Chapter Two
Two months later, Vienna…
The last patient of the day had scarcely stepped out into the street when Faivish rinsed his hands in the porcelain basin. Soapy foam slid over his knuckles, and he listened to the house shift into a quieter evening rhythm.
From the kitchen drifted the scrape of cutlery, the clink of bowls, a burst of laughter that could only belong to Deena. Nine years old and thus eleven years younger than Maisie, was incapable of being still.
Drawn to the friendly sound, he stepped into the doorway.
The Morgenschein kitchen glowed like a hearth—lamplight gilding the plaster walls, a bowl of strawberries crowned with whipped cream at the center of the oak table, adorned with a simple woven center cloth.
The window was propped open to the street; outside, a carriage rumbled over cobblestones, a hawker’s call trailing faintly behind.
Maisie sat close to her father’s right hand, sleeves pushed back, her braid loosened by the day’s labor.
One delightfully stubborn blonde wisp had slipped free and curved against her cheek, catching the lamplight.
The sight of it made his fingers ache—an almost physical pull—to reach across and smooth it into place. To touch her. Hold her.
Instead, he lingered where he was. Watching.
Her gaze lifted to his. And even though his eyes held hers, his heart stopped. “Would you like to stay for dinner?” she asked.
He’d noticed the simple spread on the counter, likely reserved for after the meal—bread torn thick, a wedge of cheese, apples sliced clean, and of course, the berries bright as jewels against the porcelain.
Before he could answer, Deena bounced in her seat, curls springing.
“Ananas mit Schlagobers!” she declared, though there wasn’t a pineapple in sight.
Ananas meant pineapple, except in Viennese German where it meant strawberries.
Whipped cream was named after the heavy cream rising to the top of the milk, which, well, was whipped to its fluffy perfection like the one on the table.
Faivish chuckled. “That looks delicious.”
“As we call it in Vienna,” she shot back, chin high with the pride of belonging.
Professor Morgenschein’s knife paused mid-slice on a piece of apple. His tone was mild, but the words had an edge. “You were born Jewish. That is the only truth that follows us. Nationality—no matter what we give to them—never sticks.”
Maisie’s spoon hovered over her bowl, her lashes dropping like shutters.
The air shifted. Faivish knew that silence. The same taut quiet that always crept in when prejudice pressed too close to their door. He thought of Rector Hofst?tter, of the man’s endless disputes with the professor, and felt heat rise at the back of his neck.
“He demands I use the porcelain work under his roof,” Professor Morgenschein muttered as if he’d known that Faivish knew why he’d corrected Deena as the older man resumed his slice with more force than needed.
“The building belongs to the university, he says. As if thirty years of my work do not count.”
Every corner of this place bore Morgenschein’s mark—his wife’s, too, before illness stole her away. They had built not just a practice, but a refuge. And still, men like Hofst?tter would call it borrowed.
The professor gestured toward the empty chair.
Faivish sat, the wood warm from recent use.
Deena smeared cream across her chin, giggling, while Maisie leaned over now and then to steady her little sister’s hand or nudge the bowl closer.
Quiet efficiency. But also, devotion. She was the axis around which this household turned.
Faivish felt it then—an ache low and steady. She belonged here, in this house, in this role. And yet, somehow, he wanted her for himself.
“You know, Professor,” he said, aiming his voice low enough for Maisie to hear, “I’m to meet Alfie Collins tonight at the Spanish Riding School.”
The words hung in the air. Maisie’s spoon slowed.
The professor nodded. “Ah, yes, the apothecary. Ambitious for a British student. He’ll have his shop one day, I’m sure.”
Maisie traced slow circles in the cream with her spoon. “What business do you and Alfie have there?” The question was soft, almost reluctant, but it carried a spark of curiosity that thrilled him.
“Alfie’s been asked to bring ointments for the horses. Have you ever seen the Lipizzaners?”
Her eyes flicked toward him, quick as a heartbeat, then shifted to her father. The professor sliced another apple, precisely as a surgeon.
“No,” she said. “Since Mother passed… Father works so much.”
He heard what she left unsaid: outings had not been theirs to enjoy.
“Would you both like to come?” His voice was light, though his pulse wasn’t. “Deena, too. Alfie will be there. I’ll see you home before dark. Entirely proper.”
