The transformation took his breath away. Perhaps it was the change from calm to fury or the wash of colour, the sparkle in her green luminous eyes or even the strong straight brows, dark and at odds with the ruddy hair.
They stood quite close. She was taller than most women. Indeed, there was only half a head between them.
Even though they were not touching, he was aware of her every breath and curve and angle.
‘Lord Anthony, let me make one thing quite clear. I have never put anyone at risk. In fact, I know more about birth than any doctor because I have spoken to midwives and have the humility to learn from them. I have lost very few patients. I have done everything I can—everything I am allowed to do—to be qualified. I did not put your sister at risk. I have never knowingly put anyone at risk.’
She had said most of this in a single breath and now stopped. Her eyes still flashed in a way which was magnificent. The anger vibrated through her. Her fists had tightened, her chin jutted out and her breath had quickened. He could smell the fresh clean scent of her soap and noticed the tiny freckles sprinkled across her nose and the sheen of moisture on her full lips.
Damn.
He turned from her. He strode to the window, needing distance and separation. He was insane. He should not be thinking about her lips. She was a fraud. He should not be thinking about kissing her. Or considering kissing anyone. He should not be feeling this ludicrous riot of emotion.
He pushed his injured hand through his hair as his other hand rested on the sill as though needing the physical support of bricks and mortar in a world gone mad.
‘You should not be practising medicine if you have no licence to do so,’ he ground out, clinging to this truth.
‘Really? That is your answer. Tell me where I can get that licence in my own name and I will do so.’
‘You’re a—a lady. You shouldn’t be doing it—or wanting to do it.’
Why would anyone want to immerse themselves in death and injury? For a moment, he saw the field, pitted by cannon fire and dotted with the bodies, their guts spilling through soiled uniforms and their open eyes staring sightless to the heavens. He forced the image away. He made himself look at the overgrown garden outside, a tangled green wilderness of moss, ferns and long grasses.
He made himself concentrate on its vibrancy, the splashes of sunshine and even the bee as it circled lazily over pollen laden flowers.
Life.
He lifted his good hand and spread his fingers on the pane, feeling the cool glass under his fingertips as he breathed, inhaling the dusty scent of cosy fires long extinguished.
‘Miss Barton, you don’t need to do this. I offered you marriage, a viable alternative despite my injuries,’ he said, breaking the quiet.
‘Lord Anthony, I am not a street worker, I am a doctor. And I do not need to be rescued and I do need to do this. Indeed, I could have multiple offers of marriage and I would still need to do so.’
She spoke with such certainty. He could not remember when he had felt such surety about anything. Even before Waterloo, he had tended to drift amiably.
He did not know why her words hurt and made him feel a heavy, hopeless feeling. Perhaps he should not have come here today. Perhaps he should have stayed at Beauchamp with its ordered routine.
Miss Barton was not his concern. He could put his sister and nephew in the hands of Dr Jeffers and place the eccentric Miss Barton in the hands of her mother, brother, a solicitor, the Bow Street Runners, a mad house or any number of options which would not have involved him coming here.
Definitely, he should not be standing here in this tiny, close room with this woman who preferred to immerse herself in death and sickness rather than marriage or anything that a typical woman would do.
He gazed again at Miss Barton’s overgrown garden. Edgar would not have approved of its green chaos. Oddsmore had always been immaculate. He’d pored over articles about crops and innovations. He’d pestered Mr Sykes to try new procedures.
Although if Oddsmore had been so damned important to him, maybe he should never have gone off to war.
‘Why? Why would one want to?’ he muttered.
‘I still can’t answer that,’ Miss Barton said.
He felt a quick confused start of surprise at her voice.
‘Any more than I can answer why a child is motivated to walk or talk,’ she continued. ‘It is a need, as strong in me as movement or communication.’
‘But walking and talking is not illegal or unethical.’
‘Would it matter if it were?’ she asked.
He turned from the garden, meeting her direct, green gaze. He felt a peculiar intensity which seemed to mark their interaction, as though everything else and everyone else had dwarfed to insignificance and she was brightly luminous in a grey world.
‘What?’ he questioned, realising that he had forgotten her words in his study of her eyes, her lashes and kissable lips. Damn.
‘Would you stay dumb if a government said that men should not speak, but the edict made no sense to you?’ she asked.
‘You are talking nonsense now.’
‘People tend to say that when they have no answer.’
He drew his gaze away from her, because somehow when he looked at her he found it hard to think, to construct sensible, logical arguments.
He stared again through the window at the grey paving stones half-hidden under moss and dandelions. ‘I have an answer. You can’t decide to do something despite the law. There are laws for a reason.’
‘Really? And what is the reason in this case?
‘I—’ He felt tongue-tied, confused and in the wrong when he knew he was in the right. ‘It is against the law to impersonate someone and to pretend to be something you are not.’
‘I do not pretend. I heal. That is the truth.’
‘You are not Dr Hatfield. That is also the truth. Just because you do not agree with the law does not mean that you can flout it. We would have anarchy. My brother and Elsie’s husband died for this country and its laws. Edgar believed in this country so much that he volunteered. I still see—’
He paused, closing his eyes, willing the images away. He swallowed. The room grew still, the moment unnaturally long. He wished he could pull back the words, reeling them in as one might a fishing line.
