by Julia Bennet
Sterling paled. “How did you—”
“It doesn’t matter how I know.”
“Your replacement has already been selected. I was going to wait until your tenure with us had passed, but I think I’ll dismiss you now.”
“Yes, you can do that, but I’ll go straight to the duke. I’ll raise such a fuss about you keeping Miss Grey here for financial gain that you’ll never recover from the scandal. Now, get out of my office. I have work to do.”
Fear burned in Sterling’s eyes as he slunk out, but Will knew he was only temporarily cowed. In a few minutes, the eminent physician would start to think, then he’d realize Will couldn’t possibly stand against the power of a duke. The most he could achieve was to spread a bit of gossip, but who would believe a housekeeper’s son? Time had run out. At most, Will had a few weeks left, but it might be as little as three days, assuming they would wait for his replacement to arrive before throwing him off the premises.
And that meant he and Helen needed to act fast.
Chapter Thirteen
Helen sighed with relief the next time she opened her eyes. Though she didn’t immediately recognize Will’s room, she was warm, she was comfortable, and she could see something other than black. Best of all, when she inhaled, she could smell Will’s clean, faintly medicinal scent instead of damp. Her mind wanted to wander back to her dank cell, but she wouldn’t allow it. She hadn’t survived at Blackwell for ten years by letting herself dwell on its horrors.
“Helen?” A woman’s voice, but not Fletch, thank God. A chair creaked somewhere nearby, then Mrs. Braithwaite appeared by the bed. “You’re back with us? Thank goodness. I was beginning to worry.”
“Where’s…” She swallowed past the scratchy feel of her throat. “Where’s Dr. Carter?” Her memory was jumbled, but she knew he’d appeared in the doorway, blocking the light from the lamp in the adjoining room. He’d torn Sterling away, and for a moment, she’d felt irritation that he’d taken her only source of warmth. But then he’d gathered her up, and being in his arms had been so much better, so right, so perfect.
After what he’d done, what if Sterling had sent him away?
“Don’t fret,” Mrs. Braithwaite said, smoothing Helen’s hair back. “Dr. Carter had to see someone in the village. He didn’t say who, but it must have been important to tear him away from your side. He sat by your bed for hours this afternoon. I wanted to wake you. ‘Let her sleep,’ he kept saying.”
Helen smiled in response because talking was still difficult.
“I’ll go and get you some beef tea. Best to start with something simple after going with so little food for nearly three days.”
Three days, yet it had seemed infinitely longer.
As Mrs. Braithwaite bustled out, Helen turned onto her side and closed her eyes. She wouldn’t sleep. She’d just rest her eyes until Will came. But the next time she opened them, it was to the murmur of voices. Will’s and Mrs. Braithwaite’s. She must have slept after all.
“Thank you for sitting with her. I thought it important she see a friendly face. You won’t get in trouble, I hope.”
“Why would I? I’m doing my job, following the doctors’ orders.” A hesitation. “Besides, we all bear a share of responsibility for what happened. We all knew where they’d put her, but no one had the guts to do anything before you. All too afraid of losing our places.”
“If you hadn’t sent me that telegram, I’d have stayed in London for at least another day. I will always be grateful to you for taking the risk. If Sterling knew, he would dismiss you without a character… That’s no small thing to fear.”
“But that don’t make it right. I wanted to take her some food, but that Jim guarded the door the whole time. And when he weren’t there, it were Nurse Fletcher. I’m so sorry, Will.”
“Where was Dr. Bell when all this was going on?” From his tone, Helen deduced he wasn’t feeling as forgiving of the neurologist.
“He’s not like the rest of us. He don’t mix. Happen he didn’t even know.”
Helen’s chest tightened painfully. Everyone winking at evil out of fear or ignorance. That was the curse of Blackwell. She didn’t blame them, not really—they only did what most people would do in such circumstances—but she needed to thank Will. No words could ever express how much his brave and selfless actions meant to her.
