Her chest rose upon several great, jerky inhalations.
“Thank you,” she said.
“There is no need to thank me again.”
“But I must.”
He bowed.
Whirling about, she left him, finally, in peace, and the piglet scampered after her. It was a while, however, before peace actually felt peaceful again.
Chapter 9
The Silence
At first her knowledge proved vastly superior to that of her peers. But there was more to learn than she had dreamed possible. She filled the notebook within a sennight, then bought a dozen more, labeled each with the date of each Monday, and stacked them on the writing table in the parlor.
The first time Chedham answered a question more swiftly than she, his pompous grin was unendurable. That night she dragged out her father’s thickest text on surgery and reread it. When she had taken so many notes that her fingers were too sore to hold the pen, finally she closed the tome and crawled to bed.
An hour later she was pasting on her whiskers and oiling her hair to throw herself into her studies anew. She could do this. She would.
When she entered her host’s studio on Sunday morning he said, “Today you will be silent.”
He lifted his gaze, and Libby’s stomach tightened as it always did when he looked directly into her eyes.
He was handsome in a manner that made her feel hot inside. And after the previous sitting, she had had the impulse to kiss him.
She had never wanted to kiss a man before. The blush that had rushed across her skin at that moment still made her prickly with fury at herself. A woman of medicine could not behave like a bashful maiden.
This man affected her differently than other men did. She must simply learn to live with that—with him.
She nodded.
“Can you be silent?” he said.
She nodded again.
The piglet trotted beside her to the stool and settled itself by her feet.
She bent to trail her fingertips between its ears. “Have you named th—”
Slowly he lifted a single brow.
“I am sorry I talked so much last time. I can in fact be quiet.” Turning to the windows through which only pale light now shone, Libby reviewed in her mind her notes on the week’s lectures.
She glanced at the artist. Only his hand wielding pencil and his eyes moved, his gaze shifting between her hand and the page before him. He wore black trousers, a coat of burgundy, and a patterned waistcoat, and the white of his shirt was a striking contrast with his skin. In her sennight at the university she had, in fact, encountered no young man as handsome as he, nor one who made her stomach frolic like spring lambs in a field. She had not had the impulse to kiss any of them.
“Why do—”
The pencil halted.
She clamped her lips shut.
“Ask it,” he said.
“Why do you draw people? And paint? Portraits. Why are you an artist?”
“To be able to afford to feed the pig.” He returned to his work.
“Honestly,” she said, biting back her smile.
After a moment he said, “I find the human form inspiring.”
“You do? The shapes of skulls and spines and whatnot?”
“The lyricism and shadows and motion,” he said.
“Lyricism?”
“Poetry.”
“You see poetry when you see a human body?”
“I do.”
“How extraordinary.”
“What do you see, Miss Shaw?”
“Scoliosis of the spine. Splay foot. Cleft lips. Bowed legs. Scars. Goiters. On Friday I assisted Mr. Bridges in examining a woman with a fractured radius. She was in considerable pain, but her two young children were with her, so I drew diagrams of the bones of the arm on their own arms, which of course made them giggle since it tickled.”
“That was kind of you,” he said, his eyes on her knee now.
She shrugged. “It distracted her, which was my purpose. But even as I did it I could think of nothing except that bone and the manner in which Mr. Bridges was setting it so that she would have full use of that arm for the remainder of her life.”
The muscles in his jaw were taut. It looked like he was trying not to smile.
“That is poetry of a sort,” he said.
“No. It is entirely prosaic. I also see natural bone structure.” She allowed her gaze to trace the firm, tapering line of his jaw and then his lips. Pleasure twittered about in her belly.
“You are studying my bone structure now,” he said, “aren’t you?”
“Not . . . quite.” Any moment she would tell him that she was wondering how it might feel to touch his face, that jaw, his skin. The words ached to be spoken aloud. A distraction was necessary. “I am learning so much each day. Mr. Bridges is wise and careful. And he treats me and Chedham similarly, even though Chedham is wealthy and aristocratic and attractive, and I am not.”
“This is not, by the way, silence.”
“At the last sitting, you said that I might share with you news of my studies.”
“I did.”
“Are you now retracting that offer?”
There was gentleness in his eyes at times, yet shrouded by a sharp sort of darkness, as though the world had taught him to overcome that which was most natural to him. Perhaps he had learned that darkness in the accident that had taken part of his leg.
“Who is Chedham?” he said.
“Maxwell Chedham is the other student apprenticing with Mr. Bridges. He is intelligent and arrogant.”
“And wealthy and aristocratic and attractive.”
“Yes. Although not as attractive as you are.”
He glanced up, then down again at his sketchpad.
“I have so many questions,” she said. “More than I can ask Mr. Bridges or after anatomy lectures.”
“I have no doubt of that.”
“It frustrates me.” As soon as she wrapped her mind around the answer to one question, three more popped up in its place. “I am grateful to you for—”
“Do not thank me again.”
“I must.”
“Then I will plug my ears and hear nothing. Ah, there is anger in that brow now. Interesting. Hold that, could you?” His pencil skipped across the paper.
