She paced back and forth, chewing on a fingernail.
Ugh!
He was rendering her a child again, agitated and anxious.
The worst part?
She understoodwhyhe had lashed out at her.
He was a physician. By his own admission, the man had rarely been in the position of one of his patients. And now he was reduced to a beggar of sorts, relying on the kindness of strangers to assist him. Worse, he’d had to take laudanum, which Lottie knew he loathed.
She was seeing him at his very lowest.
She clenched her teeth, disliking that, even at his worst hour, she still understood him. The whole of him was entirely unnerving.
But still . . .
Grandmère, a woman raised in the intellectual salons of Paris, would not tolerate Dr. Whitaker’s impertinence.
Lottie shouldn’t either.
She knew this, but what to do?
She tapped her lips, surveying the library.
The library was cold with the damp cutting chill of January. Those weeks of the year where Lottie often felt it impossible to ever be warm again. Granted, there was no fire in the hearth, as she had not requested a fire be laid in here.
Her eyes drifted to the enormous painting over the fireplace. Gabriel’s largest work. His finest, if Grandmère’s opinion were to be believed.
Lottie moved to scour the books lining the walls until her eyes lit on the one she wished, snatching it from the shelf.
Then she joined Grandmère in the morning room. Here, a fire roared in the grate, the room warm and inviting. The morning room was more her grandmother’s private study than anything. Grandmère had a sitting room off her bedchamber, but she had been raised in the era of the boudoir. When callers would join a lady as she conducted her toilette, engaging in banter as a maid applied cosmetics and fashioned her hair.
Grandmère had never outgrown the need to collect people around her, and so she rejected the idea of a private sitting room. She wished to inhabit a space where others would sit, too.
At the moment, Grandmère was writing a letter at her desk. She looked up as Lottie entered.
“Is all well,ma petite?” she asked in French, not missing the thunderous wrinkle of Lottie’s brow. Grandmère rarely spoke English when with her grandchildren. Lottie had learned French along with her grandmother’s lessons.
“Non,” Lottie replied in French, pressing a kiss to her grandmother’s wrinkled cheek. “Dr. Whitaker is being insufferable.”
“Ah.” Grandmère shrugged. “I think our dear doctor does not realize his ownéclat. He wears the hauteur of a marquess with shocking ease.”
Lottie gave an inelegant snort. “He is decidedly rude. He called me beautiful and silly all in the same breath.”
Grandmère set down her pen. To her, such words were the worst of insults.
“Mmm—” Grandmère’s eyebrows went from censorious to thunderous with the slightest effort. “I trust you will let Dr. Whitaker know where you stand,ma petite. Men cannot be allowed to think that beauty and intelligence are incompatible.”
Lottie grinned and showed Grandmère the title of the book she held.
“Good girl,” Grandmère smiled and turned back to her writing. “The doctor will receive a rude awakening, I think.”
“I should like to borrow that, too, if I may?” Lottie pointed to a painting on the wall, another of Gabriel’s works.
Grandmère lifted her head, her dramatic brows drawing into a questioning furrow.
“It is to make a point,” Lottie explained.