Professor Morgenschein looked up, surprised, but waved a hand. “Yes, yes. Go on, children. Maisie, keep an eye on your sister.”
Deena’s whole face lit. “Please, Maisie?”
A moment’s hesitation stretched thin as wire. Faivish held his breath.
At last, Maisie nodded. “All right.”
The word landed like a stone in still water, rippling through him. He’d longed to take Maisie out for so long, and this was as close as he could manage to the honor.
They finished the meal, but he barely tasted it. Outside, the city was turning to honey with the afternoon sun. Two months of imagining her beyond the bright walls of the practice—and tonight, it would be real.
Sometimes, it seemed, beginnings started with strawberries and cream.
*
The late-afternoon sun lingered on Maisie’s shoulders as she and Deena reached the wrought-iron gates.
A small plaque beside the arch read Spanische Hofreitschule—the Spanish Riding School.
She had heard of it since childhood: the oldest institution in Europe devoted to the art of classical horsemanship, where riders trained for years to master the white Lipizzaner stallions.
Warm metal gleamed under her fingertips as she pressed the gate open, and above, the imperial crest caught the light—the double-headed eagle staring down as if it had been taking the measure of its visitors for centuries.
Maisie tilted her chin up, uneasy beneath its gaze.
All that history—emperors, audiences, performances polished to perfection—pressed against her like a weight, neatly contained within one legendary building.
Beyond the gates, marble columns and glittering chandeliers waited to preside over a spectacle older than she could truly grasp.
Faivish had brought them here in barely ten minutes, walking with that measured stride of his. His coat was buttoned to the throat, his shoulders straight enough to make other men look careless. Beside him, Maisie was suddenly conscious of her own steps, how her hem whispered over the stones.
Another figure stood waiting near the archway.
Dark blond hair, broad chest, and a wooden crate balanced easily on one hip.
It looked like the sort of box a greengrocer might have used for cabbages, but instead it brimmed with squat jars sealed with cork.
Even from here, the contents caught the light—green-gold, glimmering—and the sharp-sweet tang reached Maisie’s nose, herbs and something biting underneath.
She wondered at the smell, but her gaze slid back to Faivish almost at once, as if drawn by gravity.
“This is Alfie Collins, my roommate,” Faivish said.
Alfie set the crate down and bent over her hand with a bow that belonged more to a ballroom than a stable yard. “A pleasure, Miss Morgenschein,” he said, vowels polished, clipped with English precision. He repeated the bow for Deena, and her giggle burst out, hands flying to her mouth.
“I’ve been pounding herbs all day for this liniment,” Alfie went on, throwing Faivish a conspirator’s grin. “If I reek of Pferdesalbe, forgive me.”
Maisie caught the name—an ointment for horses, camphor, and menthol meant to ease muscles. Now that she knew, the scent rose sharper, threaded with rosemary, pungent but not unpleasant.
Deena’s eyes went wide as saucers. “So you’re a true apothecary? Can you make perfume? Rose pomade? Poison?”
“Yes,” Alfie said cheerfully, “though I’d never put all three in the same jar.”
That was enough to entice her younger sister. Deena skipped to his side, peppering him with more questions until Alfie tipped back his head and laughed outright.
Maisie fell into step a pace behind, beside Faivish.
She let her eyes climb the pale facade of the Riding School.
Stucco curved into flourishes, each line drawing the gaze higher and higher.
“Baroque,” she murmured without thinking.
“See how the facade pulls your eyes upward? That was the point—to raise the soul as much as the sight.”
Faivish looked down at her, and the curve of his mouth softened into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I’m beginning to believe you could make anything sound like poetry.”
Her breath caught. The words struck too close, and yet she didn’t look away. When he offered his arm, she hesitated only a heartbeat. To take his arm felt like admitting something she had spent too long denying. Yet her hand moved of its own accord, sliding into the crook of his elbow.
The wool of his sleeve was warm beneath her palm, and the strength of his arm was steady, unyielding. Heat crept into her chest, spiraling outward until she had to steady her breath. It was nothing more than a gentleman’s courtesy and yet so much more.
Her fingers pressed lightly, as if testing the reality of him, and she was startled by the answering jolt low in her belly.
The world seemed to narrow to his strong arm, offered just to her.
The closeness was more daring than his kind smile—because it was public, because it was real, because it was him.