“There is not anger in this brow. Rather, exasperation. I don’t know why you would object to hearing that I am grateful for your help.”
After a silence during which she tried to focus her attention on the branches of the tree in the garden behind the house, he finally spoke.
“Did your father never teach you not to repeatedly tell a man that you find him attractive?”
“No,” she said. “He has rarely spoken to me as a regular father speaks to a regular daughter, I think. He has been infinitely kind and generous. Constance and Alice have tried to teach me proper behavior. It hasn’t taken. If it had I would not be here, of course. Do you mind it?”
“Mind it?” He lifted his eyes to hers. “No.”
How the touch of a man’s gaze could send the blood rushing into her face and also her female organs at once was an extraordinary thing. It made her want to be touched by more than his gaze. Her lips even felt tingly. Her nipples too. A soft throbbing had commenced in her genitals. It was certainly sexual desire.
She made herself look away from him again. Across the bedchamber door stretched a bar perhaps eighteen inches below the lintel, attached to both posts. Each time he walked through that doorway he must duck.
“What is the purpose of that bar in your doorway?” she said.
“To slam my head into the next time I consider taking in a boarder. It jars rational thought back into the skull.”
“Ha ha. Injury to the skull often does exactly the opposite.”
“The next time you are attempting to study, I will sit nearby speaking constantly. That should prove amusing.”
“I would not mind that. I enjoy having company.” She
shifted on the stool. “Are we finished yet?”
“For twenty more minutes, Miss Shaw, you—”
“I am yours. As you have decreed.”
For the remainder of the hour he said nothing and she did not speak. Instead she spent the time cataloguing in her mind every detail she knew about sexual response. It amounted to very little. She had more questions than knowledge, a lacuna worse than in any other area of anatomy.
When the clock chimed in the parlor, she slid from the stool. “Until next week?”
“Until next week.”
The piglet followed her to the door and out. She did not pause to ask the myriad other questions bubbling to her tongue: Had he named the creature? What purpose did it have in this house? Did he never eat pork? Was he a Muslim? Why had he come to Scotland? What was the real purpose of the bar across his bedchamber doorway? And did he not know that a man could not simply tell a woman he found her beautiful and expect her to forget it—as though men told her she was beautiful all the time—and as though he weren’t a great hypocrite to forbid her from doing the same?
The following day, after a heated debate with Chedham concerning round sutures, to which Mr. Bridges listened carefully, Libby welcomed the peace of the alley that had become her lunchtime refuge. Settling on the wall she opened her pail.
The door to the brothel flew wide and the same young woman from before came onto the stoop. A man exited behind her. He had long hair and a jagged nose. Slapping her on the behind, he strode away whistling.
The woman glanced at Libby. She seemed as thin as before. Whatever that man paid her, it wasn’t enough.
Digging into her lunch pail, Libby withdrew a boiled egg and bread, jumped off the wall, and walked to her.
“You must eat or you will waste away to nothing.” Grasping the woman’s hand, she put the food in it. She had none of the outward signs of syphilis—swollen lymph nodes, rash on her palm, or ulcers about the mouth. “Are you in need of medication of any sort? I cannot give you laudanum. But if you require other medicaments I will see what I can do.”
“Who’s offerin’?” the woman said, not closing her fingers around the food.
“I am a surgical apprentice at the infirmary yonder.” It still felt wonderful to say it aloud. “Do take the food. It is either you or those gulls, and they already seem far better fed than you.”
The fingers curled over the egg and bread.
“Go off then,” the woman said. “Or do you think you’ll stand there watchin’ me eat?”
“I will in fact stand here and watch you eat. For I do not fancy you sharing it with someone else.”
The woman cocked a brow. “Now why would I be doin’ that?”
“Obviously you do not feed yourself sufficiently. Yet you clearly have customers. At least one. And he seemed happy. That is sufficient evidence to suggest that you are giving your earnings to someone else.”
“Clever lad.”
“Now, do eat that so I can return to eating my own lunch.”
“You’ve any left?”
“Plenty.”
“But you’ve nothin’ to drink. Here now, take a nip o’ this.” She offered the bottle.
“Thank you, no.”
A laugh like broken glass came from the woman’s throat.
“Afraid if you put your lips where I’ve put mine, lad, it’ll get a rise out o’ you?”
A rise. Could a man really become aroused after drinking from the same bottle as a woman? It seemed implausible.
She imagined sharing a cup with her housemate, and heat gathered so swiftly between her legs she gasped.
“No,” she said quickly to cover the sound. “It is only that I’ve got to keep my head clear for working with one of the most famous surgeons in Britain.”
“You’re no’ the usual sort, are you?”
“The usual sort of student? No, I am not.”
Her companion laughed. “You’re a sweet one, pretendin’ you canna have a wee nip so you dinna have to share my bottle, instead o’ tellin’ me I’m a poxy wench. Name’s Coira.”
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Coira.” Libby bowed. “I am Joseph Smart. Now I’ve got to be heading to lecture. Do promise you will eat that.”
