Ecstasy Wears Emeralds

by Renee Bernard

  But now, the wait is over.

  He held out his hand. “Then, there is no time like the present to begin.”

  Chapter 3

  She’d shaken his hand when he’d offered it to her, and a small shiver ran through her at the gesture. Gayle told herself that it was because he’d held out his fingers as he would to an equal, not to gently uphold her hand for a dance floor turn or for a gloved touch in a formal introduction at a park. He’d held out his strong bare hand and she’d taken it with her own bare fingers, marveling at how warm and firm his grasp was and how quickly the business of a handshake could be accomplished.

  I didn’t want him to let go.

  She ignored the nonsensical thought and turned her attention back to the business at hand. Dr. Rowan West was giving her a tour of the house and her new working environment. The ground floor was taken up by the entry way and receiving area, the waiting room, a small exam room (though most of his patients preferred to be seen at their own homes) and doctor’s office, a library, and Mr. Carter’s quarters. The first floor provided for bedrooms and an extremely interesting private study and library that she caught only a fleeting glimpse of through a partially opened door as they strolled past. The second floor was more utilitarian, though the hallway she caught a glimpse of was still wonderfully appointed with antiques, and Gayle tried not to wonder what else was in store.

  “This is where you will be spending most of your time, on the third floor.” Rowan answered her unspoken question. “Above you are the servants’ quarters and a bit of storage, but your room is just off of the laboratory—a convenience you’ll come to appreciate.

  “The laboratory is”—he pushed open a heavy oak door at the end of the hallway and stood aside to let her go in ahead of him—“my pride and joy.”

  In a room that was clearly designed as a solarium, it was a decadent and breathtaking sight to behold. Rather than merely housing one or two windows, the entire back wall was fanciful wrought iron inset with clear-blown glass to give the sun a chance to illuminate every corner it could. And instead of plush chairs for some ladies’ embroidering or tables for letter writing and china painting, the female sensibilities had given way to a true working laboratory with long waist-high tables and dark-stained stools.

  “It can be drafty, but I’ve been keeping it so warm with the braziers you should be comfortable enough for the work.”

  “And to think most people have greenhouses!” she mused aloud, her fingertips tracing gently along the smooth worktable’s surface. It was nothing like the grim rooms the village surgeon back home used. That had been a small brick building of poor means next to the blacksmith and not much of an example to go by.

  But this! This was just as she’d hoped. Clean and open, it was a long rectangle of a room, the narrow worktable set in the room’s center to run its length. Shelves of reference books, boxes, and various tools were set floor to ceiling along the inside walls, but the wall of fanciful flowerscrolled ironwork and glass had been left free of any obstructions, ensuring that the light could be used from every vantage.

  In a tall cabinet in the corner, neatly labeled jars contained every hue of powder in black, ivory, and white alongside tins of compounds and chemicals she could only guess at. Also along the inside wall, on an ancient work surface with an untold number of burn marks and unique scars, was a configuration of burners and beakers with rubber tubing connecting various vessels and tying them all together for some unknown purpose.

  Only unknown for a time. Soon, I’ll understand what he’s doing here and I will be a part of it! Perhaps even help him in some great discovery ...

  She turned about, admiring all of it, from the elegant shadows that the iron made on the wooden floor to the Latin motto carved into the door frame they’d just come through. “Veritas vos liberabit.”

  “The truth shall make you free,” he translated softly, taking a seat at the table to give her room to explore. “Not very original, but my great-great-grandfather had a love for the classics.”

  “I think it would apply as well today.”

  “Of course, it does. I had a schoolmate that jested that it was a sad thing that truth didn’t make you richer or happier, and now whenever I see the phrase I just remember his face and wonder.”

  “What exactly do you wonder? If he was right?”

  Rowan shook his head. “Oh, I know he was right. It doesn’t take too many years before you realize that the best philosophy is uttered by ten-year-olds and the rest is rubbish.”

  She had to struggle not to smile. “I hadn’t realized that.”