The door opened and closed. Mrs. Braithwaite leaving, or at least Helen hoped so.
“Dr. Carter?” Sleep and time had soothed her throat, and the words came more easily.
A chair scraped as he dragged it to her bedside. His hand, large and deliciously warm, covered one of hers on the quilted bedcover. His sandy hair was rumpled. Hat hair, she suspected.
“You look tired,” she said, noticing the shadows that circled his eyes.
He smiled faintly. “I think I’m supposed to say that to you.”
Poor Will. So used to taking care of everyone. Who took care of him?
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for what you did down there.”
“You don’t need to say that.” He shook his head, his lips twisting as if it pained him to hear her. “You don’t owe me anything.”
How could he say that when he’d swept in like a knight—no, not a knight, nothing so genteel. He’d barreled in like the captain of a band of mercenaries. The village lad had grown into a brute who seized his social superiors by their throats and damn the consequences. Had she done this to him, or had he always been this wonderful underneath his polite veneer?
“I should never have left you here in the first place.”
“Nonsense. You left because you thought it would help me.”
“But in that I’m afraid I failed.”
Ah, so the London trip hadn’t borne fruit. But then she’d never thought it would.
“Was it really as bad as that?”
“The General Medical Council left me in a waiting room for almost an entire day. Eventually, I spoke to several different officials, none of whom was willing or able to help.” He shook his head. “Bloody bureaucrats.”
“Poor Will.”
“I’m ashamed to say I couldn’t even get in to see the duke. And it turns out he’s an old friend of Lord Shaftesbury, the chairman of the Lunacy Commission. By all accounts, Shaftesbury’s a good man, but he’d probably be slow to believe evil of an old friend and fellow peer like Harcastle. It’s even possible he’d view this as a private family matter that he oughtn’t to interfere with.”
The news that he had attempted to see Harcastle made her clench her free hand into a fist against the desire to remonstrate with him. She’d never wanted him to take such an enormous risk, and she was glad he hadn’t succeeded.
“Will, please don’t look so crestfallen. Really, it doesn’t matter.”
“How can you say that? Of course it does.”
“What I’m more concerned about is what happened with Sterling. Will he dismiss you?”
He hesitated, his desire to reassure her probably warring with his innate truthfulness. “Not immediately.”
“That’s not the reassurance I was hoping for.”
His lips quirked in a reluctant smile. “Sorry. I did threaten him with exposure, but that won’t stop him for long.”
“You threatened Dr. Sterling?”
The smile became a grin. “I knew you’d like that.”
“Like it? I love it.” So much so that, exhausted or not, she wanted to yank him into bed beside her. She doubted she had the strength even if, by some miracle, he didn’t resist. “Although I’m slightly concerned I’ve created a monster.”
“I wager he’ll think about things for a bit, then telegraph the duke and warn him. If Harcastle is prompt in his response, I could be out of a job by this time tomorrow.”
“Oh, God. I’m so sorry, Will. This is exactly what I didn’t want for you.”
He shrugged that off. “Never mind that. How are you feeling? Do you want me to leave you alone so that you c
an sleep?”
“No!” She hadn’t meant to snap. “No,” she said more calmly. “I’ve been alone in the dark for days. I was losing my mind. I actually started craving Fletch’s company. I can sleep later. Right now, I want to know you’re with me.”
He squeezed her hand. “We don’t have much time, or I wouldn’t say this now while you’re still weak, but I can only think of one more way I can help you. I think you know what I’m going to say.”
This was the part where she was supposed to play coy. Like Juliet telling Romeo he kissed by the book. Sadly, she was already in the hero’s bed instead of on a balcony, and she must look awful after days in a black hole.
“I think I know,” she said. “But we need to talk frankly first.”
He nodded, then looked down at her hand still covered by his. He toyed with her fingers as she continued speaking.
“We both know…” She swallowed. Why must honesty be so difficult? “That is, I think we both know I’ve been trying to bring you to this point.”
