The Viscount Made Me Do It by Diana Quincy

London

1816

Thomas Ellis, Viscount Griffin, was a haunted man.

His torment colored all his actions and influenced most of his daily decisions, including this afternoon’s sojourn to the ancient coffeehouse off Red Lion Square. But the musty venue and acrid brew offered little escape from his troubles.

Until she walked in the door.

He noticed her at once. She was the sort of woman who commanded attention. Proud posture. Midnight eyes lined in black that gleamed with keen intelligence. An aura of intrigue trailed her like the tail of a comet.

“Here comes the quack!” The voice of a young buck one table over quivered with excitement.

“That’s her,” one of his companions, a boy with curling ginger hair, affirmed. “That’s the bonesetter.”

The third man at the table, a dandy with artfully tousled sandy hair, hurriedly pulled a white protective healing sleeve over one wrist and set his arm on the table before him.

“Over here, madam,” one of the bucks called out before whispering to his friends, “How much blunt to do think she’ll want to fix it?”

“She’s a bonesetter like her quack father,” responded the tadpole in the protective sleeve. “She’ll try to get as much as she can. Grasping sorts, those foreigners.”

As she drew nearer, Griff’s pulse beat harder. Flawless tawny skin and firmly etched features were punctuated by a wide pink mouth that could make a man forget his troubles. Even when that man was Griff. Despite what happened to his parents. And the agony blasting through his arm—a memento from the war.

The woman’s astute, thick-lashed gaze assessed the palpable sense of anticipation infusing the air. She addressed the pups in a calm, almost bored, manner.

“The boy who summoned me says somebody here has put out a bone.” Her deep, raspy voice sent a blast of heat through Griff. “Who would that be?”

“I am Mansfield.” The patient’s eyes reflected excitement rather than the pain one might expect of an injured man. “I cannot move my wrist.”

“I see.” She removed her deep gray cloak to reveal a violet gown, its modest neckline made even more so by the snowy lace fichu tucked into the square neck of her bodice. A long golden necklace almost reached her trim waist. “What happened, Mr. Mansfield?”

“I fell.”

“Allow me to have a look.” Setting her wrap aside, the woman took the seat across from the young man and gently removed the protective covering from his wrist. From his vantage point, Griff couldn’t make out any obvious signs of injury. The woman held the buck’s forearm in one hand while testing the range of motion of the patient’s wrist with the other.

“Does this hurt?” she inquired, her attention focused on the joint in question.

“Like the devil.” He grinned over her head at his two companions but then seemed to remember himself and grimaced instead. “I believe I’ve put out my wrist.”

She moved his wrist in the opposite direction. “And this? Any pain?”

“That is even worse.” Mansfield raised his eyebrows at his companions, who watched raptly with barely contained grins.

She drew her hands away. “Please move your wrist to the best of your ability so that I might assess your range of motion.”

“I fear I cannot.” His eyes twinkled. “It’s pure agony.”

She asked more questions. Then she said, “I see what the problem is.”

One of Mansfield’s co-conspirators hovered close. “Do you?”

“Can you repair it?” asked the patient. “What do you think?”

“I think you are wasting my time.”

“Really?” He smirked. “How so?”

Something ominous glittered in her midnight eyes. Griff almost felt sorry for the tadpole. The boy was too thick to realize he was outmatched.

“There was nothing wrong with you,” she said.

Confusion filled Mansfield’s face. “Was?”

“Was.” Taking a firm hold of the whelp’s forearm, she wrenched his wrist backward with a sudden, forceful jerk. “But now there is.”

The pup shrieked and yanked his wrist away. “What the devil did you do?”

“Your wrist is dislocated.” She stood and reached for her cloak, swinging it around her shoulders with the air of a conquering general.

“What did you do that for?” asked Mansfield’s horrified friend. “He wasn’t really hurt before you showed up.”

“I abandoned a patient in need to attend to Mr. Mansfield,” she said. “I do not appreciate having my time wasted.”

“Good lord!” Mansfield moaned, cradling his wrist, his crimson face twisted in pain. “She’s a witch.”