  “Because you probably haven’t wasted your time studying philosophy.”

  She nodded in agreement. “I don’t think freethinking is ever encouraged if a young woman fails to master her music lessons.”

  He laughed. “I take it you won’t be entertaining the staff with any private pianoforte performances?”

  Her smile outpaced her determination to not be charmed by her mentor. “And risk ending up on the doorstep for causing trouble? Mrs. Evans would insist on my removal if I sang a single note, Dr. West.” She decided to redirect the conversation away from her shortcomings. “Whatever happened to your friend, the young philosopher?”

  “He died of a fever that summer, along with his sisters and parents.” It was a statement of fact, almost devoid of emotion, and Gayle was sure that there was more to the tale as an awkward silence held them in place.

  “And here”—he walked over to another door at the end of the room and pushed it open for her inspection—“is your room. Not appointed with a lady in mind, I’m afraid, but you have your own water closet through there, and it should do well enough.”

  Gayle peered in and tried not to let her disappointment show. Unlike the pretty guest room below with its soft butter yellow walls and rosewood furniture, this was as stark and austere a tiny bedroom as she had ever encountered. A narrow wrought iron cot with a white cotton mattress was set against the wall, a single small dresser standing sentinel next to it. Two windows set high with white eyelet curtains kept the room from total gloom, but it was hard to see it in a cheery light. The floor was bare of rugs and the walls devoid of ornamentation beyond a framed mirror and a faded print advertising the Great Exhibition of 1851.

  “It’s . . . very nice.”

  “Mind yourself!” Mrs. Evans interrupted the exchange, her arms full of fresh bedding and towels. “I brought up a few things to make the room a little cozier for the miss.”

  Her relief was instantaneous. “How kind of you, Mrs. Evans!”

  Mrs. Evans grunted in response, unceremoniously dropping her large bundle on the cot. “One of the footmen will carry up your things later. You can settle yourself in, I’m sure. You make your own bed and I’ll collect dirty laundry once a week on Monday. See that you have it ready before breakfast. Florence will come in for a sweep and a dust that afternoon, but she’s not a ladies’ maid! You’re to see to your own needs and keep your room in good order.”

  Gayle had to bite the inside of her mouth at the woman’s tone, since she wasn’t used to being addressed like a servant, much less used to making her own bed and “seeing to her own needs.” But Rowan was right at her elbow, looking at her expectantly, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking and was happily anticipating some little temper tantrum on her part over Mrs. Evans’s brisk treatment.

  I’ll sleep on the floor if I have to! And I’m not quibbling over a lack of wallpaper!

  “Thank you, Mrs. Evans. Please assure Florence that I’ll try not to overtax her.”

  Mrs. Evans’s gruffness suffered a bit at the softness of Gayle’s tone, and she wavered in the doorway before departing. “Will . . . will you be eating with the staff or . . .”

  Rowan intervened. “Miss Renshaw will either dine with me on the first floor or, more often, in her room, I suspect. Her studies will keep her well tethered, I’m afraid, and as you know”—he rewarded his housekeeper with a smile that ins
tantly turned the formidable creature into a blushing girl—“if she waits for me to have a meal, she’ll die of starvation.”

  “You work too hard, doctor!”

  “Not at all.” He deflected her maternal concern, and Gayle marveled at the way he diplomatically turned his housekeeper into an ally. “I’m a tyrant of an employer and blessed to have you, Mrs. Evans.”

  Mrs. Evans retreated in a happy flurry, returning to her duties without another glance in Gayle’s direction.

  She sighed. “I don’t think your housekeeper approves, Dr. West.”

  “She won’t be the first not to do so, Miss Renshaw,” he countered. “But on a somewhat related subject, I should point out that your door has a dead bolt.”

  “I see.” Except she didn’t see what in the world dead bolts had to do with Mrs. Evans.

  “To protect your virtue,” he added, instinctively providing another clue.

