Raphael snorted and started to retort. Then, as if he heard a summons no one else did, he turned to the shadowy corner of the room where the hooded figure stood. “Permit me to confer with my brother a moment.” He strode to Gabriel, where they held court in rapid, quiet French.
After several bombastic and crude gestures, he returned, wearing a carefully blank look. It was impossible to tell if he’d won or lost.
“Gabriel and I have come to a conclusion,” he announced from between clenched teeth. “It seems we wish to make a charitable donation, enough to build a handful of hospitals.”
“Oh come off it,” Dorian Blackwell called from the dark. “No one is that altruistic.”
“I do not disagree. Consider it a payment, Doctor Titus Conleith, for a surgery you will perform in the future. Buy the best instruments. Attend the most important lectures and instructional theaters on the reconstruction of bones and skin. And pray that your skills are what they are reputed to be when next we darken your doorstep.”
Before Titus could ask more, the man clicked his boots and bowed. “We’ll be in touch.” Curiously, he paused to pluck his handkerchief from Felicity’s lax fingers, and smirked over at Mercy’s dumbstruck expression. “Surely that fulfills the requisites for a grand gesture.”
She merely gawked at him, slack-jawed, and uncharacteristically speechless.
Instead of waiting for an answer, he turned to the silent figure in the corner, and they strode into the darkness.
After a pregnant moment, Dorian gathered himself and strode toward the door. “I’m going after them.”
“Don’t.” Morley held him back.
“But, Titus can’t serve as surgeon to two gangsters. It just isn’t done.”
Morley eyed him with a hound-like petulance. “I thought you were legitimate.”
“I am… mostly.” Dorian sucked his teeth. “Even so, that upstart bastard irks me.”
“Only because he reminds you of yourself not so long ago before you supposedly reformed.”
Titus could do nothing but stare at Nora as their banter faded into the background.
She loved him. She’d just said so. She did all this… for him.
For his forgiveness. For a chance.
A latent growl worked its way from deep in his chest and burst forth as he dropped his weapon and bag, lunged for her, and swept her into his arms.
“Titus,” she gasped, flailing for a moment before locking her arms around his neck to secure herself as he marched toward Blackwell’s carriage. “What the devil are you doing?”
“Something I should have done ages ago,” he gritted out.
Felicity rushed after them, but Morley seized her elbow and redirected her. “We’ll take another coach,” he said, exchanging a knowing look with Blackwell.
Titus nodded at the driver, who jumped down and opened the door so he could unceremoniously plunk Nora down on the luxurious seat and follow her inside.
The Long Road
Nora did her best to head off a lecture. “You don’t have to condescend to me about the foolishness of this endeavor, but I couldn’t have known our hired security would go running at the first sight of trouble,” she began as Titus tucked his long legs into the coach and shut them in together, creating a tight oasis of luxurious cobalt.
“Are you hurt?” he asked in a carefully bland and measured voice.
The question warmed her. “I’m all right. They never touched me.”
“Good.” Instead of uncoiling at her answer, his jaw locked together as if to keep from roaring. “Now what in God’s name do you think you were trying to—”
She put up a staying hand. “I know you’re angry—”
“You can’t begin to imagine what I’m feeling right now.” He broke off, a muscle working furiously just below his temple as he simply stared at her, his eyes glinting with an emotion she was truly incapable of defining.
Nevertheless, Nora absorbed his features with all the appreciation of a prisoner glimpsing the light of day for the first time in years. His golden eyes were haunted by shades, and deeper grooves sprouted from their edges. Ashen skin stretched more tightly over his dramatic cheekbones, and a few days’ growth of beard widened his jaw from masculine to dangerous. His clothes were rumpled and he smelled of whiskey.
He looked truly awful.
He was the most beautiful man alive.
And he’d come for her. It was all she could do not to grin in the face of his temper. To beam with a light she was afraid could not last.
“What did they mean?” he rumbled in a voice edged with lethal calm. “Mercy said you saved me… again.”
Nora allowed guilt to pull her gaze down to where their knees almost touched. “Mercy says a lot of things.”
“And your father, he said he deserved my anger…why?”
A little tremor coursed through her. She’d promised herself to never burden him with this truth, but perhaps she’d been mistaken. “I think… you know why.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
Nora collapsed back on the seat, letting her head fall against the damask velvet as she affixed her stare somewhere above his unruly hair. “I married William all those years ago because…Papa threatened you if I didn’t.”
His fists curled on his thighs, and his every muscle bunched, but Nora forced herself to continue.
“He vowed that he’d make certain no school would accept you and no household would employ you. That he might have you thrown in prison or worse. He went so far as to threaten to put me in an institution, as well. It all seemed so hopeless, and you had such dreams, such ambition and promise. I—I loved you too much to condemn you to that. I didn’t think sacrificing a girl you’d only been attached to for three months would be so bad as losing everything you ever—”
“Three months,” he echoed, the syllables drawn out carefully as he leaned forward. “Three months? You only loved me for three months. I loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
That snapped her gaze back to his solemn features. “Impossible. You were ten when we met.”
