by Carrie Lomax
And she had been doing so well, until her own completely human reaction had ruined it. Stupid. This single meeting would set the tone for all their future interactions. Had she done as he demanded with the proper clinical detachment, the professional tenor of their relationship would have been well established. Between yesterday’s lapse of judgment and today’s, it was going to be an uphill battle to win the kind of trust necessary for treatment.
All because she hadn't been able to resist staring at his...his...
“Oh, this is ridiculous!” she huffed. It wasn't as though she did not know the proper terminology. It was just that the available words seemed insufficient to describe that magnificent appendage—a perfect match to a physical form that was nothing less than incredible.
“Talking to yourself? I agree. Ridiculous.” Edward’s unmistakable voice said behind her. Harper took a deep breath before turning, struggling to restore a measure of equanimity before facing her foe.
No. Not her foe. If she engaged him on that level, if it ever became apparent that she thought of him as an enemy to be vanquished, failure was assured. She might as well go back to the asylum and marry Miller, if that had even been his true intent. Harper shuddered.
“Yes.” She forced herself to laugh, feigning ease. “Ridiculous, isn't it? You clearly don't want to be here. You are angry at being forced to return to England, but you aren’t sick, just unhappy. Miserably unhappy. And you want everyone to know it.” She continued, pacing a few steps back and forth. “The injustice of it makes you so very angry. How can your father fail to see the man you've become? You keep showing him how capable you are by demonstrating your physical prowess, but all your father sees is the wild savage that has replaced the beloved son he lost all those years ago.”
She stopped as Edward drew a harsh breath. He moved closer, eyes narrowed, looming over her, a full head taller. Harper held his eye, raised her chin, and kept talking.
“He thinks you are disordered because you act so completely un-English. You may be angry and confused, but you are not ill.”
Still he said nothing, just stared at her with those cold blue eyes. No man should have such eyes, like lances when he was angry, as he was now. He stepped around her, circling her fully, as though she was prey that had suddenly revealed herself to be a deadly predator.
Apple blossoms floated silently down, snagging in her hair. Harper brushed them away, and a few delicate petals stuck to her trembling hand. “Are you quite finished? I suppose it's only fair to let you stare at me, considering...earlier.”
“I am finished. For now.” He stepped back.
“What is it you want?” she asked, cocking her head slightly like a curious puppy. “Do you want to go back to Brazil?”
Edward’s answer surprised her.
“No,” he said without hesitation. “There are spiders the size of dinner plates there. Mosquitoes like small birds. When there's no prey, everyone goes hungry.”
“All right. So, you want to stay here. What do you want from England? You have a veritable cornucopia of options. More options than almost anyone could wish. You can find a way to reconcile yourself with the duties necessary to becoming the earl. You can hide away on some private retreat. Or you can capitalize on the public's curiosity and take London by storm.” Harper paused and licked her lips, thinking. She could see from every corded sinew in his body how intensely he was listening. How far could she push him?
“You are in the position to do whatever it is you want, whether that is to wallow in notoriety and self-pity or take command of your future. It is entirely your decision.” She threw the gauntlet with soft words. Then she punctuated it by turning and striding purposefully back toward the house. For six steps, she held her breath, her heart pounding. Then Edward was at her side. Harper fought a grin. Now that she’d wrestled them back onto fruitful territory, she wasn’t going to ruin it again with another careless mistake.
“Is that what you think I'm doing?” he demanded. “Wallowing in notoriety and self-pity?” He fell quickly into step beside her, easily keeping pace.
“You certainly aren't doing anything to contradict that impression,” she fired back evenly, without breaking her pace.
“What would you have me do? Crook my pinky over afternoon tea and talk about the latest gossip? Blather on about sheep and the headaches of keeping account books?”
“Any of those things would be preferable than running about half-naked, bathing in streams and literally climbing the walls,” Harper replied firmly.
