Passion Favors the Bold

by Theresa Romain

  He stuffed it into a pocket. Ducking from behind the screen, he called, “Geor—ah, Mrs. Crowe?”

  She was at hand at once, guiding another woman with her arm around that lady’s shoulders. “She wanted to see you as soon as Mr. Keeling left.”

  “No!” howled the woman, drawing curious looks from the dozen or so remaining people. In a more regulated tone, she added, “I want to talk to your lady, not to you.”

  “I’m not his—” A sharp look from Hugo cut off her sentence. “That is, I’m not a doctor.”

  The woman shook her head. She was about Georgette’s age, buxom and auburn-haired, dressed in what seemed to be a sort of uniform among the local young women: full calf-length skirts and a colorful shirt with a scarf fastened loosely about the neck. Likely pretty at other times, her features sagged with misery now. “Please, ma’am,” she said.

  Hugo could have cursed again. In moments like this, when the trouble was clearly of a female nature, he would have spent any amount of his own money to send a woman through medical college. For how could one offer effective treatment if one’s own sex made the patient distraught? “See what you can do to help,” he told Georgette.

  She hesitated, then stepped behind the screen with the patient. Hugo stood to one side of the screen, watching the pair but unable to hear them at this distance. They bent together, a low conversation following. There was much counting on fingers, shaking of heads, counting again.

  By the time Georgette left her to join Hugo, the woman was crying in a heap on the floor.

  Georgette looked sober. “That’s Harriett Linton. She works for Mr. Keeling and lives with him and his wife and their four children. We were discussing her, um, female cycle. She believes she’s with child.”

  Oh, damn. “What do you think?”

  “That she most likely is.” Georgette looked over her shoulder at Linton, biting her lip. When she turned back to Hugo, her own eyes were full. “It’s possible to have an off month, but she—well, it’s far more possible that she’s with child.”

  “Keeling’s?” The bit of gold in Hugo’s pocket felt heavy as lead. At Georgette’s nod, he asked, “Did he force her? Or did she want to—to lie with him?”

  Such subjects would, under any other circumstance, have been fraught and embarrassing. But when a woman was crying with such desperate depth of feeling, there was no time for roundaboutation.

  Georgette seemed to agree, for she answered without a blush. “Neither. She didn’t want to lie with him, but he said she must to keep her position. She’d been without work for a long time, and she was hungry.”

  Hugo shut his eyes.

  This was the kind of suffering no hospital could touch: the everyday wrongs people did one another. Linton hadn’t been sick, only hungry. Only, as though hunger didn’t drive people to desperation. And Keeling had made her whore herself for bread.

  His eyes sprang open, seeing the next step clearly. “We’ve got to get her out of that house.”

  “She signed a contract to work for him.”

  “Surely she doesn’t have to live with him.”

  Georgette frowned. “Where else can she live, then, Mr. Planner?”

  “Here,” he said. “She should live here.”

  She smiled, almost. “You make awfully free with my uncle’s house.”

  “Sir Frederic is a widower with no children.” Hugo had learned that much of their host the evening before. “He has the space.”

  Raeburn Hall wasn’t huge—at least, not to Hugo, who’d spent his youth shuttling between eight ducal estates. But it was the largest building hereabouts: three stories of trimmed stone, with some sixty rooms of all uses, or no use whatsoever. Only three guest chambers were filled at the moment: by Hugo, Georgette, and Jenks.

  “She should stay here,” Hugo repeated. “If your uncle Freddie wants rent, I’ll pay it.”

  Now her smile turned the corner from almost to certain. “Why, Mr. Crowe, you will have me thinking you are a hero.”

  “I’m nothing of the sort. I’m just not a villain.” He pressed at his temples. Maybe he ought to have brought his spectacles with him. Usually he only needed them for reading, but he was getting the devil of a headache. “I don’t want to impose upon you, but—”

  “I’ll see Linton made comfortable,” Georgette replied. “You needn’t even ask.”

  “I know you’re only helping me because I begged.”

  She bobbed a curtsy. “That I am. Now, whom would you like to see next?”

