“Duly noted,“ Devlin said drily. “Dress. We’re in a hurry.”
Chapter Four
Devlin stared at the doctor as they waited at the door of the brothel in Tothill Fields. They kept the doors locked at all times. Dev made sure only approved patrons were allowed inside. Peters was pale and shaking, his eyes sunken and bloodshot within the dark circles that surrounded them. He looked broken and defeated and weak. Dev hated weakness like that. He’d been as low down in the gutter as a man could get and he’d pulled himself out with nothing but his own blood, sweat and tears. He hadn’t given up, not like Peters. The doctor had probably grown up privileged, the pride and joy of his parents, spoiled and cosseted and loved. And this is how he repaid fate for her generosity.
He simply couldn’t see what Kitty saw in him. She rhapsodized about the bloody drunkard. Thought he hung the damn moon and stars and could perform miracles. Dev thought it was a miracle he could walk a straight line. Fuck his war service and heroics. Dev had grown up on a battlefield right here in the stews of London and he hadn’t fallen apart.
Perhaps the doctor was handsome, or would be if he ate something instead of drinking his meals. He was too thin. He looked as if a good strong wind would topple him. Though he still had some muscle to him. His eyes were pretty, he’d give Kitty that. A mix of brown and green and gray, they looked like the ocean down at the docks when a storm was coming. But they were haunted, and Dev didn’t want to know by what. Not after what he’d seen tonight. The doctor had taken his assault in stride. Too drunk to really understand what was going on, Dev supposed. To tell Kitty or not to tell Kitty about it, that was the question.
“Is she here?” Peters asked him. He sounded worried.
“The girl? Yes.” He couldn’t help his terse response. The doctor just seemed to aggravate him.
“No. Kitty.” He bit his lip, and Dev saw him wince. The bastard who had been trying to fuck him had given him a good shot. His lip was swollen and purple.
“Yes.”
Peters raised shaking hands and smoothed his lank blond curls before replacing his tall hat at an angle. It might have looked rakish on another man. On the doctor it looked ridiculous. He tucked his hastily tied cravat inside the collar of his waistcoat and Dev noticed he was shivering. There was a chill in the air.
“Have you no coat?” Dev asked harshly.
The doctor shrugged. “I don’t know where it is. Lost it, I suppose.”
Dev snorted and shook his head in disgust. “Here,” he said, shoving his scarf into the doctor’s hands.
Before Thom could put it on the door opened.
“Doctor Peters,” Kitty cried with obvious relief. “Thank God you’re here!” She reached out and grabbed Peters’ arm and dragged him in the door, hardly breaking stride as she yanked him along behind her. “She’s upstairs. She’s bleeding and weak as a babe. The contractions aren’t as hard anymore, but her water broke and I know the babe has to come out.” She was talking very fast, and Dev could hear the fear in her voice. “The midwife left and I didn’t know what to do. Thank God you’re here now.”
Dev followed them up the stairs but hesitated outside the girl’s room. He couldn’t go in there. There were too many memories associated with this sort of thing. He stopped at the door as if he’d walked into a wall.
Peters was nodding at everything Kitty was saying. He hadn’t said a word. Kitty stopped just inside the room and Peters ran right into her, nearly knocking them both to the floor. Dev was forced to cross the threshold to catch them both. Kitty leaned into him but Peters quickly stepped away from the two of them.
“I’ll take over now, Kitty,” he said. He took off his hat and set it aside carefully on a chair beside the door. The room was dim, only two small candles burning. “I’ll need more light,” Peters said in a distracted voice as he approached the bed. He began unbuttoning his jacket. “Have you some string? Hot water too, and lots of it. Vinegar. Clean cloths.” Kitty hurried out to do his bidding.
When he reached the girl’s bedside he paused and Dev saw him close his eyes and take a deep breath. He twisted his head from side to side as if loosening it up and rubbed his hands together. Suddenly he opened his eyes and he was a different man than the one who had waited with Dev downstairs. Calm, composed, relaxed.
