The Summer Country

by Lauren Willig

  Only a moment.

  Now that she was here, Emily found herself at a loss for words. The eloquence that had possessed her at Mrs. Davenant’s bedside had deserted her in the face of the reality of Nathaniel, the force of the emotions she felt.

  “Dr. Braithwaite.” He stood there, elegant and remote, waiting for her to say something else, to state her purpose. She probably ought to have prepared a speech on the way over, but she had been too busy hanging on, so Emily blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “How did you come by the name of Braithwaite? Everyone here calls you Cooper.”

  “Cooper was my slave name. Braithwaite was the name of the family who fostered me in England.” His voice was clipped, inflectionless, but a muscle worked in his cheek. “I was a freeman and an Englishman. I wanted a name that reflected that. I had thought it would make me . . . more free. I thought I could change my nature with my name. But the past is never really past, is it? No matter how hard you try to hide from it. I ran all the way to England, I changed the way I spoke, I changed the way I dressed, I changed my name—and yet, here I am.”

  “You might have gone anywhere, but you didn’t.” Emily’s voice was strangely husky. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I think it’s rather splendid of you.”

  “Anywhere is a relative term,” said Nathaniel drily. He busied himself with cleaning the table, scrubbing it with more effort than necessary. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Do you have a medical question?”

  Love wasn’t a disease, he had told her once. “Here, let me,” Emily said, taking the cloth from him. Her hand brushed his. She felt the shock of the contact straight down to her boots. “You—you’re stripping the polish off.”

  Nathaniel took a step back. He was, she noticed, holding one hand in the other, absently rubbing the spot where their hands had touched. “You didn’t come to oversee my domestic efforts,” he said gruffly.

  Emily paused in her scrubbing, forcing herself to look directly at him. “I’ve decided to sell Peverills,” she began.

  Nathaniel didn’t give her time to go on. He moved jerkily toward the fire, his boot heels sharp against the wood floor. “I suppose you mean to go back to Bristol? I’ve been thinking of West Africa. There’s a mission going to the Rio Pongo. They need a surgeon to make one of the party.”

  Emily’s hands clenched around the cloth, sending dirty water dripping down the front of her dress. She hastily set it down. “Do you truly mean to go?”

  “I’m considering it.”

  No, no, no. This was all wrong. This wasn’t at all how this was meant to go. Emily scrubbed her wet hands down the sides of her dress, which really couldn’t get much worse at this point. “I hope you won’t. I mean to sell Peverills and use the money to found a clinic, a clinic for the treatment of infectious diseases.”

  Nathaniel had been leaning over the kettle. He paused, his back toward her, saying slowly, “My uncle would tell you that a clinic is hardly a sound investment.”

  Emily took a half step forward, her heart in her throat. “I don’t want to be mistress of a plantation or learn how to turn sugarcane to gold. I have no interest in investing in ships or railroads.” It was amazing how eloquent a back could be. From the way he straightened, she could tell he was listening. “You said it yourself, the rules of the hospital don’t allow anyone with an infectious disease. But those people need to be treated too. If there were a special infirmary, one designed for the purpose, one could treat those patients properly and save so many others.”

  Nathaniel turned to look at her, as though trying to decide what to make of her. But all he said was “It’s a noble goal.”

  “I can’t do it alone. I’m not a physician—or a surgeon. I had hoped you might be willing.” Emily’s voice faltered; she felt, suddenly, very unsure. It had all seemed a grand idea back at Beckles. Some people offered flowers as love tokens; she would give her love a clinic. But Nathaniel wasn’t rushing to take her hands and press her to his heart. Hesitantly, she said, “Just think of it. You could study the course and cause of the diseases, really study them. That is what you wanted to do. Isn’t it?”

  Nathaniel made no move toward her. “Is it a salaried position?” he asked.

  “I—I had thought of it more as a spousal one.” In a rush, Emily added, “Although it doesn’t have to be. I intend to found the clinic either way. If you don’t want to take the position, I’m sure I can find someone to run it.”