  * * *

  Four hours later, Georgette had—alongside Hugo—met everyone from a baby who wouldn’t stop crying to a blacksmith with crushed toes. The baby had been hungry, so it seemed, and a measure of treacle in milk turned him happy. The blacksmith was a more difficult case, as his red-streaked toes signaled infection to Hugo’s practiced eye. To Georgette’s, they simply looked awful. So awful that she wanted to give him a bottle of laudanum and tell him to drink it all.

  The blacksmith, a Mr. Lowe, doubtless would have welcomed Georgette’s treatment. “There’s a surgeon a dozen miles from here, but he’d want to take off me toes. I wouldn’t let him hack me up. Ye know a medicine for me, don’t you, Doctor?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Lowe.” Hugo had met every person seeking care with a calm and patience that made Georgette want to wrap her arms around him. “The only medicine for you now is a blade. It’s not as simple as ‘surgeons cut, physicians mend.’ Sometimes a cut is needed for healing. I’d be doing wrong if I told you I could help you in any other way.”

  Lowe had arms like tree trunks and a hard, stubborn jaw. But at Hugo’s words, he quailed and seemed to shrink. “I can’t bear such a cut, Doctor.”

  “That’s up to you.” Hugo looked grave. “But it may come to your toes or your life.”

  The blacksmith’s lip quivered—but after a taut moment, he expelled a bellows’ worth of air. “Then I must, mustn’t I? Let’s have it done.”

  “Have you a wife?” Georgette asked. “Someone who could be with you during the surgery and help you home after?”

  “Aye, Mrs. Lowe is home with the bairns. Anyone here will know how to fetch her.”

  Hugo carried out the surgery when all the other patients had been seen. Mrs. Lowe had arrived by then, a hardy woman with a sweet, tired face and a look of great relief that her man was being treated.

  Despite Georgette’s bluster of the morning, she had no stomach for this sort of doctoring. She brought the supplies Hugo said he needed, then left the parlor in a tearing hurry.

  Finding her way back into the breakfast parlor, she saw that a cold luncheon had been laid out. It was like magic, this silent care that servants took of their masters. Georgette’s family had employed servants at the bookshop, but she had always been more likely to work alongside them than above them.

  After washing her hands and face, she served herself a generous portion of food and tucked in. About half an hour later, Hugo wandered into the room. He had changed into a fresh shirt, waistcoat, and coat, yet he looked dazed and weary.

  Georgette hopped to her feet and guided him—well, shoved him—to a chair. “Sit and have some lunch. If you’ve washed all the toes off your hands, that is.”

  “I have, yes.” He folded his arms on the table, then rested his chin atop them. “Mr. Lowe said he couldn’t bear it, and I thought I couldn’t either.”

  “Because . . . why? Surgery is difficult?” She put some fruit and sliced mutton on a plate for him, then slid it next to his folded arms before sitting beside him. “There’s wine, too, if you want it.”

  “Oh, I want it. No, this sort of surgery isn’t difficult. I struggled because I wasn’t sure I was leaving him better off.” He turned his head to one side, looking at Georgette oddly askew. “How will he heal without someone checking his bandages? What will happen if the incision becomes infected? He can’t travel a dozen miles each way to see a surgeon. He can’t work if he cannot stand.”

  “Nor can
he work if he dies of gangrene,” Georgette said crisply. “Maybe you only gave him some chance, but on his own he’d have had no chance. Now, eat something before you swoon.”

  He glared at her. “Men don’t swoon.” But this was enough to get him to lift his head, to settle straight-backed into the chair and take up utensils.

  Before he took a bite, he paused. “Sir Frederic mentioned he’d like me—us—to offer such medical services to his tenants every week as long as we’re here.”

  And how long will that be? Georgette wanted to ask. Instead, she said, “What of the apothecary in the next village?”

  “I don’t know,” said Hugo, as if he’d heard what she really wanted to ask. “I do wonder. What will the farm laborers do after we leave?”

  “The same thing they did before.” Heedless of manners, Georgette stuck an elbow onto the table and propped her chin on that hand. “They’ll get along as well as they can, and most of them will be all right, and some of them will not.”

