Chapter Ten
Jo
Jo and Dr. Clarke stood shoulder-to-shoulder as they took in the reddish lighting, the pillowed chairs and chaise, a fourposter whose pretty trappings couldn’t hide how it sagged with the weight of all it had seen. There were more cosmetic pots lined up on the vanity than Jo had seen outside a pharmacy, and a scrap of dressmaker’s lace stuck out at the bottom of a wardrobe she knew was filled with more extravagant drag than she ever went to the effort of indulging in herself.
A creeping sheepishness started at the bottom of her belly, crawling upward until she felt her face bloom with a blush that hopefully wouldn’t be spotted in the moody lighting that belied the actual hour.
“I know we’re here so that you can apologize to me,” Jo said. “But now, I owe you one as well.”
“You really let David orchestrate this to get under my skin?” said Dr. Clarke. “I suspected it, but thought I was being paranoid.”
“I did,” Jo admitted, wondering if the scent of some cheap rose spray was always present, or if it had been used to cover the deeper smell of cigar smoke, mismatched musk colognes, and carbolic soap. “Though for some reason, I didn’t think he’d take it quite this far.”
Dr. Clarke, whom she’d expected to be having palpitations by now, simply stared at her with a lifted brow. “That was awfully foolish of you, wasn’t it?”
Jo paced over to the fourposter, almost running her fingers along the embroidered counterpane before some preposterous story of Charlie’s skittered across her mind and made her think better of it. She peeked in one of the bedside drawers and quickly thought better of that as well, slamming an impressive assortment of creams and oils back up where they belonged.
She turned to Dr. Clarke, whose face was warmed and undeniably beautified by the unnecessarily romantic lighting. “Is it possible the man doesn’t know the difference between a chat and a honeymoon?” asked Jo.
That was when Dr. Clarke did the most surprising thing Jo had seen yet.
She threw her head back and laughed.
It was the first time Jo had heard her laugh. It was quiet and high and a bit raspy, like it didn’t get oiled up very often, but was also intensely pleasant. It ended soon, leaving Jo wishing she was a bit funnier, so she could extend it.
“I’ve known Mr. Forester for half my life,” Dr. Clarke admitted on the end of her final giggle. “And yes. It’s more than possible; it is absolutely inevitable. The fact that you thought otherwise is more charmingly na?ve than I ever would have expected from someone like you.”
Jo loosened her tie, that sheepishness coursing through her along with another sort of tingle that was a little softer and a lot more troubling.
“Are you saying you came here knowing exactly what we were getting into?” she asked. “I assumed I was dragging you into a dreadful surprise.”
“Well,” said Dr. Clarke, eyeing another anatomically impressive painting above the fireplace. “A few things are surprising, but only due to lack of imagination on my part.”
“Yet you still came?”
“I hold humility and amends-making as high virtues,” Dr. Clarke said. “Higher even than avoiding...well...whatever precisely those are for.”
She pointed to an umbrella stand that did not hold umbrellas, but slim rods wrapped in satin whose purposes, Jo thought, were pretty obvious in context. And it was hard to say in this light, but was that a little gleam in Dr. Clarke’s eye? One that indicated perfect knowledge, even as she feigned proper ignorance?
“It’s odd,” Jo said suspiciously. “I wouldn’t expect you to tolerate such behavior in your acquaintances.”
“In my acquaintances? Certainly not,” Dr. Clarke said with harsh finality. “And for a very long time, I did not tolerate it in David, either. But he’s far more family than acquaintance at this point, and a family that does not allow for idiosyncrasies is a very fragile thing, isn’t it?”
Jo startled at the words, eerily similar to something her grandmother had once said to her parents when none of them realized Jo was listening in at the keyhole. They’d been talking about her: her brash ways, her disinterest in courting, her wild insistence that she’d “live different someday or die trying.” Gran had told her parents in no uncertain terms that if they kept trying to quash her spirit, they’d break the family apart. And so, they stopped trying to quash it until Gran died and her prediction came true.
