She pulled away, but just enough that she could look into his face. “Doctor Grantham, never tell me that you’re ashamed of a natural physiological reaction.”
She hadn’t let go of him. She hadn’t let go. Hope was not just present, it was incandescent. He found himself smiling down into her face. “Yes, I am. I have not completely crushed the restrictions that social mores place on me, however absurd they are,” he countered. His hand stroked her hair as he spoke. “I’m working on that.”
“Then work on it for another two minutes,” she said quietly. “I’m not done.”
“Ah, Miss Charingford.” That was all he said, but he put his arms around her, pulling her closer, breathing in her old hurts, and exhaling the emotions he had not yet managed to voice.
“The part that makes me angriest,” she whispered into his chest, “is that I miss this. I miss being held. I miss the feel of lips on mine, of arms around me. I miss the feel of warmth. Sometimes, I even miss all those things that he did to me. It’s a palpable hunger, one that eats me up inside. I shouldn’t want that. There’s something wrong with me.”
Jonas cleared his throat. “Actually …”
She made a little noise.
It wasn’t as if he was suddenly going to fool her into believing him proper. “This is not my area of expertise, Miss Charingford, but there are specialists in London who do nothing but treat women who do not enjoy intercourse. It is physiologically normal to feel as you do.”
His erection was becoming all too apparent. She had to have noticed by now. Even if there weren’t that thick bar growing between his legs, pressing lightly against her body, there was the change in his breathing.
“Really?” she asked.
“Really.”
He could detect the changes in her. He was standing too close to her, too attuned to her, to miss the signs. Those telltale capillaries in her skin widened, and her skin flushed pink with blood flow. Her lashes fluttered down; her mouth opened a little bit. She held him too tightly, too precisely.
“Sometimes,” she said, “it feels like there are some hurts that can only be cured by this. By warmth. And touch.”
He slipped two fingers over her wrist, taking her pulse. He knew all too well the difference between a resting heart rate and an aroused one, and that knowledge of her body’s response only fed his own desire.
He bent over her a little more, his lips breathing warmth against her ear. Just a little kiss. He could give her a little kiss, now.
But he didn’t. He knew all too well that physical arousal needn’t mean that she liked him. She’d only just decided not to hate him. She’d needed a shoulder to weep on, a form to hit, a generic repository for all the emotions that she couldn’t fit in her life. She didn’t need a kiss from a specific man, no matter how much he specifically wanted to give her one.
“Miss Charingford,” he said, “Henry awaits, and I shouldn’t delay any longer. We must go on.” He pulled away from her. She looked up at him, her eyebrows screwed up in quizzical confusion.
But when he offered her his arm, she took it. He set his fingers over her wrist and took comfort in the beat of her pulse—a little faster than could be explained by the mild exercise of walking.
Chapter Eight
JONAS HAD SET AND SPLINTED HENRY’S LEG LAST NIGHT. He’d given the boy a dose of ether when he’d set the leg, enough that he’d not been in his right mind by the time he left. Henry had waved him off, grinning goofily. It was his father who looked on grimly.
This morning, the drug had worn off. Henry was propped up in a chair with nothing to do but look out the window. His pupils had returned to normal size; his eyes were sunken and dark.
Lydia came forward and sat in a chair next to the boy. While Jonas checked his vital signs, she introduced herself.
“I am Miss Lydia Charingford,” she said warmly. “Doctor Grantham asked me to come because he thought I needed to see an example of someone who conducts himself with decorum under difficult circumstances.”
Henry—who had slouched every minute that Jonas had known him—straightened subtly. “He did?”
“He did,” Lydia said, with absolutely no regard for the truth. “And I can see that he chose a good subject.”
“Right.” Henry nodded. “Speaking of difficult circumstances. Doctor, I don’t suppose you could give me more of that…whatever it was you gave me last night, could you? My leg aches something awful.”
“No,” Jonas said. “I can’t. I don’t carry around ether as a general matter. And I prefer not to administer laudanum unless it’s absolutely necessary. It contains morphia, which causes constipation and impotence.”
“Uh.” Henry glanced at Lydia, and his cheeks flushed. “Did you just say—uh—”
Jonas gave him a repressive look, and Henry bit his lip.
Lydia simply smiled angelically. “Someday, you’ll thank him for it.”