The Prince

by Katharine Ashe

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, lass,” the duke said.

  “Your Graces!” Mrs. Coutts stood in the doorway, parcels in her thick arms.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Coutts,” Amarantha said. “I am afraid we have descended upon you even before breakfast. Libby, perhaps we could assist Mrs. Coutts in preparing a repast.” She nodded toward the door.

  “As you wish, Amarantha.” Elizabeth followed, and as she passed into the corridor Ziyaeddin heard her say, “But he is the one who always makes breakfast.”

  “Son o’ a bitch,” Gabriel grumbled.

  “Insult my deceased mother, Scot, and I will show you that your paltry three inches of additional height have nothing on my strength and general creativity.”

  “I wasna referring to you.” The duke threw himself down into the chair opposite. “Who’s this Chedham? A spoiled lad?”

  “His parents have wealth.”

  Distant clinking of china came from the kitchen into the silence of the parlor.

  “You’ve no choice,” Gabriel said. “You’ve got to let it be known who you are.”

  “I cannot. Not now.” Not with this accusation attached to him. In Tabir as in Britain, the law had no mercy for men who did with men. He could not bring that to his sister or people, not as war seethed on their borders.

  Gabriel nodded solemnly. “What’ll you do?”

  Ziyaeddin stared at the open doorway through which she had gone. “Whatever I must.”

  Mrs. Coutts and Amarantha helped her pack and it was swiftly accomplished. Before leaving the house, Libby sent notes to Iris and Alice. Then she dressed as Joseph and went to the infirmary where she was expected as always.

  Chedham said nothing out of the ordinary, nor did Mr. Bridges. She prayed that this meant the police had decided the accusation had no merit.

  After lecture she told Archie and Pincushion that she had moved to another residence and that it would take her some time to walk there before dark, so she could not join them at the pub.

  At the appointed location at the edge of New Town, a plain carriage collected Joseph Smart. A quarter of an hour later, Elizabeth Shaw descended from it before the door of the elegant home of the Duke and Duchess of Loch Irvine far out past the toll gate.

  Libby thanked her hosts for their welcome, but declined dinner; she had no appetite. In her luxurious bedroom, she unpacked her books and turned again to studying.

  The following morning, the footman opened the door of the little parlor Libby had taken over for her studies and said, “Miss, you have a caller.”

  Iris bounded through the door.

  “You are here!” She threw her arms about Libby. “It is positively refreshing to see you wearing a gown, Libby. How pretty you are with your short hair and sad eyes. Will you give up Joseph Smart forever now?”

  “Iris, I have missed you too. Thank you for being such an excellent friend. I dearly hope this scandal does not reach you.”

  “Alice and I think it’s an adventure and are determined to defend you!”

  A knock sounded at the door. This time her father stood there.

  “Papa!” She sprang up and flew into his embrace. After a moment, he put her gently to arm’s length.

  “My daughter,” he only said, his kind eyes smiling. “Good day, Miss Tate.”

  “Welcome home, Doctor. I’ll go find the children.” Iris departed.

  “Papa, how good it is to see your face. I have missed you dreadfully.”

  “Yet you have been occupied.” Glancing at her books spread out he added, “Joseph.”

  “You received my letter.”

  “I left London that very day.” He shook his head. “Elizabeth.”

  “Do not be angry with me, Papa. Few people know who I am, and none of them will tell a soul. You needn’t be ashamed.”

  “I am not ashamed. I am astonished. Never could I have guessed that leaving you would inspire you to this. But I should have. I have known for two decades what an extraordinary person you are.”

  “Thank you.” She grabbed his hands and squeezed them. They were warm and dry and softer than she remembered.

  “Daughter, has Kent used you poorly?”

  She released him. “No. He has been generous, kind, and patient. All that is good.”

  “Is this accusation—this unseemly rumor—does it have truth?”

  “None that merits concern.”

  “That is a relief. I could not forgive myself for having left you if it were otherwise.”

  “Papa, it was my choice. My doing.”

