by Merry Farmer
“Do you have healing?” she asked, studying him with round eyes.
He smiled up at her from where he crouched by her feet. “A man who works with fire and iron needs to know a few things about healing burns and cuts. So yes, I know a little healing. Mother Grace was generous with her knowledge.”
“Mother Grace?”
He paused, eyes narrowing, studying her.
“Let’s save that story for another day.”
He stood and crossed back to the stove. The kettle had barely begun to steam, but there was another, metal bowl on the stove with it. He tested the water it held for temperature, and, deciding it wasn’t too hot, picked it up and brought it over to the table to set at her feet.
“Why don’t you soak your poor feet in this. I mixed some soothing tinctures in with the water along with a few fresh herbs and let it sit out on the stove all night. It’s not the best solution, but it should soothe.”
Matty nodded slowly and let Lawrence inch her feet into the water. His touch was the most tender thing she had ever felt.
A flash of pain and the tight, constricting grip of hands around her throat.
Matty gasped, grabbing onto the table as if she would be bowled over by the force of a blow. No blow came, though.
Lawrence’s smile had vanished, replaced by deep concern. “What is it? Are you all right?”
“I….” Matty cleared her throat. “I don’t know. I felt…I saw…I don’t know.”
“Are you remembering things?” Lawrence asked.
She nodded, not wanting to say more, not wanting to remember at all. Those memories were not good. Maybe it was better that they stayed where they were, away from her.
Lawrence continued to watch her, his hand resting over top of hers on the edge of the table. She hadn’t realized he’d moved to protect her like that. He was warm, very warm. Why did she trust him? She didn’t know, but something told her she could.
“Let me see if the water is close to boiling,” he said, standing slowly and inching away from her.
The water wasn’t hot yet, but Lawrence didn’t rest. He moved around the open space of his room, taking clean clothes from the chest at the foot of the bed. Matty watched his movements until he loosened the breeches he wore and dropped them. Her eyes went wide at the glimpse of his backside and she snapped to face straight ahead, focusing on the stove. What kind of man was he to undress when a woman was right there in the room?
She refused to turn her head, studying the details of the small area in front of her. Another tiny window stood next to the stove. Outside the sky was clear, but traces of rain still streaked the windowpane. Her dress had been draped over a chair near the fire to dry. It was still slightly damp. The walls were plain and unfinished. The floor clean.
“I would take you into the hospital in Brynthwaite right away this morning,” Lawrence said, stepping back into her line of sight as though nothing was out of the ordinary, “but I have a mountain of work to get through. My friend is opening a hotel in town and I’ve been charged with completing all of the metalwork. If I don’t keep up with the grates they’ll get away from me, and the hotel opens in two weeks.”
“Oh,” Matty said, her cheeks still pink with embarrassment.
“As soon as I get far enough along with the work to leave it to Oliver, I’ll take you in.”
She blinked. “Oliver?”
“My assistant,” Lawrence answered. “He’s a young lad, only a bit younger than you, would be my guess.” He paused. “Do you know how old you are?”
Under any other circumstances, the question would have been silly. Would have been, but Matty didn’t know the answer. She shook her head.
Lawrence replied with a sympathetic smile, resting his hand on her shoulder. “No matter. You look to be in your early twenties, so we’ll leave it at that.”
He stepped away, going to the chair that held her dress and picking it up to feel the fabric. He frowned, then flipped the dress over to continue drying.
“I suppose it’s for the best that we wait to go into town anyhow,” he said. “You’ve got nothing to wear.”
Matty glanced down at herself. She hadn’t considered how naked she might look to others wearing nothing but a man’s shirt and long underwear. She didn’t even have a corset or stays. What a state to be in.
“Looks like the water is almost ready for tea,” Lawrence said.
He did more than make her tea. He put together a simple porridge with a sprinkling of brown sugar. It was the most delicious thing Matty had ever tasted. She didn’t think she was used to sugar at all, though with no memory it was hard to tell. She ate her breakfast in grateful silence, wracking her brain to come up with some way to repay Lawrence for his kindness.
