by Julie Daines
She held up a brooch, and Caroline flinched. “Ugh! Where did you get that?” It looked just like an eye.
“Macabre, I know. I used to wear it to fasten a burgundy velvet cloak.” Grandmama set it aside. “This might do—the color is the exact shade of your gown.”
It was a pretty piece, but— “I’d feel I was shamming it, wearing a cross,” Caroline said. She seldom went to church.
“I see your point,” Grandmama said. “What about this?” She held out a heavy bracelet of antique cameos. “I always liked this one.”
It was a curious piece. Caroline turned it over in her hand, studying the faces.
“Try it on.” Grandmama clasped it around her wrist.
“I like it,” Caroline said, testing the weight.
“You must have it.”
Caroline looked up. Grandmama’s eyes were bright. Buried in the lined cheeks, Caroline thought she detected the infamous dimple Reynolds had preserved in his portrait of her. “Just lend it to me. I—”
“It’s yours. Come. This isn’t any old party.” She smiled. For her age, Grandmama had excellent teeth. “Whatever comes, you’ll want to remember this evening.” She gestured to her untidy box. “Sometimes it’s nice to tie a recollection to something you can hold.”
“But what if this is a memory of yours?”
“Take it and give it a better one. It will bring you good luck.’
Caroline felt her resolve weakening. The bracelet was peculiarly attractive. “With my gold earrings and a plain circlet of pearls—”
“And a shawl. I have just the one.” Springing up, Grandmama went for the chest of drawers, reaching for the drawer on top.
“No, let me—!” Too late. Caroline lunged but couldn’t reach her. Grandmama toppled to the floor, landing with a heavy crash. Caroline ran to her. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine. Give me room to breathe.” Waving Caroline and her maid back, Grandmama continued to wheeze, a disjointed heap on the floor. She tried to push herself up and fell back with a moan.
“Grandmama.” Kneeling, Caroline bent closer. “God! Your arm.” She shut her eyes, feeling faint. Grandmama’s reedy arm was bent at a grotesque angle.
“Oh, my lady!” the maid cried.
“Bring Walters,” Caroline said, closing her throat and forcing control on her shaking hands and heaving stomach. “We must get you to the bed,” she told her grandmother.
“It’s that damned stick of mine,” Grandmama said. “Tripped me! Why was it there?” She turned on the maid. “You’re supposed to put these things away!”
“Be still. I don’t want you to hurt yourself further,” Caroline said. “Rawlings, send someone for Dr. Edwards. Ask him to come at once.”
* * *
Jack, not yet in his evening clothes, was blindfolded and playing hide-and-seek, his half-finished letter to his sister forgotten on the desk by the window. Since he couldn’t untangle his thoughts, it was no good putting them to paper. He might as well stagger about the parlor, eliciting whoops from Percy, Henrietta, and their half-dressed boys, who’d gotten no farther than their nightshirts after the evening bath.
“Warm . . . warmer . . . watch out, you’ll get burned!” Laurie, the eldest boy, shrieked as Jack groped his way past the window. “Nope. Gone cold again,” he said as Jack stumbled into the curtains.
Perhaps he’d find William in the cupboard below the window seat. For a stocky child, he was alarmingly flexible.
“Hot! Hot! Scorching!” Behind him, Henrietta laughed. Jack opened the cupboard, found William, and lifted him out, tickling his ribs.
“May I lose the blindfold now?”
William slid it off. “My turn!”
“We should probably dress. It’s nearly time for dinner. Yes, what is it?” Percy said, noticing the footman clearing his throat on the threshold. He carried a note in his hand.
“A message. For Dr. Edwards.”
It was from Caroline. Please come at once. It’s my grandmother.
He was half a second later to comprehension than usual. She needed a doctor. “Fetch my coat and my bag. Lady Lynher requires me,” he explained to Henrietta.
She nodded, moistening her lips. “Shall I cancel dinner? Send at once if there’s anything we can do.”