“Wait!” Ginger Hair implored, raising his panicked voice to be heard over his whimpering friend. “You cannot leave Mansfield in this condition. Look at him! He is in terrible pain.”

She brushed a cursory gaze over the flushed man hunching over his injured appendage. “If Mr. Mansfield wishes to have his wrist repaired, he may come and see me this afternoon.”

Without another word or a backward glance, she departed in long, unladylike strides. The gleaming pale sapphire pendant swinging from the chain around her neck glittered, catching the light like a falling star.

Griff’s gaze caught on the necklace. A sharp pain stabbed his chest. He almost slipped off the coffeehouse bench. He hadn’t noted the pendant at first. But seeing that oval stone again catapulted him back fourteen years to the worst night of his life.

He knew that jewel.

Intimately.

The bonesetter was wearing the necklace ripped from his mother’s neck the evening of her murder.

Elliot Townsend, the Duke of Huntington, frowned. “Are you sure your mother was wearing the necklace”—he paused—“on the evening in question?”

“Absolutely.” Griff was still shaken. He’d come directly from the coffeehouse to Hunt’s palatial home on St. James Place in Mayfair. The duke was Griff’s closest friend. Truth be told, he was Griff’s only true friend. Everyone else was just an acquaintance. Only Hunt was steadfast in his support at Harrow after the murders. Even now, Griff mostly kept to himself. He rarely came to London. Mingling with the ton was deuced awkward when half of society believed he’d murdered his parents.

“The necklace was taken that night. Mother wore it practically every day.” Griff tried to keep his hand from trembling as he accepted a glass from Hunt. “But that’s not the maddest part.”

Hunt settled in an upholstered chair opposite his friend. “What’s crazier than your mother’s necklace turning up fourteen years after her death?”

“This.” Griff withdrew a gold signet ring from his pocket and presented it on the palm of his hand for Hunt’s inspection. The cool metal felt fire-hot against his skin.

“What’s that?”

“My mother’s ring.” He stared at the ornately carved band and wondered who’d twisted it off the finger of a dead woman. “She was wearing it that night. It was also taken.”

Hunt’s brows shot up. “Where did you get it?”

“The ring was delivered to Ashby Manor several weeks ago. Of course, I wasn’t there.” Griff hadn’t returned to the scene of the murders since the day his parents’ corpses were sealed in the family vault. “It arrived by mail wrapped in a parcel addressed to me. Just the ring. No note. Nothing.”

Hunt edged forward to examine the circular band. “Where was it sent from?”

“A post office off Red Lion Square. That’s why I am in London. I went to the post office hoping to learn who sent it. But no one there remembered anything.”

“That’s quite the coincidence.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Trying to settle his nerves, Griff took a large gulp of whiskey. The liquid produced a satisfying burn down his throat and into his chest. “After fourteen years, someone in the vicinity of Red Lion Square sends me my mother’s ring. And then today, in the same neighborhood, I see a woman wearing Mother’s necklace.”

“I suppose you intend to find the woman.”

“I already have.” He shifted, trying to make his injured arm more comfortable.

Hunt noticed. “How’s your shoulder?”

“It’s fine,” Griff lied. “The woman with my mother’s necklace is a bonesetter. The coffeehouse owner gave me her direction.”

“A bonesetter? That doesn’t bode well. She’s most likely a fraud.”

“Possibly.”

“What do you intend to do? Ask her about it outright?”

“I can hardly ask a stranger why she’s wearing stolen jewelry and expect an honest answer.”

“From the expression on your face, I’d venture to guess that you already have a plan.”

“Most definitely.” Griff swallowed the last of his whiskey. “It’s time to put this damned war injury to use.”

“Did you keep your finger wet?” Hanna Zaydan asked her neighbor.

“Oh yes. I wrapped it in a bag of bran just as you instructed.” Claudia Lockhart was the widowed proprietor of a nearby grocery store. “Are you certain you can fix it?”

“Yes,” Hanna said. “The tissues around the joint should be softened by now.”

