by Diana Quincy
He waited to see her in hopes that her temper might have cooled a little. Filled with remorse, he was eager to talk to her, to explain that he’d never intended to harm her. He hadn’t slept well. Regret had gnawed at him since their last meeting.
Pushing the door open, he peered inside. It wasn’t much of a grocer. There was no food anywhere. Just some empty tables and shelves. And Hanna. And another man Griff didn’t recognize.
“It’s an excellent space.” The man turned in a circle staring upwards. Tall, with even features, he wore a neat brown suit tailored to his long, lanky form.
“How much of it should we leave open?” Hanna said to the man. She wore a lavender gown, her hair tied in its severe knot at the base of her neck. “We do have the office in the back for private consultations.”
“What do you think of partitions out here as well?”
She gestured with her hand. “Perhaps on this side.”
The back of Griff’s neck heated. He did not care for the obvious warmth between them. Nor for how easily their conversation flowed.
“The waiting room should be near the entrance.” She glanced toward the door and stopped short. She’d spotted him.
“Good afternoon.” He stepped inside. Closing the door behind him, he removed his hat.
“Keep it on,” she said coldly. “You’re not staying.”
“I need to speak with you.” He tried to keep the desperation out of his voice. “I can explain everything.”
“I have no interest in hearing it. Our business is concluded. We’ve no reason to speak with each other.”
He would beg if he had to. “Hanna, please—”
“That’s Mrs. Zaydan to you.” She turned away, dismissing him. “What about examining tables?” She spoke to her male companion. “How many do you think we’ll need?”
The man looked from Hanna to Griff and back to Hanna. “Two? Three?”
“Perhaps we should start with two,” Hanna said.
Griff pleaded with Hanna’s back. “I am asking for just five minutes of your time. I want to explain why I initially came to you under false pretenses. Please hear me out.”
She rounded on him, temper flashing in her dark-rimmed eyes. “I am not one of your servants who must do your bidding, my lord.”
“Anyone who’s ever met you knows that Hanna Zaydan doesn’t do anyone’s bidding but her own.” He paused. “It’s one of the qualities I most admire about you.”
“Why are you still here? I asked you to leave.”
“I am asking, humbly, that you give me a few minutes to explain.”
“So”—she tilted her head—“you understand that I do not have to speak with you.”
“You don’t, but I wish you would.”
The man interjected. “No disrespect, sir, but Mrs. Zaydan has made it clear that she doesn’t wish to speak with you.”
Griff fixed a cold stare on the man. “And who are you?”
“That’s none of your business,” Hanna snapped. “Don’t let him intimidate you, Evan.”
The man kept his gaze even with Griff’s. “He doesn’t.”
Griff ignored him. “Hanna, if you would hear me out. I need to tell you everything.”
“I would have been very happy to hear you out before I discovered what a liar you are. The only reason you want to explain anything to me now is because I caught you in your deception.”
“I know I should have been honest with you earlier but—”
“I’ve had enough.” Hanna crossed over to a table and reached for her reticule. “If you won’t leave, I will.” She marched out toward the street, slamming the door behind her.
“Now, then,” said the man she’d called Evan. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Go to perdition.” Griff followed Hanna out the door, making certain to slam it even harder than she had. He watched her walk away, her shoulders set and proud. He couldn’t force her to talk to him.
He’d have to find another way to show Hanna just how remorseful he was.
Griff stared up at the gracious redbrick town house off Cavendish Square and tried to quash the emotions welling up inside him.
It had been more than a dozen years since he’d stepped foot inside of Haven House. A place that held happy memories of his parents and sisters. But his parents were not inside and never would be again. His throat swelled. He should meet Dr. Shaw at his club. But he couldn’t risk being seen by anyone who might report back to Norman before Griff had a chance to set things right with Hanna.
Two weeks had passed since he’d last seen her. Since then, he’d called twice at her home, and she’d refused to see him. The three notes he sent came back unopened. He couldn’t force Hanna to meet with him. But this was one thing he could do for her in order to begin to make amends.
Taking a deep breath, he refocused on the house and forced himself to approach the glossy black front door. It swung open immediately.
His parents’ butler—his butler now—appeared. “My lord. Welcome home.”
“Wright.” Griff swallowed. He felt a rush of gladness. Wright was the butler of his childhood. “You’re still here.”
“Indeed, my lord. Where else would I go?”
“To an employer where a family is actually in residence?”
“Why would I do that, my lord?” The corner of the man’s mouth turned up. His face was the same, only more weathered now. Gray hair framed his lined face like a lion’s mane. “It’s a great deal less work when one’s master remains absent for fourteen years.”
Griff stared at the man. “Is that humor I detect, Wright?” Throughout his childhood, he’d never seen Wright wear anything other than an inscrutable expression. “And the beginnings of an actual smile?”
“It might very well be, my lord. It isn’t every day one’s master leaves as a boy and returns a grown man.”
He handed his hat to the butler. “I might need a moment to recover from the shock of discovering that you have feelings.”
“I do my best to conceal that weakness, my lord.”