Jack nodded. Until he knew why he was needed, there was nothing to say. He went out, shoulders set, his fingers clenched around the handle of his bag. Dusk had fallen. He walked quickly, his shadow swinging in broad arcs as he passed from one lamp’s glow to the next. It was always impossible not to speculate. Had he missed some symptom at their last meeting? What would he find? She must be nearly seventy, perhaps even beyond. Would he be able to help? Shades of his failures hovered about him, making him forget he’d ever had any success.
Caroline cared deeply for her grandmother. Among her family, the dowager countess seemed the best of the lot. Jack hadn’t met the others but was forming no great opinion of her brother or Uncle Warren.
The front door opened before he reached the top step. “Thank you for coming, Doctor.” The butler relieved him of his coat and hat and brought him upstairs to a bedchamber encrusted in ornamentation of the former French style. Lady Lynher, dwindling to a scrap beneath the massive bed hangings, lay pallid and sweating.
“It’s this stick! Had no business being where I’d trip over it!” She spoke petulantly, her lips tight with pain.
Caroline came to him. “I should have stopped her or talked her out of those ridiculous heels.”
“She fell?” Jack whispered.
A nod. “And—”
“Her arm is broken.” It rested, bent and swollen, on a broad damask pillow.
“I wish she’d fainted. When we moved her, she went all gray and trembling. Such groans!” Caroline bit her lip.
She looked gray herself. Jack steered her to a chair. “Have something to drink. Sweet tea?” He caught the eye of the maid, and she vanished. “Sit right here. I’ll examine your grandmother.”
He advanced to the bed.
“If these fools would just put things away—” the countess began.
“Lady Lynher, you may snap at your servants as much as you please, but don’t try to fool me. I expect you were in too much of a hurry, which in my medical opinion ill-accords with your years and your dignity.”
The lecture made her smile. “Yes, but can you fix me?’
“I shall certainly try, but first, we must make you more comfortable. You won’t like me at all if I try prodding you now.” It might be a simple break judging from the shape of the deformity, but he didn’t want to raise false hope. From his bag, he took out a vial of strong laudanum.
The countess made a face. “Can’t stand that stuff.”
“Yes, it is wretched, but you feel that way already.”
Caroline appeared at his elbow with water and a glass. Jack kept up a light patter as he measured and mixed the dose, saying how desolated Lady Arundel was, and how they were missing a rare dinner—only three removes, but all excellent dishes. There was to be a haunch of venison, a turtle soup, and an excellent selection of jellies. “I expect she’ll send some of those to you once I tell her I’m keeping you on invalid’s food. After a few days, if you are doing well, you may have your French creams and port wine again.”
She looked mollified, but only slightly.
“Caroline, will you help the countess with her medicine? Please drink it all.”
Lady Lynher took two swallows, then pulled away from the glass, a bead of water rolling down her chin. Jack didn’t like that she was still trembling.
“‘Caroline,’ is it?” the countess asked. “What does she call you?”
“A scallywag,” Jack said evenly. “Finish up.”
Obediently, Lady Lynher drained the glass.
“Now we wait,” Jack said, answering the question in both their eyes. “I’d rather set the bones once you’re asleep.”
“What I don’t know won’t hurt me?�
�� Lady Lynher asked skeptically.
“You will be quite uncomfortable when you wake,” Jack told her. “But I’ll have another dose ready. Caroline, you didn’t drink your tea.”
She retreated to the enamel-topped table holding a tray with a steaming cup. While she sipped, Jack watched her fingers—a trifle clumsy, but better than before.
“Doesn’t she look fine?” Lady Lynher asked.
Jack nodded.
“Such a pity. I’m sorry for spoiling the evening,” Lady Lynher said.
“It’s of no consequence,” Jack said. “So long as you haven’t spoiled your arm. We’ll get you back in good order before too long, but I wish you could be spared this.”
She gave a wan smile. In another minute, Caroline returned her empty cup to the saucer and was back at his side.
