Theo pulled away immediately, and Gayle did her best to settle in and arrange her skirts to be warm, but also to give the decidedly taller and more substantial passenger the room he needed across from her.
“Who is the patient?”
“One of my younger patients, Miss Renshaw. His name is Jackson Blythe. He’s sixteen, and I’m sad to say, this may well be his last night with us. His heart is failing him and there’s not a remedy to be had.” He leaned forward and gazed directly into her eyes. “It may be a long night, but I need you to stay close and do whatever you’re told. No debates tonight, Miss Renshaw.”
“No debates,” she whispered.
The drive went quickly, and Gayle was left to her thoughts as Rowan made no conversation. The excitement of setting out was muted by the news that this would be a deathbed vigil, but she deliberately kept her chin level, determined to prove to him that she could hold her own.
When the carriage stopped at a rust-colored narrow row home, Gayle had to bite her lower lip to keep from asking a dozen questions, but they were up the steps and inside the door within a single breath or two, and all Gayle could do was watch as the scene unfolded.
“Thank God, you’re here! I cannot face it! Not another minute of this, Dr. West! Please, don’t think less of me, but I can’t be in that room . . . I just can’t . . .” Mrs. Blythe broke down in miserable tears. “I can’t look at him like that anymore! I want my boy back! I want my son!”
“Of course you do,” Rowan reassured her, nesting her hands inside his gloved ones. “We all want it.”
“He’s refused to eat or drink for days and I . . . God help me, I cannot . . .” She put a palm against her lips, biting her own flesh to stop the words. “He doesn’t want to even try anymore!”
Rowan nodded. “Calm yourself if you can, dear Mrs. Blythe. I’ll see to him now.”
“He asked for you and I was . . . so relieved to think that you might come, but then—you’ll think less of me! What mother would leave him . . . in that state? But I can’t—” She pulled her hands away, her spine stiffening. “My sisters arrived two days ago, you see, to help, and they are convinced I should . . . be in there! And I’m the worst of mothers because I can’t!”
“You are the very best of mothers, Mrs. Blythe,” he interrupted her softly, signaling the women behind her for their assistance. “I never fail to see it and I never will, how good you are to Jackson and how much he loves you. Come, let your sisters be with you.”
The older of the two reached Mrs. Blythe’s elbow and addressed Rowan. “Shouldn’t we all sit with him?”
Mrs. Blythe moaned, but Rowan answered quickly. “I would prefer to examine Jackson privately, and as he’s asked to speak to me, it would be a courtesy if you’d allow it. For now, if you would take your sister to her own room to recover, and perhaps some tea? I can have my assistant make an infusion for you to help you calm yourself, Mrs. Blythe, if you wish.”
“Y-yes. Thank you.” Mrs. Blythe yielded to the hands that directed her, her hands covering her face as if she no longer wished to see where she was going or any of her surroundings. “Tea would be lovely.”
Mrs. Blythe’s sisters each took one of her elbows, the pair of them like gray geese in their plain gabardine dresses moving in unison to pull her away from the doctor.
Gayle watched them go, wobbling down the hall, when Mrs. Blythe began to wail. “He was going to be the man of the house! He was going to take care of me when I got old! He was . . .”
They quieted her, and a closed door muffled the rest of her litany on a lost future.
Rowan’s steady voice anchored her back to the present, and Gayle was grateful for his instructions. “The kitchens are there. Mattie will show you the way, won’t you?”
A young, pale-faced maid bobbed a curtsy from the end of the hall.
Rowan went on, “Make an infusion of valerian and chamomile for Mrs. Blythe, but not too strong.” He opened his bag and handed her two packets of herbs before removing his coat and hat to hang them by the front door. “Wash your hands with soap while you’re there and then come find me.”
Gayle removed her own coat and scarf and then dutifully followed the maid to the kitchen and used the herbs, boiling down an infusion to add to a cup of tea for the poor lady. Mattie reassured her that a bit of honey would be welcomed, and Gayle was able to knock on the bedroom door and pass along the tea to one of the waiting sisters without too much of a stir.
