Chapter Fourteen
Janelle hoped for miracles. She had seen a few. A mother who survived fever and blood loss. A father who fed a babe with a dropper without rest for a full week. And a child who grew, despite all odds. She’d seen these things and recalling them never failed to warm her heart.
But she never expected a miracle, and so tonight, she settled in for death.
She didn’t expect that Major Vance would stay with her. She hadn’t been surprised when he arrived. He had been plaguing her too much for him not to be here. But that he stayed was a miracle all its own. She didn’t like waiting alone any more than the dying did.
“How did you become this?” he asked several hours into the vigil.
She looked up, startled by the sound in the otherwise silent room. Winnie’s breath was too shallow to be heard. “What?”
He gestured vaguely to herself and the patient. “A midwife. One of some fame, it appears.”
She frowned as she looked around. Her thoughts and her vision had been completely consumed with trying to drip milk into Winnie’s mouth.
“Where’s Winnie’s brother?” She couldn’t remember the man’s name.
“He left an hour ago. Said he needed to go to work.”
She looked out at the brightening sky. Hell, she’d have to send a message to Nanny to cover for her this day. Fortunately, no one would expect her to be awake for several hours yet. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d stayed up all night then made it home in time for tea.
She nodded as she looked back at the major. “Last Season, I visited one of the lying-in hospitals. The matron thought I was touring, but I wanted to learn.”
“To train? In a hospital?” He sounded shocked by the idea.
She nodded. “But it turned out that I already knew more than most of the students. I knew how to read and had already studied all the texts. I didn’t shy from the dirt. Once you’ve helped a sow in labor, a woman wealthy enough to afford a hospital is the height of luxury.”
He blinked. “You’ve delivered pigs?”
“And cows and sheep. What do you think witchy women do in the country? It’s not all chilblains and putrid throats.”
He shook his head. “I cannot credit that you were allowed.”
She shrugged. “I wasn’t.” Then she looked at him. “I expect there was a great deal you weren’t allowed to do as a boy that you did anyway.”
He didn’t speak, but she could see his thoughts as if they were written bold across his forehead. She was a girl and the daughter of a baron. There were no more isolated women than the daughters of the aristocracy. And yet she had escaped into the world and was all the better for it.
“What do you think wealthy women do all day?” she asked.
He frowned. “I don’t know. Shopping? Dressing and doing their hair?”
She gestured to her disheveled hair and the milk stains on her gown. “Do I seem like a woman who cares much for that?”
“No.”
“What should a woman who doesn’t care about fashion and hair do with her time?”
He clearly had no idea.
“I did as I pleased, Major. Since I was ten years old. And this is what I was pleased to learn. So long as I appeared dressed and happy for tea, no one noticed if I spent the morning helping a woman give birth.”
He glanced at Winnie who was clearly not going to give birth today. Indeed, her belly had stopped contracting completely.
“How could your father not know?” he asked.
“Do you have sisters, Major?”
He shook his head.
“Think of your friends who do. Did they care what their sisters did? So long as it did not disturb their amusements.”
“Young men have a singularly narrow focus on their own pleasures.”
“My brother did as well.”
He shifted his position to lean his other shoulder against the wall. She frowned. Had he been standing all night? His feet must ache abominably.
“Major, I did not ask you to stay. You need not remain. I assure you this is a task I am all too familiar with.”
“You know how to handle bodies in London? I do not think her brother will return before nightfall.”
Oh hell. She hadn’t thought of that. This was the first time she’d been left alone to care for a forgotten woman. “Her brother went to work?”
“I don’t think he could bear to see the end.”
She should have realized that. Death was not a pretty process and, like birth, was often left to the women to manage. “I suppose I shall have to figure it out,” she said.
He snorted. “I will handle it for you when the time comes.”
She wanted to deny him out of pride. She wanted to inform him that she was well able to manage without his interference. But the truth was that she was at sea here. What she could manage easily in Devon was sometimes a mystery in London.
“Thank you, Major. I am very grateful for that.” She took a breath. “If there is an expense for it—”
“I will handle it.”