‘You still see them in your dreams and nightmares.’ She spoke quietly, but in matter-of-fact tones.
‘Yes,’ he said.
There was a pause. He had not spoken of his nightmares to anyone. He had not spoken of the weird mix of guilt and fear and hopelessness that haunted his nights. And days.
He did not want to talk about them.
He did not want to talk about the sightless, bloodied, corpse that had been George. He did not want to talk about the severed foot with the laces so perfectly tied. Or how the cannons made the earth shake, the vibrations striking deep into its core and peppering the earth so that it liquefied to mud.
Even now, with the cannons long silenced, his body shuddered. He still heard the haunting echoes: the shouts, screams and the piercing whistle of a cannon just prior to its strike. He still saw things he wanted only to forget.
But he had no wish to talk or even acknowledge his peculiar vulnerability—indeed, that a sound, a movement or smell could seemingly transport him back into the nightmare.
‘Tony.’
It was the first time she had used his name and her soft voice cut through the noise and chaos that was his mind. She had edged closer to him. He could feel her body as they stood, side by side, staring through the glass at the overgrown garden. Again, he smelled the clean, soapy scent of her hair. A loose tendril tickled his chin. The top button of the drab dress had fallen open, revealing a triangle of pale skin, scattered with freckles like brown sugar. She bit her lower lip. It was well shaped, full, sensuous and intriguingly a
t odds with the prim hair and dress.
‘Tell me about Edgar and George,’ she said.
Even the names hurt. He closed his eyes as though that would obscure the images littering his mind.
Edgar had looked after him. He had looked after everyone.
He’d dragged a ladder from the stable when Tony got stuck up a tree and bailed him out when he lost to a card shark on his first night in London. He’d even kept both events secret so that Tony never had to confess his foolishness to his father.
And then there was that time that Edgar had appeared in the nick of time just when he was about to challenge Lord Winsborough to a duel. Winsborough was known largely for his pock-marked face, a predilection for very young women, a skill with pistols and a disregard for the lives of his opponents.
Somehow, Edgar had extricated him with his honour and all body parts intact.
Sometimes, Tony wondered if Edgar had only come to Waterloo in some ludicrous attempt to keep him safe.
Tony pushed the thought away. He stepped away from the window, moving as fast as his injury would allow in his need to distance himself from her, from his thoughts.
‘I certainly didn’t come here to talk about personal issues,’ he said.
‘No?’ She turned also. ‘But you want to discuss my role as Dr Hatfield. That is very personal to me.’
‘I wanted...’ He paused. He tightened his injured hand on the mantel, almost welcoming the pain. ‘The two issues are in no way comparable.’
She said nothing.
He inhaled, keeping his voice under tight control. ‘Actually, I did not wish to discuss anything. There is no need for discussion. I came here to inform you of my decision regarding this Dr Hatfield masquerade. I don’t want to cause you or your family scandal. I demand only that you stop this pretence. You must stop being Dr Hatfield. It is fraud. I cannot be a party to that.’
Briefly, their gazes locked. Just before she looked away, he saw the shimmer of tears and the movement of her throat as she swallowed. He wondered if there would be weeping. Women tended to be emotional. He felt lousy to have hurt her, but could see no other choice.
But Miss Barton did not weep. Instead, she merely stepped across the floor towards the door.
‘Now that we have clarified that issue, I must ask you to excuse me. I need to garden before it becomes too hot outside. Sarah will see you out.’
Without waiting for his response, she opened the door. A draught of cooler air whistled inwards. Pausing, she glanced back before exiting the room. ‘When Dr Jeffers visits Lady Beauchamp, please ensure that he washes his hands before any form of examination.’
* * *
Tony did not return to Beauchamp immediately. He felt too angry and unsettled. Instead, he allowed Jester to canter down the road and towards the open field. It was the fastest he’d ridden since his injury. For a moment, he felt that familiar thrill of speed and freedom before the jolting pain twisting throughout his torso became unbearable. He cursed at the bullet that had shattered his rib and seared his flesh.
For a few paces, he refused to slow, pushing his animal forward and grinding his teeth against the pain as his hands tightened into fists against the reins. He had loved riding. He had loved the freedom of it, the rhythmic movement, the way it encompassed one’s whole attention and dwarfed all petty worries into insignificance.
And he’d loved jumping even more.
There was the excitement, the happy camaraderie as he and George had vied with each other. George had known more about horseflesh, but Tony had been the better rider. But a good jump was more than that—there was a beauty in that perfect moment when man and beast became one, beating gravity and soaring over fence or hedge.
With a second muttered curse, he slowed Jester to a plodding walk. Even that slow laborious pace hurt, but now there was no exhilaration, no blurring of fields or wind whistling past his ears in that wonderful combination of sight and sound and movement.