  “I see,” she repeated, with a little more confidence. “I shall be sure to use it, if only to reassure Mrs. Evans that my virtue is intact under your roof.”

  “See that you do,” he said, a mysterious heat in his eyes making the command almost hypnotic. But before she could identify it, he’d turned away and returned to the workroom and the business of her apprenticeship. “I’ll have a small desk brought up to your room as well. The laboratory is very good for studying, but you’ll still need a private space of your own, I’m sure, for letters, journals, and any personal business you may have.”

  “Thank you.”

  Rowan began pulling down books, barely looking at the shelves as if he knew the volumes by touch alone. “How is your Latin?”

  “Very good,” she answered confidently.

  “Have you studied Hippocrates?”

  She shook her head. “Only vicariously, I’m afraid.”

  “We’ll start with the classics. You’ll read these, Miss Renshaw, and know them like you know your own history. I want you to absorb as much as you can, taking it all in, and when commanded, you should be able to quote it like the Bible.”

  She took the books reverently. Hippocratic Writings; Hippocratic Aphorisms; Fasciculus Medicinae; Articella; and Pantegni.

  He placed his hand gently on the top of the page, breaking her connection to the words and drawing her back to the present. “Study them, Miss Renshaw, and while I may have asked you to be able to quote them like the Bible, I want you to be clear that this is no religion, although some of my colleagues use words like heresy and blasphemy for those who argue against this ancient wisdom. While there may be some elements of useful truth inside these texts, they are not infallible or inerrant.”

  “Oh!” she whispered in quiet shock. She had always understood that health was tied to the balance of the four bodily humors: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. Everything she’d overheard the physicians of her childhood saying had only reinforced that belief. “I thought that all doctors still believed in the four humors.”

  He smiled. “Belief is an action of faith. As I said, this isn’t religion. We are in the service of science. If we have learned that we know anything for certain, it is that we know almost nothing for certain. The ancient Greeks and Arabs and their medieval followers have had a great influence on my profession and our approach to healing. But I am a heretic, Miss Renshaw.”

  “Why ask me to study them at all, if you don’t hold to their teaching?” she asked.

  “Heretic is from the root of a Greek word that means one who can choose, Miss Renshaw. You must understand a school of knowledge thoroughly before you can claim the wisdom to choose what to keep and what to disregard. And for you, it’s a step that you cannot omit. If you truly want to keep pace with your masculine contemporaries, you must be fluent in the language of medicine—flawlessly fluent.” He added another heavy leather book to the growing pile. “And remember, I said that there are useful elements of truth in these. Hidden, I grant you, but they’re there for the keen and discerning mind.”

  The look she gave him was solemn and made his chest ache in its sweetness. She was so open and hungry for knowledge, eager for anything he imparted, and so trusting. It was a heady power to think that the imperious and unstoppable Miss Gayle Renshaw would look up at him like that, but Rowan knew the danger. And it was probably precisely the reason that it wasn’t wise to have women at universities. She was so beautiful, a temptation to body and to soul, and a man would have to be blind and dumb to be unaware of the corrupting allure of such a student.

  She’d make the crustiest old man forget himself. Lucky for me, she won’t be here long and I can see this mess behind me before any true damage is done.

  “We’ll start here and then I can determine just how quick a study you are, Miss Renshaw.” He eyed the daunting stack of books and calculated just how bruising a task they might present. “Start with the Articella. I’ll check back with you when I return from my patient calls.”

  “Can’t I go with you?” she asked impulsively.

  He shook his head. “Not yet. For now, you read.”

  “But, surely, I could—”

  “Read, Miss Renshaw. Read. And one of the first things you’ll read is that ‘life is short, the art long.’”

  “Yes, Dr. West.”

  “Study, Miss Renshaw. Study as if your life depended on it, for I assure that in this instance, it will.”

