That Scandalous Summer

by Meredith Duran

  Here was love. Watching it, Liza felt grief wash over her. What purchase could it find amid the grim facts of life?

  She grimaced. Too early, this despair. Unnecessary, indulgent. Her anger suddenly twisted, becoming self-directed. “Mrs. Broward will be well,” she said. There was the steadiness she required, there in her voice now. “She has two doctors attending her. She will be well, Daniel.”

  “Thank you for coming,” Miss Broward said. She sounded dull and hoarse, as though she had been yelling.

  “Had I known, I would have come sooner.”

  “Of course. We did not wish to trouble you. Then she asked after you, but . . .”

  Liza closed her eyes. The ache in her head felt like some intolerable evidence of her own lowness. Tonight she had sat in the drawing room, planning a party, drinking toasts with Jane to all manner of stupidity. Meanwhile, Mary had been lying on that bed, suffering . . .

  A raised voice came through the wall, the words muffled but their mood clear. In the bedroom, men were arguing.

  Liza cleared her throat. “I thought it would be fine.” At market on Monday, Mary had been feeling the first pains. But she had seemed so calm. Six children borne already. She’d never had any trouble with it.

  “Yes,” said Miss Broward, and then said no more.

  The door flew open. Mr. Broward stumbled out. “I can’t watch this,” he said, dashing tears from his face. “I can’t. Forgive me.”

  Behind him, Mr. Morris appeared. “Mrs. Chudderley,” he said grimly. “If I may beg a word with you.”

  • • •

  Mr. Grey was laying out instruments atop the chest that adjoined the foot of the bed. With unaccustomed aggression, Morris pushed her toward him. “Tell her of your plan. If Mr. Broward lacks the wit to defend his wife, she will!”

  Liza cast a bewildered look toward the bed. “What is this about?” Mary lay quite still, the only sign of life now her fluttering lashes, and the faint sheen of sweat pearling her skin. “My God, is she . . .”

  “No,” said Mr. Grey. “Morris administered a small amount of chloroform to give her ease. It won’t last long.”

  Liza’s eyes fell to the scalpel in his hand. He dipped it into a small pot of liquid that bubbled. There could be only one reason for such a blade. “You mean to . . .”

  He glanced up at that. His light eyes seemed to assess her. “The child is lodged too high in her pelvis,” he said. “Surgery is the only remaining option.”

  “A craniotomy is the obvious choice!” Morris spat.

  Liza looked between them. “What is that?”

  “A procedure that would save Mrs. Broward’s life,” Mr. Morris said after a moment.

  That pause seemed telling. “And the child?” she asked.

  His jaw ticked from side to side. “The child . . . would not survive. But she would. Something Mr. Grey cannot guarantee, given his way!”

  “A craniotomy poses significant risks of its own.” Grey bent, retrieving from his black doctor’s bag a length of silver wire. He unwound the wire, dipping it, too, into the solution. In contrast to Morris’s agitation, his measured movements seemed jarringly calm. “Conversely, a Caesarean section might save both mother and child. And that is Mrs. Broward’s preference.”

  Morris scoffed. “Her preference—yes, very well, let us listen to a woman hysterical with pain! And while you’re at it, tell Mrs. Chudderley the risk of infection, and how often a woman survives that! Not to mention hemorrhage! Why—”

  “Uterine sutures,” said Grey.

  “Impossible. How will you remove them?”

  Grey’s smile was cool and sharp as glass. “It is not my job to educate you.” Now, from the bag at his feet, he produced a needle and a length of white gauze. “Saumlnger wrote an entire monograph on the subject five years ago.”

  “No.” Morris was shaking his head. “You would have me condone this madness on the newfangled tactics of some German? Absolutely not!”

  Mr. Grey made no reply as he focused on his tasks. Liza glanced again toward the bed, anxiety tightening her throat. She did not understand why she had been brought into this quarrel. But surely Mary hadn’t much time. Her face looked waxen, nearly bloodless.

  “Do something,” she blurted. “One or the other!”