“Helen—”
“Wait, let me speak. That’s not strictly true. First, I tried to get you to take me to bed so that you’d feel duty bound to help me, but you’re too good a man to seduce a patient. A decent woman would’ve left you alone once she realized that but… Well, I suppose I’m not decent, so I tried to make you fall in love with me, because I knew, if you loved me, you’d do anything you could to help me. Even propose.”
She’d been looking off to the side, but now she risked a glance at him. He still gazed down at their joined hands, his face serious. No way to tell his thoughts.
“Anyway,” she went on, “I think you’re about to. Propose, I mean. And I want you to.”
Those last four words transformed him. His head came up, and his eyes snapped with some emotion she couldn’t name.
“But it’s your whole life,” she said before her courage could falter. “I like you. I don’t want to trick you. I don’t want lies between us.”
And, God help her, she could barely tell lies from truth anymore. Even now, when she tried to do the right thing, she watched him, gauging his response. Years of scheming to avoid abuse had given her an overdeveloped sense of cunning, and she couldn’t erase that part of herself any more than she could make herself shorter.
“I know that, Helen,” he said. “I’ve always known.”
A weight lifted, a pressure that had constricted her heart the whole time she’d been speaking, or before that, ever since Sterling had called her a parasite. She took her first breath in, oh, what felt like forever.
“What I was going to say,” he went on, “is that there’s only one way to keep you safe. I never thought to marry again, but if it were you I married, we’d be the ones who decide what that means. We’re friends, you and I, and I think we’ll get along.”
Not words to stir a girl’s heart, but then this wasn’t that sort of proposal. Yet maybe he wasn’t as calm as he looked. Before today, she’d seen suppressed lust in his eyes when he looked at her, and she knew he cared.
Lust and friendship. Were they enough to build a life on?
Though she asked herself the question, she laughed at herself for doing so. What choice did they have? She needed his help if she wanted to escape, and he knew what he was getting himself into; those were the only facts that mattered.
“Helen, will you marry me?”
“Will—”
“Before you answer, you need to understand. They can try to have it set aside. They’ll say you weren’t mentally competent to marry. If they do, we’ll hire a lawyer and try to force an inquisition, but there’s no saying which way it would go.”
“But you’d be my husband. We’d have a chance. You’d have rights over me, like my father.”
“Yes.”
A strange thing to contemplate. To free herself from the control of one man, she meant to throw herself onto the mercies of another. Even trusting Will as she did, only desperation could have led her to this point.
He gazed at her, waiting patiently. His hand—the hand he’d offered in friendship the first day they met—still covered hers.
“I trust you, Will.”
“Is that a yes?”
This was the right decision for both of them. It had to be.
I won’t hurt him, she told herself. I’d rather die.
“Yes, Will. I’d be honored to marry you.”
He stood and placed a chaste kiss on her forehead. “Then I’m afraid it has to be now.”
…
An hour later, Helen stood inside the servant’s entrance, her arms held wide while Mrs. Braithwaite fussed at her borrowed clothes with the lint brush. From the kitchen came the sounds of chatter and bustle, the clink of tableware as the kitchen staff prepared the evening meal.
“Oh dear, it’ll have to do,” Braithwaite said, stepping back to scrutinize the hang of the dove-gray wool.
“Please don’t worry,” Helen whispered. “Thank you for lending me such a lovely dress.”
“It doesn’t fit properly, but it’s the best I could do. It’s my Sunday suit.” She took a coat from one of the hooks on the wall. “Now, this is Elsie’s. It has a decent hood, which you’re to keep up. I’ve sent word to the gatehouse that I’m sending someone on an errand, so they should open the gates for you without asking questions.”
Icy air rushed in as Mrs. Braithwaite opened the door and peeped out. “All clear,” she said. “Now go. Walk down that drive as bold as brass. You’re Elsie on an errand, and there’s no reason for anyone to stop you.”
