by Karen Ranney
She nodded.
The woman didn’t say anything else, simply started walking. She had no choice but to follow her.
“I can put you in the parlor,” the woman said. “Or you can sit with me in the kitchen, where it’s warmer.”
“The kitchen will be fine,” she said.
She wasn’t going to be here that long. She was simply going to deliver her message and leave.
The aroma of baking biscuits, something made with ginger and cinnamon, made her stomach grumble as they entered the kitchen.
“It’s a grand home,” she said, looking around. Even the kitchen was four times the size of the one at their town house. “Does Dr. Thorburn live here alone?”
The woman smiled at her as if the question was amusing.
“Are you thinking that he must have a family hiding here?”
“It’s a large house for one person.”
“That it is. We’ve one floor we don’t even use,” she said. “I put the kettle on, and you’ll be having tea with me,” the woman added.
Not a request as much as an order.
The woman pointed to a large square table surrounded by six sturdy chairs.
“You take your place; choose any chair you wish.”
Was this a test?
She chose one with a view of the garden, a wide space with a high brick wall. She couldn’t help but wonder how it would look come spring.
A good choice, or so it seemed, when the woman nodded her approval.
“I’m Sarah Donnelly,” the other woman said, smiling. “I’m the housekeeper here. Although I’m more than that from time to time. When one of Dr. Thorburn’s patients comes, I settle them down, give them some tea, and keep them calm until he arrives.”
“I’m not one of Dr. Thorburn’s patients,” she said. “Is he here?”
Sarah smiled broadly. “He’s not, but until he comes, you’ll sit with me. I want to know the things he didn’t tell me about you.”
“He talked about me?”
She’d been here a scant few minutes and already the visit was a surprise.
“It was himself playing at being a footman,” Sarah said. “I knew from the beginning that nothing good would come of it, but did he listen to me?”
Sarah’s smile was so engaging that she felt her tension ease. “He’s a stubborn man.”
“Aye, you have the right of it. Burning the candle at both ends, he was. Tending to all his patients, and you, besides.”
“I didn’t know who he was. If I had, I would have sent him away.”
“Och, didn’t he need to do what he did, then? You, with your dislike of doctors.” Sarah busied herself pouring hot water into the teapot. “Although how a body could think such a magnificent man was a footman, I’ll never know.”
Since she’d done exactly that, she remained silent.
Was Sarah this blunt with all her visitors? Or had she been singled out for a lecture?
“I’ve been doing for Dr. Thorburn for three years now. Of course, he was at university for years before that, but he didn’t move here until he became a doctor.”
Sarah looked around the walls and the ceiling of the kitchen, as if to encompass the whole of the house in her gaze.
“His grandmother gave it to him. Do you know about her?”
Feeling bemused, she shook her head, then realized Sarah might not be able to determine her answer through the veil.
“No,” she said. “I don’t.”
“A daughter of a duke, she was. Pretty little thing. She had four children, all in all. Two of them died in infancy, but a daughter and a son survived. The son is Dr. Thorburn’s father, a more intractable man I’ve never met. Have you had the pleasure of meeting him?”
“No,” she said.
“You will,” Sarah announced. “When you do, just remember, he hasn’t many friends and a great many enemies. He’s not a nice man, or a kind one. It’s a miracle that Mark is such a good man. That, or good blood. His grandmother was a saint, I hear.”
Her thoughts were reeling. All she’d wanted was to tell Mark Thorburn not to meddle in her life. In its stead, she was receiving a summation of his family, and an assurance that she would meet his father.
Sarah put the tea things on the table, returning a moment later to put a plate of biscuits before her.
She didn’t see how she was going to drink in front of the woman who was watching her so carefully. However, she could manage a biscuit. She took one from the plate and nibbled on it beneath her veil.
“The whole time, his father was against Dr. Thorburn studying medicine,” Sarah said, shaking her head. “But Mark was determined to be a physician, and his grandmother was determined to help him. When she died, she left him all her money and this great house. Her way of saying how much she approved of Mark, his drive, his ambition, and his talent.”
Sarah took a sip of tea, sighing with obvious enjoyment.
She should stop the woman from divulging Mark’s secrets. Instead, she nibbled on the biscuit and listened avidly.
“He was number one in his class in university, you know,” Sarah said.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Will you take that thing off?” Sarah asked, nodding in the direction of her veil.
She hadn’t expected the request. When she hesitated, Sarah said, “I imagine it’s hard to breathe in that thing.”
Slowly, she moved her gloves from her lap to the table. One by one she took out the pins holding the veil in place. When that was done, she removed the veil, revealing her hair arranged in a coronet not unlike Sarah’s.
She placed the veil on her lap, moving her hands over the lace. She didn’t look up for a few moments because she didn’t want to see Sarah’s interested study of her scars.
“You’ve had a time of it, haven’t you?” Sarah said.
Finally, she raised her head to look at the other woman.
Sarah took another sip of her tea and studied her for a moment.