  “And Alice Campbell’s,” he said grimly. “I should have arranged for you to live with Constance, or at Haiknayes.”

  “You asked Alice because you believed that I would be happiest in her home.” He had not wanted to disturb her, to throw her into the social whirlwind of Constance’s life in Edinburgh or the duke and duchess’s busy estate. He had wanted her to remain calm, quiet, unchallenged. “You must not blame yourself or even Alice. She only did what I begged her to do, and you know how impossible I am to refuse.”

  He took her hands again. “I also have news to share, Elizabeth. The college has invited me to remain in London through the year. And I have an additional reason to remain there now.”

  “Madame Roche? Alice guessed.”

  “Yes. I wish to ask Clarice for her hand. But I shan’t make my feelings plain to her if the idea is abhorrent to you. Twenty years ago when I accepted you as my own, I made a vow to your mother and no less to myself that I would care for you. I will allow nothing to come in the way of that.”

  Libby now saw his fatherhood like a heavy yoke upon him. He had never denied her, never demanded of her, never forbidden her anything. He was first and always a physician. He had given her unquestioned love and affection, an extraordinary education, and his respect. But he had never asked of her anything it was uncomfortable for her to give.

  Ziyaeddin had. He had demanded she heal herself. And now he was demanding that she finish what she had begun. He expected it of her.

  “Papa, I like Madame Roche very much. Nothing will make me happier than your happiness.”

  “This gives me great relief,” he said, mirroring her smile in his measured way.

  “Will you—both you and she—allow me to continue as Joseph Smart?”

  “Daughter, the question must rightly be upon you. Can remaining as Joseph Smart bring you happiness?”

  Two days later the indictment came. Libby stood stunned on the street corner as traffic clattered by and pedestrians jostled her, making the broadsheet print before her eyes wiggle. But the text was clear: Mr. Ibrahim Kent, portraitist, had been arrested for the crime of “unnatural acts.”

  In a daze she walked toward the pub.

  “This way, Joe,” Archie said, grabbing her arm and dragging her out onto the street again.

  “Archie. Where are you—”

  “To Miss Coira’s house. Your cousin’s got somethin’ to tell you.”

  “Iris? How do—”

  “She’s insistin’ on seein’ you. She didna know where you’d be so she found Coira at the bawdy house. Your cousin’s an audacious lass, Joe. I think I’m in love.”

  They rounded the corner and Iris and Coira both leaped off the wall at once and came forward.

  “I brought him!” Archie’s chest puffed out.

  Iris ignored him. “Joseph, I must speak with you in private. Immediately.”

  Libby nodded to Coira and Archie, and they moved away.

  “Amarantha hadn’t any idea where to find you,” Iris said, “so I told her I would. I didn’t want to reveal that you have lunch every other day with a prostitute, of course. She’s a duchess and—”

  “Iris, please. What have you come to tell me?”

  “Mr. Kent is to be indicted.”

  “I know. I’ve just read about it. I was going to the pub to write a statement for the police, denying it all.”

  “It won’t matter, Libby. Mr. Kent is
repudiating you.”

  “Repudiating? I don’t understand. In what manner?”

  “In the most fabulously heroic fashion! He has admitted to the crime, but claimed that the witness only assumed it was you because you live in his house, but that it was not in fact you.”

  Libby’s stomach rose in her throat.

  “He has admitted to it?” Panic swirled in her. She knew why he had done this: to ensure that she would not be physically examined—that Joseph would not be physically examined for proof of the deed. He was doing it to save her future. “No. No, he cannot.”

  “What’s more, the accuser has been revealed. It is Mr. Maxwell Chedham. Do you know him?”

  The crushing weight of every decision she had made pressed down upon her.

  “He cannot. He must not,” she heard herself saying as though through a tunnel.

  “He already has! Though not publicly, it’s true. The duke said only the Lord Advocate knows as yet. I wasn’t supposed to know, actually, but I happened to be in the playroom with the children when he was telling Amarantha in the next room. I pretended I hadn’t heard. But it seems they all agree that the accusations will not be withdrawn and that it is the only way to save y—Libby? Where are you going?”