  “Reason with Mr. Broward,” Morris said to her. “I pray you, persuade him to stop this! His thoughts are muddled. He will rely on your judgment!”

  She swallowed. “But I have no idea which—that is, Mr. Grey, what is your argument?”

  Mr. Grey looked up. “Mr. Broward gave the choice to his wife. And I would not support that choice if I did not think it the best way. I know the odds, and I will take them.”

  He spoke curtly, not in the manner of a man bent on persuasion. That, more than anything, decided her. “Then, if the Browards feel it best, we must respect their wishes.”

  Morris chopped at the air—a movement so violent that she took a startled step away. “A tailor and his wife! A tailor—do you hear yourself? Trust him to judge the cut of a coat, but this is a woman’s life, madam!”

  His contempt was sharper and more shocking than a slap. She stared at him. His face reddened but he did not look away. “I will have no part in it.” Spittle flew from his mouth. “Do you hear me? I will not assist!”

  In the brief silence that followed, panic coiled around her lungs, tightening until she could not breathe. So this was true fear. She had come to watch Mary Broward die. “You must,” she whispered, but Morris averted his face, his lips pinching.

  “You aren’t needed,” said Mr. Grey.

  The breath burst from her. She turned toward him, savagely grateful to see the cold confidence in his face, as behind her Morris exploded, “Rubbish! You can’t do it alone!”

  “Your hands aren’t steady enough.” Grey’s attention fixed on Liza. “I will need your assistance.”

  “What?” Shock splintered into horrified understanding. No, he couldn’t mean— “You want me to help?”

  “Outrageous,” Morris said. “She will faint at the first drop of blood!”

  Grey gave her a long look of assessment as he unwound a length of gauze. “Will you?”

  Her stomach rolled in reply. No, no. He wanted to make her a party to a surgery that might kill Mary? “I can’t! I’ve never—”

  “The child.” The voice came weakly from the bed. “Please . . .”

  Morris, on a low oath, turned away. Liza stepped toward the bed, thinking to speak to Mary, but a hard hand at her elbow—Grey’s hand—pulled her back.

  “Let her be,” he said. Then, lower, into her ear: “You are frightened. I understand that. But you must decide now, quickly. I would rather not involve her immediate family in the surgery.”

  She hesitated, turning in his grip to look directly at him. Strange, fleeting thought: she had thought his eyes so beautiful. But now they were bloodshot, deadly sober. She recognized nothing in him of the laughing flirt who had kissed her by the lake.

  “If I make a mistake . . .” When had she ever done anything so important and delicate as this? She did not even do needlepoint. She did not even dress herself! “I am the last person you should be asking.”

  Something moved across his face, too fleeting to decipher. But his stern expression softened. “I would not ask if I did not think you capable. All you need do is take my instruction.”

  She could not do this. No. She glanced away—and found herself locked in Mary’s agonized look of entreaty.

  Her throat closed. How could she refuse?

  “Yes.” My God. “I’ll help.” She lifted her hands to test them. To her amazement, Mr. Grey was right. They did not shake.

  • • •

  Once Morris had stomped out and Mr. Grey had bolted the door, time seemed to slow. For an eternity Liza scrubbed her hands, disbelief like a panic in her blood, the sting of the antiseptic drawing tears to her tired eyes. Mr. Grey turned up the lamps. Everything became too bright, painful
ly illuminated. Her heart was pounding like a war cry before battle: what was she doing? He must be mad to ask this of her. She was a butterfly. A professional beauty, for God’s sake.

  When he held out a rag well blotted with chloroform, she faltered. “There is no one else who can help?”

  He held her eyes. “I can send for someone. Pershall should be coming.”

  But that might take too long. “I can’t do this,” she said. “You don’t understand.” He had no idea who she was. Had he known her reputation, or understood the poverty of her judgment, he never would have asked this of her.

  I will kill her.

  “You can,” he said. “I will explain every step.”

  She swallowed, certain she would be sick. But she took the cloth and crossed quickly to Mary’s head, trying to match Mary’s weak smile—God in heaven, an attempt to reassure her—before placing it carefully over the woman’s nose.