“I’m thinking that you were in a lot of pain for a long time. Pain does something to a body,” she said. “I know, I’ve seen enough of Dr. Thorburn’s patients. Some of them, pain makes angels. Some of them, it makes into devils. Which one were you?”
“I’m afraid I was a devil,” she said softly.
Sarah nodded. “I’m thinking I’d be the same.” She picked up a biscuit and ate it with relish.
The oak table bore scars that looked to be old. She trailed a finger down one particularly interesting gouge. Had someone sat here one night, bored and listless, and carved it out with a knife?
“Now, then,” Sarah said, the biscuit finished, “you’ll be telling me why you, a single woman, would be calling upon Dr. Thorburn all by yourself.”
“My maid is feeling under the weather,” she said.
Sarah nodded. “That might be true enough, but I think it’s an excuse. What’s the real reason you came alone?”
She felt her face flush. “Because I’m here to have a fit,” she said. “I didn’t want a witness to it.”
Sarah sat back in the chair, both eyebrows raised. “Are you now? What are you going to have a fit about?”
“Dr. Thorburn has gone behind my back and arranged for someone to follow me. I don’t like it, I don’t appreciate it, and I want it to stop.”
“He is a stubborn man, that’s for sure. He does think he’s right most of the time.”
“Yes, he does.”
“Am I to disappear?’ Sarah asked. “When this fit begins?”
“If you could,” she said, “I’d be grateful.”
Sarah shook her head. “I’d prefer to listen.”
“I’ve a feeling Mark’s not the only stubborn person in this household,” she said.
Sarah smiled. “That’s the right of it. He’s a fine man, Dr. Thorburn, but he hasn’t had a good time of it lately. I’d rather be sure that you’re not here to make him more miserable.”
She missed Jean acutely at that moment.
Her sister was the only person who’d ever been as protective of her.
“I won’t make him more miserable,” she said. “I wish he’d agree to do the same.” She reached for her veil, but before she could fix it, a door closed somewhere in the house.
Panicked, she looked at Sarah.
The housekeeper nodded, answering the unspoken question.
Mark had returned.
She steadied herself, placed her hands back on the veil, and straightened her shoulders. Now was the best time for him to see her, to know what kind of monster she was.
They waited in silence, listening as Mark walked through the house. A door closed, footfalls on the wood floor, another door.
“He’s going into his apothecary,” Sarah said. “He does that first when he comes home.”
She nodded. Her stomach rolled; her feet felt damp in her shoes. She fisted the veil in her icy hands. Could she do this?
She stood, unable to sit and wait any longer. Her right hand was braced against the scarred oak table. The footsteps grew louder, each step drawing the chain around her chest tighter until she could barely breathe.
Dear God, please give me the courage I need.
Chapter 31
In the last three years, his life had taken on a frenzied energy, one that suited his personality. However, Mark couldn’t remember being as tired as he was lately or as downhearted.
Despite being employed by the city of Edinburgh on a part-time basis, he had over three thousand patients in Old Town alone. Add those to the ten dozen or so paying patients, and his workload could have occupied a few men.
But it wasn’t the sheer number of patients that was affecting him as much as Old Town itself. The unremitting poverty, the endless human degradation, the lack of hope, seemed to melt into his skin. The conversation he’d just had with Alex MacBain added to his mood and caused him to cut his day short. He needed to smile, and a smile seemed far away.
He’d had to tell the man that his wife would not live to see the spring. Even if they had come to him earlier about the lump in Mrs. MacBain’s chest, there was nothing he could have done.
Medicine was making strides every year, but there were certain diseases he couldn’t cure. Perhaps one day they’d be able to do so. Until then, however, he’d have conversations like the one he’d just had, and watch a woman with two little children die before his eyes.
He’d be damned if he had to like it.
This was what his father said was beneath him, the struggle between life and death. Lord Serridain’s narrow-minded autocracy continued to amaze him.
As was his habit, he entered the room set aside as his storeroom and apothecary. Hanging his coat on one of the hooks by the door, he dropped off his bag on the workbench and took a quick inventory.
He was concerned about the amount of morphine he’d need to ease Mrs. MacBain’s pain in the coming months, as well as the medicine he mixed together for Harold Donaldson’s ague. The medicines refilled, fatigue pressed down on his shoulders.
Tonight, surely he would sleep better.
Since Sarah hadn’t joined him in the apothecary, he went in search of her, heading for the kitchen.
There, like the answer to a schoolboy’s prayer, stood Catriona Cameron. She was in his kitchen waiting for him, standing there without her veil.
Her eyes were flat and expressionless, but how could he have ever forgotten their color? A greenish blue, reminiscent of a sunset over the Grampians. His mind furnished a picture of her laughing, her eyes sparkling with amusement.
She wasn’t feeling joyful at the moment, however. Her hands clenched the veil in front of her. She was so still that she looked brittle.
He could almost feel her fear.
He approached the table and stood in front of her.
“Will you sit?” he asked. “Have some tea with me.”
She sat without comment.
He pulled out a chair, sitting in front of her. Gently, he placed his hands beneath her chin, turning her head one way and then another, the better to see her in the afternoon light from the windows.