When breakfast was finished, he checked on her feet, applied more of the herb salve he had bathed them with the night before, and refastened the bandages. He even loaned her an old pair of shoes—though they were many sizes too big for her—explaining that the floor of the forge below was often littered with nails or embers and dangerous to walk without shoes. He was right. When they descended the narrow staircase and stepped into the workroom under the apartment above, all manner of debris crunched under Matty’s feet.
Even that was quickly forgotten. A young man was hard at work, feeding the fire of the forge and working the coals to a hot blaze. The heat rippled off of the hearth in waves. There was something comforting about it, something that instilled a strange kind of confidence in Matty, but still she hung back. The young man continued to work as if she wasn’t there, but her heart quaked in fear nonetheless.
“This is Oliver,” Lawrence said, leaving Matty at the base of the stairs and striding across the gritty floor of his workroom to the forge. He took a leather apron off of a hook at the side of the forge and put it on. “Oliver,” he raised his voice slightly, “this is Miss Matty. She arrived last night in great distress, but you’ve no need to fear her.”
Oliver dipped and nodded and shuffled back and forth between his feet, but he didn’t once look up at Lawrence or at Matty. Lawrence went on as if the two had had a long discourse.
“Matty is going to sit and watch us while we work this morning. She won’t get in your way.”
For all Matty could see, Oliver didn’t even hear Lawrence. He continued to sway and shift, almost absently, his eyes fixed on the flames of the forge, his body held at stiff angles. Lawrence went on with his own work without another word to either of them. It was the most curious thing Matty had ever seen, though she couldn’t decide which man was stranger. Something was most definitely not right about Oliver. He performed his work with steady, repetitive motions, feeding the fire and pumping the billows. His eyes seemed unfocused, or perhaps too focused. He never looked up from the spot that had his attention.
As Lawrence began his own work, however, Matty observed a sort of rhythm or pattern between the two of them. They worked well together without exchanging a word. Oliver did the few things that he was capable of, but he did them well and with perfect timing. That left Lawrence to do more of the precise, intricate work. Matty wasn’t sure how long she sat at the bottom of the stairs watching them. It could have been hours, it could have been minutes. She couldn’t sit still forever, though.
Before long, she tested her weight on her feet again, pleased to find that the pain from the blisters wasn’t as bad as before. It felt wrong to sit there doing nothing, so she searched for something to keep her hands busy.
You must always keep your hands busy, my dear, or he will think you’re lazy.
Matty sucked in a breath and blinked at the memory. She didn’t want to think about it. Her eyes rested on a broom tucked in a corner, and she knew what she had to do. In the shoes that were too big for her, feet still stinging enough for her to bite her lip, she shuffled across the workroom to fetch the broom. Then she started sweeping.
Lawrence’s workroom was a well-kept but dusty collection of tools of all shapes and sizes and descri
ptions. She wasn’t sure what half of them were. A long workbench ran along one wall with the stairs at the far end. A high table stood in the center of the room with a variety of small metal workings, hinges and handles and the like, scattered across it. Several larger pieces—like gates or lattice work—rested against one wall, while shelves with cubbies for nails of all sizes and a few spare horseshoes stood against the other wall. The workshop had only three walls. Where a fourth wall should have been, the room opened out to the forge itself. A roof covered the hot forge with a wide hole in it through which a chimney rose up to direct the heat away. Matty could see that the arrangement would allow for work in all weather and all seasons.
It took several minutes before Lawrence glanced up from pounding on a length of glowing-hot metal at the forge to watch her. He stood straight and backed away from his work, face and chest streaked with sweat from the heat.
“Matty, you don’t have to do that,” he told her. “Consider yourself my guest here.”
She paused to turn to him. “Please, let me work. I can’t bear to sit idle when there’s work to be done.”
“But your feet. I don’t want you to hurt them any more than they’re already hurt.”
She glanced down at her bandaged feet in his shoes. “If they hurt too much, I’ll stop.”