  Chapter 4

  Rowan adjusted the oil lamp on his desk and finished his final note on the day’s calls. He’d begin having Gayle copy them out soon so that she could see the course of treatments for each patient and start to understand some of the practical work involved in diagnosing illnesses and providing care. It would be tedious work, but he doubted she’d mind it. Miss Renshaw’s enthusiasm hadn’t waned despite all his efforts to bury her in books and assignments.

  In ascertaining the extent of her medical education, he’d learned just how tenacious Miss Renshaw really was. She said she’d learned all her herbal remedies by eavesdropping on a Scottish apothecary situated next to a milliner frequented by her mother. She’d augmented that wisdom with practical bits of advice from various housekeepers, cooks, and country women she’d come into contact with. When visiting family friends, she’d once gotten her hands on a book on anatomy, which was unfortunately in German, but the illustrations had been fascinating enough—until the book’s owner discovered her in his library and removed the unseemly material from her wayward hands. Most recently, the surgeon in Standish Crossing had inadvertently provided a few more hints, but in the village, surgery was considered a rough trade, and since the man also pulled teeth, he was barely acknowledged socially, so he’d been an elusive source for her to use.

  But of Gayle Renshaw, the woman, he knew almost nothing. Where exactly her family was from or how her parents had died were secrets she’d yet to reveal. His new apprentice was determined to keep her distance. From what he could deduct, she was born of country gentry and had been offered a life of some comfort and a middling education. But she’d blithely managed to pursue the most unfeminine interests of botany and science and acquire a better education than her parents thought suitable for their only daughter.

  The next logical step in her education was anatomy, and he only hoped her Latin was up to the task. If she’d been allowed a formal education, it was groundwork that would have already been laid. But her boast of being a quick study was proving true. Even so, the books could only take her so far, and then it would be a challenge to get her access to a corpse and—

  He caught himself with a frustrated groan, arresting the path of his thoughts. Miss Renshaw was to quit long before the grim work of a hands-on anatomy course, and he, of all people, needed to remember that.

  The torture of his new apprentice was supposed to be a necessary inconvenience, not something he was beginning to genuinely enjoy. But as she’d demonstrated more and more of that keen intellect and tenacity, he’d started to look forward to every battle, test, and exchange with his unusu
al pupil. He’d pushed her harder than any apprentice had ever been pressed, and she’d simply borne it with a grace that often left him speechless.

  “Sorry to interrupt, doctor,” Carter broke in from the side panel door, hidden by one of the curio cabinets, his entire stance apologetic.

  The fact that he hadn’t used the main door from the hallway to Rowan’s study spoke volumes. It meant he’d come straight up the servants’ backstairs in his haste, which hinted that Mrs. Evans or the cook had put a fire under his feet. “It’s fine, Carter. Yours is the face I am always happy to see.”

  “Nonsense! I’m the poor man constantly besetting you with the worst news of patients’ calls at all hours, and don’t think I’m not grateful that you don’t snap at me for it.”

  Like my father used to. Carter had been a part of the family for as long as Rowan could remember, and before he’d graduated to long pants, he’d quietly sworn that no matter how tired or out of sorts he was feeling, he would never take it out on dear Carter. Every dent in the wooden molding around the private library room door told the tale of a brass bookend hurled at Carter’s head for interrupting one of his father’s happier moments mapping a future adventure or daydreaming of medical discoveries. His father’s living had depended on his patients, but the man had never stopped resenting them for falling ill at the most inconvenient moments. “Never kill the messenger! Some wise Greek said it and we’ll carve it over your bedroom door if it’s any comfort.”

  Carter smiled. “Bless those Greeks, sir.”

  “What was it you wanted?” Rowan prompted diplomatically.

  “Oh yes! I’m afraid it’s to do with Miss Renshaw.”

  “Is Mrs. Evans unhappy? Is she proving to be a troublesome or demanding guest?”

  Carter sighed. “Just the opposite, doctor. It seems Mrs. Evans is sure the girl is underfed. She’s missing meals when you’re not in the house, and the women have decided she’s not ringing for trays—perhaps in an effort not to bother the staff.”