  “That baby.” Hugo cut a triangle of mutton. “The one who cried of hunger. He needs a wet nurse, or treacle and sheep’s milk. Several times a day, every day.” Spearing the meat on the end of his fork, he looked at it blankly. “Building another hospital in London will do nothing to help him.”

  Georgette had no understanding of hospital construction. She hadn’t assisted a doctor before today. She knew nothing about what Hugo had said, but she knew discouragement when she heard it.

  “You helped that baby today,” she said. “And if he needs help again tomorrow, you’ll give it. And you’ll check Lowe’s bandages, and you’ll fight off that lassie who wanted to show you her bosom”—this won a bark of laughter from him—“and you’ll show that curious lad how to make another tincture with iodine. And whatever else might come your way.”

  Hugo popped the bite into his mouth. Deliberately, he chewed. “You,” he said to Georgette once he’d swallowed it, “sound very certain.”

  “Why should I not? It’s not a hypothesis. It’s logic. You cannot help everyone, but you can help some people. And they’ll enjoy better health than if you didn’t treat them.”

  “You said ‘hypothesis.’”

  “I said a lot of things. They were all brilliant.”

  Hugo pushed his plate away, looking thoughtful. “You were wasted in that bookshop.”

  It was so difficult to know whether he meant such statements as compliments or not. “Why do you say so?”

  “Because hardly anyone got to speak to you beyond pleasantries. They missed a rare delight.”

  Oh. Oh. That was a compliment, and of the sort that made a lady forget she’d decided to squelch her foolish infatuation. It was the sort that made a lady realize it was as alive as ever, and that it might even be more.

  Cheeks hot, she cast about for words. “You are surely the first person who described my speech as rare. I’m usually the one asked to keep silent. Most recently, by you.”

  “I shouldn’t have done that.” He turned toward her. He was still weary, still a little raw from the day’s experiences, and his expression was unshielded. “Thank you. If you hadn’t helped me, I would have begged you.”

  “If you hadn’t begged me, I might have begged you.” Her smile felt crooked and new. “I did like helping people find books they might enjoy. But I liked this even more. These people . . . your help mattered to them. And that made them matter to me, more than any book ever could.”

  Silent seconds ticked away. Then: “You honor me,” he said quietly.

  Georgette could not remember when she knew less how to respond, or when her response held more significance. “Wait a few minutes,” she blurted. “I’ll likely offend you in some way, and then we’ll be back to the usual state of affairs. Me bumbling about after gold, you saying things like ‘hypothesis’ and ‘hypotenuse’ whenever you can.”

  “Hypogastrium,” he said. “Hypocrisy.” He drank off a glass of wine.

  “That too. Golden words, every one of them.”

  “Right—that reminds me. I have some gold, Georgette.” He related his exchange with Keeling.

  “That is much less belligerent than I’d have expected him to be.” She hesitated. “I picked up a clue myself, but I can’t tell you exactly what it is.”

  For it was gossip; overheard gossip. Mrs. Norris, a tall and feline-featured woman, had said to Mrs. Hopkins as they awaited their turn to see the physician, “Did you hear, one of the Bamburgh hinds found a gold nugget in his barley field? Well, his bondager did.”

  “I don’t believe it,” had said Mrs. Hopkins. “He must’ve found it himself. If a bondager found anything, she’d shove it up her cunny and keep it.”

  That was why Georgette couldn’t tell Hugo what it was. “Suffice to say,” she offered, “there’s rumor of more gold being found near a village called Bamburgh. Also, the wives don’t like the bondagers. Though that second part is not a rumor.”

  “Judging from the high color in your cheeks, it came paired with entertaining remarks.” Hugo pushed back his chair, stood, and offered her a hand to do the same. “Keep your counsel if you wish. Shall we walk out in the direction of Bamburgh and see whether we find any treasure?”

  Chapter Ten

  “This is a beach. We are standing on a beach.” Georgette could hardly credit the sand beneath her boots.

  “So we are,” agreed Hugo. “Your powers of observation remain undimmed.”