  “Archie, please see Iris home.”

  “Aye, lad.”

  “Thank you, Coira. Thank you, all of you.”

  At the corner she hailed a hackney. Asking the driver to deposit her at the rear of the ducal mansion, she entered through the servants’ entrance so that none of her friends would see her. It did not distress her. She had used servants’ entrances throughout her life. As a bastard child, she had long since grown accustomed to her place.

  Now she would be the cause of a prince’s destruction.

  In her room she removed all traces of Joseph, donned the most elegant frock Constance had bought for her, pinned ear bobs in her lobes, and tied a pretty bonnet, to which Iris had attached a length of her cut hair, atop it all and then called for the gig.

  She drove herself to New Town.

  The square she sought was no more than thirty years old, the houses austere and imposing. She refused to be intimidated. Joseph would not be. Neither would Elizabeth.

  A servant bid her wait in a drawing room. When her nemesis finally entered it was immediately clear that he did not recognize her.

  “How do you do, ma’am?” He bowed. He was dressed expensively and soberly in a coat of dark blue with a stiff white stock and cravat pinned with gold.

  “Good day, Mr. Chedham.”

  “You have me at an advantage,” he said with a natural smile she had never seen before: open and appreciative. “Miss . . . ?”

  “Elizabeth Shaw.”

  “To what fortune do I owe this call, Miss Shaw? Or”—the pleasure in his eyes dimmed—“has Sawyer perhaps mistaken it and you have come to see my father?”

  “No. I wished to see you. You don’t recognize me.”

  “I do beg your pardon. But I am certain I would recall such an attractive lady had we met before.”

  “All the plain women be damned, is that it? I’m not surprised. You truly don’t recognize me. It is extraordinary.”

  “Miss Shaw,” he said coolly now, “I fear I am at a loss.”

  “Oh. There is the Cheddar I know well.”

  Something flickered in his eyes. Then his shoulders fell back and his lips parted.

  “Yes,” she said in Joseph’s voice. “It is I.”

  He stepped backward a full pace. His nostrils flared.

  “You are . . . Smart’s sister?”

  “His twin, perhaps?” she said in her natural voice. “No, Chedham. It is truly I, the young man beside whom you have worked for months, whom you have tried to best yet never have, and whom you have recently accused of a crime that could have me and a man who is worth one hundred of you hanged by the neck.”

  “What—what sort of a man are you?”

  “I am not a man. I am a woman, as you can plainly see.”

  “You cannot be.”

  “Must I undress before you for you to believe it?”

  “No woman—”

  “Could have bested you? Could have bested everyone? Could have pretended to be a man for so many months without detection? Yes, a woman could have. For I did.”

  He shook his head.

  “Shall I recite to you every misstep you have made at the infirmary these many months?” she said. “Shall I tell you about the time you dosed Mr. Finch with too much camphor and had I not noticed and opened his air passages he would have died? Shall I describe to you the details of Mrs. Small’s fatal tumors at which you scoffed? Shall I tell you how you jested about using my cadaver for dissection? Of course it is I. That you worked beside me for so many months yet never once suspected I was a woman, and that you stand here now agape, only proves that you are as stupid about actual human beings as I have always thought.”

  Finally his gaze narrowed. “You unnatural creature.”

  “I am not unnatural. I am, like you, called to be a surgeon. Can you not understand that? Can you not pity the woman whose talents and skills are suited to a calling she is not permitted to pursue? Can you not try to understand why I have done what I have done? You know now that what you saw in that alley was not what you believed it to be,” she said. “You know now that he has committed no crime.”

  “Do I?” The arrogance was back.

  “Tell them that you mistook it. Retract the accusation. Don’t do it for my sake. For they will not come for me, you know. They believe Joseph Smart is too young to have done it voluntarily. They are accusing him of force. Retract the accusation. You must.”

  “I do not care to.”

  “You would send an innocent man to the gallows?”