In contrast, the horse moved slowly. On either side, the fields spread in a patchwork quilt of greens, a criss-crossing of hedgerows punctuated with the darker greens of woodland copses. If he were to keep riding south-west, he’d come to Oddsmore. He’d need only cross the sparkling brook that threaded through the valley’s base, crest the hill and then down the other side. He knew the route well. His parents and Lord and Lady Beauchamp had often visited. He and Edgar would spend long days with George, often with Elsie as the unwanted tag-along.
George would fish with a single-minded determination while Tony sat with him, dabbling his feet in the chill brook, before searching for a more interesting pastime like digging out worms or other insects. He’d captured a frog once and put it in a drawer in the nursery. It had been a disappointing enterprise. George’s nanny had not batted an eye and he’d had an early bedtime for a week in addition to one of his father’s lectures about responsibility.
His father had been fond of lectures. Tony had always run too much, galloped too fast, shouted too loud, gambled too often.
Turning Jester around, he headed back. Despite his earlier desire for Beauchamp, he still found himself reluctant to return. He glanced towards the village. It was but a short distance on his left, a pleasant place, with a twisting main road, and a small collection of buildings and cottages, centred about the church and inn.
During school holidays, they’d come here often. Of course, they’d fished less and, with age, the taproom had become their favourite haunt. They’d sup ale within the dim, shadowy room and feel like men.
Leaning forward, he touched Jester’s sweaty flank. Given the day’s heat, he should stop and get him water before heading back to Beauchamp. It must be close to mid-afternoon and the sun beat down with an unusual heat. Hesitating, he spurred Jester towards the tavern. It would be pleasant to get away from the day’s warmth. The stone walls and green ivy made the taproom a cool, dim, pleasant place.
He even remembered one of the barmaids, the owner’s daughter, a pleasant girl with long blonde hair. He’d visited the pub with George and then sat dumbstruck, unable even to place their order.
Smiling, he shifted the stallion forward. Why not go in for a drink and some food? He had eaten little for breakfast and there was reason to celebrate. Perhaps he could buy the punters an ale and they could drink to the health of young Theodore George Edgar.
Swinging off the horse, he handed the reins to a groom before taking the back door and entering the corridor. It was narrow, of stone construction, and, upon entering, he had the peculiar feeling that he had been transported in time.
The pub was so exactly as it had been in his adolescence. It smelled the same, a mix of ale, pipe smoke, sweat and food. The taproom looked the same with tables constructed of a dark wood and small, narrow windows dotting the walls at irregular intervals. The ceiling was low and made of thick beams, blackened by age and smoke while the window panes were still largely obscured by ivy so that the sunlight cast a flickering green light.
Tony stared, struck at the very timelessness of the scene. The toothless farmer still sat in a dark corner, nursing his one ale and chewing on a grass straw, its stalk pressed between his lips and toothless gums. And Mr Gunther, the owner, seemed equally unchanged, his cheery face framed by white whiskers and his shirt sleeves rolled high over arms made strong by lifting kegs of beer and changing the barrels. Beside him, his daughter sat with her long blonde hair and smile. Likely the comely serving wench now featured in the dreams of a new generation of young adolescents.
There should be a comfort in the very familiarity of the place and yet there was not. Instead, its very timelessness enraged. And hurt. How could this place remain the same when everything in his own life had shattered?
He was no longer a healthy lad ogling a pretty girl, but was instead a maimed man with a bullet hole in his ribs, a scar snaking down his cheek and his left hand burned. He c
ould not gallop on his horse without pain. He could not approach a young woman without shame. He could not dream without nightmares.
Fury thundered through him. It twisted into his shoulders until every muscle felt as rigid and hard as steel. He balled his hands. The movement hurt as the skin on his hand tautened, fuelling his anger. His heart beat fast. His jaws were clenched tight so that they hurt.
He didn’t even know who he was angry at—the war, Edgar with his damned honour, George who’d married Elsie weeks before leaving for battle? Napoleon? Or those bloody awful notes congratulating him on his good fortune that he was alive.
‘My lord?’ Mr Gunther spoke and Tony realised he was standing stock still with his hands balled.
‘Are you quite well, my lord?’
‘Quite,’ he snapped.
‘Would you care for a drink, my lord?’
‘No.’
Tony turned, striding down the corridor, wanting only to escape its familiar smells and memories.
He entered the courtyard, letting the door slam behind him. Grabbing Jester’s reins from the groom, he threw coins at the lad and swung on to the animal. Careless of his injury, he spurred the horse forward.
As he exited the courtyard, he glanced towards Miss Barton’s house. He realised now that he would have little reason to see her. In fact, he would have every reason to avoid her.
Skirting the house, he took the back route, wanting only to get home to Beauchamp where he could find oblivion at the bottom of a brandy bottle.
* * *
Letty had pulled out every weed, tossing them away with such energy that clumps of earth scattered in a shower of dirt. Then she’d taken clippers, hacking at overgrown bushes and errant branches before digging furiously at alder trees rooted in the wrong place.
Every muscle ached. Her head thumped. Her face was hot and sore from the sun and her body damp with sweat. She could not rest. She could not even sit.
She had been Dr Hatfield or working towards being Dr Hatfield for so long that she now felt adrift without identity, as though free floating in space. If she was not Dr Hatfield, then who was she? Who could she be?
A Debutante in Disguise Page 16