“I’m sure you could, but—”
“I do not need your money, Miss Caddick.”
His tone was angry, and she knew better than challenge a man when he took that tone. So she looked back to her patient. The news there was even less appealing. Winnie would not last much longer. Then the Major surprised her.
“My apologies,” he said. “I cannot find my footing with you, and that has made me short tempered.”
“You mean you cannot figure out where I belong in your mind. I am neither a spoiled society girl nor a dedicated healer. You know how to treat Lord Benedict’s fiancée, but only if she acts in a way you deem appropriate.
Similarly, you know what to do with a London midwife, but not if she is engaged to someone you esteem.
Major Vance, does it occur to you that your mind is too narrow to allow for my existence?
And that the fault for that is entirely your own? ”
“Of course, it does,” he said, his words a low grumble. “Why do you think I’m short-tempered?”
She chuckled. How could she not? He sounded so put out to admit his own failing. “Don’t feel bad. You are hardly alone in that sort of thinking.”
“But I had prided myself on seeing things more clearly.”
“Don’t we all?” Unlike him, she was loath to admit that she might have misjudged him.
After all, he was here helping when Winnie’s own brother had left.
He’d paid the midwife. And most important to her, he had not once chastised her for doing work normally reserved for family members or nuns, which is certainly what her aunt would have done.
Her father would likely have dragged her out by her ears.
“What is your connection to the Rose Garden?” His voice was low, but it jolted her nonetheless.
“What makes you think I have one?”
He shot her a look that said he had no interest in playing games, but when he spoke, he kept his tone soft, likely out of respect for Winnie. “I saw you that first day leaving the building. I recognized the boy who brought the message to your butler.”
He’d been watching her? Lord, he must have rushed back from the theater and stood outside lying in wait. “You were following me?”
“I was tasked with being your escort.”
“You abandoned my aunt?”
He rolled his eyes. “I doubt she planned a run to the East End. Besides, I found her a suitable escort.”
Of course, he did. The man was obviously conscientious about his responsibility. Still, his presence here showed a dedication that bordered on alarming. “Why are you so determined to chase me?”
“I should think that is obvious.” He lifted his chin. “Enough deflection. What is your connection to the Rose Garden?”
“You are the one who recognized the boy. It would stand to reason that you have the untoward association with the place, not I.”
“My mother owns it, in partnership with Madame Florina.”
Oh. Well. That was not what she expected. “Who is your mother?” Lord Benedict had told her, but she’d forgotten the name. Or was too tired to recall it.
“She’s part owner of the Rose Garden.” Then before she could say something cutting back, he held up his hand as if in surrender. “We can argue back and forth with one another or we can make a bargain. I will tell you all about my mother if you would share exactly why you were sent here.”
She remained silent for a moment, busying herself with checking on Winnie.
There was no change, and she was merely delaying.
She recognized Major Vance to be the proverbial dog with a bone.
No matter how she deflected, denied, or deferred, he would still come at her for more information.
He would show up unannounced, hide in shadows when she escaped, and then somehow follow her here when she thought herself free of him.
There was nothing left in her arsenal to defeat a man such as that.
And no point anyway. Her reticence was simple habit.
She did not like bringing any man into her business, but that was illogical now.
So while she tried to drip a little more milk into Winnie’s mouth, she explained what she had held secret for so long.
“I told you that I went to a lying-in hospital to learn. The matron was very clear that she would not allow me to help when I was available, even without pay. That is not how it works in a hospital.”
“I imagine not,” he said dryly.
“Well, it is how it works in Devon. One finds a teacher, and one learns.” She took a breath. “Did you know that the hospital only accepts married patients who can afford to pay the fee?” She looked back to Winnie. “Who tends the other women, do you think? The unmarried and the poor?”
“Midwives who are not lucky enough to be hospital trained.”
“Yes.” She shrugged. “I became one of them.”
“But what has this to do with the Rose Garden?”
“You don’t know?” The ignorance of men boggled her mind sometimes. “The Rose Garden serves as a place where information comes and goes quietly, quickly, with none the wiser.”
He snorted. “My mother has long since traded in information.”