He hesitated, then nodded, returning to the forge. “Be honest about your pain,” he said. “It does no good to deny suffering if it will only lead to more suffering.”
His words seemed to be full of more wisdom than they appeared.
He spared her one more look before taking up his tools. “As soon as I finish here, I’ll take you in to the hospital.”
Alexandra
“Good morning, Uncle Gerald,” Alex greeted her uncle with a cheerful smile as she stepped into his room. And why shouldn’t she smile? Life had taken a turn for the decidedly satisfactory.
“Alexandra,” her uncle replied, as dour as ever. He pushed himself to sit straight against the pillows piled behind him. “What brings you to visit a feeble old man so early in the morning?”
“I’ve come to check on your gout,” she told him, crossing to sit on the side of his bed, reaching for the covers.
Her uncle huffed and grabbed the covers from her, pulling them tight against his stomach. “You’ll do no such thing, young lady. My lower extremities are not a sight for a pretty girl like you.”
Alex met his well-meaning resistance with a tight smile. “Now Uncle Gerald,” she said, placing her hand over his. “You know that I am a qualified medical doctor. I’ve seen more cases of gout than you can shake a stick at, and many things much worse.”
He sighed. “My brother was a fool to let you sully your sensitive mind with medicine.”
Alex had heard that or something similar so many times that she could recite any of the number of arguments that usually followed. Today, however, none of it seemed to matter. She was not only a qualified doctor, she was a doctor employed at a hospital.
“I’ll give you a peppermint if you let me take a look,” she coaxed him.
“A peppermint?”
She knew she had him. Her uncle’s sweet tooth was as infamous as her own father’s. All she had to do was bring him a candy from the dish on the dressing table out of his reach and he was putty in her hands.
“I hate to have you look at them,” he moaned as she peeled the bedcovers back and examined his feet and calves. “I used to be the most well-turned-out gentleman in the county in my day. My calves were the stuff of legend. Now look at me. Old and gnarled, too twisted to walk more than a foot once I get out of bed, and too weak to keep company.”
“Yes, but at least you don’t have to suffer through Mrs. Crimpley’s lists of things that will bring crime and ruin to Brynthwaite over tea,” Alex replied.
They shared a laugh that was broken only by Lord Thornwell’s wince of pain.
Alex was halfway through applying a salve to her uncle’s feet when Elizabeth swanned into the room.
“Good morning, Papa,” she said, as cheery as the sunlight glittering off of the dew left by the night’s rain. “You’re looking very strong today.” She skipped across the room to kiss his cheek.
“I’m being subjected to the medical ministrations of your formidable cousin,” he said.
Alex grinned up at the father and daughter as she finished their work, a pang in her heart. Elizabeth and Lord Thornwell were as close as she had been with her own, dearly missed father. Uncle Gerald could chastise her all he wanted and call her father a fool, but Alex had no doubt that if Elizabeth had taken it into her head to practice medicine or law or to become a stock broker, he would stop at nothing to ensure her dreams were fulfilled.
“And what are you up to this fine day, missy?” he asked Elizabeth.
“Oh, you know me, Papa. Just visiting some of the tenants to see how the new irrigations systems are coming along.” She said it the same way she would tell him she was going into town to look at bonnets.
“Don’t you let them dismiss you, my dear,” Uncle Gerald cautioned her. “You’re as smart as any of them, and they should know it.”
“Oh, but I could never be rude with them, Papa. I listen to everything they have to say with a smile on my face,” she said.
And told them exactly what she thought afterwards, Alex was sure. She and Elizabeth were different in so many ways, but no one would ever accuse Gerald and James Dyson of siring imbeciles. Elizabeth was just as formidable as Alex when it came to stewarding the land she saw as rightfully hers…and a large bit of land that wasn’t.
“There you go, Uncle Gerald. Good as new.” Alex finished with his feet and pulled the bedcovers back up over his legs.
“Thank you my dear, you are a treasure,” he said, patting her hand. “Even if I strongly disapprove of the ways in which you choose to be a treasure.”
