He shook his head on a chuckle, looking wry. “My old fellows at Guy’s would be chewing through the door if they knew we had a case of ague here every few weeks, so docile and willing to be questioned and poked at. A learning hospital’s dream.”
“Yes,” she said thoughtfully as she guided him toward the infirmary. “I suppose it would be.”
He furrowed his brow at her, observing the change on her face. “Whatever you’re thinking,” he said, “be careful with it.”
“Hm?” she said. “Oh. I always am.”
“Certainly you are,” he replied with a chuckle. “And that’s why Mr. Reed has the medicine cabinet key again, isn’t it?”
“He doesn’t…” She paused, turning to find Roland happily swinging the doors to the repaired cabinet open so they could put in the new stock, her little key around his pinky like a signet ring. She sighed, feeling a betrayal of warmth from her throat to her stomach at this abject robbery.
“Ah,” said her grandfather. “Now you know what it feels like to be hit in the head by a well-thrown rock.”
She blinked down at him, smiling despite herself. “Yes,” she confessed. “Now I do.”
CHAPTER 27
It took a whole ninety minutes after Dinah Lazarus left the Clerkenwell Clinic for the day for Vix Aster to appear in her place.
She stood, unsettlingly still in her velvet and silk couture, not evidently fuming or otherwise emotive, her eyes flicking between Mae, who was ignoring her completely, bent over a man who had some sort of scaly, peeling growth on his shoulder, and Roland, who was at the foot of the stairs, and filled with the fear of a man who had lived long enough to know when to feel it.
“Casper!” she called, shrill and abrupt, when Mae did not cease her skin scraping to acknowledge her. “You wore that frock yesterday!”
Mae sighed, shook her head, and yet still did not look up.
Everyone else in the clinic did, though.
“I think it is a mole,” Mae said into the silence, as though the man who was now staring at her with his mouth open was still concerned about his skin issue. “A very large, wide mole. Orotherwise, some manner of cyst. The good news is that I do not think it is dangerous.”
“I had to reimburse Dinah for a hackney coach,” Vix continued to announce, marching across the room toward Mae and then stopping instantly short and turning in terrifying, syrupy-slow movement toward Roland. “You.”
“Hullo, Vix,” he said, coughing gently.
She narrowed her dark eyes. “I should have brought Teddy.”
“I’m very glad you didn’t,” he said weakly.
“All right!” Mae announced, leaning back from the man with the mole-cyst. “Come along, Lady Aster. Have you been douching that rash twice a day like I instructed?”
Vix froze, her head ticking almost imperceptibly to the side. Bizarrely, a little slant upward appeared on her lips. “Oh, doctress,” she cooed, turning slowly so that her gown would bunch and twirl. “It wasn’t a rash. It was the defensive scratching of my last victim.”
“Ah, yes,” said Mae, stepping toward the procedure room and holding the door open. “Howisyour husband now?”
“You know,” said Dr. Casper, hobbling up to stand next to Roland as the two women vanished behind the door. “I used to think those two were in love. I suppose it’s a good thing for you that I was wrong.”
“Were you wrong?” Roland replied, still sounding rather thin at the throat. “Should I go in there?”
“Oh, absolutely not,” the doctor said, patting Roland’s shoulder. “Absolutely not.”
He grimaced, remembering what Mae had said about the rules of her thimble ownership. He should’ve taken that bloody thing instead of the key when he’d enjoyed an extra feel through her pockets this morning.
Now she had it. And was in a room alone with Vix and the thimble.
Good Lord, but she could give Vix his address.
He would have to move.
“Lad, you look like you drank the cod oil,” Dr. Casper said. “Why don’t we take a turn about the facility, hm?”
