As she worked, she could feel him watching her, and with every dab of her hand, she felt the heat rising to her cheeks. The more she worked, the more she could feel his interest building.
“Did you have something you wished to say, My Lord?”
Lord Spurnrose shook his head at her question but then seemed to think better of it. Sucking in a breath, he asked, “Why are you helping me?”
“Why wouldn’t I help you?” she asked in response, keeping her eyes on her work. She only glanced up at his face for one second before deciding it was likely best not to do it again. It was better to see him as a faceless, nameless patient than as the nobleman she had kissed the night before with so much passion that it could have gone anywhere if she had allowed it to do so.
“I got the sense at the ball last night that many members of the ton would not welcome your help,” Lord Spurnrose stated, and Melissa’s entire body tensed. She wasn’t sure she liked where this was going.
“In any profession, there are people who would not like to take the services of someone,” Melissa insisted, shrugging as though it was of little consequence to her. In truth, it was. She had enough patients to tend to on her small estate without worrying about the small ailments and fanciful needs of the members of thetonwho saw her elixirs and potions – as they liked to call them – as fancy ways of getting whatever they wanted.
Though she always liked to help those she could, she liked to think she had a good sense of those who simply wished to use her for their own personal gain, people who would take her remedies just as soon as they would throw her under the horse and carriage if they were seen doing business with her to save themselves.
“That is true, but I can see no reason why anyone would not wish to hire your services,” Lord Spurnrose said, looking at her with such an intensity that it made her feel more than a little uncomfortable. “You are a kind and caring soul, and all you have done so far is help me.”
Melissa shrugged her shoulders and pulled back from where she had just finished cleaning the last of his wounds. “Some people are unwilling even to give alternative medicine a chance. They would rather have a London doctor bleed them dry than believe something that grows in their very own garden could help them overcome some minor ailment.”
“You are a very intelligent woman, Lady Belmont,” Lord Spurnrose said, his voice so quiet that she barely heard him, and the inflection in his voice caused her to look around at him. He was gazing at her in such a way that the heat immediately rose to her cheeks all over again. “I only wish more could see what I do.”
As their eyes met, Melissa felt his irises burning into hers. She felt as though his gaze was reaching deep inside her and plucking a wealth of knowledge from her soul that nobody else had ever been able to reach.
Blinking forcefully to break the connection, Melissa cleared her throat and rummaged in her doctor’s bag again. Trying not to think of the connection they had just shared nor the kiss they had experienced the night before, she asked, “Is your stomach still troubling you, My Lord?”
“A little,” the lord admitted though she saw enough out of the corner of her eye to guess that he wasn’t entirely telling her the truth.
Forcing herself to meet his eyes again, she asked firmly, “How long has this pain afflicted you?”
The way his face paled suggested that he hadn’t been anticipating her questioning him on such things. He pursed his lips as though debating whether to answer the question.
“My Lord, if you do not tell me, I shall not be able to help you,” she insisted, raising an eyebrow at him and cocking her head to one side a little, showing that she had no intention of leaving without first having got to the bottom of things. “A small stomach ache is one thing, but one that causes you to fall from your horse is quite another.”
Her words finally seemed to reach him, and the nobleman sighed deeply, closing his eyes for just a second before he explained, “I have had the affliction for some time, on and off. It comes and goes, but every time it comes, it seems worse than ever.”
Melissa had heard that somewhere before. Her stomach clenched as she remembered her father, a man she had loved dearly who had been afflicted by an ailment of the gut for quite some time before a heart attack had finished him off.
“My Lord, may I ask, do you have any other symptoms?” Melissa asked, using a fresh cloth soaked with alcohol to give her hands a good wipe. “Anything else that I should know about?”
Distantly, she remembered his coughing a few times, and she made a quick mental note of it when the lord shook his head. “No, just the stomach ache.”
“And tell me, what is your diet like Lord Spurnrose?” Melissa asked, the corners of her lips beginning to twitch upwards. She already got the sense that she knew well what his answer would be. All too often now, the members of thetonliked to gorge themselves on fanciful food and alcohol, most of which did none of them any good, especially when they suffered with the kind of condition she suspected Lord Spurnrose of having.
The nobleman raised an eyebrow at her and asked, “What does my diet have to do with anything?”
Melissa put all of her used cloths into a pile before she turned her gaze back up to his and offered him a pointed expression. “You are suffering with stomach pain, Lord Spurnrose. It seems only right that I should question you about what you put into said stomach.”
“I am not foolish enough to be poisoning myself if that is your meaning, Lady Belmont,” Lord Spurnrose scoffed, shaking his head at her. Almost as though she had offended him, he reached for his undershirt and quickly tugged it back on. It only helped to staunch her attraction to him a little when she couldn’t see the chiseled features of his muscular torso. However, it made it a little easier for her to think clearly.
“Do you eat a lot of meat and drink a lot of alcohol?” Melissa asked. “Perhaps very few fresh fruits and vegetables?”
At that, Lord Spurnrose’s eyes widened a little before he quickly wiped the look of surprise from his face. Melissa had to bite back laughter as she realised she had hit the nail right on the head.
“I suppose my diet is not the best.” Lord Spurnrose shrugged. “But what does that really have to do with it?”
Before she could respond, the nobleman started to clear his throat. It quickly turned to a wheezing sound before he reached for the handkerchief from his jacket and coughed into it.
“And that cough?” Melissa asked inquisitively. “Is that something new?”
Lord Spurnrose looked suspicious for a second. He glanced down at the handkerchief cupped in his hands before carefully folding it and placing it on the table beside him. Melissa, already keen-eyed to the fact that many of her patients tried to hide things from her, had already noticed the specks of crimson that speckled the white fabric. Yet another answer to her questioning that he had not given up willingly.
