“With all due respect, your physician is not me.”
An arched brow told Ian exactly what the earl thought of the comment. To many, Ian’s words might seem more than a little conceited, but if they’d been in Ian’s shoes these last several years as he cleaned up the messes left scattered about by patients clutching onto superstitious cures and physicians unwilling to reassess antiquated practices, then they might feel the same. He’d witnessed firsthand just how wrong simple treatments could go.
The men stared one another down for several tense minutes before the earl, rather surprisingly, capitulated rather than throw Ian out on his ear.
“Very well,” he groused. “My sister is upstairs in her sitting room. You have permission for no more than ten minutes of her time; that should be more than sufficient.” It wasn’t a question. “Francis will show you the way.” A raised finger signaled the silent manifestation of the butler at Ian’s side. “He will see you out when you are finished.”
The banknotes were dropped back into the desk drawer before the earl’s attention was quickly shifted to another stack of papers atop his desk. Ian was summarily dismissed and, biting his tongue, he sketched a quick bow and followed the butler from the study.
Together, they traversed the hallway and climbed the thickly carpeted stairs to the third floor. Everything Ian saw spoke of many generations of wealth and privilege. Paintings several centuries old graced alcoves and gold-gilded fixtures were scattered throughout. This was certainly not a household that burned anything less than the finest beeswax candles; there was not so much as a hint of the acrid smoke of cheap fuel. The plush carpet runner made their movements all but entirely silent. Its rich navy and burgundy hues swirled beneath their every step, underscoring the frivolity of the class.
Ian was pondering as much when he was shown to a private sitting room. The walls were papered in delicately patterned rose-pink and ivory. Lacey curtains framed tall windows on the far wall, against which sat a delicate cherry wood writing desk.
“Dr. McCullom!”
Ian’s attention snapped to his patient where she sat in a cloud of gauzy daffodil-colored skirts, her injured leg elevated upon a pillow embroidered with greenery and rosebuds. Ian had all but convinced himself that his memories of her beauty were exaggerated, born of uncharacteristically fanciful musings, but that had been the boldest of lies. Lady Juliette with her midnight hair and unnaturally captivating eyes was stunning, indeed.
And when she smiled at him, his lungs froze in his chest.
“I wasn’t expecting you to call today.” She smiled in a warm greeting which revealed dimples in both of her smooth cheeks, and set aside her book. Despite her injury, she still appeared as composed and elegant as a queen upon her throne.
“I did say I would call upon you to review your progress.”
“So you did.” Her smile and the flash of her pearl-white teeth actually made his knees weaken. “Please! Do sit down.” She gestured to the nearby chair. “Allow me to send for some refreshments.”
“I fear I must make this visit brief,” Ian declined, though it was the last thing he wanted to do. “His Lordship made it quite clear I had only ten minutes of your time with which to perform my examination and be on my way.” He spared a glance at the porcelain-framed clock upon the mantle. “And I have only six of those minutes remaining.”
She emitted a breathy laugh through her nose in response. It was far from proper, but Ian found it immensely charming. “Ethan loses track of time when he works. He’ll hardly notice if you overstay by a few minutes.” Ian sincerely doubted that the earl would be so flippant about having another man in his house and dancing attention upon his sister, but he decided to take Lady Juliette’s word for it. He strode over to the chair to which she’d gestured and set his bag by his feet. She then requested the disapproving butler tug upon the bellpull. An intricate dance was performed in which the request for refreshments was conveyed and a suitable chaperone in the form of the housekeeper—a woman of slightly beyond middling age with a granite face and steel-gray hair beneath her cap—sat in the corner like a watchful gargoyle.
It wasn’t long before two maids returned with a full service of tea, shortbread, and small roast beef sandwiches carved into dainty triangles. It would forever escape Ian how efficient and well-prepared these households were. Could they have possibly begun their preparations as soon as he’d set foot in the door? How else could the tray have been ready with such expediency?
“Allow me,” he said when Lady Juliette leaned forward to pour for them both. A man who had been born to nothing and lived a simple life, it always made him supremely uncomfortable to be served by others. It was bad enough that the maids had scrambled to serve this repast, he couldn’t very well defer to societal norms and allow Lady Juliette to inconvenience herself and prepare their tea. His conscience wouldn’t allow it.
She seemed taken aback by the gesture but gladly accepted the cup and saucer after he’d added a splash of milk and a single cube of sugar per her instructions.
As he sat back in the impossibly dainty chair, he noticed that the book she’d been reading was, indeed, in Russian.
“Vam nravitsya vasha kniga?” he asked, tilting his chin toward the book on the arm of the sofa;Are you enjoying your book?She’d moved on from Bogdanovich and was—rather impressively—tackling Karamzin’sThe Pantheon.
Lady Juliette’s remarkable eyes widened and her lush mouth split into a devastatingly beautiful grin. “Da! Mne ochen' nravitsya!”Yes! I am very much!“I have read many of the originals the author compiled and translated into his native tongue, so it has been interesting to compare the texts.” Her eyes glowed with delight. “It’s all rather elegant and flowing.Ty govorish' po-russki?” She asked if he spoke Russian.
Ian winced and replied in English. “Passably.”
“More than passably,” Lady Juliette gushed, inordinately pleased to have found someone else who spoke the language.
“Not nearly as well as you, my lady. You must be fluent if you are reading a novel.”
The blush on her cheeks was more than becoming, it was beguiling. “Languages are a bit of a hobby of mine,” she admitted. “I’ve always had an ear for them; my parents and my brother have helped me cultivate it with tutors. I find I enjoy reading literature written as the authors intended. This one presents a particularly interesting linguistic comparison.”
A smile toyed with the corner of Ian’s mouth. “Quelles autres langues connaissez-vous? Français?”What other languages do you know? French?he asked, the lilting sounds rolling off his tongue.
“Mais bien sûr!” she replied brightly;But of course!
“Y habla español también?” Ian asked if she spoke Spanish as well.
“Naturalmente!” she answered with a grin.
“Sicuramente non parli anche italiano?” Having spent so much time in Italy, this last was one language with which he was quite familiar and confident in his pronunciation.