“Aye.” Coira leaned close. “In return, here’s a wee bit o’ advice: try no’ to smile too much. Men rarely do.”
According to Mrs. Coutts, the student of surgical medicine now residing in his house left shortly after dawn each morning, returned at dusk each evening, ate dinner in the dining room, and then repaired to the parlor to study until the wee hours.
“Eats a healthy plate, she does, sir,” his housekeeper said with a satisfied nod. “As fine as a real lad.”
“But you are concerned,” he said.
“’Taint healthy for a lass to spend so much time with her nose in a pile o’ books. Turnin’ pale as a specter, she is. Next we know it, she’ll fall ill an’ be needin’ to physick herself.”
Ziyaeddin had seen no evidence of ill health when she had last sat for him, only the same eyes filled with curiosity and thought, the same skin reddened in patches by the adhesive, and the same damnably impossible lips.
He had expected more conversation—regarding what, he could not guess—for she had an expansive mind. But she had remained silent throughout the hour, saying nothing except in parting, and then only “Until next Sunday” again.
“Have you shared this concern with her?” he said to his housekeeper.
“Ach.” Mrs. Coutts waved a dismissive hand. “She’s got a way about her, sir, I’d no’ care to cross.”
He understood. Along with her forthright purpose, a flinty energy prickled. It was the same energy that came forth in burbling warmth when she thanked him repeatedly, the same intensity of spirit that always seemed to need release in speech or movement. That the thought of it made him want to take her into his hands and discover how that intensity responded to lovemaking only proved he was wise for remaining at a distance from her.
That evening, returning home through a drizzle, as he approached he saw the drapery in the parlor parted and the false lad and young pig watching him through the rain-spattered pane.
They met him at the door.
“Why don’t you hire a chair?” she demanded as she seized his umbrella and bolted the door. “One needn’t be an aristocrat to go about town in a chair. I know any number of entirely humble gentlemen who do so.”
All of them aging and gouty, no doubt, like the man whose portrait he was now painting. Mixing gray into the pallid whites of the gentleman’s skin, Ziyaeddin had thought of this woman, and had added a dollop of Permanent Rose to the palette to please himself. His patrons, the man’s children, would appreciate it too. They would not know the reason for their appreciation—that he had made their father appear more alive than in reality. But they would be pleased.
“Thank you for this unsolicited recommendation.” He removed his cloak. “I will take it under advisement.”
“You won’t,” she said. “You are displeased with me for saying it. I can hear it in your voice. But I am vexed, so frankly I don’t care. This walking could seriously and permanently damage your spine. Irreversibly. Either you do not understand that, which would make you extraordinarily obtuse in your observational powers, and I know you aren’t that, or you choose to walk despite the damage it is causing you, and the pain, which makes you a fool. An arrogant fool.”
“By all means, don’t mince words. What would be the fun in that? How did you come to be standing at the window then, just as I returned?”
“The pig knew it.” She gestured to the runt snorting at their feet. “It sits by the window and watches people going by. Suddenly it got very excited, dancing about on the chair and making a lot of noise, so I went to see the reason for its excitement. It was your approach. Apparently it has a great deal of affection for you. Are you certain it’s not a pet?”
“If you are finding yourself peering out the window ov
er its shoulder, you should be asking yourself that question.”
“Touché.” She was again studying his lips.
Taking up the lighter walking stick he used inside the house, he moved away from her tempting lips and brilliant eyes that invited him to do what he must not—what he ached to do.
“What is the advantage,” she said behind him, “of having an expert in the skeletal and muscular systems, not to mention a student of the most recent scientific theories concerning neural pathways, living in your house, if you do not heed her advice?”
“Give me time,” he said, entering his quarters. “I will probably think of one.”
She did not follow him inside, which he accounted a miracle of sorts. Closing the door and leaning his shoulders back against it, he ran a hand over his face and tried to steady himself. The habitual pains in his hip and back were old friends; he knew how to endure them. The lust that even the sound of her voice ignited in his body was another matter altogether.
She had no idea.
It must remain so.
With no possibility of relief, he went to bed. Despite the pain, sleep came easily.
Waking came violently, covered in sweat and gasping for air. But his throat was not raw; at least he had not awoken shouting.
Climbing out of bed, he bit back on the discomfort, dressed, and went into his workroom. On the table beside mortar, pestle, paints, and oils was a small jar. He palmed it now.
Light stole from the parlor door, which was cracked open several inches—wide enough for a piglet to squeeze through if it should wish. Inside, the creature slept cozily on the cushion his housekeeper had set for it by the hearth.
Not for the first time, he imagined his mother’s horror were she to see his household now. But she was gone, and his faith as well. And he had use for the little creature.
And for the woman.
She had told him that she was accustomed to regular companionship at home. He gave her none. The piglet must suffice.
At the desk, a lamp burned low by her elbow beside an empty cup and saucer. Surrounded by books, she slumped over the table, cheek pressed to the page of an open volume, sleeping. As he went toward her she did not stir.
Parted, her lips were the hue of dusty rose, and her limbs were entirely slack. She was never thus. He suspected that in waking she did not know how to be immobile.
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