“Rest now,” Jack urged the countess. “Tomorrow, you may complain to me all you please, including how that stick of yours plotted against you.”
“I’m not tired in the least.” But she closed her eyes. Jack consulted his watch. It shouldn’t take long.
“You’re wonderfully calm,” Caroline whispered. “Thank you.”
It was forward, but—let him presume. Jack covered her hand with his and held it. A broken arm, even one belonging to Lady Lynher, wasn’t enough to worry him. Tying off arteries in a rolling ship’s surgery beneath the gun decks as cannons blasted and timbers shuddered—that experience wouldn’t leave him. That, and waking some weeks ago, too weak to leave his bed, and quarreling with Percy until he admitted how many of Jack’s patients had died. Too many.
But he was ready to go back, to start again. He’d written the families of the patients who had died, and would have returned already, if not for Caroline. Her hand turned, palm to palm with his. Perhaps she knew he also took comfort from the touch. He was glad she felt no need to talk.
Lady Lynher was deeply asleep when the maid returned. Jack rose, telling her the supplies he needed. Splints and bandages he had, but ice would reduce the swelling and make the countess more comfortable.
“Should I leave?” Caroline asked. Clearly, she didn’t wish to.
“It can be a bit rough, bone setting,” Jack warned her. “You might rather lend me one of your footmen.”
“No, let me. Unless you think I’m too clumsy.”
Jack shook his head. “I worry more that it will be painful for you to see. And you are wearing your evening gown.”
“That can be remedied.” She unfastened the heavy bracelet from her wrist and set it on the bedside table. “I won’t be a moment.”
She returned minutes later in a plain blue gown. “I’ve sent messengers to Kit and my uncle. I’m ready, if you still wish me to help.” Though she turned white when he insisted she brace her grandmother’s shoulder and pull the elbow harder to provide sufficient traction, her hands were steady and her actions sure.
“Hand me the splint now,” Jack ordered. “Good. And another. A rolled bandage . . . Now, keep these still for me.” With practiced speed, he wound the length of linen around Lady Lynher’s arm.
“That was quick.” She sounded breathless.
Jack looked up, surprised. He thought he’d been taking his time. “You did very well for a first endeavor.”
She rubbed her hands together. “I’ll see if Rawlings has found any ice.”
When this was applied, they stood together, watching the countess. “This is selfish of me, but I don’t want you to go,” Caroline said, taking hold of his hand.
“Perhaps it is ill-mannered of me, but I wasn’t going to,” Jack told her. “She’s fine for the present. I’m staying to keep watch on you.”
The tension left her shoulders. She turned down the lamp. “We may as well sit down.”
There were chairs on either side of the bed, gilded wood and brocade, wide and comfortable. Instead, they went to the matching, round-backed sofa—a small seat for the two of them. Caroline tucked up her feet and put her head on his shoulder.
Around midnight, Lady Lynher woke briefly to swallow her next dose. At two, Caroline also slept. At four, Jack moved his numb arm and accidentally woke her. She sighed, her breath brushing his cheek, their heads were so close.
Perhaps he was tired, too worn to edit his thoughts or guard his tongue. He spoke without thinking. “Caroline, I think you should marry me.”
Chapter Seven
Caroline stretched her shoulders, smiling sleepily. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” The world would never dismay, oppress, or frighten her, not when she held him close. This felt too good, this snuggling way of sleeping.
Beneath her head, he’d gone very still. She couldn’t feel him breathing. Caroline looked up. It was dark, but she sensed hurt, and also that he was smiling.
“I should probably stop while I’m ahead. Do you mean that, Caroline? Because I did.”
Involuntarily, two of her fingers twitched, curling into his waistcoat. The coat had been discarded while they were setting Grandmama’s arm. “It would be wonderful, being married to you.”