  Mary’s eyes fluttered shut again. And then the whole world contracted to the bed, to Grey’s quiet movements as he propped Mary’s knees atop rolled blankets.

  “Now the antiseptic,” he said. “This is your task. I’ll prepare the tubing.”

  Amazing that her hand did not shake. How had he known it would not shake? She focused intently on her job, limiting her awareness only to the moment: the pale curve of Mary’s belly as she swabbed it down. The frightening faintness of the child’s weakening kicks.

  The sickly sweet smell of chloroform, as she administered a new dose under Mr. Grey’s direction.

  The coppery scent of blood as he made the first incision.

  Through it all, she felt anchored by his voice—steady, clear, and free of doubt as he directed her. His voice made it possible to keep her hand steady as she assisted him with the india rubber tubing—“To direct drainage,” he told her. His voice kept her calm as she watched him reveal the awful, ugly secrets the skin kept veiled from view. Somehow none of it, none of the blood and mess, affected him; at every turn he remained evenly spoken, transparently unsurprised; and so Liza, breathing deeply, remained collected, too, even as the blood spilled more freely, and his scalpel flashed again. It could not be bad. For he did not sound worried.

  Yet when he wrestled the babe free—when he put it squirming and bloodied into her arms, and she realized it was a flawless little girl, with eyelashes and nails all intact—part of her awoke with a sudden jolt. Abruptly she was back in her body, and shaking indeed, in this stinking, close little room, as she gripped a living child who had come so impossibly close to not living at all.

  My God, she thought. She looked between the babe and Mary, who yet slumbered, peaceful in her drugged dreams, and the man standing over her who now wielded his needle, silver wire flashing. He was piecing Mary together layer by layer, blood up to his elbows, no sign on his face of anything but focused intent.

  The same man who had kissed her, and laughed.

  She could not look away from him. He did not give up. Having saved one life, he was battling now to save another.

  She felt her breath go. She had never witnessed anything so serious. Never witnessed any man performing a task of such import. A queer feeling seized her, a prickling all down her skin, curiously like wonder. She clutched the child harder to her breast. I know the odds, and I will take them.

  The explosive wail made her jump. The baby screamed, red face contorting. Then footsteps pounded, the door rattled, and Mr. Grey looked to her, a hard look that was broken by his blink, as though suddenly he could see again.

  “Well done,” he said.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Hand over the baby, but keep them out—I’ll need your help once more.”

  She flew to the door.

  • • •

  The surgery concluded, Liza returned to Havilland Hall only to bathe and sleep. At the Browards’, endless tasks awaited her, for by God, she still had the money to make their troubles easier. A wet nurse must be hired, for Mary’s pain required laudanum, which made her milk dangerous. Mr. Broward’s tailoring shop could not be closed, for he was receiving a shipment of cloth from London. But Liza put together a schedule for the neighbors, young men called in from the fields who would man his shop once he had dealt with the shipment.

  Almost the moment those matters were settled, nearly a full day after the baby’s birth, Mary developed a fever. For the first time, Mr. Grey showed concern. And that frightened Liza more, even, than the great heat radiating from Mary’s body.

  The second and third days passed in a haze: ice baths to bring down Mary’s fever; the constant administration of medicines; the vigil to make sure Mary’s airway remained clear. Near noon on the fourth day, Mary grew delirious and had to be restrained. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Morris paid a call, requesting to look in on Mary himself. His manner was terse, his anger clearly undiminished. But Mr. Grey ceded his patient courteously, and after a brief conversation with Morris, Liza went to find him, eager to know his thoughts.

  He sat in the small, stone-walled garden that adjoined the cottage. She took a seat beside him on the low bench; it was quite wide enough for another two men besides. The mellow sunlight and mild warmth, the bees drifting around them from flower to flower, made a welcome respite from the darkness of the house. Someone, Miss Broward in all likelihood, had brought Mr. Grey a simple lunch of cold beef, Stilton, and bread. He handed her a piece of cheese without comment.

