The Lass Wore Black Read Free

silk vest and snowy ruffled bib of his shirt.
    She stepped forward, unclenching her hands and extending both in a welcoming gesture.
    “Dr. Thorburn,” she said. “I’ve taken you from something. I do apologize.”
    “I’m due at a function this evening, Mrs. MacTavish,” he said, removing his hat and gloves and placing them on the sideboard. Only then did he reach out and grab her hands in his, the grip steady and reassuring.
    For a second she wanted to be a younger woman. If she were his contemporary, she might have thrown herself in his arms and wept against his shoulder. Gentleman that he was, Dr. Thorburn would no doubt have set her gently away from him, sparing them both embarrassment over her histrionics.
    “You wanted me to see your niece?” he said, effectively banishing any silly thoughts about throwing herself on his mercy.
    She moved aside, leading the way to the front sitting room.
    “She’s not actually my niece,” she said, taking her place on the settee and gesturing to an adjacent chair. “However, I’ve come to think of her as one. Or even my daughter, if I had been blessed enough to have children.”
    My recalcitrant and troubled daughter.
    That part, however, she kept to herself for the time being. If this meeting followed the tenor of the other ones, Mark Thorburn would find out just what kind of patient Catriona was soon enough.
    She was running out of physicians. She’d consulted the most famous ones in Edinburgh and none of them had been willing to treat Catriona. If the girl hadn’t been so badly injured, she would’ve lost patience with her weeks ago. As it was, she could only offer Catriona her pity, along with a determination that matched the girl’s own.
    Catriona would get her treatment, even if she objected every hour of every day. Yet that’s exactly what the girl was doing, and effectively.
    Dr. Thorburn’s stubbornness might help him succeed where others had failed.
    “Catriona was in an accident in London,” Dina said. “She was grievously wounded,” she added, staring into the distance. “My maid, Millicent, was killed in the accident.”
    She looked over at him.
    “For a few days I was not even certain that Catriona would survive. She had lost a great deal of blood, you see.” The explanation had taken longer and been framed in more delicate terms with the other physicians. She knew Mark, however, and had even served as his assistant on more than one occasion in Old Town. Besides, she was a contemporary of his mother’s. If he couldn’t deal with plain speaking from a woman, she’d selected the wrong candidate for this task.
    “But she didn’t die,” he said, urging her along.
    “No,” she said. “She didn’t die. We convalesced in London until Catriona was well enough to travel. The journey home was done in stages, in a conveyance suitably fitted to accommodate a patient.”
    Once again, her nephew, Morgan, had provided the funds, if not the emotional energy, to bring Catriona back to Edinburgh. He’d been all set to take her home to Ballindair, where she would have been cared for by her sister, but Catriona abruptly and unexpectedly refused. Instead, she’d remained for a month in her suite of rooms upstairs, transforming them into a luxurious hermitage.
    When Dina explained that to Mark, his mobile brow arched upward.
    “I don’t think it’s out of the ordinary, Mrs. MacTavish, that she not want to see visitors while she is recuperating.”
    “She has been recuperating for five months, Dr. Thorburn.”
    The brow stayed in place. “In all that time, has she not had the care of a doctor?”
    “In London, yes, but not since we returned to Edinburgh. In fact, the only person she has agreed to see is her sister, and Jean, being in the family way”—another indelicacy there—“will not be able to visit her for at least several months.”
    “Yet something has happened to make you summon me,” he said.
    She sat back and folded her hands on her