“Well,” Jo said, trying to regain what little footing she’d had. “I am sorry, in any case. Now that our roles are reversed, and I’m the one scandalized by David’s complete disconnect from normalcy, I can appreciate the dastardliness of my own intentions.”
“Why are you so shocked?” Dr. Clarke chuckled, her joy apparent in this laugh, even though it came quiet. “Don’t you come here all the time?”
“Yeah, to play cards and drink out front with my mates,” she laughed. “I’ve never been back here before. The other patrons aren’t the sort I like to hunt down a bedroom with, if you catch my meaning.” She paused, uncertain. “Do you catch my meaning?”
“Yes, of course I do.” Dr. Clarke swatted at the air and settled herself on one of the armchairs. “Goodness, you’re under the impression that I’m a complete know-nothing, aren’t you?”
Cautiously, Jo joined her, selecting the center of the sofa so as to have just enough distance. Any farther, and it would seem like avoidance. Any closer, and she might have to start wondering if that vague lavender scent that kept cutting through the rose and debauchery belonged to the doctor.
“Are you ever going to smoke that?” Dr. Clarke asked.
Jo looked down at her hand, which still clutched a cigarette and matches. She’d taken them out from nerves, and had since forgotten about them.
“Maybe I am,” Jo said, trying for stability. She’d come here for the sake of stability, after all. It was well past time she found it. Stability came quicker when she neglected to meet Dr. Clarke’s eyes, but that was easier said than done. The garish club lighting did interesting things to the stormy blue of them.
“Well, don’t let me stop you,” said Dr. Clarke.
“It won’t bother you?” Jo asked.
“Of course it will,” said Dr. Clarke. “It’s a disgusting habit. But you came here in hopes of horrifying me, so I’d hate to deny you this opportunity to do so. I’m used to it anyway.”
Jo smiled in spite of herself. “Your brother’s a right chimney, isn’t he?” She opened the pack of matches, but didn’t do anything with them, too distracted by the slightest hint of humor at the corner of the doctor’s lips. “It’s hard to believe that the two of you are related. Quite a bit different from each other, that’s for sure.”
“It’s not that unexpected,” Dr. Clarke said with a shrug. “We weren’t raised in a way that actively squashed the particulars out of us, so it’s only reasonable that there would be differences.” She paused, head cocked such that Jo worried she’d let envy slip across her countenance. “That said,” Dr. Clarke went on carefully, “even harsh childrearing allows for some variety within families. I assume your siblings aren’t all quite like you. Or at least, I hope not, for your parents’ sake.”
A joke? Jo was too surprised by the fact that Dr. Clarke had a sense of humor at all to be offended by the contents. Still, the topic of siblings was a difficult one. Her idiosyncrasies soundly forbidden, Jo’s place in her family had proven fragile indeed, though that rejection had never been her wee siblings’ fault. She smiled anyway, because that’s what one did. At last, she struck the match and lit the vogue, finding the way Dr. Clarke wrinkled her nose more soothing than the smoke itself.
“I wouldn’t know,” Jo said.
“You don’t have any siblings?”
There it was. All of a sudden, Jo found a little footing. She was good at this kind of question. The sort that would let her make a mystery of herself.
“I had five,” she said on a smoky, dramatic breath. “Last I checked, anyway.”
Dr. Clarke looked satisfyingly startled. “You have at least five siblings,” she repeated. “But you don’t know what they’re like, nor do you have a final headcount?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Shall I ask you what you mean by that, or would you prefer to leave it there for now? You seem quite pleased to have made an enigma of yourself, and I should hate to spoil the moment for you.”
Jo’s satisfaction wiggled a bit around the edges as the question threw her off-balance once again. When she said purposely mysterious things, people either pressed on or gave up; she could not recall ever having been asked which she would prefer.
“Oh,” she said before she could stop herself. “Um. Well, it’s just I haven’t seen them in a long time. The eldest after me was only fourteen when I came to En—when I left home.”
Fuck. Those piercing eyes, filled with a curiosity that was simultaneously shrewd and innocent, were slicing right through something that Jo considered to be impenetrable.
