Daring Romance

Chapter 2

Before going to his flat on Half Moon Street, Ethan had one more appointment to keep. He took a hansom to Cork Street, which was almost entirely occupied by Winterborne's, the famous department store.

A few times in the past, Ethan had done private work for the store's owner, Rhys Winterborne. The jobs had been easy and quick, hardly worth his time, but only a fool would turn down a request from such a powerful man. One of them had involved shadowing Winterborne's then fiancée, Lady Helen Ravenel, when she and a friend had visited an orphanage in a hazardous area near the docklands.

That had been two years ago, when Ethan had first met Dr. Garrett Gibson.

The slim chestnut-haired woman had been battering an assailant twice her size with precisely aimed strikes of her cane. Ethan had loved the way she'd done it, as if attending to some necessary task, like carrying a household bin out to the rubbish carter.

Her face had been unexpectedly young, her complexion clean-scrubbed and as smooth as a tablet of white soap. All cheekbones and cool green eyes, with a sharp little rampart of a chin. But amidst the elegant angles and edges of her features, there was a valentine of a mouth, tender and vulnerable, the upper lip nearly as full as the lower. A mouth with such pretty curves that it did something to Ethan's knees every time he saw it.

After that first encounter, Ethan had taken care to avoid Garrett Gibson, knowing she would be trouble for him, possibly even worse than he would be for her. But last month he'd gone to visit her at the medical clinic where she worked, for information concerning one of her patients, and his fascination had ignited all over again.

Everything about Garrett Gibson was . . . delicious. The dissecting gaze, the voice as crisp as the icing on a lemon cake. The compassion that drove her to treat the undeserving poor as well as the deserving. The purposeful walk, the relentless energy, the self-satisfaction of a woman who neither concealed nor apologized for her own intelligence. She was sunlight and steel, spun into a substance he'd never encountered before.

The mere thought of her left him like a stray coal on the hearth.

He had already sworn to himself that he would take nothing from her. All he intended to do was keep her safe on her visits to the Clerkenwell workhouse, or the Bishopsgate orphanage, or wherever she chose to go on her Tuesday rounds. That much he would allow himself.

It had been a mistake, arranging to meet her tomorrow. Ethan still wasn't sure how that had happened-he'd heard the words leaving his lips as if they were being spoken by someone else. Once he'd made the offer, however, he couldn't retract it, and then he'd found himself longing for her to accept.

One hour in Garrett Gibson's company, and then he would never approach her again. But he wanted, needed, craved those minutes alone with her. He would hoard the memory for the rest of his days.

Winterborne's department store appeared as an unbroken row of grand marble-faced buildings, fronted with massive display windows. The famed central stained-glass rotunda towered over four stories of columned arcades. It was a palatial structure, built by an ambitious man who'd wanted the world to know that a Welsh grocer's son had made himself into someone of consequence.

Ethan walked to the street behind the department store, where the mews, delivery yard, and loading docks were located. Winterborne's private house was at the far end of the street, connected to the store through private passageways and stairwells. It was Ethan's habit to enter at the back, through the door used by servants and deliverymen.

A footman admitted him inside. "Mr. Ransom. This way, if you please."

Ethan followed him, hat in hand, as they proceeded to the central staircase of the five-story house. The hallways were lit with crystal sconces and lined with paintings with views of mountains, oceans, and sunny pastoral scenes. A long pier table set against a wall had been laden with blue and white chinoiserie vases filled with ferns and lavish sprays of orchids.