The Heiress's Courtship by Gina Welborn

Author:Gina Welborn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Feeling wearier from Liberty’s silence than from the brisk pace she had set upon leaving the campus, Gerrett opened the boardinghouse’s front door as a cuckoo clock began chiming the hour. Four o’clock. To think the train wreck had been only sixteen hours ago.

“You should take Goswell up on the extra credit offer.” He waited for Liberty to enter before him.

She didn’t answer. Neither did she move from her spot next to him on the porch. Her nose was red. Her cheeks, too. The look captivated him. Liberty captivated him. If he leaned forward, stretched out his arm, he could pull her into an embrace and kiss her. The urge was overwhelming.

The urge was also untimely and unwise.

Which was why, against his desires, Gerrett propped the door open with his left foot, then nudged Liberty inside and out of the cold. “How taxing would it be?” He closed the door.

“Enough to make me realize how content I am with my current grade.” She swirled around and extended her hand. He placed his gloved hand in hers, and she shook. Vigorously. “It was grand meeting you again, Mr. Divine. I do wish you well on your journey.” She released his hand and took a step back as if to say, Well, go on, leave.

He should. He had his luggage to collect and transport to the Goswell house. He had vellum in the pocket of his greatcoat that needed to be wet, scraped and dried so he could begin redrawing his house designs in the morning.

Only, he didn’t want to go. At least, not yet.

Thus Gerrett looked about the almost empty front room of the boardinghouse to the dining tables, where a young woman with mousy brown hair and tired eyes and wearing a drab woolen dress was sitting, her pencil poised over a journal. Dr. Clark’s nurse! The one who had given him tea. She intently watched them, though, instead of writing. A medical bag, a tapestry portmanteau and a charcoal-gray cloak rested on the center of the table.

“My head aches,” he muttered, touching his actually still-tender temple.

Liberty gasped. “Oh, I’d forgotten. Let me find—” she spun around “—Katie, you’re back. Good!”

Within minutes, Gerrett was sitting at a dining hall table and having his scalp examined by a demure yet competent female doctor—Katie Clark. As she and Mrs. Bentz plied him with questions about his day, she (1) cleaned the matted blood from his hair, (2) lectured him on the foolishness of not waiting in the church for a doctor to examine him, (3) asked Mrs. Bentz to make a cold pack, then (4) declared him fortunate that his injury wasn’t deep enough to need stitches. The walnut-size knot on his forehead would need to be watched, though.

Sometime during his exam, Liberty found a seat across the table, opposite Gerrett, and began mending the turned-inside-out tweed coat Mr. Emery had dropped off.

Still standing, Dr. Clark put her journal, pencil and medical tools back in her black medical bag while Gerrett held against his temple the bag of packed snow that Mrs.

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