I turned into the sitting room, and an overwhelming shudder passed through me as my gaze rested on Lord Castlevane in close conversation with Lord Aberthorne. He glanced up, and he lifted his glass of sherry in cheers, his eyes twinkling. Excusing himself, he glided toward me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joseph rise to his feet, but I took Castlevane’s arm as he ushered me into a corner.
“My dear, I am so sorry to hear about your father,” he said.
I arched an eyebrow. “Is that so? It seems to me you might be the only person who could prevent such an investigation. You know my father is harmless.”
Castlevane shrugged. “The Rebel Sons is quite a display of untamed Irish nationalist sentiment. Have you read it?”
I shook my head. “You know it doesn’t matter. It’s just a play.”
“We cannot have incitement among the common folk, and Patrick Byrnes should know better.”
“My father is just trying to make money,” I replied. “You know that.”
“Then perhaps he should have taken up the law, Miss Byrnes, rather than acting.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What will it take for you to write to Dublin Castle? To ask them to drop the charges.”
A wide smile spread across his face. “If you were under my protection, I could certainly make all this disappear.”
I leaned in and lowered my voice to the barest whisper. “You listen to me, Lord Castlevane. There is no force in this world or the next that would make me marry you. If you continue on this crusade to ruin my family to spite me, believe me when I say I will not rest until I destroy you.”
His face remained blank, but his gaze drifted to Joseph, still hovering on the other side of the room.
“I have it on good authority you have been keeping some interesting company as of late,” Castlevane said.
A dark shadow swept over me, its weight crushing my lungs. “Don’t…” I gasped.
“Certainly there are worse fates for someone like Dr. Moorland than the demise of some inoculation program.” He shifted back in his chair, gulping down the rest of his sherry. “I could make it so he never practices medicine again.”
“Is there no end to your malice?” I hissed.
He raised his eyebrows. “Accept my hand, and perhaps you will find out.”
My shoulders shook, and I stared into my lap, taking a long steadying breath. “I…I will need one week to decide.”
One week to find some way to destroy you.
“Very well,” he said. “I shall write to Dublin Castle post haste to ensure they do not arrest your father until I have an opportunity to consult on the matter.” He stood up, but before he walked away, he leaned into my ear. “One week…”
Chapter 16
Joseph
My hand trembled as I raised my fork to my mouth, the potato I speared turning to ash as I swallowed it mechanically. Audrey had announced she would leave in the morning, and the way she kept sneaking dark glances at Castlevane meant that somehow, some way, that swine had something to do with it. She sat small and alone at the end of the table while Christine chatted in her ear in between taking gulps of wine and laughing at all the ridiculous things Weston said to her. I had to find a way to seek out a private audience with Audrey, away from everyone else. If she needed protection…if she needed help…I had to find a way to ensure her safety and well-being.
I glanced to my other side, and I blinked, realizing Lord Aberthorne had said something to me.
“I think I should be seen, don’t you think?” he said.
For the first time, I studied the man and noted his pale face, the sweat on his forehead.
I leaned in to whisper. “Are you unwell, sir?”
He rubbed his side. “It’s here. This swelling in my abdomen. Terrible pain the past two days.”
A litany of ailments ran through my head. “How would you describe the pain? Is it dull? Sharp, shooting pain?”
He pressed his other hand to his forehead, hiding the wince distorting his face. With a horrible groan, he stood up and collapsed to the floor.
“Harold!” Lady Aberthorne screamed.
I leaned down, pulling at his coat and shirt and reaching across his abdomen. My fingers hit on the spot he had massaged earlier, and my chest tightened. A large mass swelled from his side, revealing what could only be an aneurysm about to explode in his stomach. His eyes rolled back, and he let out a low moan.
The smell of lemons hit me, and I looked up to find Audrey kneeling at my side.
What can I do?” she asked, her face calm and steadfast as a soldier’s in battle.