Mrs. Lockhart watched Hanna gently unwind the wrapping around her injured middle finger. “I didn’t realize you are treating patients.”

“I am.” Even though her family disapproved. “But mostly just friends and acquaintances.” Hanna had refused to completely stop seeing patients after her father’s death. She continued to treat them in Baba’s old examining room at the rear of the narrow town house off Red Lion Square.

It wasn’t easy, given that she shared the house with a revolving set of relatives—brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles—depending on who was in London at any given time. Right now, beyond the closed door, they could hear Citi, Hanna’s grandmother, rattling around in the parlor.

“The doctor says the joint is enlarged and that I should apply iodine to it.” The widow’s words were punctuated by a long, heavy cough.

Holding Mrs. Lockhart’s weathered hand in her palm, Hanna assessed the injury. “He’s wrong.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Hanna gave the finger a sudden violent wrench. A sharp crack, similar to the sound of cracking knuckles, rent the air.

Mrs. Lockhart yelped and yanked her hand away. “What in the world—”

“That should do it.”

“Do what?”

“Your joint was out of place. I put it back in.”

“You did?” Straightening up, Mrs. Lockhart gingerly tested the affected finger. To her obvious surprise, it moved easily.

“Any pain?” Hanna asked.

“None.” The older woman repeatedly opened and closed her veiny hand. “Although your bedside manner does leave something to be desired, young lady.”

“If I had warned you, you would have tensed up.” Hanna disposed of the bag of bran. “You won’t be needing this any longer.”

Mrs. Lockhart stared at her moving hand in wonder. “I had no idea that you could truly cure me.”

The older woman’s frankness didn’t offend Hanna. She’d learned early on that people came to bonesetters as a last resort after traditional medical treatment failed them.

“Have you decided to become a bonesetter just like your father?” Mrs. Lockhart asked.

“I am a bonesetter.” Her mother and grandmother would be scandalized to hear her speak so. But Hanna couldn’t deny her true calling any more than she could change the color of her eyes. “My father tried to teach me everything he knew. I worked by his side every day since I was a girl.”

“I thought you were just his assistant.”

“Eventually I became his apprentice. Papa said I had a natural talent for bonesetting.”

“I agree with your father.” Mrs. Lockhart’s kind words ended in another protracted cough.

“One day I will open a dispensary where patients can come to be treated.” A place outside of her home, away from her family.

Mrs. Lockhart’s brows went up. “You intend to become a woman of business?”

Hanna drew her shoulders back, bracing for the older woman’s censure. “I wish to be able to treat patients unhindered by my family.”

But Mrs. Lockhart surprised her. “It is always best for a woman to be able to look after herself. I’m a widow with no children. If my late husband hadn’t left the grocery to me, I would be a pauper dependent upon the generosity of relatives and strangers.”

“Mama and Citi do not approve of my work. They prefer that I wed.”

“You cannot blame them. Marriage secures a girl’s future.” Mrs. Lockhart patted Hanna’s hand. “But if you ever open that dispensary of yours, I shall be your first patient.”

Hanna helped the older woman off the examining table. “It’s just a dream.” She and her friend Evan Bridges, the neighborhood physician, often talked of opening a clinic, but they lacked the funds.

She escorted her patient to the front door. “Get that cough looked after.” After they said their goodbyes, Hanna headed back to Baba’s office but was interrupted by a knock at the door. She returned to answer it.

“Did you forget something?” Hanna asked as she pulled the front door open.

But it wasn’t Mrs. Lockhart.

Instead, she found herself staring at a well-built man of average height clad in a crisply tailored navy overcoat. He gazed down, the rim of his black beaver hat obscuring his face. He slowly lifted his chin, revealing an elegant face punctuated by a distinct nose and thin, bow-shaped lips.

Their gazes met, and Hanna found herself staring into hooded steel-blue eyes that reminded her of a cold winter morning. His was not a welcoming visage, but something inside her chest twitched.

“Are you the bonesetter?” The words were clipped.

Unaccountably, Hanna flushed. “I am.”

“I am Griffin. I require your services.”