by Diana Quincy
“You have a strange way of showing it.” She edged back away from him. “How did Palk get into the house?”
“There was a faulty window in the music room. I told Palk where it was.”
“Yet you allowed Griff to believe the killer came in through the side door he’d left unlocked.” Rage knotted her throat. “How could you be so cruel?”
A wild light gleamed in the doctor’s eyes. “I couldn’t exactly tell him the truth, could I?”
Hanna’s stomach turned. But she forced herself to remain calm. “I need a drink to steady my nerves. Can I pour you one?”
“This is not a social call, in case you have not noticed.”
“I assure you that I have noticed. That is why I would like some whiskey.” In reality, she did not consume spirits of any kind, but Dr. Pratt wouldn’t know that. “I need to settle my nerves.”
“Very well. It sounds like we could both use a drink.”
Evan stowed whiskey in the bottom desk drawer in the office. The dispensary was now almost completely enveloped in darkness. Hanna reached for a lantern to illuminate the way. She contemplated throwing the lamp at him while she made her escape.
But Dr. Pratt snatched it up. “Allow me.” The words were laden with contempt. The flame flickered as the lantern swayed.
He followed her back to the office. With trembling fingers, she took out the whiskey and poured them each a glass. She inched closer to Dr. Pratt and offered the drink, positioning herself so that he’d have to straighten his arm to take the whiskey.
When he did, Hanna seized her chance. She dropped the glass, letting it crash to the floor, and grabbed Dr. Pratt’s forearm with both of her hands.
He stumbled backward, struggling to wrest his arm away. To shake her off. “Get away from me, you bitch.”
But Hanna was strong. Thanks to years of yanking people’s bones and joints into place. And, although Dr. Pratt didn’t realize it yet, she already had him at a disadvantage.
Grasping his wrist in her left hand, she quickly slid her thumb under his palm and tugged his arm toward her to keep it straight.
“Unhand me,” he bellowed, trying to maneuver away.
“I don’t think so.” Hanna stepped closer, twisting his arm until she was by his side, pushing down above his elbow, putting all of her body weight and as much strength as she could muster into the action. The awkward position of his arm and shoulder forced Dr. Pratt to bend over at the waist, his arm high up in the air. He was in pain and at Hanna’s mercy.
She had none.
Using her body weight and exerting all of her strength, she pushed down on his arm above the elbow until she heard the crack.
Dr. Pratt collapsed to the floor with a scream of agony. Just as she’d expected. However, she had not accounted for the lantern, which he threw across her desk, igniting a stack of Baba’s files that Hanna had yet to put away.
Fire exploded on the desk, fueled by the ledgers. The flames jumped to the woodwork. Hanna rushed to Dr. Pratt. “Get up,” she said urgently. “We have to get out of here.”
Pratt was still moaning. “What have you done to my shoulder?”
“I dislocated it.” She tried to haul him up. “Come along!”
He grabbed onto her and yanked. She tumbled down on top of him. “You’ll burn here with me, you Arab whore.”
Coughing, her eyes burning, Hanna blindly tried to kick Dr. Pratt away. He held on tightly to one of her legs. The heat licked her face. An image of Griff flashed in her mind. Sorrow filled her. Would she ever see him again?
“You might as well stop fighting,” Dr. Pratt yelled as the flames raced toward them. “We’re going to die together.”
“Iniqbir!” she snarled, telling him to go bury himself in his grave. “You do not get to decide when my story ends.” With her free leg, she kicked as hard as she could, aiming for his dislocated shoulder. He recoiled from the contact, howling in agony as he lost his grip on her.
She scrambled away on her hands and knees, the smoke blinding her. She jumped to her feet and ran straight into a wall. No, not a wall. A man.
“Hanna!” Griff yelled. “Thank God. Let’s get you out of here.”
“Dr. Pratt is there on the floor.”
“We’re getting you out first. Let’s go!” The smoke searing her lungs, Hanna and Griff clung to each other as they stumbled toward the exit. They burst out onto the street, and Hanna fell to her knees, coughing and gulping in the fresh outside air.
“Mr. Rafi is still inside,” a panicked female voice shrieked. It was Lucy.
Hanna regarded her in disbelief. “He’s not in the dispensary.”
“He is, miss.” Desperation stamped the young woman’s face. “He ran straight inside to save you.”
Hanna let out a sob as she stared at the flames engulfing the dispensary. “No!” She struggled to her feet. “Rafi!” She had to get to her brother.
“Stay.” Griff commanded. His eyes met hers and held for just a moment. Then he turned and ran back into the burning building.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hanna watched helplessly as the blaze spread until it engulfed the entire three-story building.
The residents in the upper apartments had gotten out. But there was no sign of Griff or Rafi. Smoke billowed from the building in thick gray-black clouds. Flames shot out of the windows. Heat radiated from its walls.
Panic welled up inside Hanna, tears gathering in her eyes. How could anyone survive the inferno?
“There they are!” Lucy shouted as Griff emerged, half-dragging, half-carrying Rafi’s limp body. Hanna raced over to them.
“Rafi.” Hanna sank to her knees by her brother. His eyes were closed, his face covered in soot. “Can you hear me?”