“Run to my room and bring me my medical bag. Tell the servants to bring some hot water and towels and as much whiskey as they can find. Now. Go.”
She nodded and took off, snapping directions at the footmen as she fled the room.
“What’s wrong with him?” Lady Aberthorne cried.
“Lord Aberthorne,” I said in a firm voice. “You have an aneurysm in your abdomen that I will need to tie off. The surgery will be painful, but if I do not do it now, it could rupture and kill you. Do you understand?”
He let out another horrendous gasp of pain, but nodded his head.
“Should we move him?” Lord Weston hovered beside us, reaching out his arms to take hold of the patient.
“No!” I blocked him with my shoulder. “Even the slightest movement could make the aneurysm burst. I will perform the surgery here.” I lowered my voice. “I’m going to need you to hold him down.”
Weston nodded and knelt at Lord Aberthorne’s head.
Audrey blew through the room with my medical bag, an army of servants behind her, carrying supplies. Snatching my bag from her hands, I reached in for my antiseptic, barking at the servants to place the bowls to the side.
“Anyone who does not need to be here should leave this room immediately,” I shouted.
Audrey rose to go, but I grabbed onto her wrist. “Do you faint at the sight of the blood?”
She shook her head no.
“I need an assistant. Someone to clamp the aneurysm. Can you do that?”
Her eyes clouded over. “I don’t know how to—”
“I can show you, but I need someone I can trust. Will you do it?”
“Yes, of course.”
Ripping open my bag, I grabbed the antiseptic and poured it into one of the bowls, submerging all my tools and then my hands. I nodded toward the solution. “You should soak yours too.”
I took up my scalpel, and turned to Weston. “You will need to hold him down. Keep him still.” Glancing up, I called to a couple of footmen. “One of you take his arms. You grab his legs. Make sure he does not move.” I turned to Audrey. “I am going to use those two clamps there. You’ll need to hand them to me fast. We won’t have much time.”
She nodded, picking up the clamps I indicated.
With one long exhale, I turned to Weston and the footmen. “Ready?”
They nodded.
With one quick movement, I sliced into Lord Aberthorne’s abdomen. He let out a high-pitched wail, and from faraway I heard Lady Aberthorne scream his name. But I blocked it all out, a faint hum filling my ears as I dabbed at the blood pouring from his open belly. Reaching in, I searched until I found the aneurysm, bright and bulbous like red glass, all the blood pooling within it.
“Give me one of the clamps,” I demanded, and the smooth metal filled my palm. My patient bellowed and screamed, but my whole mind fixated on the vein as I clamped it off.
“Audrey, I need to lift my hand to clamp on, but I need your hand here.” I nodded to the exact position. “And keep it at this angle.”
“Yes,” she whispered, her hand slipping just above mine.
I let go and grabbed the other clamp to cut off the circulation below. “Now take your other hand and hold it here. Can you do that?”
“Yes.” Her other hand grasped it, and I let go.
I glanced up at Aberthorne. “Almost done, my lord!”
But there was so much more to do, and I had mere minutes before he bled out. I grabbed the surgical thread I had set in the antiseptic and set to work tying off the aneurysm. Working at the base, I twisted the thread around and around, turning it and tying it into tight knots. It took only a minute, but his screams crowded into the calm and quiet in my head as I finished.
I turned to Audrey, and she stared back at me, her lips parted, her face white. Setting down my surgical instruments, I closed my hands over hers.
“Let go,” I said.
The blood pumped through the abdominal aorta, straight through with no ruptures. I breathed a quick sigh of relief, but I barely had time to celebrate.
“Grab those towels,” I cried. “Wipe him down. I need to sew him up.”
I prepared the sutures, the thick thread running through my fingers, and it was then I noticed the silence. Turning to Lord Aberthorne, my stomach sank at the sight of his ashen face, his shoulders shaking and shivering.