“Women’s information, Major Vance. I care not for the secrets of men in power. I care for women like Winnie.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You mean you cannot believe that there is a vast network of women who help each other. You cannot credit that the madame of a whorehouse might know the names and directions of talented midwives, kind apothecaries, and several helpful priests.”
He shook his head, his expression incredulous. “Not my mother.”
“Are you sure?”
He remained silent, his mind cracking open despite his unwillingness to believe. She remained silent, idly wondering if his male pride would win out over obvious truth. Would he deny everything she had just said—
“I cannot credit it,” he said.
Male pride defeats all.
“But you are here and no dilletante,” he continued. “At least not the kind I thought.”
“Damned by faint praise.”
He acknowledged the statement with a dip of his head. “Since the moment I went to war, I have lived almost exclusively in the world of men. It is only logical to believe that there is a great, vast world of women of which I am ignorant.”
She smiled at him. “That is the truest thing you have ever said to me. I applaud you for opening your mind.”
“And what of you, Miss Caddick?”
“What of me?”
“Will you open your mind? Will you see that you cannot continue this kind of work once you are wed to Lord Benedict?”
Back to this old argument? She could not express how very tired she was of it. “If I listened to every man who said a thing could not be done—”
“This is not safe. Not for the wife of a dignitary like Lord Benedict.” He raised his hand before she could voice her objection.
“As Lord Benedict’s wife, you will be watched as never before, usually by unfriendly eyes.
You cannot receive messages from a whorehouse.
You cannot run off to the rookeries when a woman goes into labor.
And you cannot be hurt by a footpad or worse, then left to rot in the most dangerous areas of London. ”
“Because it would damage His Lordship’s standing?”
“Because you could be dead.” He shook his head. “Do you not see the danger you are in just by coming to a place like this? A woman alone? Surely you must, for you are not that stupid.”
She wasn’t. She knew. In Devon, Betty was respected. And if not her, then certainly Mrs. Sundy. But London was a place of a great many dangers, and she had already had several close calls. This dual life of hers was already too stressful, and by all accounts it would get worse once she was married.
And yet the idea of giving up the work that she had chosen made her physically ill. She had studied hard, learned skills that were desperately needed in this world. It seemed criminal to stop doing something she loved just because it made some men uncomfortable.
“You are aware, are you not, that Lord Benedict knows of my activities and approves?”
Her tone implied that this was a foregone conclusion. It was not. Though Lord Benedict had implied he knew, the man had not exactly said the words aloud and she had been too afraid to push the point.
Either way, Major Vance showed he had a suspicious mind. “It does no good for you to lie to me.”
“I’m not!” she cried. She gestured to the room at large. “He knows.” Major Vance was quiet for a long moment. He looked at her, his brow furrowed, and his mouth pursed in discontent.
Her eyes widened. “He told you!”
“He said you were unusual and that I should determine your suitability as his bride.”
Her lips curled, her first genuine smile in a long while. “He did not. Because he proposed to me without consulting you. And then we announced that proposal in a very public manner.”
“You did,” he groused. “He did.” Then he dropped his hands onto his hips. “Then he told me to figure out how you would fit seamlessly into his life.”
It would seem that Lord Benedict—a man who managed spies—was being cagey with his wife and his right-hand man. She saw the same realization dawn on Major Vance’s face.
“What do you think he is up to?” she asked.
Major Vance shook his head. “I don’t know. But then I rarely do, except in hindsight.”
She nodded slowly. “Lord Benedict tells me that you are a man of extraordinary talent.”
“He flatters me.”
“I don’t think so. He also says that I must work with you instead of against you.”
He dipped his chin. “That would be helpful.”
“Then I think that you have the equal task of working with me. Major Vance, you must find a way for me to continue to be who I am. This is my work and I will do it as Lord Benedict’s wife.”
He shook his head. “It is too dangerous.”
“Then make it safe.”
“That is not possible.”
“And yet, according to Lord Benedict, you do the impossible every day.”
There. She had laid down the gauntlet. Would he accept her challenge? Or destroy what he could not control?