  She took a bite, but chewed without enthusiasm. “Do you think the fever will break today?”

  “If we are fortunate.” Mr. Grey picked at his bread, frowning.

  “It’s a bad sign, isn’t it? That she hallucinates?”

  The corner of his mouth hitched, not precisely a smile. “Has Mr. Morris been advising you?”

  “He says you must cup her.”

  “Cupping will not help,” he said evenly. “Mr. Morris languishes in the 1830s, I believe.”

  “But is he right that it’s a bad sign?”

  He sighed. “It is . . . not a good sign. No.”

  “All right.” She took a hard breath. “I’ll send a note to Havilland Hall, inform them I must stay on tonight.”

  He cast her a look she could not decipher. He also had returned home, once or twice, to rest and gather supplies. But by the shadows beneath his eyes, he had not allowed himself very much sleep. “No need for that. The others can help me where it’s needed.”

  Strange that she should feel hurt by the notion that he did not require her. “But Paul is returning to school today, and Miss Broward must look after the little ones and the baby. And Mr. Broward is exhausted, and becomes so terribly upset whenever he sees his wife in such a state. It would be better all around if I stayed, don’t you think?”

  He turned on the bench to look at her. In the strong light, the shadows beneath his cheekbones were pronounced. “Your help is welcome,” he said slowly. “But surely you have your own obligations to attend to.”

  She shrugged. Mather and Jane had the preparations for the house party well in hand—a good thing, for Liza could not think on it right now. As for the rest, Havilland Hall ran like clockwork: she was only an idle spectator to its operation. “Nothing of import.”

  He did not reply to that. Nor did he look away, though he angled his face a little, so the light suddenly struck his eyes, illuminating them. They matched the sky behind him, achingly blue.

  She shifted a little on the bench, discomfited by sudden awareness. For days now he’d been a remote authority: the doctor, issuing instructions, who must be obeyed. But now, suddenly, she saw him again as a man, his strong jaw shadowed by stubble, his glossy hair mussed beyond repair. And she saw, too, how his dishevelment became him. He was not classically handsome, but he had the body of a soldier, long and lean—and a sharp and knowledgeable mind, and broad hands that saved an infant and then gently cradled an ailing woman’s head as he spoke to her, whispered to her, encouraged her to believe she would live to know her child.

  Liza�
��s eyes fell to those hands, tanned and long-fingered and capable, and something hot moved through her, something entirely overpowering and mortifyingly out of place. When she had kissed him by the lake, she had not known anything of him. Her admiration, her attraction, had been premised on her surprise: a country rustic with wit, a man who smelled delicious, whose lips were surprisingly skilled.

  But then he had saved a child’s life, and Mary’s as well. And now he deprived himself of rest to ensure Mary’s continued survival.

  And now Liza wanted him for those reasons, too. He was not simply a diversion any longer. He was a man well worth wanting.

  And he was still staring at her.

  She reached up, tucking stray wisps of hair behind her ears, abruptly conscious of how much she had perspired while helping to hold Mary down. “What is it?” she asked, attempting lightness. “Why do you stare? Have I grown another head?”

  He gave her a faint smile. “The one you have is already quite enough to draw stares. No, I’m only wondering . . . what is it that really keeps you here?”

  Her throat closed. Did he somehow sense her shift in mood? That every inch of her skin was suddenly humming, longing to move closer to him? The thought was too awful. With Mary so ill . . . “You said the fever might be serious. But if you prefer . . .”

  “No,” he said instantly. “Don’t mistake me. I could not hope for a better assistant. You are calm and clearheaded; you listen carefully, and you’re methodical in carrying out instructions.”

  She could feel her face warming. What peculiar praise, to touch her so deeply. “Not the most difficult tasks.”

  “You’d be surprised. It was Mrs. Broward’s good fortune, and mine, that you were here to assist that first night. But I confess I’m surprised that you’ve stayed so long. I know that Mary’s health gravely concerns you. But I wonder . . . do you fear what might happen in your absence? Or are you kept here by the . . . novelty of it?”