Fool that he was, he had not worried for her safety.
“A load o’ courage, that lass has got,” Mrs. Coutts said, nodding sagely as she stirred a pot. “Poor dear doesna even realize her heart’s no’ made o’ steel.”
She was brilliant and capable and strong, and he assumed she had returned to her friend’s house in Leith. But he had missed her, and finally he had given in to that weakness and sent a message to Leith.
“She is not at Miss Campbell’s house.” His throat was nearly too tight to speak. “You would tell me if she were staying with you now, and Mr. Coutts. Wouldn’t you?”
The Scotswoman glowered. “’Tis your worry speakin’ nonsense now, sir.”
Then where in the hell was she?
Tearing off his paint-stained shirt as he went to his quarters and dressing quickly, he was certain of one thing: she would never abandon her studies.
She would be angry with him for seeking her out. She had left—decidedly, permanently, without word. She no longer wished to see him. But a twisting fear had invaded his gut as he thought of the people Joseph Smart had befriended and to whom he might have gone for aid: young university men, and women who sold sex for shillings.
From the outside, the Dug’s Bone seemed an unprepossessing place, the marquee a crudely painted image of a dog skeleton chewing on the foot of a human skeleton. Inside it was a tidy, warm warren of nooks and tables upon which books were strewn and the heads of the handful of patrons all bent to their studies. Ziyaeddin went to the bar.
“Have business with young Mr. Smart, do you, sir?” the pub master said, eyeing him curiously. “He cured my missus o’ the rheumatism, after twenty years o’ it! Lad’s a wonder.”
“Do you know where I can find him?”
“Havena seen him since he slept on the cot in my kitchen.”
Allah, have mercy.
He should have anticipated this.
“He an’ his mates come in here most Thursdays. They should be here in a bit. A pint while you wait, sir?”
He wanted only her.
When Peter Pincher entered he came with two others: a stocky ginger-haired youth with an open, intelligent face liberally dusted with freckles, and a stout, pale young man whose stodgy dress and features shouted his provincial English origins. From her stories Ziyaeddin guessed them to be Archibald Armstrong and George Allan.
Armstrong slapped coins onto the bar and commanded ale. The barkeep gestured to Ziyaeddin. Armstrong’s head swiveled around, his brow darkening.
“Sir,” Armstrong said, the pleats across his brow comical, but his stare severe. “I understand you’ve been waitin’ here for Joe Smart.”
“I have. You are Mr. Armstrong, I believe.”
“Aye.” The Scot’s eyes narrowed. “Joe’s mentioned me, has he?”
“He has told me about all of you. I am pleased to make your acquaintance.” He extended his hand.
Armstrong paused, then shook it firmly.
“I’ll no’ beat about the bush, sir,” he said, the frown deep again. “I didna take kindly to you tossin’ Joe out on his arse. For all he’s cleverer than me an’ the lads combined, he’s still a green’un to the ways o’ the world. Though I’ll admit if it werena for that stubborn streak o’ his, I mightna be so vexed with you, sir. For I’d have him to the house an’ Mum’d be pourin’ soup an’ tea into him now.”
“Mr. Armstrong, do you know where he is?”
“If he’s no’ told you himself, I’m no’ inclined to either.”
“I did not toss him out. Nor do I hold any malice toward him.”
“Aye, ’tis what he said, an’ I’ve ne’er caught him in a lie. An’ now that he’s refusin’ to see us, somebody’s got to talk sense into him.”
“Refusing to see you? Why?”
“Peaked with a fever for days now. Then he didna show at the infirmary yesterday or this mornin’. Skipped lecture yesterday too! Pincher an’ I went o’er earlier today.”
“Over where?”
“To a flat he’s taken. He’s locked himself in. Sick as a dug, but he willna let any o’ us inside to tend him.”
“And you accepted that?”
Armstrong started back. “Said if I entered he’d remove my spleen. He could do it!”
