Page 303 of From Rakes to Riches

Raphael’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. They never spoke of it. To anyone.

Ever.

“Long and square cut.” Gabriel stretched his arms out wide to show the length of the wood that had caved his face in. “The kind used to build houses. Does that...change anything? Will you still be able to operate?”

Though Gabriel was his elder brother, larger in every respect, Raphael felt such a swell of protectiveness, he swallowed around a gather of emotion lodged in his throat, threatening to cut offhis breath. Not even when they’d been young had he spoken with such uncertainty. With such hope and dread laced into one inquiry.

“Of course.” The doctor answered in his quick and clipped tone. “Without question.” He turned back to the sink to finish scrubbing his hands.

From his vantage, Raphael watched the doctor work diligently to school the aching compassion out of his expression.

It was appreciated.

Conleith obviously knew enough about men to realize that those who led a life such as theirs equated compassion with pity.

Pity was an insult.

And insults were answered.

Must have learned that in the Afghan war, where he’d earned his hard-won reputation by reportedly stitching together men even more broken than his brother.

Though that was hard to believe.

“Explain to me, Doctor, why you must put Gabriel through more than one procedure. This wouldn’t be to make it seem as if the fortune we allowed you and your wife to keep was worth the trouble... ”

The seams of the midnight-blue shirt strained over Gabriel’s shoulder as he lifted his arm to jam a finger in Raphael’s direction. “Do not intimidate the doctor,” he commanded in their heavily accented French.

Raphael made a rude gesture and answered him in kind. “Does he look intimidated to you?”

The man was in no danger, and not only because he was the only surgeon who could perform such procedures in this country, but because he was married to Mercy’s beloved eldest sister.

The idea of doing anything to cause her pain produced an ache in his own body.

“It’s a valid question.” Conleith strode to the skeleton held upon a post next to Raphael, whose nose looked alarmingly like his brother’s. “Since your wounds have been healed for years, I’ll need to re-break some of the bone in your cheek and then use a panel of sorts to sculpt it back together per a foundational technique pioneered by the Italian doctor, Gasparo Tagliacozzi.” He showed on the skull where the break would occur and where the panel would be fitted. “I certainly have reason to hope that this will help with the terrible headaches you’re plagued with. However, the procedure is new and complicated and could take several hours. I shouldn’t like you to be anesthetized much longer than that, the risk of you not...regaining consciousness is too high.”

Gabriel’s chin dipped once. “I understand.”

“Subsequently, Dr. Karl Ferdinand von Gräfe has shown me how to take skin from another part of your body, and not only shape you an entirely new nose, but also cut open your badly healed scar tissue and graft it so you will be able to speak and chew more easily.”

“Where will the skin be taken from?” Gabriel attempting to furrow his brow was a terrible thing to behold.

More ghastly than normal, in any case.

The doctor hesitated. “Usually from the arm, but because of your tattoos, we’ll have to take it from your back.”

“All right, Doctor.” His brother stood, and it still surprised Raphael to note that Conleith was every bit as tall as the towering gangster, if only three fourths as wide.

Not that Titus Conleith was a diminutive man. Indeed, he was strenuously fit, but Gabriel should have been named Goliath. Or Ajax.

As he’d the proportions not often seen on a mortal.

“Tomorrow night, then.” Rather than offering his hand, Gabriel nodded to the doctor, who seemed to understand that he’d rather dispense with the pleasantries.

He turned away from any sort of audience as he affixed the black mask over his features. It stayed put by way of a strap that encircled the shorn crown of his head like the band of a hat, and settled down over the left side of his features with a frightening, if familiar, prosthetic shape of a man’s face.

It always reminded Raphael of someone attempting to break free of a black marble statue.

After, Gabriel donned his long black coat, drawing up the hood to hide as much of himself as possible.

---