“Would you like me to bring the examination lamp?” Sarah asked.
“No,” Catriona said.
“My patients normally don’t get to tell me what to do,” he said, turning her head to the left. He glanced at Sarah. “But I don’t think I need it.”
One long scar ran from the corner of her left eye nearly to her chin. Her skin had not knitted well, and the result was a thick red mass of tissue. In the middle of her cheek, the scar branched out like a tree of pain, stretching across her face in varying shades of pink. Over time the scars would fade in color, but they would forever be noticeable, stark reminders of how close she came to death.
The rest of her face was strangely untouched. She was two sides of a coin, beauty and its obverse.
He traced the path of one of the scars to where it ended above her ear.
“You were fortunate,” he said, sitting back.
She blinked at him several times. “Fortunate?”
He nodded. “The glass could have easily severed your ear. Or cut right through your eye. Do you have any difficulty in your vision there?”
“Some,” she admitted. “Sometimes it feels as if it tears too much.”
“That’s to be expected, I think. Any itching?”
She nodded once. A simple acquiescence to his question, and a reluctant one. Was she afraid that by acknowledging the damage to her face, she made it permanent?
He frowned at the worst of the scars, reaching out to trace the line of it with a gentle finger. “They didn’t do a good job sewing you together,” he said. “One day, perhaps, we’ll have the ability to go back and rectify mistakes.”
“They did the best they could,” she said, her tone mocking.
“They might have,” he said. “However, the best wasn’t good enough.”
“You’re a physician. No doubt you’re familiar with horrible sights.”
He nodded. “Although I wouldn’t categorize your face as a horrible sight,” he said. “A regrettable fact, but not an insurmountable one.”
“I doubt the rest of society would agree with you.”
She was probably correct.
“The world is prejudiced against a great many things,” he said. “The trick is to ignore what you can and endure the rest.”
“So says an extraordinarily handsome man.”
He felt a rush of warmth at her words.
Sarah pushed a cup toward him, and he nodded his thanks. When she added a plate of biscuits, he grinned at her.
She only shook her head at him, and he wondered if he was being chastised for his love of sweets or the fact that he wasn’t acting with his usual professional detachment.
“You’ve examined me,” she said, reaching for her veil. “Shall I hire you as my physician?”
“No,” he said, reaching out and staying her hand. “We’ve gone beyond that, don’t you think?”
Catriona frowned at him, but he didn’t release her hand.
He sat back and ate a biscuit, thoroughly pleased with the world for this moment in time. He was warm, he was being fed biscuits and tea, and Catriona was in his kitchen.
“Why did you set someone to watching me?”
His good mood abruptly vanished.
“How do you know about that?”
“Your watcher isn’t that subtle,” she said. “I am not one of your patients, Dr. Thorburn. I’m not someone you have to guard.”
“Do you refuse anyone the right to care for you?”
She looked surprised at the question.
He loved being able to see her expressions, to view those surprising eyes. If Sarah hadn’t been sitting at the table, he would have leaned closer and kissed her.
“Are you that solicitous of all your patients?”
“You’re not my patient,” he said, deciding that Sarah was going to have to hear the truth. “You’re my lover.”
He
glanced up to see his housekeeper leaving the room. Had he shocked her? No doubt he was going to be interrogated later.
He leaned forward, placing both hands on the arm of the chair. He dragged Catriona’s chair closer, the legs making a loud screeching noise against the wood floor. Slowly, he framed her face with his hands. She didn’t pull away, merely sat there looking at him with her wide, beautiful eyes.
“You knew,” she said. “All this time, you knew.”
“About your scars?” He shook his head. “It’s your leg that concerns me more,” he said.
Before she could speak, he placed his lips on hers, a gentle, teasing kiss.
When he drew back, she blinked up at him.
“I’ve missed kissing you,” he said, tracing her bottom lip with a finger.
He wished he could explain to her what he felt, but he wasn’t a poet. Besides, he wasn’t certain he could put his emotions into words.
This room was changed by her sitting there. From this day forward, envisioning her in that chair in this exact spot, he would always smile. His house seemed a warmer place, too, simply because Catriona was here.
But it was more than a physical change. His life seemed to be enhanced by her presence in it. She warmed him from the inside out.
She made him smile.
He wanted to tell her about his patients, about his sorrow over Mrs. MacBain and the other patients in Old Town who refused to listen to his advice or whose health was compromised by their overuse of alcohol. There were so many things he wanted to talk to her about, and listen to her comments.
He lay his hand gently on her left knee.
“Have you used the liniment?”
She nodded.
“Does it always hurt?”
“It just aches,” she said. “I think winter makes it worse.”
He might battle death, and some of the time he won. He also battled life, wanting to heal every one of his patients, rid them of pain or discomfort or infirmity.
She wasn’t his patient, but he wanted even more for Catriona. He wanted her to be able to walk without limping. Or for pain to only be a faint memory, one she need not recall on a daily basis. Yet at this moment he felt singularly defeated, wishing there was something he could do to help her and knowing there probably wasn’t.