Helen pulled the hood up and stepped out. Gravel crunched beneath her feet as she turned the corner where the path merged with the main drive. As Braithwaite had instructed, she tried to walk with confidence, but every window of the house felt like an eye staring into her back. How did Elsie walk anyway? Straight backed, of course, but not as self-assured as Helen. Did Elsie have a lighter step? Helen feared she did.
She approached the gate trying to appear carefree without drawing attention to herself. That was the problem with using her meager training as an actress to fool people. Part of an actor’s job was to draw the eye: Look at me, look at me. Helen didn’t know how to be inconspicuous.
The gatekeeper wasn’t at the gate, so he must be in the gatehouse. Was he watching? Mrs. Braithwaite had told him someone was coming, so he ought to have undone the lock. Helen’s hands shook as she reached out, but the gate swung open as soon as she touched it. So easy. She risked a quick glance behind her, but the drive was empty. No one was coming after her. Not yet, anyway.
She stepped out onto the road. The path into the woods was only a hundred yards to the left. She walked quickly. Once she’d disappeared into the trees, she breathed easier.
Will waited, lantern in hand, leaning against a crumbling drystone wall. He straightened when he saw her. “Did you have any trouble?”
“None. I wish all my escapes could have been that easy.” And they would have been if she hadn’t had to manage them all alone.
“Were you tempted to keep going?”
Did he have so little faith in her? Or perhaps he’d secretly hoped she’d make a break for it and free them both in one stroke. Whatever he’d said about how they’d get on if they married, he must be terrified. As was she.
“I’ve tried that before. I never got very far with no money and no friends.”
He offered his arm, not something he often did. “Well, this time it’s different,” he said. Of course, he meant only that she wasn’t alone anymore, but the gesture did seem different and peculiarly husband-like.
Used to his keeping a decorous distance during their walks, she couldn’t hold back her smile. The long weeks of no touching, no holding, and no kissing were coming to an end at last.
“What’s that look for?” he asked, returning the smile.
“If I told you, you probably wouldn’t believe me.”
Arm in arm, they began the short walk to the village.
> …
It was, without doubt, the strangest wedding Will had ever attended.
The bride carried no flowers and wore no veil. No sister or friend attended her, and instead of a church, they held the ceremony in the cramped parlor of the parish registering clerk, a man whose most obvious attributes were drunkenness and a love of coin. He recited the brief sentences making them man and wife in a gin-soaked slur, while the two witnesses—two of the clerk’s dearest and drunkest compatriots dragged in from the pub next door—concentrated on helping each other stay upright.
“Ceremony” was perhaps too grand a word. The entire thing took less than fifteen minutes. A few mumbled promises and Will’s soul was knitted to Helen’s for eternity. Or perhaps not, given the circumstances and lack of religious solemnity.
The vows spoken and the papers signed, Helen—his wife—regal as a queen, allowed him to help her into the ill-fitting coat they’d borrowed from Elsie. She didn’t meet his gaze, and he wondered if she felt the awkwardness of the situation as much as he did. Even if he’d struggled with the restraints his position imposed, he’d known how to behave as Dr. Carter toward Miss Grey the patient. The role of husband had always sat less easily. Helen and his first wife were nothing alike, and his reasons for marrying this time made the title “husband” feel nebulous.
Once they were out in the cold again and the registering clerk’s door closed behind them, she burst out laughing. “My goodness, did you smell his breath?”
He couldn’t help but find her mirth infectious. “How could I miss it? I’m surprised we didn’t get drunk on the fumes.”
Arm in arm again, they followed the road back toward Blackwell. His head reeled with the knowledge of what they’d done, and he knew the true significance was only gradually penetrating. Helen Grey— No, Helen Carter was now his wife. The weight of responsibility, now official, settled on his shoulders, but though he was aware of it, he’d only transmuted the obligation he already felt as her doctor. The real transformation was in every other aspect of their relationship. She was his wife. What that meant, they’d hardly had a chance to discuss.
