The Maverick's Bride. Catherine Palmer

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      The last strains of the waltz faded. Adam glanced back into the crowd and caught sight of Nicholas Bond searching for them.

      “I really should go back in, you know,” Emma protested.

      But as she looked into his eyes, Adam knew she would not return. He held out his arm. She hesitated, then slipped her hand around it. “Let’s take a stroll,” he suggested. “I never have liked crowds.”

      “What is it you wish to discuss, Mr. King?”

      “You, mostly.” He could see the toes of her slippers beneath the hem of skirt as they walked along a gravel path. Away from the stuffy air of the ballroom, he caught the scent of her perfume. Jasmine and roses.

      He drew her closer. Somehow—against every shred of sense and determination he possessed—he’d let this strange, willful woman affect him. All he could do was stare down at her and feel things he shouldn’t feel. Her flushed cheeks and shining green eyes mesmerized him. Her full rosy lips, barely parted, were tilted slightly upward. He bent toward her.

      Just then, she stopped walking and touched her forehead. “Oh, my.”

      “Miss Pickering? Are you all right?”

      “Out of breath. Perhaps it was the dancing.”

      Or maybe not. He was having a little trouble breathing right himself. “Would you like to sit down?” he asked. “I saw some chairs at the other end of the porch.”

      “No, I’m fine. Truly I am.” She took her hand from his arm and wove her fingers together. “You wanted to speak with me?”

      “Yes, I do.” He straightened, forcing away the discomfort she’d given him. He couldn’t let himself think about the fact that she was beautiful and brave…and completely a woman.

      Emma Pickering could be useful to him, that was all, and he might as well lay the cards on the table. “I want to know more about your nursing skills.”

      Her eyes widened in surprise. “Nursing?”

      “How much practical experience have you had?”

      “Not enough to satisfy me.” She shook her head. “Miss Nightingale does not permit nurses to learn pure medicine. I’ve always longed to know as much as any doctor, but such a course is not possible. I have looked after patients at St. Thomas’s Hospital, many of them gravely ill, but that is the extent of my training.”

      Adam started forward again. “Can you do surgical kinds of things?” he asked as she hurried to match his pace. He took her hand and set it on his arm again. “Can you sew people up and set bones?”

      “I’ve watched those procedures being done. But I have neither the tools nor the skills to do them myself. Mr. King, why are you asking me these questions?”

      He couldn’t tell her everything, but she was too smart to keep completely in the dark. He would have to lead her around until he had learned what he wanted to know.

      “I understand that doctors have ways to make people unconscious,” he said. “Know anything about that?”

      “Ether. I’ve seen it used. Why?”

      “Do you know much about drugs? Medicines?”

      “Morphia, quinine, cocaine, laudanum and others—I’ve dispensed them all.”

      “But do you know what they’re used for? Do you know what can help pain—constant pain?”

      “Laudanum is best, I believe—although one must be careful. Its use can become a habit. Morphia is similar.”

      “Miss Pickering?” Nicholas Bond’s voice rang out down the long verandah and startled Emma into silence. The Englishman stood silhouetted in the light from the ballroom, his long coattails fluttering in the night breeze.

      “Yes, Mr. Bond,” she spoke up. “I’m just here on the path.”

      “Your father is concerned for your safety, Miss Pickering.”

      “The lady’s fine, Bond.” Adam escorted her onto the verandah and into a square of yellow light that fell from the French doors.

      “Miss Pickering?”

      “Indeed, I’m perfectly well, Mr. Bond. This garden is lovely.”

      Adam knew it was time to let Nicholas take the woman back to the ballroom. Good manners demanded it. He had been wrong to lead her outside unaccompanied in the first place. But when he began to remove her hand, she tightened her fingers around his arm.

      “Mr. King mentioned his unusual dancing style,” she told Nicholas as they approached. She gave a little laugh. “It’s American, you know. I’m sure you must agree it’s my duty as an Englishwoman to teach him a proper waltz. You won’t mind, will you?”

      Nicholas frowned, his lips tightening into a grim line. “Miss Pickering, I—”

      “Dear Mr. Bond, it does seem the right thing to do under the circumstances. It would hardly show the English to good advantage if we let this poor man continue in his ignorance.”

      Bond flipped back his coattails and set his fists at his hips. He started to speak, paused, then turned abruptly and left. Even СКАЧАТЬ