Rafi’s eyelids fluttered. “Yalla,” he croaked. “Let’s go home.”
Her laugh came out as a sob of relief. Griff and Rafi were both safe.
“Yalla,” she repeated, tears blurring her vision. “Let’s go home.”
“How is he?” Griff asked Hanna as she closed the door to her brother’s bedchamber an hour later.
“The physician is examining him now.” She appeared utterly exhausted. Although she’d wiped her face, black streaks smeared her chin and by her ear. She’d carelessly pulled most of her hair into a low bun, but some strands fell liberally about her cheeks. There were dark smudges under her eyes. Still, she was the most sublime sight he’d ever beheld.
Hanna gave him a grateful look. “Thank you for sending the Duke of Huntington’s personal doctor.”
“I could hardly send my own. Come and sit.” He guided her to the narrow set of stairs that he assumed led to an attic. “You look as if you’re about to fall over.”
She sank onto the stairs. “It has been quite a day.”
“I am sorry about the loss of the dispensary. I know how important it was to you.”
“I can always return to Papa’s office.”
“I am rather fond of your father’s office. It reminds me of the first time we met. Your fierce competence seduced me in the first five minutes.”
“You didn’t show it. All I saw was your disdain.” She scrubbed a hand down her face. “I am disappointed about the dispensary. But we are alive. You, me and Rafi.” She swiped away a tear. “When you vanished into that building, I thought you weren’t coming out.”
“It would take more than a fire and murderous cousin to keep me from returning your brother to you.” He settled next to her. It was a tight squeeze. They were hip to hip, his body heat intermingling with hers. “Did Norman hurt you?”
“No.” She managed a sly smile that flooded him with warmth. “I hurt him. I dislocated his shoulder before he could . . . do whatever it was he intended to do to me.”
Griff guffawed. “Norman never did realize he was no match for you.”
“He admitted it all, you know, about your parents.”
Dread settled in the pit of his stomach. She took his hand. He held on to h
er, accepting the strength and comfort she offered, despite everything she’d been through. “Tell me.”
“Your father confronted Dr. Pratt about selling corpses to St. Thomas’s. Dr. Pratt begged your father to meet him at Ashby to discuss the matter. But Dr. Pratt never went. He sent Fred Palk to Ashby instead.”
“So that much was true. Fred Palk did kill my parents.”
“Yes. And he did not get in through the door you left unlocked. Dr. Pratt told him about a faulty window.”
“Truly?”
“Yes.” She squeezed his arm. “Truly.”
“It wasn’t my fault.” All of these years, the guilt had been a vise clamped hard around his chest. At last, Griff could draw a full breath.
“Norman keeping me away from my sisters makes perfect sense now,” Griff said. “They were determined to find my parents’ killer, while Norman discouraged me from dwelling on the murders.”
“He must have been afraid of what you would find. Dr. Pratt knew the search would lead straight back to him.”
Memories of Griff’s interactions with Norman came flooding back. “Norman consistently pushed for me to use laudanum to ease the pain in my shoulder. Now I wonder if he did that in hopes of rendering me insensible.”
“I can certainly see Dr. Pratt wanting to keep you dependent on him.”
“But why did Norman go after you this evening?”
“He felt I’d come between the two of you. He also believed he could curry favor with Mansfield and his father by doing away with me.”
“Norman was truly mad.” He knuckled his burning eyes. “How did I never see it?”
“Your father grew up with Dr. Pratt, and he didn’t see it. He was the head physician at one of London’s largest charity hospitals, and no one on the board saw through him.”
“If he had hurt you, I don’t know what I would have done.” He stroked her hand. “Thank goodness I decided to come and see you at the dispensary. I wanted to talk after everything we learned today. I cannot even begin to contemplate a world without you in it.”
Norman was gone. His sisters were back. The mystery of who killed his parents was solved. But the overwhelming emotion in Griff at the moment was profound gratitude that he hadn’t lost Hanna on this night.
He could not bear the thought of ever being deprived of her company again.
“Oh, Griff.” She leaned into him. He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. “What are we going to do?”
“We will figure it out,” he said resolutely. “I promise.”
“Griffin.” Selina poured her chocolate. “You are unfashionably early. What is so dire that you saw fit to interrupt my morning meal?”
Griff burst in on Selina having breakfast in her private upstairs sitting room. He couldn’t wait a moment longer to put everything to rights—which started here with his old friend.
“I apologize for the intrusion but I could not rest until we settle matters between us.”
Interest blazed in her clear blue eyes. “We agreed not to see each other for six weeks.”
“Actually, we did not. You set those terms. But I did agree to abide by them.”
“What has changed?”
“Everything.” He joined her at the table.
“It is just as well that you are here.” She buttered her toast. “I have made my decision. I will not marry you.”
He stopped short. “Excuse me?”
“I already married one man I didn’t love. I am not keen to make the same decision a second time.” She sipped her chocolate. “That would be boring, don’t you think? And I hate to be boring.”
“Why do I get the distinct impression that you never intended to marry me?”