Of course she would not allow them to tend her. She would die of fever before risking exposure and ruining her dream. “Take me there. At once.”
Armstrong obliged.
The rooming house was exceedingly modest, but inside it was clean-swept and dry. Ziyaeddin knocked, then tried the door handle.
“Where is the landlord of this blasted place?”
“I’ll find him!” Armstrong scampered down the stairs again.
Ziyaeddin pressed his knuckles to the wood and, for the first time in a decade, prayed.
A quarter of an hour later, Armstrong appeared with the landlord.
Slowly the man looked Ziyaeddin up and down.
“What exactly you be wantin’ with the lad . . . sir?”
“He is my ward.”
The landlord’s eyes narrowed. “A wee bit young to have a ward, ain’t you?”
Ziyaeddin had long anticipated this. In public he had stayed far from Joseph Smart because of it. Until now, he had been very careful.
“The boy is gravely ill,” he said, shaping his vowels and consonants carefully, as though born to speak the king’s English. “If you’ve a wish to explain to the police that you allowed a gentleman’s son to die for lack of care, then by all means do not provide me with the key. If not, give me your price and I will pay it.”
Shortly Ziyaeddin was unlocking the door and instructing Armstrong to wait without.
The flat was minuscule and cluttered with her books and boxes. He opened the door to the bedchamber, crossed it in a stride, and went to the narrow cot. Buried in sodden blankets, she was shaking.
Rounding her flushed brow with his hand and taking her wrist between his fingers, he felt the burning in her flesh and found her thin pulse.
“Elizabeth,” he whispered, stroking his fingers around her cheek from where the whiskers had peeled away. “Open your eyes. Show me through those beautiful eyes the spirit that cannot be cowed by a mere fever.”
The lashes twitched.
“That’s it,” he said. “Look at me.”
Irises the color of the sea were coated in glassy stupor. Her lashes drooped again.
Lifting the coverlets away from her, he took in the sweat-soaked shirt, breast wrappings, and man’s drawers that clung to her body.
Bending his head, he searched for the core of his strength. Then, tucking the blankets snugly around her, he gathered her in his arms.
Chapter 24
Deltangam
“There you be!”
The sound came to Libby through the thick clog of sleep.
“’Twas a nasty fright you gave us, lass.” Mrs. Coutts put an arm behind her and leaned her forward. The room spun. Then the lip of a cup was between her lips and water was dribbling down her chin and, wonderfully, over her tongue. It hit a wall of dry throat.
“Now dinna be tossin’ it all back at me, daftie.”
Mrs. Coutts was chuckling, her arm firm and solid behind Libby’s head.
“Wh—”
“There now, lass. You needna talk just yet.”
Her limbs clung to the mattress like the limbs of a rag dog had once long ago clung to her. Above, the parted draperies of a silk canopy allowed morning light to filter in and shine on a small painting of a marketplace.
Her bedchamber. In his house.
“Why am I here?” she rasped.
“The master brought you home in his own arms. Ne’er thought I’d see sich a thing! But he’d no’ allow anybody else to carry you. The poor lad didna sleep a minute after that either, sittin’ outside this room night an’ day, then just there so I could catch a wink myself, no’ till the fever broke.”
Libby’s thoughts would not right themselves.
She was so tired.
“An’ he’d no’ allow one other person in this house,” Mrs. Coutts continued, “only me and he. He even hired my niece to keep my house these past three days an’ cook for Mr. Coutts. ’Tis a considerate man, in spite o’ frightenin’ you off.”
“I wasn’t frightened.” Weariness pressed down on her eyelids. “I . . .”
“Rest now, dearie.”
The next time Libby awoke she was able to sit up and drink a cup of tea and a bowl of broth.
The next time she roused, she was ravenous.
“I have a strong constitution,” she said around a mouthful of bread and butter. “Usually.”
“A sore heart’ll bring a body down swift as rain.”
“There is no such thing as a sore heart unless it is caused by an infection of the pericardium, Mrs. Coutts. And one does not take a fever simply because one is sad.”
