A Man with Nerves of Steel (Joseph Hart) novel Chapter 43

Chapter 43

Joseph walked into the house and noticed that Cora wasn’t home. In the past, he would have sent her a message to ask where she was, and no matter how late it got, he would have waited for her to come home. But he had no heart for that now.

“Mr. Hart, you’re back. Have you eaten? Should I make you something?” Mary asked.

“What’s Cora up to?”

“Ms. Lowell only said she wouldn’t be coming back for dinner. She didn’t say anything else.”

“Oh, right. Would it be too much to ask you to give me a massage and rub some oil on me?”

“Well, Ms. Lowell wouldn’t allow that…”

Mary knew how to do it, of course, but without Cora’s permission, she didn’t dare lay a hand on Joseph.

“You seem to do whatever Cora says. I guess if she told you to sleep with me, you’d do that too.”

Joseph gave a contemptuous smile before heading into the study to work. After summing up his key takeaways from treating the cholera patient, he looked for information to create a more comprehensive treatment plan.

Once he was done, he went out to a massage place. He ordered a standard massage and oil rub to start, then asked the female worker for the full service.

However, the additional services never came. After the worker finished the massage and oil rub, she left and never came back. Lying on the bed, Joseph eventually dozed off. When he woke up again, he found Cora sitting by the bed, staring at him with a solemn expression.

It was just as he had expected. He remained calm, making no attempt to explain himself. After checking his watch, he said casually, “It’s this late already? Oh, what are you doing here?”

“Do you not know what kind of place this is? Why would you come to a place like this?”

Cora wanted to slap Joseph and give him a harsh scolding. Who gave him the guts to come to a place like this for a full service?

“Right. You managed to find me at a place like this. So either you followed me here, or this place is part of your territory. Whichever it is, the Lowell family really is something else!”

The next day, Joseph waited for Walt to arrive, and they went to the sanatorium together. After another day of treatment, Mavis seemed noticeably better. Aware that Joseph didn’t have his car with him, she specifically asked her personal caregiver to take him home.

Once the drop-off was done, the caregiver returned to the sanatorium and truthfully reported that Joseph was staying at Cofa’s home.

Upon hearing this, Mavis fell into deep thought for a moment, making no attempt to cornment.

The caregiver then mused aloud, “If Dr. Hart is divorcing Cora, why is he still living with her? He doesn’t own any property, so he probably has nowhere else to go.”

Since they had sought Joseph for treatment, naturally, they had to investigate his situation thoroughly.

Joseph and Cora’s relationship was easy enough to look into, but when they found that Joseph had already filed for divorce twice, they suspected that there was more to this than met the eye.

“If Dr. Hart asks for our help with the divorce, then we’ll put pressure on Bernard. If he doesn’t, then we should stay out of his personal affairs,” Mavis said after considering it carefully.