That might have been charming if the situation was actually what David had arranged it to look like. When Jo brought a pretty woman into a bedroom outfitted with rose spray and champagne for a quick and scandalous seduction, she wasn’t quite so cagey with the details of herself. Those ladies loved to coax a grim or dramatic admission out of the dapper women they took up with, but it was only for the sake of heightening the intensity of their coupling. They certainly forgot every detail by the time their skirts settled.
But Dr. Clarke’s skirts weren’t showing any sign of budging, and Jo suspected that any detail she gave would be filed away in an exceptionally organized mind, where it would remain until the end of bloody time.
“So you are Irish, then,” Dr. Clarke said. “I thought I heard it in your voice. Why do you hide it?”
“Why hide anything?” Jo snapped, a little harsher than she would have liked. Dr. Clarke didn’t flinch, though. “What people know about you affects how they treat you, and depending on your company, Londoners don’t always treat you very well when they find out you’re from anywhere other than London.”
Dr. Clarke smiled. “Fair enough. I suppose I’ve engaged in similar deception.”
“Really?”
“Well, I’d prefer not to hide anything, of course,” she said, slipping into that prim cadence again. “Truth is paramount. But...admittedly, I’ve had to stop putting my given name on research papers, opting for the first letter only. As you may imagine, Emilys aren’t treated as well in the medical field as presumed Earnests or Edwards.” She let out a sigh, her small frame shuddering with it. It was so lovely a sight that Jo found herself scrambling to put out her cigarette in the ash tray near the champagne bucket. She suddenly hated to think she was filling those lungs with something unsavory.
“Look, Miss Jo, can we call the situation between us even?” Dr. Clarke asked. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the button she’d stolen during their last meeting. “You regret your trickery today, that much is clear. Meanwhile, back at the coffee house, I admit I was a bit of an—”
“Arse?” Jo supplied.
“That’s harsh.”
“Prat?”
Dr. Clarke pursed her lips.
“...I dunno. Nitwit?”
They both laughed at how silly that sounded.
“Sure,” Dr. Clarke said. “I was a bit of a nitwit, and you were a bit of a nitwit. But we possess obvious similarities. Maybe more than we think. Perhaps our wits might be put to better use with each other in the future? As...friends?”
Similarities? Jo still wasn’t so sure about that, but she found herself hoping it was true. She stared at the button in Dr. Clarke’s outstretched hand, then held out her own. Jo expected Dr. Clarke to drop the button in her palm, but instead, she placed it just gently enough that the very outer atoms of the skin brushed like static. Jo’s fingers retracted instantly, clutching the button in a fist.
“I’m not sure,” she said, feeling her mouth trying to twist into a smile. “Your particular nitwittery in the coffee house was pretty extreme. I’m not convinced that this matchmaking debacle, awkward as it is, is quite bad enough to call things eve—”
The door opened once more.
A heavily frilled and painted young woman bustled in with a clear voice, laden tray, and naughty eyes. David, always one to help a fellow friend in the shadows, had clearly paid her quite well to provide beautiful hospitality for the afternoon. Most likely, this woman was accustomed to providing any sort of hospitality requested, and seemed very cheerful about having been brought in to simply look pretty and pour drinks.
Or so Jo sincerely hoped.
As she went back out, Dr. Clarke peered curiously at the half-filled glass of lemonade she’d been given.
“I, er, think that’s so you can top it off,” said Jo, tugging at her tie and nodding toward the champagne bottle.
“Ah,” said Dr. Clarke, nodding demonstrably. “Right. Very thoughtful.” While her face remained passive, mirth danced in her eyes, more than could be written off as odd lighting. “So, tell me, as a regular in this place: Is dear Miss Bonnie usually the one bringing drinks round? Or has Mr. Forester arranged her specifically for our benefit?”
“You know what, Dr. Clarke?” Jo sighed heavily and raised her own glass, filled quite oppositely from the other with at least four damn fingers of whiskey. “I think you and I might be even after all.”