“Aye, there’s a wee bit o’ wisdom you’ve still to learn, lass.”
Libby snuggled back in the soft blankets. “What day is today?” she mumbled, her eyelids heavy.
“Saturday, lass.”
“Must . . . get . . . my . . . books . . .”
She woke by the bell at Greyfriar’s ringing the Sunday service. Staring at the canopy above, with metallic detachment she watched her thoughts accelerate as one might watch a carriage gaining speed.
She had made a hash of it. Trying to save him trouble she had caused him more. And Mrs. Coutts. And Archie. Where were her notebooks? Had the awful landlord thrown them out? She must apologize to Dr. Jones for falling asleep during his lecture. And to Mr. Bridges for disappearing. Had she paid her bill at the pub? Her stomach burned. Where were her clothes, and her whiskers? She could not waste another moment here. There were so many mistakes to repair.
No.
No.
Lifting her weak arms, she pressed her palms into her eyes.
It had happened this way: she had read his curt message about Reeve, and the desperate urgency to immediately right all that was wrong between them had propelled her into action—anything to quiet the thoughts, the regrets, the guilt.
You conquered this dragon.
Turning onto her side, she stared out the window at the early gray spring morning.
With a deep inhalation, one by one as the worries scrolled she set each on the windowsill and then tipped them off onto the street below. By the time Mrs. Coutts came with stew and bread, Libby was almost smiling.
Mrs. Coutts helped her wash and change into a fresh nightgown. Worn out by the activity, Libby fell again into bed.
When she awoke it was to abrupt wakefulness and a bedchamber lit from the hearth and a lamp. Swinging her feet free of the covers, she tested her strength. It did not impress her, nor did the achy tenderness of her chest. But the rug was warm to her bare feet.
Taking up the lamp, she went onto the landing. The house was silent.
Holding on to the railing, she descended to the ground floor and her toes sank into the soft rug running the length of the corridor. She studied the sumptuous, intricate pattern beneath her white feet.
A mansion, her friends had said. Months ago, when she first came, she had noticed its simple elegance. But it had seemed such a natural extension of its master, she had catalogued the details of its beauty in her mind, then had given them little thought.
Little thought. A miracle, to be sure.
Now she allowed her fingertips to run along the smooth wooden wainscoting to the parlor doorway, then around the bright brass handle that was cool to the touch. Just as in her bedchamber where the canopy was in perfect proportions, gorgeously designed to be at once restful and beautiful, the entire house was gracious in every detail: carefully carved wall paneling, painted plaster moldings in the ceiling, the exquisitely designed furniture and finely woven draperies, the porcelain that she used every day. All of it was enhanced subtly with bits of luxury: lapis stones set into drawer handles, garnets dangling from sconces, a paper-thin line of gilding the length of the stairwell railing, which at its base curved in upon itself like the petals of a glorious flower, a perfect spiral of satiny wood for the pleasure of the human hand.
Without ostentation, this house reveled in beauty. It was the home of an artist. And a prince.
Yet he had welcomed her here. And he had treated her as his equal.
In the parlor her notebooks were stacked on the writing table. Her boxes of bones and plaster models, her case of surgical instruments, and her medicine chest were set carefully on the floor. A sharpened pen, pencils, page cutter, and a half-empty bottle of ink remained exactly where she had left them weeks earlier.
She recrossed the room and went out, and there he was. In shirtsleeves and waistcoat marked here and there with brilliant streaks of paint, he was standing perfectly still near the base of the stairs.
“I thought I heard something.” His eyes were lustrous. “Rather, someone.”
She went to him, and without pausing wound her arms about his waist and pressed her face against his chest.
He wrapped her in his arms.
“Forgive me,” he whispered roughly beside her ear, and his hands spread on her, holding her. “Forgive me.”
She wanted to burrow into him, to remain in his embrace and to be held in his strength and peace and stillness forever.
She drew away and stepped back.