“Someone get him a blanket! Keep him warm!” I bellowed, focusing on the incision. Without even turning to her, I cried out. “Audrey, elevate his feet! Now!”
Lady Aberthorne hovered next to Weston, rubbing her hands over him. “What is happening to him?”
“He is going into shock,” I said, inserting the needle and working fast to stitch him up. “Keep massaging him. Talk to him.”
All my attention remained on the gaping hole in Lord Aberthorne’s abdomen. Sweat beaded on my forehead, but my hands did not shake as a row of even stitches emerged across his skin. Dipping a towel in hot water, I smoothed the crusting blood away and then placed a loose wad of bandages over the wound.
Closing my eyes, I counted to five, taking several deep breaths. Then wiping my hands on a rag, I assessed him. The shaking had subsided, and he lay still but breathing. I snapped at a footman. “Build up the fire. We need to keep him warm.”
Soon, blazing, crackling flames spit from the hearth, and I rolled up my sleeves, sitting back on my heels.
“What happens now?” Audrey asked.
I looked across Lord Aberthorne’s body, taking in her face streaked with blood, her dark hair wild and loose and falling down her shoulders. It was all I could do not to grab her and kiss her, wrap my arms around her and hold her close. The intensity of the surgery over, my blood ran cold in my veins and a wave of nausea hit me. I grabbed the bottle of whiskey, uncorked it, and took a long swallow.
Audrey reached out her hand, and I passed it to her. She gave me a warm nod before taking a long swig herself, the veins in her neck pulsing as she swallowed the fiery liquid. She shook her head and winced, placing the bottle back in my hands.
“Now we wait. And watch.” I leaned against the wall, taking another drink of whiskey.
“Will he live?” Lady Aberthorne asked in a small voice. She still hovered over her husband, massaging his skin.
I took a long breath, trying to gather my thoughts. “My mentor’s teacher, Dr. Hunter, invented this type of ligation. We have had some success in the London hospital, but—”
“Will he live?” she demanded.
I met her intense stare. “There are risks. Inflammation. Heart attack. Stroke.”
“Then why did you even open him up?” she wailed.
“Because without surgery his aneurysm would have exploded, and he would have bled to death internally.”
She looked away, smoothing his hair away from his face.
“All we can do now,” I took one last swig of whiskey, “is wait.”
Chapter 17
Audrey
The servants had done everything they could to make Lord Aberthorne comfortable. I stayed in the dining hall more to be close to Joseph than anything else. He had long since shoved the whiskey bottle away, but his gaze remained on his patient, checking the sutures periodically and listening to his pulse. The set of Joseph’s jaw, the focus in his eyes, took my breath away, and a hundred questions ran through my mind about the operation, the condition, the procedure, the healing process. Joseph’s mouth poured with strange words I didn’t know. Antiseptic. Aneurysm. Ligation. I stored them away like a secret poem written in the back of my mind. The language he spoke was like some shadowy alchemical text, and behind his dark eyes lurked a strange kind of magic I couldn’t access. It was the first time I ever looked at a man and longed to know what he knew. To understand the things he understood with such intuitive depth and intelligence. How his hands had moved through the waves of blood pouring from Lord Aberthorne’s body, how he worked with an intensity in his eyes as sharp as the edge of a razor. He had commanded the room like a king among men. I had made the acquaintance of some of the greatest poets, musicians, thinkers of our age, but none of them overwhelmed me like Dr. Joseph Moorland. None of them could even hold a candle to him.
He looked up from Lord Aberthorne, his eyes strained and bloodshot with exhaustion. “You should go and get some rest, Audrey.”
I nodded. “You should, as well. One of the servants can watch him, and Lady Aberthorne refuses to leave his side.” Sure enough, the woman was curled up beside her husband, snoring softly, her dark hair flowing behind her. Her devotion struck me as so odd given the events of last night, but I supposed every marriage had its secrets. By all accounts the Aberthornes clearly loved each other.