“Hullo, my dear,” he said softly to Carrie. The girl was pale, her lips blue, her breathing shallow. Dev inwardly cursed. They were too late. Dev knew the look of death only too well. Peters put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. “You must wake up, my dear, if we’re to do this together.”
Carrie’s eyes fluttered open. She stared at Peters in confusion. “Who are you?” she whispered. Her voice was raw. She must have been screaming through the pain while Dev had been gone.
“I’m Doctor Peters.” He spoke softly and smiled at her. His smile utterly transformed his face. He looked like an angel and Dev could tell Carrie thought so too.
“Am I dead then?” she asked.
Peters laughed softly. “Not at all, and not if I have anything to say about it.” Carrie started to close her eyes and Peters shook her again. “Miss…” He turned to Dev with the question written on his face.
“Carrie,” Dev supplied. “Just Carrie.”
“Miss Carrie,” Peters said respectfully. “I must examine you. I know you’re tired and you hurt, but I’ve got to see what’s going on so that I can help you. Do you understand?”
Carrie nodded, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m dying,” she said.
Peters moved down to the end of the bed and pulled the covers aside. “Let me be the doctor here,” he said, “and you the patient. If a diagnosis is to be made, I’ll make it, hmm?” His tone was gently reprimanding, as if Carrie had no idea what she was talking about. It made Dev believe the poor girl couldn’t be more wrong, when he knew she was bang on the mark. Dammit. She’d been a good girl. Dev hated to see her go like this. He turned away just as Kitty came rushing back in the room, a couple of girls behind her carrying everything the doctor had asked for. Her hair, usually impeccably styled, was falling down in lopsided waves around her head. Her dress was stained and wrinkled. Dev felt a moment of remorse that Kitty had come here at all. She wasn’t a part of this life anymore and had no business here. But she’d come because of her relationship with Dev and because of her own past and the past they shared.
“How is she?” she asked. She put down her armload of clean cloths and sat down at Carrie’s side, holding her hand.
“More light,” Peters mumbled, and Kitty jumped up and lit a large candelabrum and held it over Peters’ shoulder. Peters looked up at her. “Hand that to someone else, Kitty, and help me move her.”
They seemed so familiar to one another, and worked together seamlessly. Dev realized there were things about Kitty he didn’t really know. He’d thought he knew everything. But, despite having heard endlessly about the doctor, he’d never seen them together. Never known how they’d fit.
Kitty did as she was told and Carrie let out a weak scream. Dev started to shake. It was too much like Jenny and he turned abruptly and stumbled from the room.
Kitty collapsed in the chair near the door, watching as Doctor Peters carefully arranged the blankets around Carrie, who had passed out some time ago. She wasn’t entirely sure the girl would live, but the doctor seemed to think so. He’d had to literally pull the stillborn babe from her. He did it efficiently and with as much care as if the whore were a princess. He was possibly the gentlest man Kitty had ever met and she adored him for the way he’d treated Carrie. She knew he’d be like that, unlike the other doctors Kitty had met while still in the life. The others had been brisk, disrespectful, often incompetent. But not Dr. Peters.
Kitty breathed a sigh of relief that the ordeal was over. It had been a ghastly day, and poor Devlin must be beside himself. Absentmindedly she brushed a lock of hair off her cheek. She looked a mess and she knew it. She’d give a fig if she thought the doctor did, bu
t she might as well be part of the wallpaper as far as he was concerned. She’d spent years throwing herself at him to no avail. Not for the first time she wondered if it was this, her association with people like Devlin and these girls, her own past as one of them, that caused him to reject her. It hurt, but she was used to it. She just hadn’t expected it of him.
“Kitty,” he said in that quiet voice of his. She shivered at the whisper, a rush of awareness chasing through her. She’d dreamed of that voice saying her name just like that. “You must be exhausted,” he said. “Come on.” He held out his hand to her and she took it, savoring the gesture as much as his touch. He pulled her up and walked her out of the room. “Someone should stay with her at all times,” he told one of the girls in the hallway. “I’ll be back to check on her tomorrow. Send someone for me at my office if she needs me before then.”