“Oh, really?” Edward’s words bubbled up in a volcano of words. “Have you ever lost everything you loved and knew in the blink of an eye and had to adapt to an utterly foreign environment?”
"Yes."
“Do you know what it's like to be stuffed into a straitjacket and locked in a room, ostensibly for your own good?”
“Yes.” Harper kept going, determination steeling her spine.
Edward grabbed her shoulders and forcibly turned her to face him. “Do you have any idea what it's like to be stuffed into a cage for circus animals and shipped halfway across the world?”
Harper saw his eyes catch on the slight tremor of her hands. His grip on her shoulders eased fractionally when she stiffened. Edward knew that he was terrifying her, and she knew that the hurting part of him relished it. He wouldn’t hurt her. She knew it instinctually. Yesterday, he had saved her life. To save his, she would work with any connection she could make.
“No.” She was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling just beyond his line of vision. “But I do know what it's like to feel trapped. And what it is to be stared at like an animal in a cage. How many female doctors do you think exist in the world?”
With those words his anger dissipated. Edward released her shoulders and stepped back. Harper tugged her jacket straight.
“And yet,” she continued calmly. “You will not find me flinging off my clothes and climbing out the window or smashing the china and running off barefoot through the fields in the middle of breakfast. I can help you learn to manage your frustrations in a more socially palatable manner—if you want my assistance. I can't force you to do anything.”
“I thought you said I wasn't ill.”
“I don't believe you are. Nonetheless, you are my patient and your behavior is unacceptable. It is my responsibility to help you change it, if you want to.”
“If I want to,” he spat back. “Do you mean to say that I have some choice in the matter? That you will not use straitjackets and laudanum to subdue me?”
“Never. But you must decide what course you wish to chart. You do not have the luxury of time. If you do not choose, Richard or your father will. You will lose the freedom to enjoy all of this if you are sent to the asylum.” Harper raised her arms wide, gesturing to the cloudless sky, the expansive fields in the distance, the apple orchards. Then she turned on her heel and left him to make his decision.
Edward watched her go, hope and anger glimmering in his mournful blue eyes.
Chapter 5
“Good afternoon, your lordship.”
Harper had recovered her composure after the morning’s strange encounter with Lord Northcote by writing a lengthy assessment in the new leather-bound patient journal. The only significant item she had omitted was Edward’s nakedness in the stream.
The vision of him had intruded in her narrative again and again. Twice she had reached for a goose quill to scratch out the precise lines of her crow feather. There was no telling who might see Edward’s record in the future. Savoring the details of Edward’s narrow waist and the strength of his thighs left Harper grappling with a wholly inappropriate and unwanted attraction. Yet she must conceal it, for Edward’s sake most of all.
“Miss Forsythe.” The earl nodded to the empty place setting. “We are awaiting Edward’s arrival before we begin.”
“Of course. It’s best to demonstrate the behaviors expected of him.” Harper demurely folded her hands before her, as
if in prayer. Harper searched for words to explain to the earl that he had to stop pretending as if his son’s fifteen-year absence had never happened. Edward was not going to magically snap into the behaviors expected of an English gentleman.
“Has he said anything to you about missing luncheon?” the earl asked after several minutes passed.
“No, your lordship. I last saw him this morning in the orchard,” Harper offered, her cheeks burning at the thought of what had transpired.
“Let’s begin without him. Edward will soon learn that mealtimes are taken at regular intervals, once he has gone hungry a few times.” He signaled to the footman, who placed a roll upon the table and filled the earl’s goblet with wine.
Harper nodded, though she was doubtful that the prospect of a rumbling belly would compel her patient to honor mealtimes. He was accustomed to greater hardships. Soon the butler returned. Bending ever so slightly, he whispered something into Briarcliff’s ear. The earl coughed.
“You are needed in the kitchen, Miss Forsythe.”