  “Always so free with the compliments. How you put me to the blush.” Georgette didn’t mind what he said, though. She was standing on a beach.

  Life in London, where even the grass was trimmed and fenced away, had not prepared her for the sight. Here the sand was rough, pitted and graveled as if the North Sea flung missiles at it. Scrubby, determined grasses clutched at it here and there. Hugo would know what they were, and whether they had vegetable acids.

  But she didn’t ask him; she only looked. They’d walked little more than two miles from Raeburn Hall, and the landscape had been transformed utterly. Around Sir Frederic’s home, the land stretched in a gentle yawn of field and hill. Then came rocks, first poking up from the ground to interrupt the slumberous farmland—then more and more of them, looking like gray mountains had been dropped from the sky to shatter over the earth. On this part of the beach, the rocks were halfhearted among the light-colored sand, and the sky was enormous and blue and full of cottony clouds.

  Before her was the North Sea, endless and, at the moment, quiet. Best of all was what was behind her. She turned to look at it again, a sigh of contentment issuing from deep within.

  There was a castle. A real ancient castle on a rocky outcrop, such as a princess might be snatched from in the dead of night. A castle such as a king might defend against an army, or to which a dragon would lay waste before curling around the keep, fiery and selfish. The stone structure stood solid and timeless on its jewel-green outcrop, all sturdy towers and narrow turrets and walls that held in and kept out in equal measure.

  She had never seen anything like this castle, yet she’d imagined such a scene so often that it seemed familiar. Like meeting someone in person with whom she’d only corresponded. Ah, you at last. It is good to see you.

  “You want to go closer to the castle, don’t you, Madam Storybook. To rap on its stone walls and swim in its moat.” So sure was Hugo that he didn’t even say it as a question.

  But he was wrong. “No, I don’t want to,” she replied. “From here it looks perfect. If I go nearer, I take the chance of spoiling it. And it doesn’t even have a moat.”

  He patted together his gloved hands. “Let me make certain I understand. You like it so much that you don’t want anything more to do with it.”

  She copied his gesture. Her gloves were worn at the fingertips. “No, Monsieur Science. Say that I like it as it is and am content to admire from where I am.”

  “Merely a different way of saying the same thing.”

  “My way is better.”

 
“Notice that my arms are not folded. I am busy not agreeing with you.”

  “Don’t disagree.” She smiled up at him, squinting into the sun despite the shield of her bonnet’s brim. “Not when you could be looking at a castle. And knowing the sea is at your back.” A hesitant breeze carried the smell of salt and something unfamiliar that must be the sea itself. It was the smell of water hitting rock, of plants carried in by the tide.

  “Or I could be combing the sand hereabouts for gold.” He stripped off his gloves and tucked them away, then crouched, taking up a handful of the coarse sand and sifting it through his fingers. “Not that I think we will find any, but we would be remiss not to eliminate the possibility.”

  “That’s precisely the worry that kept me awake last night. Being remiss. About elimination.”

  He ignored this comment, only moving on to a new spot. He was methodical in his search—of course. First this square foot, then the one to the right. She ought to help, but she liked watching the movement of his hands. They were as careful sifting sand as they had been measuring droppers of different solutions for an interested youth yesterday. They were as certain in their movements as they had been when he unrolled his hospital plans before Sir Joseph Banks.

  She wanted those hands on her, cradling and stroking. But he only kept combing through sand.

  He’d shown her the bit of gold from Keeling. It was pure and bright, not at all the sort of wave-lapped grit to be found on the beach. But gold such as this had been found near Bamburgh, the gossiping women had said, and there was Bamburgh Castle, large as life.

  Oh, probably they should have searched the barley fields rather than the beach, but it was clear the gold had been planted along with the barley. And this was a far prettier walk than tramping through fields of just-sprouting grain.

  “Do you think the blacksmith melted them?” she asked Hugo now. “The gold coins, I mean.”

  “And dropped them on his toes into the bargain?” Hugo held out a palmful of sand, letting the breeze catch the finest bits. “Maybe.”

  “It would be remiss not to eliminate the possibility.”