The girl nodded.
He hadn’t let go of Kitty’s arm and when she stumbled a bit he pulled her close and put his arm around her. She really was exhausted. She turned into him and pressed her face to his chest, finally letting the tears fall. He hugged her to him and rubbed her back. “There now,” he whispered into her hair. “Poor Kitty. You did well. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
She rubbed her forehead against the damp muslin of his shirt. It was rough and smelled musty and unwashed. She pulled back and for the first time that evening took a good look at him. He looked awful. Thin, haggard, dark circles around his bloodshot eyes. His lip was swollen and bruised, as if he’d been in a fight. “Doctor Peters—” she began.
He cut her off. “How long have we known one another, Kitty?”
She was surprised by the question. “I don’t know. Not quite four years, I think.”
“Don’t you think it’s about time you called me Thom?” He smiled sadly at her. “I grow tired of Doctor Peters. Very tired.”
“Are you well?” she asked, not bothering to hide her concern. She hadn’t seen him in months, not since a dinner party at a mutual friend’s last year. She’d longed to see him, of course, but had made the decision to leave that dream behind, the dream of him.
His smile turned cynical. “Define well.”
“Doctor…Thom. What’s wrong?” She gripped his upper arms and was shocked at how thin his arms were.
“What’s wrong?” He looked away and she could feel him pulling away from her though he stayed in her embrace. “It’s the middle of the night, I’ve just delivered a stillborn babe, and I need a drink. Also, I’m tired.”
“You mentioned tired.” Kitty didn’t like this one bit. She knew how many of these former military men had trouble sleeping at night. She’d known Thom had been drinking quite a bit in the last year or so, but it seemed it was worse than she’d thought. While she was devoting herself to her dress shop and Devlin, he’d been slowly falling apart.
“Did I? There, you see? So tired I can’t remember what I’m saying.” He huffed out a laugh and stepped away. “Have you a drink around here?”
“I’ll take you home, Doctor.” Kitty turned to see Devlin standing at the top of the stairs, watching them.
“He should stay.” Kitty planted herself between them. “Surely we have a room for him? Here, or at home.”
Thom stepped around her. “No, he’s right. I need to go home.” He paused at her side and then pulled her flush against his side with his arm wrapped around her waist. He kissed her temple, pressing his lips hard against her and leaving them there for several heartbeats. He let her go abruptly and walked away without a word. Kitty’s heart broke at the silent gesture. “Come along, Devlin O’something,” he said with false bonhomie. “But, for the love of God, put me in a carriage and not on a horse.”
“Thom.” Kitty tried one more time, reaching out for him, but Devlin pulled him out of Kitty’s reach. She glared at him and he merely raised a brow.
“Goodbye, Kitty,” Thom said softly, not looking back at her as he descended the steps. Devlin gave her a hard look before turning and following Thom.
Well, if they thought that was the end of that, they didn’t know Kitty Markham very well.
Chapter Five
Dev tried not to stare again as he sat across from Peters in the carriage. The scene with Kitty as they were leaving worried him. He’d always known about Kitty’s infatuation with the doctor. But now that she’d seen how bad off he was, she was likely to make him her special project. And the doctor would break her heart. Dev had known too many men like him. Men who were too far gone in their own private hell to care about the misery and heartache they left behind in their self-destructive path. And Dev loved Kitty too much to let the doctor hurt her like that. He’d always loved her and done his best to protect her. Loving Kitty was one of his first memories and one of the best things in his God-forsaken life.
“Stay away from her,” he growled into the tense silence. He hadn’t meant to say it. It had just escaped.
“What do you think I’ve been doing for the last four years?” Peters said in a weary voice. “You don’t have to threaten me. I know I’m no good for her. I’ve always known it.”
“You’re worse than no good for her,” Dev said angrily. “You’re a bloody mess. You’ll break her heart and leave her in your wake. You’re a tragedy waiting to happen. Do not, and I mean this, do not encourage her. She’ll be sniffing around here now, worrying about you, trying to make it all right. She don’t care that you’ve never given her the time of day. She thinks it’s because of her past.”