He seemed to release a slow breath, his gaze never leaving her eyes. Libby had seen this many times before at the hospital. This was not the usual studying regard of the artist, but the watchfulness of a man who believed the one he watched might at any moment expire.
“You needn’t worry now,” she said. “You rescued me. And how like a fairy-tale hero you accomplished it, besting my landlord, then carrying me away to safety.”
“This would presuppose you are a damsel in distress, which is balderdash.”
“Mrs. Coutts said Archie took you to the flat and that you carried me out. But she is inclined to exaggeration and more importantly, I don’t think the latter would have been possible.”
“You underestimate your skill.”
“Not once in my life have I underestimated my skill. The prosthesis allowed you to carry me? Truly?”
“You are light. And I was well motivated.”
“Archie could have carried me. Or the hackney driver.”
“Not while I live.”
“You are . . .” Her throat was closing.
He tilted his head in question.
“You are very strong,” she said. “With strength of both body and character.”
“I weary of hearing your praise of me. I do not deserve it.”
“As usual we see matters entirely differently. I wish to stay. Here. In this house. May I stay?”
“This is your home.”
Fierce prickling erupted behind her eyes. “I may stay until my father’s return to Edinburgh?”
“For however long you wish.”
“What if I wish it to be forever?”
“Then forever it shall be.”
Heart tight, she turned to the stairs and went up as swiftly as her bandy legs would carry her. When she paused on the landing and looked down, he stood there still, watching her.
“My father and I have always lived wherever his patients wished. I have rarely stayed in one house for long. I have never had a home that could be mine forever.”
“Now you have.”
“Until my father’s return.”
He nodded, and it was so regal that she wondered she had ever thought him anything but a prince.
“I won’t bother you,” she said.
“I have very little confidence in the predictive value of that statement.”
Air shot out from between her lips.
“Was that noise an agreement?” he said, a beautiful smile shaping his mouth.
She laughed again, and pain shot through her lungs.
“I missed that sound,” he said. “Your laughter.”
She clutched the linen over her chest. “It hurts.”
“Yes,” he said. She didn’t mean the laughter hurt, but she thought perhaps he understood that.
“I will try not to disturb you,” she said.
“Don’t,” he said. “Disturb me. Every day. Every hour. Every minute if you wish.”
“You were wise. Before. When you said that I mustn’t—that we mustn’t . . .”
“I was,” he said. “But it is too late to undo now, isn’t it?”
Salty heat swamped the back of her throat, and her hands were tight about the bannister.
“Sleep,” he said. “Recover.”
Going to her bedchamber and crawling beneath the soft blankets, she slept deeply through the night.
Libby returned to the infirmary early the following morning.
“I had gotten so accustomed to your absence, I entirely forgot you,” Chedham drawled. “Pincher said you were at death’s door.”
“Apparently death shoved me back out onto the street.”
“Pity. I suggested to Plath we purchase your corpse for our final dissection in Jones’s course.”
She went past him to Mr. Bridges, who was entering through the gates. The pleasure on her mentor’s face was genuine.
Archie and Pincushion had taken up her duties during her illness. Visiting her patients, however, she learned that her nemesis had helped.
“I’m obliged to you for seeing to my patients, Chedham,” she said as they followed Mr. Bridges between wards.
“I didn’t do it for you.”
They stopped before the first bed in the women’s ward. It was empty and Libby peered down the row of cots.
“Has Mrs. Small been discharged?”
“Unfortunately she succumbed to the cancer,” Mr. Bridges said. “Mr. Chedham removed the tumors. We will study them tomorrow.” He proceeded to the next bed, but Libby could not tear her eyes from the clean white linen stretched across the cot.
Chedham bent to speak over her shoulder. “Perhaps we’ll use her corpse for our next dissection, since we can’t use yours.”
“You are an unconscionable prick, Maxwell.”
“Say that a bit louder. I don’t think Bridges heard you.” With a tight smile he followed the surgeon.
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