“Your secret is safe with me.” He paused for a moment to take in his surroundings. The marble floors he’d skidded across. The curved staircase with the banister he’d slid down when his mother wasn’t around and Wright pretended not to see. As the youngest of four and the only son, they’d all indulged him far more than they should have.
Griff’s solicitor oversaw all operations and expenses at Haven House. Griff signed off on the expenditures, but otherwise knew nothing about staffing and day-to-day operations. For his own survival, he’d steered clear of this place and its memories. Until now.
“The maids have prepared your bedchamber, my lord.” The butler paused. “The master’s chamber, of course.”
His father’s chamber. “I won’t be staying,” Griff said quickly. “I am just here for a meeting.”
“As you wish, my lord.” The words were mild, but Griff thought he detected disappointment. “Once I received your note, I had both the parlor and your study prepared for your arrival.”
His study. Wright meant his father’s study. The late viscount’s private domain. A room Griff hadn’t been allowed to enter unless his father was present. “Not the study. The parlor will do nicely.” He’d never spent any time with his parents in the parlor, a formal space reserved for guests and grown-ups. It was easier to meet Dr. Shaw in a room where memories of his family didn’t cling to the walls like English ivy.
“Very good, my lord.”
Griff made his way to the parlor. A footman stood by to open the door for him. “Welcome home, my lord.”
“Thank you.” Griff paused to study the tall, well-built man in his late thirties. There was something familiar about the footman. “Felix?”
“Aye, my lord.” The man beamed. “It is I.”
“You’re still here?”
“Yes, my lord. My father served your father. And I serve you. My family has served yours for at least three gene
rations.”
“Is that right?” Griff hadn’t known that. He remembered Felix, who’d been in his early twenties when Griff was a teenager. He’d slipped Griff a cheroot more than once and had never revealed the evenings when he caught Griff stealing away to meet friends.
“I’m glad you’re still here, Felix.” His parents were gone, but Wright and Felix were part of his old life. Maybe home was more than just his parents and sisters.
“Thank you, my lord. It is a pleasure to have you back at last.”
Griff entered the parlor. It was as he remembered it. With too much furniture and an abundance of porcelain figurines and drawings of birds that his mother had so adored. He reached for one figurine on the nearest gleaming tabletop. A bluebird perched on a branch. It was cool in his hand. His father had often bought bird-themed gifts for Griff’s mother. If it’s got anything to do with birds, Caroline will love it, Papa would always say. And he was right. Mother had loved them all. Or, if she hadn’t, at least she’d pretended to.
Behind him, Wright cleared his throat.
“Dr. Shaw, my lord.”
Griff turned to find the editor of the medical journal standing beside his butler. “Dr. Shaw, come in. It was good of you to meet me here.”
“When a viscount beckons, few in my position would refuse.” He took the seat Griff indicated. “Curiosity alone would induce me to attend you.”
“Whatever the motivation, I do appreciate your coming.”
“What can I do for you, Lord Griffin?”
“I was wondering whether you’ve ever written about bonesetters.”
Chapter Eleven
Evan appeared unexpectedly and dropped a booklet on Baba’s desk. “It appears that funding our dispensary should no longer be a problem.”
“Hello, Evan.” He’d interrupted her review of notes from Annie Peele’s most recent appointment. The girl’s treatment was progressing well. Griff had stayed away. She’d half expected the man to try to accompany his housekeeper’s daughter to the appointments in order to gain an audience with Hanna. “Dare I ask what you are talking about?”
“This.”
Her gaze fell to the journal he’d dropped in front of her. “Medical Facts and Observations?”
“Have you read it?”
“No. Should I have?” She paused. “Wait, what did you mean about funding no longer being a problem? Have you found a wealthy donor?”
“No, but you have. It appears that your viscount has delivered the goods.”
She stiffened. “He is not my anything. And I’m not taking a shilling from him.”
“You won’t have to. It’s not money that he’s offering.”
“It’s not? Then what is it?”
“Your erstwhile suitor—”
“He is not my suitor.”
“—has given an interview to the most prestigious medical journal in London extolling the virtues of the bonesetter who cured him when his own former guardian, the venerable Dr. Norman Pratt, the epitome of the medical establishment, could not.”
The blood left Hanna’s face. “He wouldn’t do anything so foolish.”
“He no doubt expects you to fall at his feet in gratitude now that a viscount, one of the most respected citizens in the land, has vouched for you.” He leaned in, his hands flat on her desk. “The man put his own reputation on the line to speak up for you and your skills. I don’t have to wonder what he expects in return from you.”
Hanna barely heard him. “He shouldn’t have done that.”
Evan snatched the journal up from the desk and leafed through it. “Ah, here it is. He says he was cured by powerful manipulation and that, and I quote . . . there is no denying that Mrs. Zaydan has a gift. She seems to intuitively know when a joint, muscle or tendon is out of place.”
“Let me see that.” She practically snatched the journal from Evan. The first step is recognizing that this gift exists and could be an important component of future medical care, the author had written. Hanna felt sick. “He has no idea what he has done.”