“And you were the dream I didn’t dare to allow myself to hope for, even then.”
Defeat followed quickly on the elation he’d evoked with those words. Nora dropped her head in her hands and hid, so she didn’t have to look at the mess she’d made of everything. “And now…I’m a nightmare.”
His knees hit the floor of the carriage, and he reached for her wrists. Pulling her hands away from her eyes, he slid his fingers over her jaw until he held her face cupped in his palms. He looked down at her as if she were a revelation, his gaze suddenly tender, though his features remained taut with an agonizing emotion. “My entire life I’ve been certain that I loved you considerably more than you would ever love me, and I’d made my peace with that. But… God, Nora, if I’d only known—”
Those two words. If only. They’d driven her mad before.
She shook her head, new tears sliding down her burning cheeks and landing in his palms. “I died the day you left. I’ve done so many things in my life I regret, but hurting you that night has always been my most egregious sin. I never even cared if my subsequent actions doomed me to hell, because hell is living in a world where you were close and yet impossible to reach. And now I fear that even with all I’ve been through, nothing’s changed. I am still ruined.”
“Not to me.” His grip tightened, his thumb silencing her as he traced the outline of her lips. “Listen, Nora. I am merely a doctor, but as you see, I have powerful friends. Your father couldn’t wish to have a circle of influence like mine. The Chief Inspector. Dorian Blackwell and his wife, the Countess Northwalk. The Duke and Duchess of Trenwyth. The Earl and Countess of Southbourne… I could go on—”
“Don’t you understand,” she interrupted. “These are the people I could drive away with the scandal attached to my name.”
To her utter astonishment, a rumble of mirth vibrated from him. “You don’t know these p
eople, but you will. And they’ll support you. They’ll dare the rest of the ton to shame you. And even if they did, Nora, we’d keep other society. This is a whole wide city full of people. Hang everyone but you and me.”
For some humiliating reason, this only made her weep harder.
He thumbed away her tears, only to have them replaced with new ones. “You said something to me that has been weighing on my conscience…”
“What’s that?” she sniffed, trying to regain control of herself.
“That you don’t know who you are. That you don’t feel that you are deserving, but I know you, Nora. Every man in your life has made you feel unworthy but, darling, you are kind and self-sacrificing. You’ve always made yourself responsible for others in your care. Your family, your bastard of a husband, your sisters. I could lift that burden from you. I could care for you, so that you might turn your kindness elsewhere. You can find whatever purpose suits you. And I’ll be right beside you, if you’ll let me.”
Overwhelmed, Nora gripped his arms, intent upon pulling him away, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not when he was right in front of her, kneeling between her knees, saying the words that filled the empty well of her soul. “I…don’t—I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Why not?”
“Because every time I’ve dared myself to hope, it’s been ripped from me… and I allowed it. I facilitated it. When I think of the time we’ve lost, of all the things I could have said and done differently…” She laid her palms on his chest, searching for the thrum of his heart and finding it there, strong and steady. “I realize it was irresponsible to come for the gold, but I wanted to do something to fix what I’d broken. I was desperate and reckless…”
He broke her words off with a searing kiss, his lips a warm and reassuring pressure against hers, parting her lips so she could taste the salt of her tears. He kept the kiss gentle and voluptuous, his tongue slick and soft against hers, making no demands. Asking nothing. Just offering. Coaxing.
He pulled back before the kiss could deepen any further, though the pace of his heart had quickened beneath her palm.
“God, I love you,” he breathed against her mouth, the hands bracketing her face roaming to cup her head and smooth down her neck. “I didn’t need a grand gesture or a crate of gold any more than you need ask my forgiveness. I’m not angry, I should never have been angry. Medicine is my calling, but you are my life. Nora.” He kissed her temples, “Nora…” her eyelids and brow, “my lovely Nora.” He smoothed his lips over her cheek until he returned to her mouth. “You are the greatest treasure. The sparkle beneath a grey sky. You are the beauty no one else can compare to.”
“How blind you are,” she said wryly, expecting any moment to wake from a dream.
He pulled back to spear her with a look full of so much affection, she nearly expired from the dizzy optimism it evoked. “I can only see you. Here. Right in front of me. We decide our futures now. You and I. Nora, will you marry me?”
She gripped his shoulders, suddenly frantic. “Yes. Today. Right now. Before anything happens to stop it.”
He chuckled, fondly caressing her hair. “Nothing will happen. Nothing will take you from my arms. Never again. Not if you come to me with your worries and burdens. Not if you let me in to help you. I want to protect you. I want that to be my right and privilege. The whole world could collapse tomorrow and all I’d want is to experience it with you. Would you promise to let me?”
Ardent emotion robbed her of her words, so she simply nodded, her fingers curling in his lapels to draw him down for another luxurious, whisky-flavored kiss. One that deepened and heated as his fingers ventured possessively over her skin.
Nora sighed into his mouth, releasing with the breath a tremulous marvel at the machinations of the day. She’d been heartsick only last night. And now her love was in her arms.
