you were my share of the world. I’ve always loved you. If I could choose my fate, I’d never be parted from you. Acushla . . . pulse of my heart, breath of my soul . . . there’s nothing on this earth more fair and fine than you. Your shadow on the ground is sunlight to me.”
“For God’s sake, woman—ahh, damn it, what is that?” “Morphine,” she said, depressing the plunger slowly to release the medicine into the thick muscle of his upper arm. Ethan subsided, realizing there would be no stopping her. “You haven’t one romantic bone in your body,” he muttered.
😂
“If I do nothing for this man, I’ll never be of any use to anyone,” Garrett burst out, trembling from the force of her emotions. “It would haunt me forever. I couldn’t live with the thought that there was a chance to save him but I didn’t take it. You don’t know him. If our positions were reversed, he would do anything for me. I have to fight for him. I have to.”
☹️😭🫶🏻
“No, you’ve already managed to ruin a moving deathbed scene. I couldn’t wait to hear what came after ‘your shadow on the ground is sunlight to me,’ but then you started giving orders like a drill sergeant. You might as well operate on Ransom: we won’t get any more good lines out of him tonight.”
West is everything.
“Mrs. Abbot, I’m going to the kitchen to wash. You’ll want to warn the housemaids to shield their eyes from the sight of my manly torso.” Kathleen, Lady Trenear, came to Garrett. “Whose housemaids would he be referring to?” she asked dryly. “Ours will be crowding into the scullery to obtain the best possible view.”
“Torsion forceps. Wound forceps. Suture forceps. Amputating knife. Double-edged amputating knife. Catlin knife. Resection knife. Middle pointed scalpel, curved scalpel, straight and curved scissors—” “You’ll have to tell me as we go along. My mind went blank after ‘amputating knife.’”
“What a specimen,” she heard Ravenel say flippantly. “He has muscles in places I didn’t know there were muscles.”
“Sorry. I’m used to operations on farm animals. If he were a plague-ridden cow, I would understand exactly what was happening.” “Mr. Ravenel, if you don’t stop talking, I will chloroform you and do this by myself.”
“Take my blood,” the earl said readily. “No,” Ravenel said, “I insist on being the donor. If he lives, it will annoy him far more.” He smiled slightly as his gaze met Garrett’s.
“I’ve been loading rock into horse carts,” he said. “Which suits my intellectual capacity perfectly.
“I would preen and bask in your admiration of my vein,” Ravenel said, “if I didn’t see that three-inch needle attached to one of those tubes.”