“Glad to hear it.” Dr. Clarke raised her skimpy glass and clinked it with Jo’s. Just before she brought it to her lips, she paused. “In that case, do call me Emily.”
“Really?” asked Jo, surprised.
“Might as well,” the doctor—Emily—said. “You’ve already established a rather horrifying lack of decorum with your own ‘Miss Jo’ business. And to be quite honest, I’d rather not hear myself referred to as ‘Doctor’ over and over again. It’s taxing.” There was something heavy behind that sentiment, but Jo didn’t ask, and Emily didn’t offer. “And Miss Clarke is what people call me when they want to dismiss me. So Emily it must be, if you’ll humor me.”
“Of course,” Jo said automatically. “I’ll call you anything you like. Doesn’t matter to me.”
“Anything?” Emily said with a touch of a challenge.
“Anything at all,” Jo declared. “Why not? I’ll call you the queen if you like.”
Emily snorted a bit of laughter. “I appreciate that, though it’s probably a bit much.”
“Princess, then?”
That one got a chuckle. There was something very addicting about that, wasn’t there? Jo had come here wanting to get more rage and passion out of this woman, but getting a laugh out of her was even more satisfying.
As their conversation went on, mostly casual things like the weather or the friends they had in common, Jo found herself slipping more jokes in than she usually did. Each one that landed felt like she’d won a hand of cards. Though, when time continued to pass, and it became clear that this meeting, this apology, this whatever-the-devil-David-thought-it-was, was coming to a close, Jo found her mind shifting from punchlines to excuses for it not to end.
But end it must, of course; Emily had a train to catch.
“Though I shall be back,” she said as she went for the door that would return them to the real world. “I’ll need to check in with Miss Garcia monthly for a while, and then more frequently until we’re closer to her confinement; at that point, I’ll stay in the city, if I can arrange it.”
“Would you care for another cordial meeting next time you’re in town?” Jo asked.
“No. I’ve had quite enough of cordial meetings, I think,” said Emily, glaring toward the champagne. Just as disappointment was starting to settle in the pit of Jo’s stomach, she went on, “But I would be delighted to take tea or perhaps a walk through the park, if you’re amenable.”
Jo grinned. “Certainly, Princess.”
“Oh, stop that,” Emily scolded. “I shall be in touch, then, a bit closer to the time, to ensure it’s not just the sconces and whiskey making you think you’re interested in any further friendship with such a dreadful bore as I am.”
“I’m immune to the effects of sconces and whiskey,” said Jo. “I doubt my opinion will change much.”
Though her words landed lightly, they left a bad taste in Jo’s mouth as she followed Emily back out into the Fox’s front parlor. Jo wanted to see Emily Clarke again, perhaps under circumstances more suited to themselves. But would a month apart change Emily’s mind?
“Emily,” she said, just before either of them could catch the eye of those waiting on them in the parlor. “Write to me in the meantime.”
“Write to you?” Emily repeated. “About what?”
About anything, Jo wanted to say. But that might sound mad, so she reached for the first excuse that came to mind.
“I promised Miss Garcia I’d give her some of my grandmother’s old remedies for discomforts,” she said. “But I’ve misplaced the book. Maybe you could write a few down for me? If you have some? Like...like the lemon water recipe. I’d love to have that on hand, I think.”
“It’s simply lemon juice and hot water—”
“Yeah, but...how much lemon? And how much...how much water? I’d hate to put too much of either, you know. Might cause...problems.”
“Problems?”
“Yes. All sorts of problems. Will you send the recipe to me?”
Emily blinked a few times; what Jo had just said sounded madder than the original sentiment would have. Miss Garcia did not need a recipe for bloody lemon water. And even if she did, they would be in touch on their own terms now, as doctor and patient. They wouldn’t need to route such things through Jo.
“Alright,” Emily said tentatively. “I...I suppose if you insist—”
“I do.”
“Then I shall write to you in the interim,” she said. “And pass along the...recipe.”
Jo held out a hand so they could shake. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”