Page 40 of Again, Scoundrel

Chapter

17

Violet awoke the next morning with a lightness in her heart and a skip in her step. She was up early, before the rest of the household except the servants. She dressed in her most sensible dress, gathered two bags of supplies, and scrawled a note for her mother that she was headed out for a walk.

The mothers and her cousin had a full day of social calls ahead of them, so she didn’t worry they would make note of her prolonged absence from Chester House. And even if they did, she wasn’t sure she minded. She was giddy with anticipation at the thought of practicing medicine, and she didn’t think she could squash it even if she wanted to.

Violet needed something to do, and a long day of work was exactly the thing to ease the restlessness and boredom of the last week. And, if she were honest, to erase the memory of Alistair Crawford from her mind. The look of him standing in front of her, so desperately trying to make apologies for something he had not understood had kept her up for too many nights.

She knew she should not dwell on him though, and she counted off the reasons in her head as she prepared for the day:

First, he drank too much.

Second, he was erratic. Always pulling her toward him and then pushing her away.

Finally, and most importantly, he could not give her what she wanted.

That night at Waverly House showed her that he could never understand what her profession meant to her. And the ache in her chest at this realization would not let her ignore it.

Nor could she forget the ache between her legs that came every time she thought of the time they’d spent together in the garden. But that was a different matter entirely.

Violet nodded to the butler and slipped out of the house quietly so as not to rouse the others. She longed to immerse herself back into her own world of study, work, and medicine. Those were all she needed.

Those and perhaps a better grasp of London’s geography. The twisty, turning streets confused her, so unlike the organized layout of her Manhattan. She walked and walked, her supplies growing heavy in her hands and a faint line of perspiration forming on her upper lip. Her feet ached something fierce, and she had just begun to worry that she might never make it to her destination, when she finally spotted a hack to flag down.

“Are you sure, miss,” the driver asked when she read the address to him. “That’s not a part of town for the likes of you, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“I’m sure, thank you,” Violet said and slipped him an extra coin to quell any further questions.

“As you like.”

He shrugged as his fingers wrapped around the money. It was enough to keep him silent until they reached Covent Garden. But when the hack pulled up in front of the low, dark building that matched the address Violet had given him, the driver asked once more if she was positive of the address.

Violet said she was, although peering outside of the hack to the dirty street below, she questioned herself. She didn’t know who this Andrew McGann really was, and it was potentially very foolish of her to stroll into this building on his word alone that his sister ran a medical clinic. She was unaccompanied. Her family had no idea where she was. She couldn’t find her way back to Chester House without help.

Well. You’re already here. So, you may as well get on with it.

She really couldn’t take yet another day of sitting inside, jabbing herself with embroidery needles. Nor could she miss the opportunity to do what she loved.

She alighted from the hack and jutted out her chin, glancing up at the sky as a menacing wall of gray clouds rolled in and obscured the hot morning sun that had been out when she left Mayfair. She hadn’t brought an umbrella, as Catherine was always urging her to do, and she suddenly felt very alone, standing on the filthy street in an unfamiliar part of town when it was about to rain.

There was nothing for it but to brush away her misgivings, square her shoulders, and resolutely approach the building in front of her that matched the address on the card. She pounded on its door until a small upper section slid open and a pair of impossibly green eyes stared at her.

“Hello,” she said to those eyes. “I’m looking for a Mr. McGann. Is he available?”

The green eyes blinked once and then a voice from behind the door said something completely unintelligible.

“I’m sorry,” Violet said. “I can’t understand you.”

The voice said something again that was even harder to understand.

“Could you let me in?” she asked. “I believe it’s going to rain.” The sky had darkened to an angry shade of gray.

“Please,” she added as the first of the big, fat raindrops began to fall on her head.

The voice said something once more that Violet could at least tell was disgruntled, and the door swung open.

“Come inside then,” the woman standing behind it said.