Joseph rose to his feet and held out his hand to lift me up. As soon as I stood, exhaustion hit my limbs, and I leaned on his shoulder.
I let out a long yawn. “I’m so tired, and yet all I did was hold a pair of clamps.”
He led me out to the hallway. “I am glad you were there. You would make a fine surgical assistant.”
I laughed. “I believe I shall stick to novel writing, Dr. Moorland.”
“I am happy for it,” he replied. “I do quite enjoy your novels.”
Heat crept up my neck, and I stared down at the floor as we wandered back to our rooms. “Thank you,” I said in a soft voice.
Before I knew it, we had reached his room, and I gave him a shy nod. “I’m sure you are very tired.”
He grabbed my shoulders and pulled me against his chest. “Not so tired, Miss Byrnes.”
The effect of his low voice was immediate, sending a rush of wetness between my thighs.
With his other hand, he palmed the doorknob, and we fell across the threshold, the door clicking shut behind us. His hands were against my waist, in my hair, across my cheek. A low sound rose from his throat, and his mouth pressed hard against mine, his tongue sweeping inside. I knew I should break it off, push him back, but I couldn’t tear myself away from him. Somehow, seeing Lord Aberthorne’s body completely opened up, his insides spilling out, feeling the hot blood on my hands, hearing the screams, of pain, terror—all of that led me to Joseph’s kiss in that moment. His warm skin, his strong arms, his hungry mouth. I wanted to sink inside him, wanted him to overwhelm me, take over. I grabbed his hand, forcing him to cup my breast, his bruising fingers reminding me of everything it meant to be alive.
“Yes…yes…” I breathed as he tore away the thin fabric of my shift, trying to touch my flesh. Reaching back, I loosened my stays, and my dress slipped from my shoulders and puddled at the floor at my feet.
Reaching an arm around my waist, he whirled me and pushed me across the floor until the back of my knees buckled against the mattress. His fingers gripped into my side, and he lifted me up and threw me against the blankets, his body covering mine. He grabbed at his shirt and tore my shift over my head until our naked chests pressed against each other, our hearts pounding. His arms wrapped so tight around me, I thought my ribs would break. He paused for a moment and then released me, taking hold of my chin and forcing me to meet his gaze.
“I was so…” he stammered, breathing hard. A dark cloud passed over his eyes, and my blood turned to ice.
“What is it?” I raised my hand to cup his cheek. “Joseph, what’s wrong?”
He blinked hard. “I was so terrified. I was so…”
“But if he dies…Audrey, if he dies…” He buried his face in my neck andtook a long, shuddering breath.
I pushed him back against the pillow and straddled him, my fingers digging into his arms, pinning him to the bed. “Dr. Joseph Moorland, what is this I’m hearing? You did something incredible tonight. You fought death. Maybe you will win. Maybe you will lose. But we all eventually lose. Tonight, though, you fought him. You stood your ground and refused to give up. And I think—”
And I think I may love you for it.
“And I think…” I swallowed hard, continuing. “I think you might be the bravest man I ever met.”
A wide smile spread across his mouth, and my spine melted at the sight of it, my grip softening on his arms. He reached up and swept his hand across my hip and traced lazy circles up my waist and over my breasts.
“You are a goddess,” he whispered.
I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. “I don’t want to be a goddess, Joseph. Not here. Not with you. Let me just be Audrey. Just Audrey. That is all.”
“Very well.” He pulled at the comb in my hair, and the curly locks fell over my shoulder, tickling my back.
“If you are not a goddess, then I refuse to be brave,” he said.
I opened my mouth to disagree, but he rose up and planted a kiss on my lips.
“I am a scared man. A frightened man. A desperate man.” He pressed his mouth to mine, rolling his hips up from the mattress, his cock rubbing hard against my sex. “I will not expose your identity as a mere woman if you will keep my cowardice a secret.”
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