“What?” Peters interrupted, raising his head and glaring at Dev. “I never said that to her. I never would.”
“Say it.” Dev snapped out the order and he damn well expected Peters to obey. “Say it to her. It might be the one thing that will snap her out of this foolishness over you.”
“I won’t.” Peters sounded stronger than he had all night. “I won’t say something so awful to her. Or to anyone.”
“I can make you.”
“No you can’t.” They sat there glaring at one another. “Do you honestly think there’s anything you can do to me that hasn’t been done already? That’s worse than what I’ve got in here?” He violently poked his forefinger against the side of his head with a grimace, his eyes closed. His eyes flew open and pinned Dev to his seat. “I can’t do much these days, that’s true. But I sure as hell can keep from hurting one of the only people who still gives a damn about me.”
“I don’t want her near you,” Dev said between clenched teeth. “I don’t want her to see you whoring your way through the day with a bottle of whiskey clutched in your fist. Do you want her to see that?”
“No. So I suggest you damn well keep her away from me.” Peters looked away and stared out the window at the streets barely lit by dawn.
“This conversation is not over.” Dev sat forward in his seat.
“Yes it is.” Peters’ tone was clipped. “Shut up. I already have a headache. You’re making it worse.”
Dev contemplated killing him. Logically, it was the best solution all around. But Kitty would be even more upset, and probably suspect him too, which wouldn’t do at all.
“Why haven’t you married her?”
The doctor’s question startled Dev. “That’s none of your business,” he replied stiffly, leaning back in his seat and staring out the window opposite the doctor’s.
“Yes it is.” He felt Peters’ stare on the nape of his neck.
“Because I’m no good for her either,” Dev said gruffly, stating the obvious.
“Then you should stay away from her too,” Peters said calmly.
“She won’t let me.” Dev could have bitten his tongue off after he said it.
“Where are you taking me?” Peters asked suddenly, sounding alarmed.
“Not to the dock to put you on a ship to Botany Bay,” Dev groused. “Though I’d like to.” He sighed. “I’m taking you home.”
“Take me to my office,” Peters demanded. “Driver! Turn right here,” he
called out the window.
“Do it,” Dev called out, knowing the driver wouldn’t make a move without his say. The carriage slowed and took the turn a bit too fast, throwing the two men around a bit so their legs got tangled. Peters shoved at him and scrambled to get away as if he couldn’t stand to touch Dev in any way. It made him unaccountably angry. “Why are we going to your office? You’re not in any condition to see patients, not even the ones who just need a fuck.”
Peters winced slightly. “I need more whiskey than I’ve had to put up with a conversation like that,” he muttered.
“As far as I can tell, you need whiskey to walk, talk, fuck and take a piss,” Dev observed. He could tell the doctor was avoiding his question. “Why your office?”
“Up ahead,” Peters called out. “On the left. Number 127.”
The carriage pulled up and Peters threw open the door to get out. Dev stopped him with a firm grip on his arm. “Why?” he asked again.
Peters sat back down and looked pointedly at Dev’s hand. He removed it. “Because, Mr. O’Shaughnessy,” he answered calmly, “when I wake up in my medical office and my mind makes me believe it’s a medical tent on the Peninsula, I don’t feel so…” he let the sentence trail off. Slowly he stepped out of the carriage and turned back. “But when I wake up in my bedroom and think the same thing, I feel quite, quite mad.” He tipped his hat. “Good morning. Thank you for the ride.”
* * * * *
Dev thrust into Kitty, her sweet cunny hot and wet and perfect. He’d been fucking her like a man possessed for the last hour at least, and she was still giving as good as she got. He’d ached for her all day, after that damn conversation with the doctor. An ill wind was blowing, Dev could feel it, and he feared what it would bring. He’d been distracted at the office and had barked at Rufus all day long. As soon as he’d walked in her door tonight he’d thrown Kitty over his shoulder, carried her into the bedroom and tossed her on the bed.
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