Leslie Lafoy Read Online Free PDF

and repeatedly slammed the knocker on the door. The sound pounded out into the silence of the sleeping neighborhood and succeeded, within only moments, of getting the door thrown open to her.
    Dr. Ian Cabott literally rocked back on his heels at the sight of her. “Lady Fiona?” he choked out as he recovered his balance.
    “Pardon my intrusion at this late hour, Your Grace,” she said hastily, the seconds ticking away in her mind, “but there is an emergency and I desperately need your help.”
    “What sort of emergency?” He looked past her and out to the empty street. “Has there been an accident?”
    “This is Beeps,” she said, pulling the edge of her bundled cloak aside just enough to reveal his head. “His right rear leg has been badly broken.”
    He blinked down at Beeps, then looked up at her, chewing his lower lip. “Lady Fiona,” he said kindly, “I can appreciate your concern and sympathy for a suffering animal, but I don’t know what you expect me to do about it. Unless,” he added even more kindly, “you’re hoping I will put it out of its misery for you.”
    Do and you’ll be the one in misery. She swallowed down her anger and her fear. “I’ve read your papers on the experimental pinning of broken limbs. I want you to do that for Beeps.”
    He cocked a brow. “I operate on humans, Lady Fiona. Not animals. I’m sorry.”
    There was nothing to be done but force the issue. She reached under her arm, slipped her hand around the butt of Drayton’s pistol and hauled it out, saying simply and honestly, “As am I, Your Grace,” as she pointed the muzzle at his heart.
    He stared at the maw for a long second and then, slowly lifting his hands, brought his gaze up to hers. “You can not be serious.”
    “I will assist you in the surgery,” she countered firmly, taking a deliberate step forward. “Kindly lead the way. And please keep your hands up where I can see them.”
    To the credit of his good judgment and sense of self-preservation, he stepped back, turned and slowly headed across the foyer, his hands up and saying, “I can’t assure you of a positive outcome, you know.”
    “Better to try and fail than to not try at all,” she said, following him and fighting back tears as Beeps shifted weakly against her. “He’s my very best friend and I will not abandon him or hope.”
    One tiny little meow was all that broke the silence of their passage through the darkened house. They’d reached a room at the far end when Ian Cabott cleared his throat and said quietly, “While I light a lamp, place him on the examining table, please.”
    The outlines of the metal table glinted dully in the scant moonlight wafting through the room’s windows. Fiona carefully, gently did as he instructed as a matchstick flared. The gun in one hand, she trailed the fingertips of her other reassuringly over the top of Beeps’ head and watched the doctor put fire to a lamp wick. The match out, the wick adjusted, he turned with the lamp and met her gaze.
    Yes, this moment was why she was supposed to have met him at the party. Fate had known that she’d need his medical skills before the night was done, had known that his sense of compassion would make it impossible for him to deny her request.
    “Put the gun away, Lady Fiona,” he said, setting the lamp down on the table and gently opening the cloak in which she’d hastily wrapped Beeps. “It’s not necessary and you need to scrub your hands. I’m going to need both of them in the effort.”
    She laid the gun on the desk in the corner on her way to the wash basin, absolutely certain that she’d made the right choices and that everything would turn out not just fine, but as it was supposed to.
    *   *   *
    Ian sat in the chair and watched Lady Fiona Turnbridge sleep, her beloved black-and-white cat bandaged and nestled in the blanket on her lap. She had been a remarkable assistant, her knowledge of general anatomy on par with any of the colleagues