Rowan wasn’t too difficult to find; she followed the sound of his voice as the bass of it carried down the stairs. She found the open doorway and the young man they’d come to see.
“Who . . . is . . . that?” Jackson asked, his eyes bright with fever as they latched onto her face. “She’s . . . beautiful.”
“This is Miss Gayle Renshaw, my new assistant.” Rowan smiled and in a stage whisper continued, “I brought her because I knew you’d feel better just looking at her.”
“I . . . do.” Jackson’s innocent approval of the plan was crowned by a playful wink in her direction. “Will she . . . hold my . . . hand . . . and say . . . sweet things?”
“She has a talent for just that, my boy.”
Her first instinct was to protest, but one look at Jackson robbed his words of insult.
“At last.” Jackson sighed, closing his eyes for a minute. “I knew . . . dying . . . would have . . . its advantages.”
Rowan didn’t correct him, and instead checked his pulse. “You’re a natural flirt, Mr. Blythe.” He glanced back at Gayle. “You see? I’ve never been able to make her blush and smile like that.”
“You . . . are too . . . old. Clearly, she prefers . . . a younger man.”
Rowan reached under the covers to feel Jackson’s feet, frowning at the chill he felt there despite the pile of feathered quilts on top of them. “You’re probably right. Would you like Miss Renshaw to come sit with you?”
Jackson shook his head. “Not yet. I want you . . . to tell me . . . about the yogis.”
“Again?”
“Again.”
Rowan nodded, taking Jackson’s cold hand into his. “They are so mystic and wonderful, Jackson. I couldn’t believe my own eyes, but I saw a man control his own heartbeat, slowing it down until I was sure his soul would have left his body. But there he sat, for long hours, as peaceful as a still pool. Somehow, with his mind and will alone, his body became a simple, elegant instrument that he could manipulate at will.”
“Control . . . his . . . own . . . heartbeat,” Jackson repeated reverently in a whisper, his own breathing labored and uneven. “And it wasn’t . . . a trick?”
“We were on a riverbank. There were no curtains or mirrors. They even allowed me to check his pulse. It wasn’t a trick, Jackson. Some things are simply true, even if we don’t understand them.”
“I . . . like . . . that.”
“My translator told me it was a form of prayer and that the holiest of men could achieve a state where they felt no pain. They could sleep on beds of nails and balance boulders on their heads that would crush an ordinary man.”
“No . . . pain . . .”
“That’s right. And without pain, do you see how they became invincible?”
“Yes.”
“So, we’ll try it, you and I.”
Gayle was sure her heart would break at the sight of Rowan tenderly leaning over the boy, their eyes locked onto each other as they dismissed the world and there was nothing left but the care that Rowan had for him and the gentle courage of a dying child. Jackson’s eyes shone with trust and love, and Rowan never flinched. Hours passed with the pair of them sustained with stories of India and mythical young princes interspersed with longer and longer silences.
Finally, Rowan examined his charge again, listening to his chest and then feeling his feet and hands as another wave of restless thrashing passed while Jackson fought to stay. Only when it had passed did Rowan push away for a minute, opening his leather bag to retrieve a small
blue glass vial.
She recognized it as laudanum and put her fingers over her lips to stop a hundred questions from tumbling out. It wasn’t the right time to ask him exactly what he hoped would happen as Jackson began writhing in agony trying to catch his breath. His color had worsened since their arrival, a bluish gray settling in under his eyes and around his lips.
He’s dying and all I can do is watch!
Rowan put a palm on Jackson’s chest and waited for the spasm to pass. “Here, drink this and we’ll breathe together and banish this pain, Jackson.”
The tonic was dutifully consumed, and then it was long minutes where Rowan seemed to almost breathe for him when Jackson couldn’t.
“No pain,” Rowan whispered.
Jackson nodded and smiled. “I . . . am . . . invincible.”