“You are so stubborn that I insisted on the six-week period to give you enough time to recover your senses.”
“But what if I had still insisted on marrying you after the six weeks?”
“I would have turned you down flat. The first time I obeyed my parents and married to gain a title and wealth.” She set her cup down. “Now that I have both, if I marry again, it will be for love.”
“But you do care for me.”
“Of course. But we love each other as friends. Not lovers.” She picked up her toast. “Now, why don’t you tell me why you are here.”
“I needed to hear your decision.”
“Now that you have, you can pursue your interest in the bonesetter.” She took a bite of toast.
He gaped at her. “Is it that obvious?”
“Perhaps only to your oldest and dearest friends.”
“There was a fire at her dispensary last night. I almost lost her.”
Concern lined her delicate brow. “Is she well?”
“Yes, but her brother was hurt.”
Selina stopped chewing. “Rafi? Erm . . . Mr. Zaydan? What happened?”
“He went in to save his sister but was knocked down by some falling debris. Fortunately, I managed to get him out of the building. He’s going to be fine.”
“That is fortunate.” Selina resumed chewing.
He eased back in his seat, pleased to have Selina returned to him as a friend and confidante rather than a potential wife. “Aren’t you going to tell me what a fool I am for wanting to wed a bonesetter from a family of Arab merchants?”
“Not at all.” She delicately dabbed at the corner of her bow-shaped mouth with a white linen napkin. “I can see the appeal.”
“Last evening, there were a few moments there when I thought I might die. It made me realize what a fool I’ve been not to fight for a future with Hanna. Even though she still might not have me.”
“You’re a viscount. I doubt it will be much of a battle to win your beloved’s favor. Especially now that I am out of the running as a potential bride.”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you?”
“It is not every day that a girl in her circumstances is pursued by a wealthy, young and tolerably handsome viscount.”
“Her family does not approve.” He toyed with the silverware on the table. “They want her to marry one of her own kind, an Arab from her community.”
She laughed out loud.
“What is so amusing?”
“That a merchant family would consider you not good enough for their daughter. Meanwhile, fashionable society believes all of London revolves around us.”
“It never occurred to me, before Hanna enlightened me, that her family would be against the match.”
“It is always amusing to see a peer brought down to size. What a rarity.”
He snorted. “You really are enjoying this far too much.”
“Is that possible?”
“Aside from her family, Hanna herself has repeatedly said she never intends to wed. She is devoted to being a bonesetter. But I have reason to believe her position on the subject of marriage might be softening.”
Selina sipped her chocolate. “Do tell, how exactly do you intend to win the woman?”
The idea had come to him that morning. “I will make her an offer that she cannot refuse.”
“How intriguing.”
He came to his feet. It was time to set his plan in motion. “I hope Hanna thinks so, too.”
After the doctor departed just before dawn, Hanna returned to her room to sleep for a few hours. When she woke, it was late morning. She dressed and went directly to check on Rafi.
She found him propped up on a pillow, bare-chested with the white bedclothes tucked neatly around his waist. Lucy had planted herself at his bedside to feed Rafi spoons full of freekeh, a chicken broth-based soup made with cracked green wheat that Citi firmly believed cured all ailments. Since freekeh was delicious, Hanna and her siblings embraced the remedy.
While spooning out soup, Lucy’s starry-eyed gaze drifted over Rafi’s bare chest. He was slender, too slender, but that didn’t keep Lucy from admiring his wiry form.
“I see Lucy is taking good care of you,” she remarked.
“The best.�
�� Rafi winked good-naturedly at Lucy. “That’s enough soup. Thank you.”
“Are you sure, sir? There’s more.” The girl did not hide her disappointment at being dismissed in the midst of enjoying the view.
“I’m certain.”
Lucy dawdled as she reluctantly rose and left the room, soup bowl in hand. Hanna took the chair by Rafi’s bedside.
“You look good.”
“That’s what all the girls say.” His voice was hoarse.
“I see your ego wasn’t injured.”
He laughed. The sound was raw. “I am sorry about your dispensary.”
Hanna swallowed against the rough feeling in her throat. “I’m grateful we’re all alive.”
“Still, you worked so hard, and the dispensary was only open for a few weeks before it burned down.”
“It does feel unfair. Especially after the commission ruled that I could keep the clinic open. But it cannot be helped.” The enormity of that part of her loss was just beginning to sink in. “I can always go back to seeing patients in Baba’s office.” But that felt like such a setback after the heady feeling of running her own dispensary.
“Your viscount was here.”
She nodded. “Yes, last evening. He sent the Duke of Huntington’s doctor to tend to you.”
“He was also here not long ago.”
“Griff was? Here? Today?”
“He left about an hour ago.”
She felt a rush of disappointment at having missed Griff’s visit. “That was good of him to check up on you.”
“He was obviously disappointed not to see you.”
“He saved your life, you know.”
“I am aware. He left a note for you.”
“Griff did? Where?”
“It’s on the dresser.”
“I see.” Hanna forced herself not to bolt across the room to read Griff’s message. “How are you feeling, really?”
“I am fine. I need to rest. Now you can stop pretending you are not dying to see what’s in the note.”