The Heart of Doctor Steele by Colette Dixon

Author:Colette Dixon [Dixon, Colette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Colette Dixon

* * *

Margaret marched past Charlotte and into the waiting carriage. Instead of indulging her sister’s wildly curious expression, she stared out the window.

“Well? Are you not going to tell me what happened?”

“I’m not entirely sure what did happen.” Had she nearly been accepted to medical school or had she merely been brushed off in a polite manner? Was the man who was beginning to own her heart really the man her intuition insisted he was, or had he followed in the footsteps of his mentor, impregnating a woman and disposing of the evidence using the advantage of his surgical knowledge?

She squinted her eyes shut lest her mind provided an answer she wasn’t prepared to hear.

She hadn’t even learned anything of the treatment of putrid fever other than there was no known way to prevent it. Well, no matter. She had seen the quick healing of Charlotte’s gash with the application of goldenseal. Primitive medicine or not, it was worth a try. This was all she could afford to concentrate on now—making Anne Riley better.

Thankfully, Charlotte must have sensed she was in no mood for chatter as her sister only eyed her sympathetically then turned her attention to the streets of Boston out the carriage window.

When they reached the house of Mrs. Fisk, Mrs. Riley rushed quickly to the door, immediately displacing the housekeeper who disappeared to attend to some other duty. The energy of the elder Riley woman could not have been more different from how Margaret and Charlotte had encountered her yesterday.

“Oh, bless you, child. He has come. Thank you. Thank you.” Mrs. Riley gave Margaret’s hand a squeeze.

“Who has come?” Charlotte strode forward into the foyer and began to remove her gloves, eyes searching the staircase for some sign of this person to whom Mrs. Riley referred.

“Why Dr. Steele, of course. He has not abandoned us after all.”

Margaret sucked in a breath. “He has come?” Impossible. And yet, surely Mrs. Riley was speaking the truth. “I can scarcely believe it. But why do you thank me?”

“Because you were so kind to use your influence over him for our sake.” Mrs. Riley gave her a private wink.

Margaret felt the deep blush that must be coloring her cheeks at the reference to Mrs. Riley’s knowledge of the kiss, and the implication of Dr. Steele’s being under any influence of Margaret’s at all.

“But I didn’t—” Her breath left her throat as she caught the vision of Dr. John Steele standing at the top of the stairs.

He was wiping his hands on a towel, his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows, looking down on them with a look of pleasant surprise, his aquamarine eyes set apart so spectacularly from the ebony of his hair and sideburns. The muscles and sinews of his forearms flexed as he worked the towel in his hands. Her knees suddenly went weak.

This man who had kissed her so passionately.

This man who had abandoned his patient but inexplicably was here now tending to her when it was Margaret’s deepest hope that he would do this very thing.

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