“Now Papa,” Elizabeth scolded him. “We should be very proud of all that Alexandra has accomplished. What did they say in your day? That she was a ‘diamond of the first water?’”
Lord Thornwell snorted. “How old do you think I am, you rascal? That turn of phrase was well out of date when I was young.”
“It’s true, regardless,” Elizabeth argued. “And I, for one, am delighted to have a physician on call.”
“Speaking of which,” Alex said, glancing at the clock on her uncle’s bureau. She didn’t want to be late to the hospital on her first full day.
She gave Elizabeth a significant look, then turned to head out of the room.
“Just one moment,” Elizabeth called after her, following her into the hall. She shut her father’s door carefully behind her, then tip-toed closer to Alex and whispered, “You didn’t tell your mother, did you?”
“Of course not,” Alex whispered in return, grinning as though the two of them were naughty schoolgirls. “She’d pop right out of her corset if I did.”
“Then you must go quickly, slip away before even the servants notice.”
“I’m sure Hugo will notice one way or another,” Alex said.
“Yes, but he would never tell,” Elizabeth answered. “Go.”
Alex reached for her cousin’s hand and squeezed it before hurrying on down the hall. She had purposely made certain she had everything she needed before going to visit her uncle. All she had to do now was slip down to the foyer and out the front door. She could walk into Brynthwaite. It wasn’t as far as all that.
“Alexandra!”
With a gasp and a wince, Alex froze halfway across the main hall at the snap of her mother’s voice.
“Where are you going?” her mother asked from the stairs. She took her regal time finishing her descent, and then crossing to where Alex stood, scrambling for excuses.
“It’s such a beautiful morning,” Alex said, more nervous than she should be. Lying had never been her strong suit. “I thought I would enjoy a walk into town while the rain is still catching the morning sunlight on the grass.”
Her mo
ther stared at her as if she’d grown another head. “Really? That seems rather…poetic, doesn’t it? You never struck me as the poetical type.”
“The Lake District inspires one to all sorts of flights of fancy, mother,” Alex said, adding a smile that she prayed looked genuine.
Her mother continued to stare at her, suspicious to the core.
“Well,” she said at last with a sigh and a wave of her hand, “I suppose it won’t do any harm. But you must be back here by noon.”
“Noon?” Alex’s heart skipped a beat. She was under the assumption that she would be working at the hospital all day, and that her mother wouldn’t keep track of her.
“Yes. Your cousin has been invited to take a tour of the new hotel by Mr. Throckmorton, and he’s offered to serve her tea in his dining room. Elizabeth plans to take us with her and put the hotel’s restaurant staff to the test.”
“Does Mr. Throckmorton know about this?”
“How should I know?” her mother sighed. “I assume so. Surely Elizabeth would have told him he intends to bring a whole party. Everything Elizabeth does is a whole party.”
“It is.” At least she and her mother agreed on one thing. “Now I really must go before….” She stopped when her mother’s brow knit in confusion. “Before the rain dries up,” she faltered.
She held her breath as she waited for her mother’s reaction. For a moment it was touch-and-go, and Alex was certain her mother would attempt to drag the whole story out of her. But after a painful pause, Lady Charlotte sighed and said, “All right, then. I must see if Mrs. Henderson has given the housemaids their assignments for the day. I need somebody to do a far better job of tidying up the morning parlor.”
“Yes, mother,” Alex said, then turned to escape while she could. If her mother was ordering Elizabeth’s servants around already, a conflict was likely to follow, and she didn’t want to be there for it.
The morning was genuinely enjoyable by the time Alex found herself strolling down the main road into Brynthwaite. It was easier to walk down the hill than it would be to walk up on her way back, but at least the road had been built to follow the line of the hill in a gradual slope. It was an enjoyable morning after all, whether she’d used that as an excuse or not, and Alex smiled at her good fortune, having ended up in a backwoods that was at least scenic. She was certain Mr. Throckmorton’s hotel would do a splendid amount of business once it opened.