  “If it will ensure that Joseph Smart’s reputation will be smeared, I will. Gladly.”

  “What do you want, then?” she said. “What must I do so that you will retract it?”

  “You—Joseph—must admit to cheating. Throughout the year. Then you must quit.”

  She was numb.

  “You don’t want anyone to know a woman has bested you,” she said.

  “It is not my fondest wish,” he said tightly.

  “I will do it. I will quit and disappear. I will leave you to your Pyrrhic victory. But I will not admit to cheating. I accomplished this year what no other woman and few men have accomplished. I will not lie about that.”

  “It seems it’s to be the noose for the Turk and ignominy for his poor young victim, after all.”

  “You must not. I beg of you.” She gripped her hands together. “See me now, begging? You have me at your mercy. Tell me what you want of me and I will do it. Anything.”

  His eyes gleamed. “You care for him.”

  Her throat was full of tears she refused to reveal. She nodded.

  “Admit to cheating on every assignment, and I will withdraw the accusation.” He went to the door. “You can see yourself out.”

  Chapter 30

  The Truth

  The papers eagerly awaited the Turk’s fate while chewing on every detail of the medical community’s other scandal. Plath had begun his grisly commerce by befriending the sick and homeless in Edinburgh’s back alleyways, helping them along prematurely to the afterlife, then selling their fresh corpses at exorbitant prices to private surgical schools. Promising to supply cadavers to too many surgeons at once, he had turned to murdering those he believed were friendless and transporting them to the surgery along the city’s ancient underground passageways.

  As one, Edinburghians looked forward to Plath’s hanging, yet squabbled in disagreement about the other possible hanging.

  Some broadsheets insisted that the portraitist was an innocent victim of jealousy and slander while others claimed that foreigners could never be trusted. Most agreed that, given the suspect quality of the accusation, since he might not be condemned to hang he should at least be sentenced to the public pillory. There
the crowds would see to his punishment.

  Constance reported that it was all anybody wanted to gossip about. People who had once clamored for his presence in their drawing rooms and for his paintings on their walls now excoriated him publicly.

  “How easily they turn against a man whom they have adored,” Constance mused.

  “The moment he steps out of the role they have assigned to him,” Alice added. “Ignorant fools.”

  He had understood this long ago, Libby realized, and had chosen in his quiet way to resist that.

  “I am less interested in gossips than in the young men who have served our dear Elizabeth poorly,” Alice added. “But young men are wretched as a species. Elizabeth, I hereby offer to snip off the jewels of each of them that has caused you pain.”

  “Thank you. But I don’t think that would be wise.” Anyway, Joseph had no such jewels, and it was he who was causing everybody the most pain. “Papa and Amarantha and the duke believe that behaving normally will be the surest path toward exoneration.”

  “What does Mr. Kent have to say about that?”

  Nothing. Ziyaeddin had not written to her, nor sent any message via the duke.

  The following morning, dressed as Joseph, she went to the infirmary as usual. Mr. Bridges met her with his customary sobriety. A surgery was scheduled, and as she stood across the operating table from Chedham, assisting their mentor, her fellow apprentice offered her a hard glare, then looked away. Obviously he would not reveal her. His pride would not allow the world to know that a woman had gotten the best of him.

  Later, in the lecture hall, she settled into her regular seat beside Archie and pulled out her pencil and notebook.

  “Dinna fret, lad,” Archie whispered. “We’ll find a solution. It’ll be all right in the end.”

  “Yes. It will.”

  Dr. Jones lectured on the male reproductive organs. Watching Chedham’s cheeks grow red, and knowing that her presence in the hall caused it, Libby nearly smiled.

  Two hours later the physician dismissed them.

  Libby stood up and removed her coat. With steady hands she unbuttoned her waistcoat, pulled her arms from it, and unknotted her neck cloth.

  “Joe? What’re you doin’, lad?” Archie chuckled uncomfortably. She could feel the attention of others around her as she tugged the long tail of shirt linen from her trousers, dragged the garment over her head, and dropped it onto her chair.