Lucy appeared. “You’ve a visitor, miss. It’s the toff.” The maid spoke in a bored tone. She and Hanna had replayed this scene a number of times in the last fortnight. “I suppose you want me to send him away again.”
Hanna tossed the journal onto her desk. “No, I shall see him.”
Lucy straightened. “You will?”
“Please send him in.”
“Yes, miss.” Lucy shot Hanna a skeptical glance before quitting the room.
“Do you want me to stay?” Evan asked.
“No.” She couldn’t avoid Griff any longer. Who knew what damage the infuriating man could do in his quest to make amends? Or whatever he was truly after. “I shall see him alone. This is something I must take care of by myself.”
Hanna came to her feet as Griff appeared. She hated the way her heart shifted at the sight of him. Only a fool would pine for a man who’d not only lied to her but was also totally unsuitable. As a viscount, Griff was destined to wed a lady of quality, and if Hanna married at all, it would be to an Arab boy approved by her family.
And yet Hanna’s mood lifted as Griff approached.
“Hanna, thank you for seeing me.” He was handsomely dressed. Not in an extravagant way, but the fabrics and tailored pieces were more suited to the viscount he was, rather than the former soldier he’d pretended to be.
She came around Baba’s desk. “I see you’re not bothering with your disguise any longer.”
He regarded her warily. “My disguise?”
She settled her hips against Baba’s desk, her palms resting on the wooden surface on either side of her. “That tailcoat probably costs what I earn in a year.”
He watched her carefully. “Do you expect me to apologize for who I am?”
“No, simply for lying about it, Lord Griffin.”
He winced at the emphasis she placed on his true name and title. “I didn’t intend to deceive you.”
“Of course you did. You very deliberately did not tell me who you are.”
“My title is irrelevant to who I am as a man.”
“It is not meaningless in terms of the power you wield as a nobleman.”
“Influence that I have exerted on your behalf.”
Lucy returned after seeing Evan out and took her post by the door.
Griff glanced down at the medical journal on her desk. “You’ve seen the piece, then?” He regarded Hanna expectantly. “Did you like it?”
“No, I don’t like it,” she snapped. “Are you truly so removed from ordinary life that you don’t realize you’ve made me a target?” She stopped and took a moment to rein in her temper.
“I am fully acquainted with life’s hardships.” His face hardened. “I am not inured from pain and loss.”
She tapped her chest. “I stand to lose my livelihood.”
“How so?”
“You have made Dr. Pratt a laughingstock.”
“I have done no such thing.” He drew back. “I set a condition with the editor of the journal that Norman not be named in the article.”
“He doesn’t need to be mentioned. You were in his care. You sit on the board of his hospital. Everyone will know of your association. He treated your shoulder, did he not?”
“Yes, but that’s not in the piece—”
“If I had known that you were associated with Dr. Pratt, I would never have agreed to treat you that first day.”
“I don’t believe that. You would not have allowed me to continue suffering.”
“What is your relation to him?”
“Dr. Pratt? He is my guardian, my former guardian. He looked after me after my parents died.”
Hanna blinked. His guardian. Griff had lived with Dr. Pratt. She hadn’t even begun to imagine that the two men could be so close. “Was his intent to prove to all of London that I am a fraud?”
“No, that—”
“But then I actually cured you.” She gave a mirthless laugh. �
�Did you undergo a conversion? The charlatan surprised you by relieving you of your pain. Is that when you had an epiphany? Did you decide I wasn’t a fraud after all?”
“Dr. Pratt had nothing to do with this. In fact, when he learned I was seeing you, he expressed concern and warned me to stay away from you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because of the necklace.”
“The sapphire?”
“I’ve been wanting to tell you the truth. I just didn’t know how.”
“What is your interest in it?”
“The sapphire belonged to my mother.”
She froze. “What?”
“Your necklace was stolen from my mother’s body the night she was murdered.”
“Murdered?” Hanna gripped the overhanging edge of Baba’s desk. “Your mother was murdered?”
He nodded, grim-faced. “As was my father.”
“Oh, Griff.” Sorrow filled her at the thought of what he’d endured. “How awful. I’m so sorry.”
“Gor!” Lucy blurted out at the same time. They both turned to her. Lucy’s eyes rounded, and the flat of her hand flew to cover her mouth when she realized she’d spoken aloud.
“You may go, Lucy,” Hanna said.
“But I’m not supposed to leave you alone with—”
“You may go,” Hanna said more firmly. Lucy looked like she was about to object but then sullenly turned and left the room.
“Is that wise?” Griff watched after the girl before turning back to Hanna. “Won’t your grandmother object to us being alone?”
“Yes, but she’s away.” Citi was visiting her cousins. “My brothers are here for a few days. She left them to chaperone.”
“Won’t your brothers object?”
“They can barely look after themselves, much less be bothered with what I’m getting up to.” She gentled her voice. “Now, tell me about your mother’s necklace.”
“She wore it the night she died.” Pain clouded his gaze. “We weren’t even meant to be there that night. Mother and I originally intended to remain in London while Father traveled to our country estate for a couple of nights to see to some business. I convinced Mother that we should go with him. There was a friend there who I wanted to see. It’s my fault that we were even there.”