She couldn’t bear to think of the dismal years and treacherous road they’d had to take to find each other.
But as his fingers began to caress their way up the silk of her stockings, she was very glad, indeed, of the long road back home.
Epilogue
Six Months Later
Titus applauded with the exuberance of the crowd as his beaming wife handed a pair of scissors to the Duchess of Trenwyth. Once the ribbon was cut and a picture taken for the press, the citizens of Southwark were treated to refreshments and libations, even a few happening by on their way from work.
Though the venture was his, Titus was more than content to step away from the hubbub around the attractive and wildly popular duke and duchess. He allowed the press of people to crowd him out, until he found himself leaning against a stoop across the street, hovering by an alley.
This was a year of dreams realized, and he selfishly wanted a moment to savor it.
Many souls gathered to see that Alcott’s Southwark Surgery had expanded to a proper clinic with gleaming instruments and a brand-new surgical theater with a staff of three noted physicians and six capable nurses.
Similar surgeries in Whitechapel, South Bank, Lambeth, Greenwich, and Hampstead were under construction. In thanks not only to an influx of, admittedly, ill-gotten gold, but also the patronage of several philanthropists and Titus’s own profits from Knightsbridge.
And in the center of it all, was Nora.
At first, of course, their marriage had been met with a chaos of scandal, most of which they avoided with a honeymoon in Italy, France, and a lovely yachting trip to Greece.
Upon their return, the Duchess of Trenwyth and her influential Ladies’ Aid Society clutched Nora to their collective bosoms and began a full-scale society campaign the likes of which even the Prime Minister would be proud.
He and Nora had taken up riding again in Italy, and had purchased several mounts to keep in the city. They’d escape the office for a bracing gallop, and he’d watch her hair fly out behind her, her lips parted in the smile that graced her mouth more readily these days. Her sister Prudence promised to join her just as soon as she could climb on a horse after her and Morley’s child arrived.
With the Duchess of Trenwyth at Nora’s side when he could not be, trotting through the park was again a friendly venture. She’d become more of a celebrity than a pariah, and her narrative had all the salacious notes of Lady Godiva, a rebel rather than a ruined woman.
There were naysayers and gossips, of course. And her father and mother had all but publicly disowned her, but Nora met the pain of it with her head held high and her heart open. On top of her philanthropic endeavors, she worked by his side, providing comfort to the sick and protection to women, coordinating escapes in some cases and empathetic advice in others.
She was happy with their life—with him—or so she kept insisting as they lay entwined each night, slick and exhausted and no less ecstatic for it.
And he was glad, even though happiness didn’t even come close to describing what he felt.
He was…complete.
Life wasn’t perfect; in fact, chaos and calamity commanded most of his days. Suffering and death were part of a surgeon’s existence. But no matter the misery he was subjected to, she was the soothing caress that had become the balm to his soul.
They laughed together. Teased and tormented each other. Spent lively meals with friends and made plans to travel and take holidays.
It was a life many men could only dream of… and here he was living it.
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips and a wash of awareness warmed his skin, alerting him that she was nearby before she melted from the crowd.
A vision in a frothy scarlet gown with a matching black hat, she drew the eye of every man in her vicinity as she glided toward him with a radiant smile.
“It’s a bracing burden to have such a lovely wife, but I suppose it is a cross I must bear,” he purred as she melted into his side and tipped her head to rest her temple against his shoulder.
“Why do you think I came searching for you?” She beamed up a
t him, black cherry eyes twinkling with mirth. “The ladies of Southwark were beginning to gather in this direction, I had to come and stake my claim. They’ll be fabricating all sorts of ills to have you examine them.”
“You’re patently ridiculous.” He dropped an adoring kiss into her hair. “We should leave,” he whispered. “I’m already bored of this.”
She laughed, knowing they both would stay for the duration, and collapse in a depleted heap at the end of the day. It was a game of theirs, to plan their social escapes. One they’d started to play when the anxiety of a gathering would overwhelm her in the early days of her return to society.
She scanned the crowd milling about. “All we’d have to do is melt into this alley. Where should we go, husband? Should we ride in the park?”
“I’d love a ride,” he growled against her ear. “But we might get arrested for indecency if we do it in the park.”
She swatted his chest, then froze.
“What is it?” he asked, instantly on alert.
Instead of answering, she tugged on his sleeve, gesturing with her gaze, across the way to the fringes of the gathering.
A hooded figure stood staring right at them, his preternatural stillness seeming to make him invisible to those who teemed around him.
Gabriel Sauvageau.
Titus stared back, not in challenge but in acceptance. He dipped his chin in greeting.
Gabriel did the same before melting into the crowd and disappearing into an alley.
“What do you think he wanted?” she asked. “We’ve not seen or heard from the Fauves since Sheerness. But I worry about them sometimes… about what they’ll ask you to do.”
Titus shook his head, still staring at the corner around which the man had disappeared. “They didn’t have to leave the gold. I don’t care who needs medical attention, I would give it to them. It’s my responsibility to treat a wound. Doesn’t matter what sort of person they are, that’s for better men than I to judge.”
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