Rowan enfolded his hands around the boys’, trying to warm them one last time. “You are more than that, Jackson Blythe.” Jackson’s eyes closed with a smile lingering on his lips, one last rattling breath giving way to a terrible silence that swallowed hope. “You are so much more.”
Rowan’s voice cracked a bit and he closed his eyes before releasing the boys’ hands and arranging him in a peaceful repose. He stood stiffly and composed himself. “Bring Mrs. Blythe in. Be quick about it, Miss Renshaw.”
Gayle rushed to the door, opening it to an almost prostrate Mrs. Blythe, who at a single glance at Gayle’s tearstained cheeks burst into hysterical screams and pushed her way into the room to throw herself across her child’s body.
It was the worst kind of scene, and long, chaotic moments before any order was restored. Only with the help of a draught of another tonic from Rowan’s bag was Mrs. Blythe finally coherent, and with her sisters’ assistance, led sobbing from the room to wail like a banshee in the privacy of her own chambers.
Rowan was like a quiet general, giving instructions to the housekeeper to send for the undertaker and where to inquire for services. He ignored Gayle entirely, and she was left to helplessly trail after him, weakly offering her tearful condolences and what little assistance she could before he’d packed up his bag and escorted her from the house to their waiting carriage and a patient Theo.
“I’m so sorry, Dr. West.” She spoke as soon as the carriage was in motion, her cheeks still wet with tears. “It was . . .”
“It happens.” His reply was terse. “What generally doesn’t happen is the new experience of having an assistant standing around wringing her hands and crying like a child in the corner! How in the world can you comfort anyone if you’re busy dabbing your own eyes like a sentimental fool?”
“I . . . I apologize for . . . crying, but he was . . . so young and so . . . sweet . . .”
“He was a patient and his death was inevitable. He was, truthfully, nothing and no one to you, Miss Renshaw. He was not your child! He wasn’t your favorite patient! It’s not as if you’d cared for him since he was small!” His voice was harsh, and Rowan’s stomach clenched at the rough sound of it in his ears. I’m angry at myself. I’m grieving and I’m lashing out at her for betraying her feelings when I wanted nothing more than to drop to my knees in there and out-scream that woman. “You have to maintain an emotional distance if you’re going to do your patients or yourself any good.”
“I shall strive to pretend that I have ice running through my veins, Dr. West,” she snapped back. “It’s a trick you must be sure to teach me.”
“I will! Don’t think for a minute that anyone will be thrilled at the sight of a teary-eyed woman clutching a doctor’s bag! Those tears will get in the way and cost someone his life, Gayle. You’ll waste precious minutes mourning an unfair universe or wrestling with your feminine revulsion at loss, and you’ll kill someone with that hesitation! If you cannot control yourself, Miss Renshaw, then you should pack your things and beg off!”
Silence invaded the small confines of the carriage and he waited, dreading the conflict and wishing he could take it all back and repair the conversation. True or not, he was sure he’d gone too far only because his heart was stinging from his own wounds.
The carriage stopped, and Rowan opened the door to climb out, reaching back to help her down. He dismissed a weary Theo with a single wave and escorted her up the steps into the unlit brownstone. He’d half expected Carter to defy him and still be up and at watch in the entryway, snoozing next to a candelabrum, but there was no one to greet them in the predawn darkness.
He lit a taper and turned to hold out his arm. “Here. I’ll walk you up to your floor.”
She took his arm, her fingertips barely resting on his arm, as if the physical contact was loathsome. Up the dark staircase, they walked without speaking, and he wasn’t sure what to say after their hurtful exchange in the carriage. He should have been gloating at that glimpse of her tender heart and feminine weakness—instead his own pain had almost spoiled his ruthless plan. But he had no doubt he’d won the day and she would be gone on the morrow.
He stole a glance at her in the candlelight, moving gracefully next to him, the flickering light accenting the regal lines of her profile and the sensual turn of her neck and shoulders. She is so impossibly proud. I feel like a ham-fisted idiot trying to break an Arabian without killing its spirit.
They reached the landing on the third floor and he stopped, fighting the urge to beg forgiveness or explain himself.
