Hello Stranger Page 5

  “Where did you learn to do that?” Garrett asked.

  “After I left K division, I was sent away for special training.”

  “Away to where?”

  For some reason Ransom seemed reluctant to answer. “India.”

  “India? Good heavens. For how long?”

  “A year and a half.” Seeing her interest, Ransom explained cautiously, “I was instructed by an eighty-year-old guru, who was as limber as a lad of sixteen. He taught a fighting system based on animal movements, like the tiger, or the snake.”

  “How perfectly fascinating.” Garrett would have liked to ask more, but he motioned for her to face away from him.

  “This is what to do if someone seizes you in a bear hug.” He hesitated. “I’ll have to put my arms around you.”

  Garrett nodded and held trustingly still as his arms enclosed her. His grip was firm but not crushing, taking enough of her weight that her heels nearly began to lift from the floor. His body was hot, almost steaming inside the fencing jacket. She was surrounded by the strength of him, breathing in the salt and heat of male exertion, while the motion of his breathing pressed against her rhythmically.

  “Do bears actually hug like this?” she asked breathlessly.

  “I don’t know,” Ransom said, his amused voice close to her ear. “I’ve never been close enough to one to find out. Now then, you’ll want to keep me from picking you up and carrying you off. Shove your hips back, and use all your weight to plant your feet hard on the ground.” He waited until she had complied. The movement had obliged him to lean over her, altering his center of gravity. “Good. Take a sidestep, and that will give you a clear path to deliver a hammer-blow to the groin.” He watched as she knotted her fingers into a ball. “Not like that. Has no one ever taught you to make a fist?”

  “Never. Show me.”

  Releasing her, Ransom turned her to face him. He took her hand in both of his, molding it into the proper shape. “Curl your fingers and cross your thumb over them. Don’t tuck it inside, or you’ll break it when you hit someone. And don’t clench so tight that your little finger starts to collapse inward.” He tested the tension of her closed hand, running the pad of his thumb across her knuckles. The dark fans of his lashes lowered. She thought he would let go then . . . but instead . . . his fingertips slowly began to explore the miniature valleys between her fingers, the buffed surface of her nails, the soft flesh at the base of her thumb. Garrett’s breath caught as he touched the tender inside of her wrist, where a pulse beat light and fast.

  “Why were you named Garrett?” she heard him ask.

  “My mother was convinced that I was going to be a boy. She wanted to name me after one of her brothers, who died while he was still young. But she didn’t survive my birth. Above the objections of friends and relations, my father insisted on calling me Garrett anyway.”

  “I like it,” Ransom murmured.

  “It suits me,” Garrett said, “although I’m not certain my mother would have approved of giving a masculine name to a daughter.” After a reflective pause, she surprised herself by saying impulsively, “Sometimes I imagine going back in time, to stop the hemorrhage that killed her.”

  “Is that why you became a doctor?”

  Garrett pondered the question with a slight frown. “I’ve never thought about it that way before. I suppose helping people could be my way of saving her, over and over. But I would have found the study of medicine fascinating regardless. The human body is a remarkable machine.”

  His fingers stroked over the back of her hand as if he were smoothing out a tiny silk handkerchief.

  “Why did you enter into law enforcement?” she asked him.

  “When I was a boy, I always liked watching the constables when they brought the prisoner van every morning. Big, strong chaps, in their blue uniforms and shiny black shoes. I liked the way they brought order to things.”

  “What made you want to be one of them?”

  Ransom drew the tip of his forefinger gently over each of her knuckles, a bit furtively, as if it were something he knew he shouldn’t be doing. “My father earned five pounds a week. It was good pay, especially as we were allowed to live in a watch-house on the prison grounds. But even so, there were times when we couldn’t make the money stretch. When Mam worried that I’d had naught but potatoes and milk for weeks, or too many bills had gone unpaid, she would slip away to visit a married gentleman she had an arrangement with. Later Da would see the new soles on my shoes, or a fresh stock of candles and coal in the house . . . and he would beat her without a word. Then he beat me for trying to stop him, and he wept while he did it. The next day, all three of us would carry on as usual. But I couldn’t forget about it. I kept telling myself that someday I’d have the power to stop Da, or any man, from hurting Mam. To this day, when I see a woman being threatened or harmed, it’s like setting flame to gunpowder.”

  Seeming to realize he was still holding Garrett’s hand, Ransom abruptly let go. “I was too young to understand what Mam had done with her gentleman friend, or why Da—who fair worshipped her—should have beaten her for it. Or why Mam wouldn’t let me speak against him. Any husband might be moved to thrash his wife, she said. It was the nature of men. But she hoped I would be better than that.” He gave her a troubled, worn-around-the-edges look. “I told her I would never strike a woman, and I never have. I’d cut off my arm first.”

  “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’d like to think so,” he muttered. “But I’ve seen too much evil to be sure.”

  “So have I,” Garrett said simply. “Nevertheless, I know I’m right.”

  “I envy your certainty.” What a smile he had, like something that had just been unleashed.