  “And the spousal position?”

  She couldn’t be quite sure if he was mocking her. He was much better than she at controlling his emotions. Emily knew everything she felt showed on her face, particularly now. She twisted her hands together. “That isn’t open to anyone else. There’s only one candidate I would consider for that role.”

  Nathaniel tilted his head and looked down at her. “Are you proposing to me, Miss Dawson?”

  “Not if you would rather I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want to do anything that would put you in an uncomfortable position.” Emily could feel her cheeks flushing, her tongue tangling, her words falling over each other. It was now or never; her mother, she knew, wouldn’t have faltered. She took a deep breath and tried again. “But you should know, if it makes any difference, that I—I love you.”

  “Do you?”

  The room suddenly felt much smaller, shrunk to the two of them. Emily smiled painfully up at him. “It’s either that or measles. Although I have it on the best authority that love isn’t a medically verified form of death.”

  “That wasn’t my diagnosis; it was Shakespeare’s. And he wasn’t, so far as I know, a doctor,” said Nathaniel slowly, as though working out what to say next. “Emily—”

  “I don’t think I should die from loving you.” Emily knew she had to say it all now, or she never would. “But I should miss you terribly. I have missed you terribly. I admired you before I loved you. I admired your skill as a surgeon. I admired the way you defied anyone who would make you less than you were. But I ought to have known truly what it was—what I felt—when we were in Bridgetown and I ought to have been mourning Adam and instead all I could think of was you. I could tell myself I was happy because I was doing good and useful work—and I was!—but I’ve been doing the same work here, and without you, I’ve felt . . .”

  “Empty?” suggested Nathaniel. “Flat?”

  “Both of those,” said Emily. “I would have written you, but I didn’t want to—oh, I don’t know. Presume, I suppose.” It sounded very silly when put that way.

  Nathaniel’s lips twisted up on one side. “Half the paper in Bridgetown lies crumpled in the wastebasket next to my desk. I almost wrote you, a dozen times. But I wasn’t sure you would welcome a letter from me.”

  Emily bit her lip, hating herself. “I said awful things.”

  “No. You didn’t.” Nathaniel’s eyes burned brighter than the coals on the fire. Emily found she couldn’t look away. “You asked me to have the courage of my convictions. Here it is. I love you. There’s no hypothetical in it. I love you. There has never been anyone like you and there will never be again.”

  “Some would say that’s a good thing,” said Emily unevenly.

  “Then they’re fools,” said Nathaniel shortly. “I’ve never believed in this whole falling-in-love business. Fondness, certainly. Affection. But to be swept away by one’s emotions and lose one’s reason—it seemed like an absurdity. And then you came to Bridgetown.”

  “Did you lose your reason?” Emily asked, scarcely daring to breathe.

  “I must have done,” said Nathaniel ruefully. “There I was, in the midst of the cholera, with everyone dying around us, up to my elbows in excrescence, and I’ve never been happier, because you were there at the end of it.”

  “Those evenings together—I didn’t want them to end.”

  “Neither did I. When you left for Beckles—the color left the world. Everything was grim and dark, and smelled horrible.”

  “That was pr
obably because I wasn’t there dousing everything with lime,” said Emily practically.

  “No,” said Nathaniel. “It was because you weren’t there. As absurd and impractical as it may be, I love you. And because I love you . . .”

  “Yes?” Wasn’t this the bit where they were meant to be rushing into each other’s arms? But Nathaniel stayed, stubbornly, where he was.

  Quietly, he said, “I love you well enough not to marry you.”

  It took Emily a moment for the words to have meaning. “If you love me—” She caught herself up short. He had already told her there was no if about it. “If you love me, why wouldn’t you marry me? There’s no bar to our union. Unless you have a wife left in Edinburgh you neglected to mention.”

  “No, only a skeleton named Harold. But he’s beside the point.” Nathaniel rubbed his temples and the simple gesture tore at Emily’s heart. “There might be no legal bar. But have you thought of the consequences? I would be asking you to put yourself beyond the pale, to abandon your friends and relations.”