“Yes, sir.” Harper bolted from her chair. What could Edward possibly want in the kitchens? She followed the butler down twisting warrens of hallways into the stone-floored hallway leading to the cook’s den. She and her staff were huddled in a clump of outraged womanhood against the wall. A lake of shattered crockery lay before them.
“Oh! Not the strawberry jam!” gasped one of the scullery maids. Cook wailed. A glass jar shattered on the flagstones.
“Edward,” Harper called sternly. “I am coming in. Do refrain from throwing any pots at me.”
The sounds of metal and stoneware crashing together stopped, then resumed at a lower volume. Harper lifted her skirts a few inches and tiptoed over the mess of broken glass and smashed food.
The first thing she saw were the preparations for lunch. Soup had bubbled over on the cookstove and was burning against the iron. The smell of burnt potage permeated the room. A ham lay partially sliced on one end of the long worktable. At the other end, Edward stood with his back toward her, a bowl of flour and something overturned and a large, messy pile of foodstuffs beside it. The magnificent, exasperating man grunted at her over his shoulder, then shoved another jar onto the table, knocking several others over the edge in the process. They smashed unceremoniously against the flagstones. Harper winced.
First, she retrieved a towel and moved the soup away from the flame.
“Edward,” she asked evenly. “What are you doing?”
“Hungry,” he grunted, without looking up.
“By all means, join us for lunch. We were waiting for you upstairs. Or at least eat some ham.”
He paused in his destruction and sniffed.
“Not for that. There is a type of … I don’t know what to call it in English. It’s a corn cake.” He said a word she didn’t understand, and Harper cocked her head. He stared down at the jar in his hand with such an expression of disappointment that she jumped. Edward hadn’t hurt anyone yet, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t start at any moment. If he’d hit someone with one of the missiles, there could have been more serious consequences than a devastated pantry.
“One of the girls put flour in a bowl, but it isn’t that kind of cake,” Edward said over his shoulder. The set of his jaw eased, and he placed a tin on the table behind him as he surveyed the mess he’d made.
“Did you try saying that to her instead of overturning the bowl?” Harper asked.
Edward scowled fearsomely.
“I thought not,” she said briskly. “Tell me what went into it.”
“Maize,” he said immediately. “Corn?”
“Wheat? That is likely wheat flour.” She indicated the bowl the maid had already attempted. Corn could mean any number of grains. She knew nothing about what they might use in Brazil. There might not be an acceptable substitute available here.
“No! Not that pitiful stuff. Kernels, typically yellow, about as big as a pea. They grow in rows along a cob. Maize.”
“All right. The cakes you want to make are made from maize. What else?”
“I don’t know. The women in my tribe always made it. I thought it might help if I looked through Cook’s stores, but nothing looks familiar.”
“I imagine it wouldn’t. Here. Help me clean up the mess and we’ll ask Cook if there is anything that might suit.”
Harper picked her way over to him and began stacking the undamaged containers back in the wooden pantry. It was hopelessly out of order, but if she could get Edward to demonstrate a modicum of contrition, they might convince the cook to assist them. As it turned out there was a bit of dried corn that Cook had brought up from London. It was not in the pantry, but in the storerooms. Cook ventured into the kitchen to finish her preparations for the noonday meal, now sadly delayed. One of the maids boiled the dried maize while Edward described the snack that he so missed.
“It was a bit sweet, cooked on a flat thin rock over a fire. It was lumpy, the corn partly mashed and partly whole.”
“Show me.” Harper handed him a bowl and a large spoon. Edward began bashing the metal against the wood, until he’d mushed the yellow grains into a coarse meal. His hair flopped forward over his eyes, and the hopeless, restless agony had eased. The sight of Edward’s focus brought a small smile to her lips. Dr. Patton was right. Purposeful work helped everyone.
“It won’t hold together right unless you use eggs,” Cook advised warily from several feet away.
“Edward, did the women use eggs in these cakes?” Harper asked, sensing that he was about to erupt at the woman’s interference.