  She’d never talked like this with a man in her life. The conversation was easy on the surface, but beneath . . . it reminded her a little of the feeling she’d had the day of her first classes at the Sorbonne. She’d been terrified and exhilarated by the world of mysteries about to be revealed.

  “We’ll have to end the lesson soon,” Ransom said reluctantly. “We’ve gone overtime.”

  “Have we?” she asked, bemused.

  “It’s been almost two hours. We’ll practice the last move once more, and that will be the end of it.”

  “I’m sure there’s much more for me to learn,” Garrett said, facing away from him. “When shall we plan to meet next?”

  Ransom’s arms slid around her from behind. “I’m afraid I have obligations that will keep me busy for a while.” After a long pause, he said, “After today, you won’t see me again.”

  “For how long?”

  “Ever.”

  Garrett blinked in surprise. She turned in the circle of his arms to face him. “But . . .” She was mortified to hear the plaintive note in her voice as she asked, “What about Tuesdays?”

  “I can’t follow you on Tuesdays any longer. Soon I’ll have to go to ground for a while. Maybe for good.”

  “Why? Are you planning to save England? Defeat an evil mastermind?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Oh, twaddle. Anything you say will be shielded by doctor-patient confidentiality.”

  Ransom smiled slightly. “I’m not your patient.”

  “You could be someday,” Garrett said darkly, “considering your occupation.”

  His only response was to turn her around to face away from him.

  A bleak feeling crept through her as she complied. How could it be that she might never see him again? Did it really have something to do with his job? Perhaps that was a convenient excuse, and the truth was that he had no interest in her. Perhaps the attraction was only on her side. Garrett was appalled to feel a knot of disappointment forming in her throat.

  “Remember to push against—” Ransom began, when the door opened unceremoniously.

  They
both looked at the doorway, where Monsieur Baujart stood glowering. “I need to use this room for a scheduled lesson,” the fencing master announced. His eyes narrowed at the sight of them locked together. “Is this the way you’re teaching Dr. Gibson to fight for her life?” he asked sarcastically.

  Garrett replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “This is a defensive maneuver, monsieur. I’m about to deliver an incapacitating strike to the groin.”

  The fencing master regarded them both with a stony gaze. “Good,” he grunted, and the door closed smartly behind him.

  Before Garrett could continue, she felt Ransom press his face against the back of her shoulder, chuckling like a mischievous boy in church. “Now you’ve done it,” he said. “Baujart won’t be satisfied unless I limp out of here in agony.”

  A reluctant grin crossed her lips. “For the sake of England, I’ll have mercy on you.” As he had taught her before, she pushed her hips back and leaned forward. The fit between them was close and compact, their bodies aligning like puzzle pieces. Her mind went blank as she felt the pure visceral pleasure of his weight and warmth over her.

  His arms tightened, and there was a quiet catch in his throat, as if he weren’t certain whether to breathe in or out.

  In the next moment, he had released her and collapsed to a seated position in an uncharacteristically clumsy movement. His long arms curled around his bent legs, and he rested his forehead on his knees.

  Alarmed, Garrett lowered to her knees beside him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Strained muscle,” he said in a muffled voice.

  But it appeared more serious than that. His color was high, and he seemed on the verge of hyperventilating.

  “Do you feel dizzy?” Garrett asked in worry. “Light-headed?” She laid her palm against the side of his face, testing his temperature, and he jerked away from her touch. “Let me check your pulse,” she said, reaching for him again.

  Ransom snatched her wrist, his gaze meeting hers in a blaze of unearthly blue. “Don’t touch me, or I’ll—” Breaking off, he rolled away and rose to his feet in a single easy motion. He went to the opposite wall and braced his hands against it, his head lowered.

  Garrett stared after him, her jaw sagging.

  Before he’d turned his back, she’d caught a glimpse of something that was most definitely not a strained muscle. It was a different kind of problem altogether.

  As the fencing trousers displayed so flagrantly, he was aroused. Prodigiously, impressively so.

  Color invaded Garrett’s face until her cheeks felt scorched. At a complete loss for what to do, she remained kneeling on the floor. All her skin felt tight and seared, and she was filled with a sense of . . . well, she didn’t quite know what it was . . . not embarrassment, although her complexion had turned beetroot red. Not pleasure, exactly, although her nerves thrummed with giddiness.

  She had never been a woman whose presence excited the male ardor. Partly because she’d never cultivated the skills of flirtation and feminine charm. Also because when she first met a man, she was usually jabbing him with suture needles or injection syringes.

  “Would . . . would it help if I fetch a glass of cold water?” she dared to ask, in a timid voice that didn’t even sound like hers.

  Ransom replied with his forehead leaning against the wall. “Not unless you pour it down my trousers.”

  A strangled laugh was wrenched from her throat.

  He turned to give her a sideways glance then, a flash of hot, infinite blue, conveying the force of a desire as immolating as a lightning bolt. Even with Garrett’s reams of knowledge about the workings of the human body, she could only begin to comprehend all that was contained in that blistering look.

  His voice was dry and fractured with self-mockery. “As you said, Doctor . . . there’s a part of every man that’s untamed and unsubdued.”

