Hello Stranger

Instead, to Garrett’s outrage, she was the one who received the lesson. The blow was blocked smartly by her own leather bag, and once again the cane was twisted from her grasp. The bag thudded to the ground, its contents rattling. Before Garrett had time to react, she found herself hauled back against Ransom’s chest and trapped by the cane across her throat.

The beguiling whiskey-warm voice fell against her ear. “You signal your moves in advance, darlin’. ’Tis a bad habit.”

“Let go,” she gasped, writhing in helpless outrage.

Ransom’s grip didn’t ease. “Turn your head.”

“What?”

“Turn your head to ease the pressure against your windpipe, and grasp the cane with your right hand.”

Garrett went still as she realized he was telling her how to break the hold. Slowly she obeyed.

“Use an inside grip to protect your throat,” Ransom said, and waited until she had complied. “Aye, just so. Now, tug down on the end of the cane, and use your left elbow to jab me in the ribs. Lightly, if you please.” After she’d made the motion, he bent forward as if doubling over. “Good. Grab the cane with both hands now—wider—and give it a hard twist as you duck under my arm.”

Garrett followed his instructions, and then . . . almost miraculously . . . she was free. She turned to stare at him with baffled fascination. She couldn’t decide whether to thank him or bash him over the head.

Ransom bent to pick up the doctor’s bag with a bland smile. He had the nerve to proffer his arm, as if they were a sedate couple going on a stroll through Hyde Park. Ignoring the gesture, Garrett began walking again.

“Being choked from the front is the most common way women are attacked,” Ransom said. “The second is to hold her from the back, with an arm across her throat. The third is to grab her from behind and carry her off. Hasn’t your fencing master taught you to defend yourself without a cane?”

“No,” Garrett was forced to admit. “He doesn’t instruct in hand-to-hand combat.”

“Why hasn’t Winterborne provided a driver and carriage for your outings? He’s not a miserly man, and he usually takes care of his own.”

Garrett frowned at the mention of Winterborne, who owned the clinic where she practiced. The clinic had been established for the benefit of the nearly thousand employees of his department store. Rhys Winterborne had hired her when almost no one else had been willing to give her a chance, and for that he would always have her loyalty.

“Mr. Winterborne has offered the use of a private carriage,” she admitted. “However, I don’t wish to impose on him any more than I already do, and I’ve been trained in the art of self-defense.”

“You’re overconfident, Doctor. You know just enough to be a danger to yourself. There are a few simple tactics that could help you escape an assailant. I could teach them to you, of an afternoon.”

They turned a corner and came to the main road, where knots of raggedly dressed people stood at doorways and steps, while pedestrians in all manner of dress threaded along the pavement. Horses, carts, and carriages passed to and fro along the tramway pavers that had been laid out along the road. Stopping at the curbstone, Garrett looked down the street and waited for a glimpse of a hansom.

As they waited, Garrett considered Ransom’s words. Clearly the man knew far more about street fighting than her fencing master. His maneuvers with her cane had been impressive. While half of her was inclined to tell him to go to the devil, the other half was more than a little intrigued.

Despite his previous nonsense about “sweethearting,” Garrett was certain he had no romantic designs on her, which suited her perfectly. She had never wanted a relationship that might have interfered with her career. Oh, there had been a minor dalliance here or there . . . a stolen kiss with a handsome medical student at the Sorbonne . . . a harmless flirtation with a gentleman at a dance . . . but she had deliberately avoided anyone who might have posed a real temptation. And any involvement with this insolent stranger could lead to trouble.

However, she did want to learn a few of his street-fighting maneuvers.

“If I agree to let you teach me,” she asked, “would you promise to stop following me on my Tuesday rounds?”

“Aye,” Ransom said easily.

Too easily.

Garrett gave him a skeptical glance. “Are you a truthful man, Mr. Ransom?”

He laughed quietly. “With my job?” Looking past her shoulder, he saw an approaching hansom, and signaled it. His gaze returned to her face and held intently. “I swear on my mother’s grave, you have nothing to fear from me.”

The hansom rolled to a jangling, rattling halt beside them.

Abruptly Garrett made a decision. “Very well. Meet me tomorrow at four o’clock, at Baujart’s fencing club.”

Ransom’s eyes flashed with satisfaction. He watched as Garrett ascended to the footboard of the two-wheeled vehicle. With the ease of vast experience, she ducked beneath the overhanging reins and climbed up to the passenger seat.

As Ransom handed the doctor’s bag to Garrett, he called up to the driver. “Mind you take care not to jostle the lady.” Before Garrett could object, he stepped onto the footboard and gave the driver a few coins.

“I can pay my own fare,” Garrett protested.

Ransom’s midnight-blue eyes stared steadily into hers. Reaching out, he pressed something into her hand. “A gift,” he murmured. Easily he descended to the ground. “Tomorrow, Doctor.” He touched the brim of his hat, letting his fingers linger in that way he had, until the vehicle pulled away.

Feeling slightly dazed, Garrett looked down at the object he’d given her. The silver whistle, slightly warm from the heat of his body.

What nerve, she thought . . . but her fingers closed gently around it.

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.