Chapter Three
The next morning, she was everywhere. First in the hall, slipping past him with a tray balanced on her hands, then lingering by the treatment room door.
She had no reason to hover, and yet her shoulder brushed his sleeve each time she passed.
Lavender clung to her like a secret, threaded with the sharper tang of clove oil.
The scent lodged in his throat until he could hardly swallow and Faivish longed for nothing more than to press his lips to hers for another kiss.
Teach me how to kiss you properly.
Her words. Simple and innocent. He’d not been able to sleep all night after he had, in fact, taught her. And yet, he had so much more to show her.
I just can’t wait.
But he needed her father’s permission to court her, it was the respect his professor, mentor, and her only living parent deserved. She was precious and deserved his utmost respect and honor.
By mid-morning, Faivish was bent over his instruments when she appeared again, tray in hand—and a thin line of red glistening across her finger.
“Maisie,” he said, sharper than he meant, crossing to her before she could set the tray down. “You’ve cut yourself.”
“It’s nothing—”
“Let me see.” The command left his mouth before he could temper it.
He caught her hand gently but firmly, turning it into the light.
The nick was shallow, but the bead of blood shone bright against her skin.
He pressed a clean cloth to it, steady as though she were a patient in the chair, not the woman he thought of every single second of his life.
She watched him, lashes lowered, her breathing slowing until it matched the measured rhythm of his own. The room seemed to shrink to the fragile weight of her hand in his and the soft flutter of her pulse beneath his thumb.
Without thinking, he lifted her hand just enough to bare the curve of her fingertips.
He brushed his lips there—careful, not against the cut, but close enough that the warmth of his mouth drew the sting away.
The thought came swift and undeniable: if he could, he would take every hurt from her. Always and forever.
Her lashes flickered, a small start of surprise.
But she didn’t pull back. He felt the moment she yielded, her fingers softening until they curled lightly around his, keeping him there.
His thumb traced her skin, slow and deliberate, finding the quickened beat beneath.
That pulse thrummed through him like a tether, intoxicating.
He held her gaze, memorizing the lamplight on her cheek, the faint parting of her lips, the way each breath seemed to catch before it left her. Lavender. Clove. Her. He would never breathe them again without remembering this exact moment.
And she let him press his mouth to her hand. She let him hold her there, suspended on the thin edge between propriety and something far more dangerous.
The scrape of shoes broke the spell.
He glanced up. Professor Morgenschein stood in the doorway, silent. His gaze fell to where Faivish still cradled Maisie’s hand. It lingered, unreadable, before it rose again to meet his eyes. No anger—only recognition, and something else that weighed heavier than words.
Faivish released her slowly, but the imprint of her hand burned in his palm. Morgenschein inclined his head once, as if he’d seen enough, and turned away.
Faivish’s resolve hardened. He would ask permission. Now.
It wasn’t infatuation, nor the kind of careless tryst that Vienna’s gossips might imagine.
Faivish wanted a life with Maisie. And after last night—after the way she’d kissed him back, the way her hand had lingered in his—he knew she would welcome his offer if her father gave his blessing. Today, he told himself, he would ask.
But the moment never came.
When he lingered in the hallway, waiting for a pause between patients, the professor brushed past him with a ledger in hand. Faivish opened his mouth, only to find himself dismissed with a curt, “Check the appointment book—Mrs. Adler insists her crown be moved up a day.”
Later, when Faivish carried in the sterilized instruments, he tried again. “Professor—”
But Morgenschein didn’t look up from the tray. “Pass me the forceps, will you? No, the larger pair. Thank you.” His tone was even, polite, yet it built a wall Faivish couldn’t scale.
By midday, Faivish caught his mentor at the basin, sleeves rolled as he washed his hands. The light from the window fell across the man’s face, etching hollows beneath his eyes. Faivish said quietly, “There’s something important I’d like to ask—”
Morgenschein reached for the towel, rubbing briskly, his gaze fixed on the brass mirror on the counter. “You’ve a steady hand with gold foil, Faivish. Better than mine.” A compliment, but also a diversion. The words landed with more finality than praise.
Again and again, the professor turned aside.
A ledger to be signed, a patient to be soothed, a tray to be polished.
Each time Faivish swallowed back the words burning his tongue.
Each time, Morgenschein’s mouth pressed into that same thin, pained line—as though he carried a truth too heavy to share, one that made every request to speak dissolve on Faivish’s lips.
By the time the last patient left, Faivish’s throat was dry from silence, his resolve frayed by the loss of so many missed chances.
“You’ve done well with the Marquess,” Morgenschein said at last, polishing a brass tray as though it needed one more gleam. “Better than I expected.”