Finally she spoke from the shadows, her voice soft and steady. “You’re right, Dr. West. What good would I be to my patients weeping at every turn? Jackson needed you to be strong for him, and you were. It is a lesson I will never forget.”
He held out the taper for her to take. “It is a lesson I should have found a better way to teach. But, here, take the light and try to sleep.”
He started to go, but she stopped him.
“Rowan? Did those men in India really stop their own hearts?”
He turned back and she was so beautiful that his own heart seemed to arrest its rhythm in a bittersweet irony that made everything inside of him feel tangled and hot, restless and hungry.
“They did.”
“It wasn’t a trick?” A single tear rolled down her cheek, a wayward diamond in the candlelight that drew him closer and made him forget everything but the need to comfort her.
She was there and he was standing near enough to inhale the fragrance of her skin and absorb the heat of her body inches from his in the cool of the house.
She’s leaving—she’ll be gone—and I’m not sure I’m glad for it.
He was trapped in place, held by a desire to touch her and all too aware that he shouldn’t. Ever so slowly, she tipped her head back as if inviting the kiss that seemed inevitable to him now.
Her breath fanned his chest and then his neck, and he looked down into her eyes, speaking aloud without realizing it. “Some things are simply true.”
“Even if we don’t understand them,” she finished in a whisper.
He bent down, intending to take only a gentle, fleeting sample of the soft satin of her lips, but at the first brush of heated flesh to his, all his good intentions vanished.
It was the lightest touch at first, dreamlike contact that she could have credited to her imagination—the hot silk of his mouth passing over hers.
But then there was a fire that overtook denial.
This was no dream.
The pressure of his lips increased, and she matched it and yielded to it, all at once. Her mouth parted to taste him, drawing against the supple flesh of his lower lip and testing it gently to savor the sensation of her first kiss. It was not the chaste contact she’d envisioned. This was an act that evoked a fever in her blood and made her aware of every inch of her own skin, as if by tasting his lips she’d awakened her own senses.
His warm hand moved up her back to hold her close, and then he caressed her cheek with his other hand, his fingers gently trailing up her jaw line only to slide into her hair to cradle the back of her head, holding her a willing captive to the onslaught of passio
n she was greedily lapping up.
His tongue moved to explore her mouth and she welcomed it, the salty cinnamon of him pushing her hunger into a spiral of need that she didn’t fully recognize and couldn’t control. Arcs of electric heat began to connect the hardening peaks of her breasts to a languid pool of restless wanting between her thighs.
Her breath mingled with his and she marveled that she wanted nothing but this. More of this. More of him. More of whatever could come from the sustenance that he alone provided—for this felt like a feast of taste and touch and she took all that was offered only to beg for more.
More. Yes, please!
His strong arms encircled her, pulled her even closer against the hard, firm plane, and she moaned at the delicious feel of her feet leaving the ground by the merest inch. Just one kiss and I am already lost.
The jarring sound of the candle holder striking the hard wooden floor and the sudden plunge into darkness as the candle was extinguished pulled her back to an awareness of the world beyond his arms.
Gayle pushed against him, shame and confusion tumbling in as cruel substitutes for the warm security of his embrace as he instantly released her. She was grateful for the darkness as tears threatened, and she fled to the laboratory and firmly closed the door behind her.
Heart pounding, she waited—unsure of what she could say if he followed, or if she would have the strength not to open the door and beg him to kiss her again. Her breath came in a ragged, uneven rhythm that had nothing to do with fear, and she leaned back against the door to wait.
The faint sound of his footsteps retreating down the dark stairs gave her the answer.
Gayle closed her eyes to fight the urge to step out and call him back. But she knew better.
Enough. Enough lessons for one day.
The laboratory and her room were directly above his personal apartments, a fact he’d omitted in that first tour of the house. He could hear her pacing, a frenetic energy that was unsettling to track. He was always aware of her movements, thanks to the aging floorboards, and every late night of study had been telegraphed beneath her feet without her knowledge.
Ecstasy Wears Emeralds Page 8