  Chapter 5

  “What did he say after that?” Lady Helen Winterborne whispered across the tea table, her blue-gray eyes as round as silver florins. “What did you say?”

  “I can’t remember,” Garrett confessed, amazed to feel her face heating up even now, three days later. “My mind turned to mush. It was so unexpected.”

  “Had you never seen a man . . . in that state?” Helen asked delicately.

  Garrett gave her a sardonic glance. “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.

  As was their weekly habit, they had met for lunch at the renowned tea room of Winterborne’s department store. The tea room was a serene refuge from the heat and bustle of the day, a tall-ceiled, airy room decorated with frothy green potted palms, the walls lined with mosaics of blue, white, and gold tiles. The main floor was crowded with ladies and gentlemen clustered at the round tables. Each corner of the tea room featured an inset alcove where the table was set back enough to allow for private conversation. As Winterborne’s wife, of course, Helen was always seated at one of the alcove tables.

  Garrett had been friends with Helen ever since she’d been hired as one of Winterborne’s staff physicians. She had quickly discovered that not only was Helen kind, sensible, and loyal, she could also be trusted to keep her mouth shut. They had a great deal in common, including a commitment to helping those less fortunate. In the past year, Helen had become the patroness of several charities benefitting women and children, and worked actively for reform causes.

  Recently Helen had insisted that Garrett start attending some of the fundraising dinners and private concerts she and Winterborne hosted. “You can’t work all the time,” Helen had told her in a gentle but resolute tone. “Now and then you must spend an evening in the society of others.”

  “I’m in the company of people every day,” Garrett had protested.

  “At the clinic, yes. But I’m referring to a social evening, when you put on a nice dress, and make small talk, and perhaps even dance.”

  “You’re not going to try matchmaking for me, are you?” Garrett had asked suspiciously.

  Helen had given her a chiding smile. “There’s no harm in making the acquaintance of a few unmarried gentlemen. You’re not opposed to the idea of marriage, are you?”

  “Not exactly. But I’ve never been able to see how my life could accommodate a husband. He couldn’t be the sort of man who insisted that the household revolve around his needs, nor could he expect me to be a traditional wife. He would have to be as unconventional as I am. I’m not sure such a man exists.” Garrett had shrugged and smiled wryly. “I don’t mind being ‘on the shelf,’ as they say. It happens to be a very interesting shelf.”

  “If he’s out there,” Helen had told her, “you certainly won’t find him by staying at home. You’re coming to our next dinner, and that means we must have a new evening dress made up for you.”

  “I have an evening dress,” Garrett had said, thinking of her sapphire brocade, which was a few years old but had worn like iron.

  “I’ve seen it, and it’s very . . . nice,” Helen said, damning the garment with faint praise. “However, you need something more festive. And lower cut. No women our age wear high-necked evening gowns—those are only for young girls or dowagers.”

  Acknowledging that fashion was not necessarily her forte, Garrett had agreed to visit the store’s in-house dressmaker, Mrs. Allenby, after tea with Helen today.

  Her thoughts were drawn back to the present as Helen regained her composure and murmured, “Poor Mr. Ransom. It must be dreadfully embarrassing for a man to be caught in that state.”

  “No doubt it was,” Garrett said, nibbling at a miniature sandwich made of a nasturtium leaf and cream cheese pressed between two thin slices of French roll. But Ransom hadn’t seemed embarrassed. A ticklish sensation wove through her as she recalled the look he’d given her. A starving-tiger look, all desire and instinct. As if it
had taken every last flicker of his will to hold himself back from her.

  “How did the lesson end?” Helen asked.

  “After we had changed into our street clothes, Ransom met me outside, and hailed a hansom cab for me. Before I climbed into the seat, he thanked me for the time we’d spent together, and said he regretted very much that we couldn’t meet again. I can’t remember what I said, only that I extended my hand for him to shake, and he . . .”

  “He what?”

  Fractious color rose in her face. “He . . . kissed it,” Garrett managed to say, remembering the sight of his dark head bent over her gloved hand. “It was the last thing I expected. That big, blue-eyed ruffian doing something so gentlemanly . . . especially after we’d spent the past two hours grappling and slamming each other all around the fencing room.” A gesture so tender, it had left her stunned and speechless. Even now, the thought of it sent flutters of pleasure and heat through her. It was madness. With all the patients she had examined and operated on, all the people she had held and comforted, nothing had ever felt so intimate as the pressure of his lips on her glove.

  “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it,” Garrett continued. “I can’t keep from wondering what it would be like if . . .” She couldn’t say the rest of it aloud. She began to fiddle with a tiny sorbet spoon. “I want to see him again,” she confessed.

  “Oh, dear,” she heard Helen murmur.

  “I don’t know how to reach him.” Garrett slid her a guarded glance. “But your husband does.”

  Helen looked uncomfortable. “If Mr. Ransom says he can’t meet with you, I think you should respect his decision.”

  “He could visit me on the sly, if he wished,” Garrett pointed out irritably. “The man skulks around London like a stray cat.”

  “If he did meet you in secret, where would it lead? Or rather, where would you want it to lead?”