Her heart wrung as she said it, for she could see it in her mind’s eye: laughter and eagerness and exquisite courtesy the first time he took her to bed. A short honeymoon in a moderately priced hotel where they barely left their rooms. Then home to a pretty house in the country, but with her about, he shouldn’t be allowed to work himself into exhaustion. They’d curl up together like this when he came home late at nights, cold and tired from tending his patients. She’d manage the kitchen so there was always something warm and wonderful for him to eat. She’d tend to his letters and correspondence, and read over the cases he wrote up for medical journals. She’d insist he take time for his researches, and when his shoulders hitched up and his brow furrowed, as talk of his responsibilities made them do, she’d knead his shoulders until they hung loose the way they ought. Then, when they had children—how fortunate those babies would be to have such a father.
Caroline swallowed. “But of course I could not.”
His thumb drifted over her cheek, gliding down to the point of her chin. “I expect I know why, but it might be easier to believe if you said it. Will you do that for me, Caroline?”
Not if he kept saying her name like that. Thankfully, he was silent. “I hardly know you,” she said.
“Do you truly think so? And what of this thing we feel?”
How could she answer that? Her fingers, those awful betrayers, held him tighter. It was impossible to deny she loved him, with her head resting on his shoulder.
“I’ve never experienced this before. I hardly know what to do with it.”
“Don’t you?”
He wasn’t going to let her lie. “Very well. I know, but I can’t. You understand. I know you do, because you said right from the start this was hopeless. I’m meant to be a politician’s wife. It’s what I am bred for.” Rather wistfully, she toyed with one of his buttons. “Perhaps if you became a member of the cabinet.”
“That, my love, is quite impossible.”
Caroline sighed.
He bent his head to look at her. “Should I leave you now?”
“Must you?” If all they had was this time in Bath . . . “We only get such a little while.”
“Then I will stay.”
“And Grandmama? Will you still attend her? Or—am I being unkind to you?” Perhaps she should let him go.
He picked up her hand and kissed her fingers. “My dear love. Keeping you forever would honor me beyond measure, but I’m not such a fool I can’t enjoy what you give me today.”
“And tomorrow. For as long as we are in Bath.” Caroline laced their fingers together, glad their talk hadn’t stirred Grandmama’s sleeping. “I love you, Jack.”
* * *
Caroline didn’t sleep, but she left the sofa before the servants began stirring and went to her room to wash and change. Grandmama was bleary but awake when she returned. Jack examined her, and the tartness of her replies was immensely reassuring.
&
nbsp; “A short convalescence and you’ll be as magnificent and ornery as ever,” Jack assured her.
“Huh! Better to be magnificent and ornery than magnificently ordinary,” she huffed.
“Quite.” He kissed Grandmama’s hand, which surprised Caroline, but Grandmama took it as no more than her due.
“Feed him breakfast!” she said, ordering them from the room.
“You’re good at fixing people,” Caroline said as they took chairs in the breakfast parlor.
“Sometimes.” Jack reached for the coffee. “She’ll mend. There’s no reason to worry, but I can come round this afternoon to see you both.”
“Please do.”
They ate, and while much of their unspoken conversation was tinged bittersweet, they had no lack of things to talk about.
He kissed her in the empty hallway before he left, solidly, pressing her against the console table. Over almost as soon as it begun, it still left her breathless. Caroline stood at the door after he tipped his hat to her, watching him stride down the street.
She had scarcely made her way upstairs again when there was noise at the door. “Jack? Did you forget something?” She glanced about the room, but all paraphernalia had returned to his black bag. Perhaps he’d forgotten to tell her something about Grandmama’s dose?
Caroline hurried to the top of the stairs. “Kit! I’d no hope of seeing you this quickly.” He must have left the instant her messenger arrived and traveled all night, explaining his frown and the rumples. “Grandmama will be so pleased to see you. She says she hates fussing, but it will mean a great deal that you’ve come. The doctor has just left, but he says—”
“Doctor? What’s the matter with Grandmama?”
Caroline frowned. “Isn’t that why you’ve come?”
“I came to bring you to London. I told you I needed you.”
“What for?” If it had been so urgent, why stand against her when she’d protested coming to Bath in the first place?