  “Is that all? I’m rather good at putting myself beyond the pale. I don’t need your help with that.” When he failed to smile at that, Emily said passionately, “I mean it. I’ve never cared for society. My parents always took the view that character was what mattered most, and anyone who would shun one out of snobbery wasn’t worth knowing.”

  Reluctantly, Nathaniel shook his head. “You might say that now . . .”

  “If you don’t want to marry me, if you cannot imagine a life with me, refuse me then. But not for the horridness of others. I don’t care for them if you don’t.” The memory of her parents and grandparents pressed down upon her. Trying to will Nathaniel to understand, Emily said hurriedly, “When Mrs. Davenant was sick, she told me a story about a family broken apart because the law wouldn’t allow them to be together. Well, really, because of her. But the point is, they fought to be together, even when it meant lying and deceiving people and risking prison or worse. And we—we’re so very lucky. We don’t have to hide or pretend to be anybody other than what we are.”

  “And what are we?” Nathaniel asked, his voice rough.

  Emily took a step toward him, her hands twisted in her skirts. “You’re Nathaniel Braithwaite, a doctor. And I’m Emily Dawson. My mother was a reformer and my father is a minister and I might be neither of those things, but I’m rather good at tending to sick people.”

  Nathaniel grasped her hands in his, so hard that she could feel the bones crunch. “I might be tempted to suspect you only want to marry me to have access to a steady stream of patients.”

  “It is a benefit,” admitted Emily, looking up at him, devouring his familiar, beloved face with her eyes. She loved all of him, even that ridiculous mustache. “I want to marry you because I believe you’re the only man I could ever bear to live with. And because I love you.”

  “High praise, indeed.” Nathaniel choked on a laugh. “When you put it that way, it all sounds so simple.”

  “Isn’t it? If it’s not, it ought to be.” He hadn’t let go her hands, which Emily took as rather a good sign. “The people who matter to me won’t shun me. Laura’s door will always be open to me; my uncle and aunt would never turn me away—they haven’t yet, despite considerable provocation. As for the rest, aren’t I better off without them? I like your family. I don’t think they would close their doors on us, would they?”

  “One might wish Cousin Bella would.”

  “Your cousin Bella was an absolute brick,” said Emily stoutly.

  “A very noisy brick,” muttered Nathaniel.

  Emily fixed him with a stern look. “I would choose her over the entirety of Miss Blackwell’s Academy for Young Ladies. As for the rest, if we’re not invited to the governor’s next Viennese breakfast, so be it. I wouldn’t want to be received by the sort of people who would stop receiving me for marrying you.” Emily glanced up at him sideways. “You don’t really want to go to West Africa, do you? If you do, I would go with you, but I would far rather stay here. I’m not really the missionary sort.”

  Nathaniel gave a shout of amusement. “Aren’t you? You would have half the village rebuilding their huts and the other half organizing a benevolent society within a week.”

  “I’ve given up ordering people about,” said Emily.

  “No, you haven’t,” said Nathaniel, looking at her so tenderly that Emily wondered if it was medically possible to melt into a puddle on the spot. “I wouldn’t have you any other way. And no. I have no particular interest in going to West Africa. It was purely a means of getting away and leaving you be. I thought that distance might do what time hadn’t. Or if worst came to worst, I could contract a strange and interesting disease and make medical history for the manner of my dying. Braithwaite’s Disease, they would call it, and you would read about it in the illustrated papers and think of me with a pang of loss.”

  “Now you’re mocking.”

  Nathaniel squeezed her hands. “Myself, not you. There’s your love token, if you like. I was prepared to offer my corpse to you.”

  “I would prefer you not die of a strange disease, no matter how interesting,” said Emily. “In fact, I would prefer you not die of anything at all.”

  “We all do, eventually,” said her practical lover.

  “Yes, but not for some time,” warned Emily. “I intend to torment you and our children for many years to come.”