“Quail eggs,” the big man confirmed.
One of the maids brought them two small eggs. She placed them horizontally on the table, so they wouldn’t roll off, and quickly retreated to a safe distance. Edward’s big hands dwarfed the little ovals as he split them in two and drained them into the bowl.
“Won’t taste right without salt,” interjected Cook.
When it was done, Edward looked down at the mixture with a scowl. “It looks too wet. This won’t hold together right when it’s cooked.”
“Don’t know what your lot used, but here we use flour to make griddle cakes.”
“Thank you,” Harper replied to Cook. She stepped next to Edward and pulled the bowl a few inches closer to her. She poured a small measure of flour and handed it to Edward.
“Pour it in slowly while I stir,” she instructed.
Edward tapped the cup so that a fine rain of flour fell into the mixture.
Cook placed the ham on a tray with boiled eggs, kippers and pickles. The soup was a loss, unfit to serve an earl. Then Cook handed the tray to the impatiently waiting butler.
“Are you all right here for a few minutes? I must set the girls to cleaning up the mess in the hallway, now that his lordship’s luncheon is seen to.” She eyed Edward warily.
“Of course,” Harper declared with more confidence than she felt. The kitchen staff disappeared.
“Add more flour,” Edward demanded, looming over her.
Harper felt more than heard the rumble of his voice. She pushed the bowl to Edward. His astonishment was almost comical. “You try. What else did the women use in these cakes?”
“Hot peppers.”
Harper eyed him. Was he serious?
“Hot peppers?” she repeated, incredulous. Perhaps if the cook had an Indian spice cabinet.
He nodded solemnly, tapping more flour into the batter. Harper sighed and reached for the spoon. He relinquished it easily but immediately restarted his instructions. “Not like that.”
“Then how?”
His large hand closed over her fingers. For a long moment they stood there, frozen by the shock of physical contact. Harper’s entire body tingled. Waves of heat pulsed through her as he slowly moved the spoon in a wide circle. She’d never stood so intimately close with a man. She might never do so again—not with one she longed to touch her. Harper couldn’t bring herself to put distance between them.
Edward felt the stillness of her body and the slim strength of her fingers falter as Miss Forsythe glanced up at him warily through long lashes. He saw the tiny hairs on the back of her hand rise. He leaned ever so slightly toward her, wondering if she would drop the spoon and run, yet hoping that she would stay. Her presence comforted him.
The flour disintegrated into the mixture. Speaking, always difficult for him, turned impossible as his throat tightened with unnamed emotion. The rage, loneliness and exhaustion that had roiled him ever since Richard had sprung the door on his cage calmed. The doctor smelled warmly of soap and lavender water. He wanted to peel back the layers of drab wool and linen to see the roundness of her breasts that rose and fell with each inhale, just out of view. He yearned to lean down and touch the tender skin at her nape.
Instead, he scooped a spoonful of flour into the bowl and stirred it more. “This is starting to look right.”
“Oh?” Forsythe said a little breathlessly.
Edward took her hand and flattened it into his, palm up. The cool dough squished as he folded his hand over hers, rolling it into a ball.
The doctor’s fingers were pliable beneath his. He flattened the dough between their bodies, then placed it on the table. Pressing his advantage, Edward rubbed the pad of his thumb over the hill at the base of her thumb. The Mount of Venus. He remembered this term suddenly, a sharp memory drawn jaggedly from the depths of his youth.
Her hand was cold and small in his. He leaned ever so slightly closer, absorbing the warmth of her body against his side. Then he scooped another ball of dough into her hand and rolled it slowly across the palm. Breath left her body in a whoosh.
“Like this,” he said, his voice even more gravelly than usual. There was a clattering sound in the hall as the maids returned with buckets and mops to clean up the food he had smashed on the floor. In an instant, Harper was halfway across the kitchen. All that remained was a sudden chill where her body had been near his.