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Increasing her pace, Joy mumbled beneath her breath. “He shan’t find me wearing my drab gray skirts and covered in orange and white cat hair today.”

Which, in point of fact, was how Dr. Morrisette typically found her.

Heat suffused her face that she should even care what he thought of her.

With a single exception, Joy’s gowns were ash gray or wren brown. Neither shade suited her coloring but were “perfectly appropriate for a young woman of inferior social standing.”

More opinionated words of wisdom from Mrs. Thackpenny.

Nor would the charming rogue hide a smile, his eyes glinting with amusement as Joy tried to subdue the beastly, yowling cat while the doctor examined his elderly patient.

His patient, who always managed to appear near death’s door whenever he was present, but revived as miraculously as Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead the moment the devilishly handsome doctor departed.

And as much as Joy admitted to imprudently admiring the man and his physician’s skills, even he couldn’t be credited with such an astonishing recovery.

As Joy sprinted to her third story chamber, she mentally calculated.

This was the seventh—no, eighth—occasion this month the kindly doctor had been imposed upon. The previous months he’d been as frequently inconvenienced by one or another of Mrs. Thackpenny’s contrived ailments. Never had a woman had one foot in the proverbial grave more times than Mrs. Sabella Thackpenny. Much like a cat with multiple lives, she always recovered.

Not that Joy minded Dr. Brandon Morrisette’s recurrent calls.

No indeed.

Quite the opposite was true, in fact. The doctor brought news of the outside world and was a refreshing and welcome disruption in her otherwise monotonous routine.

And, yes, Joy secretly admitted, she found him deucedly attractive.

As humiliating as it was to have to greet Doctor Morrisette each time, knowing full well her mistress wasn’t nearly as ill as she affected, Joy’s heart always leaped. Her pulse quickened in a manner most unsuitable for a proper lady’s companion as well.

But Doctor Brandon Morrisette was masculine perfection, and even an on-the-shelf spinster with no prospects such as herself could appreciate an Adonis in the flesh.

One who always smelled of sandalwood and spices.

Who was she to look a gift horse in the mouth?

That reminded Joy.

She still needed to search Mrs. Thackpenny’s bedchamber for whatever medical journal her mistress had acquired and hidden away. She used the book to research diseases and erroneously concluded she suffered from a myriad of them. Combined with the woman’s ever-declining eyesight and inability to read well, the diagnoses were becoming increasingly ludicrous.

As she dashed along, Joy rolled her eyes ceilingward and, shaking her head in remembered chagrin, groaned aloud.

Dear Lord above.

Last week, the woman was in a complete dither, absolutely positive that she suffered from Peyronie’s disease. Did she simply find a unique or frightening sounding affliction in the medical book, and her failing eyesight prevented her from reading the actual symptoms?

Quite possibly, truth be told.

Mrs. Thackpenny’s vision had grown so impaired this past year that Joy read to her on most occasions, and that included bills from her few creditors and even fewer correspondents.

She could only applaud Doctor Morrisette’s professionalism as he’d gently explained to the overwrought woman that he was one hundred percent certain, Mrs. Thackpenny did not have the affliction. Furthermore, he’d assured her that only men could acquire that particular disease.

He hadn’t elucidated how he could be so confident in his assessment, and given the distinct jollity glimmering in his lovely, chocolate-brown eyes, Joy hadn’t dared to ask.

“Are you quite certain, Doctor?” Mrs. Thackpenny quavered, her eyes owlishly large behind her spectacles.

“Absolutely,” came the doctor’s solemn reply.

Jaw clenched against the cold, Joy skidded into her sparsely furnished chamber and yanked her favorite gown from the wardrobe. A deep blue wool trimmed at the bodice and sleeves in crocheted lace, the fabric made her eyes bluer, her skin appear creamier, and brought out the pale honey tones in her bright coppery hair.