  “Children,” said Nathaniel, looking down at her with an expression composed of equal parts wonder and alarm. “Heaven help us. They’ll be strong-willed, that’s for certain.”

  There was a tentative knock on the door.

  “Oh dear,” said Emily, trying to wiggle her hands free. “We left all your patients waiting.”

  Without letting go, Nathaniel turned his head and said loudly, “We’re engaged. Come back tomorrow.”

  “But what if someone needs you?”

  “They can wait,” said Nathaniel, and looked at her in a way that made her bodice feel too tight and her clothes altogether too enveloping.

  “Unless it’s scarlet fever,” said Emily, resting her hands against the wool of his waistcoat. She could feel the way his breath rasped in his chest, the way his muscles tightened at her touch. It was rather wonderful. “Or cholera.”

  “You say the most romantic things,” said Nathaniel huskily.

  Cupping her face in his hands, he lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her thoroughly and ruthlessly, kissing her in a way that made her bones turn to liquid and her head spin, and the room feel even hotter than it was.

  Emily kissed him back, relying on enthusiasm to make up for lack of experience, her hands sliding beneath his waistcoat, reveling in the warmth of his skin through the thin linen of his shirt, kissing his chin, his neck, the cravat that got in her way until he ruthlessly tore it away, buttons loosening, hairpins tumbling to the floor, lips following hands, hands following lips, bodies and hearts in harmony.

  When they could speak again, Emily said breathlessly, “Are we engaged?”

  “After that,” said Nathaniel, running his hands up and down her arms as though he couldn’t quite bear to let her go, “I should hope so. I’ll get a ring and do it properly if you like. Unless you’d rather propose to me?”

  “The queen did,” said Emily. “Propose to Prince Albert, I mean.”

  “If it’s good enough for the queen . . .” said Nathaniel, laughter in his eyes, looking so amused that there was nothing for Emily to do but kiss him again, to kiss him and kiss him until neither of them was laughing in the slightest.

  “I hope you don’t want a long engagement,” said Nathaniel seriously, resting his forehead against hers. Somehow, they had come to rest on the examining table, all of his carefully cleaned implements fallen willy-nilly on the floor near a smattering of Emily’s hairpins, Nathaniel’s impossibly wrinkled cravat, and a jacket that was currently missing at least two buttons. “I don’t think I could countenance compromising a vicar’s daug
hter.”

  Her father wasn’t really that sort of vicar, but Emily decided it wasn’t the time to go into that. “I should think I’ve compromised you,” she said, nodding toward the window, where the very silence told its own story. She couldn’t blame anyone for listening at the shutters; she would have done the same. “It’s a very good thing you’ve told them we’re engaged or your reputation would be in tatters.”

  “My reputation?” said Nathaniel, raising a brow. Looking ruefully down at their scattered belongings, he said, “I’m afraid you’ll be the talk of the parish. The news will have spread clear to St. Philip by morning.”

  “You’d best write your uncle, then, before he hears it from someone else.” Emily wiggled down from the table, over Nathaniel’s protests. “We’ll have to tell Laura properly, even if everyone in the parish already knows. And George. And Mrs. Davenant.”

  Nathaniel grimaced at her. His hair was mussed, his lips swollen, giving him a delightfully rakish air. “Must we?”

  “Oh yes.” It would, Emily thought, be rather a useful shock to Mrs. Davenant to have her plans thwarted so thoroughly for once. “I don’t mean for there to be anything the least bit hole-and-corner about our marriage. We’ll have an announcement in the papers and all that’s proper.”

  Nathaniel reached for her, drawing her back to the table. “And then,” he said, his breath tickling her ear, “we can get on with being improper.”

  “Yes,” said Emily breathlessly. “That.”

  A short engagement, she decided, was really a very good idea. She had never understood, back in her days of delivering baskets and good advice, why so many of her father’s parish went to their weddings with swollen bellies. She rather thought she understood it better now. Much, much better. St. Paul, Emily decided, had known what he was talking about when he had said it was better to wed than to burn.