Faivish’s chest leapt—was this his moment? “Thank you, Professor. It means so much to—”
Morgenschein cut across him, voice low. “It’s more than praise. It’s an opportunity. The Marquess has written to a colleague in Calcutta. There’s an apprenticeship there. A rare one. They’ll take you.”
The words struck like a dropped mallet.
“Calcutta?” Faivish repeated, almost disbelieving. “In India?”
“Yes.” Morgenschein’s gaze slipped past him. “A city growing faster than you can imagine. Medicine is hungry for skilled hands. It’s a chance of a lifetime, Faivish. The sort of post that would open doors that will always remain locked to you here.”
He meant Vienna. He meant Hofst?tter.
Not an opportunity—an escape.
Faivish set down the mirror he’d been drying. His knuckles whitened on the brass. “Professor, I have no wish to go to India. My place is here. With you.”
“And with Maisie?” Morgenschein asked quietly, the question dropping like a stone.
Faivish did not flinch. “If you would allow it—yes. I came to you for dentistry. But I found more than that. I would be honored to stay, to work with you, for as long as you’ll have me.”
For an instant, light broke across the older man’s eyes. Then it dimmed, leaving only weariness etched in its place.
“You’ve learned all I can teach you,” he said slowly. “But I cannot shield you forever. Hofst?tter has tolerated you because you are under my name. The moment I am gone…” His voice thinned. “I wish I were strong enough. I wish it were enough.”
“You are,” Faivish said, the words rough with feeling. “You are everything—to me, to your patients—”
“Not in a world where malice holds influence,” Morgenschein interrupted, his tone carrying a finality that made Faivish’s stomach clench. “I am old. The Rector is relentless. He wants my methods under his name, and you will be in his sights the moment he can make it so.”
Faivish’s chest tightened. He had not expected this—not Calcutta dangled like salvation, not Hofst?tter’s shadow stretching over everything.
Yes, he knew the Indian dentists’ molten-gold crowns were famed, and yes, part of him ached to see it.
But not at this cost. Not at the cost of being with Maisie.
“My place is here,” he said again, softer, because the truth burned steadily. “India may be an opportunity. But this is the life I want. Here. With you. With her.”
The professor’s sigh carried both pain and pride. He set the brass tray aside, his hands trembling faintly. “Leave it, Faivish. Go and rest.”
But Faivish hesitated. “The ledger says the Marquess is coming. Shall I prepare—?”
“No,” Morgenschein interrupted gently. “Not for treatment. You did well with that.”
“Then why—?”
“I need to speak with him,” the professor said, his voice suddenly older than Faivish had ever heard it.
A knot twisted tight in Faivish’s chest. Something was being kept from him. Something that made the thought of asking for Maisie’s hand feel as though it were slipping, just out of reach.
*
Maisie spent the afternoon half-distracted from her work but entirely aware of him in every room.
He glanced at her more than once—she was certain of it—but the look never lasted long enough to leave proof.
In the cramped treatment room, their fingers brushed as she passed him a mirror.
The contact sparked through her so sharply she nearly dropped it. And yet he said nothing.
When she asked, lightly, if he might stay for dinner, her father answered for him.
“No. The Marquess is coming,” he said, brisk enough to cut short any protest.
The dismissal stung.
So when Faivish stepped out into the dusk, coat folded over one arm, she followed. Coal smoke lingered in the air, sharp against the fading scent of leaves. Her heartbeat fell into step with her hurried feet. At the side alley, where lamplight failed to reach, shadows pooled deep and silent.
She caught his sleeve. “Faivish!”
He turned—surprise flashing in his eyes—just as she rose onto her toes and kissed him. Not tentative, not proper. A kiss pressed from days of restraint and every look they had not dared name.
The coat slid from his arm. His free hand found her waist, steadying, drawing her nearer. He kissed her back with a smile she could feel more than see, as if he had been waiting for her to be the one to cross that line.
Her hands knotted in his shoulders, unwilling to let go. His thumb brushed her side, unhurried, memorizing her shape.
She pulled back for breath, lips tingling.
“When will you speak to him?” she whispered.
“As soon as he lets me,” he said low enough for his breath to graze her skin. “Tomorrow. Together with you, perhaps. If he allows.”
The certainty in his tone left her dizzy. She kissed him once more, quick and fierce, before stepping away.
And the promise clung to her even more than his kiss as she slipped inside. But she stopped short in the darkened hall. Voices floated from the kitchen—low, urgent. She knew the Marquess’s timbre, but the other was Father’s.
“…Hofst?tter… the faculty…”
She froze. Words tangled, muffled, but fragments broke free: “…trouble for all of us… Jewish…” Then another phrase, sharp enough to raise the hairs on her arms: “…Eleanor Spencer is dead now… but nobody needs to know…”
The voices dropped again, too low to catch, before rising just long enough for the Marquess to ask, “And what about Deena?”
Maisie’s hand tightened on the knob. She stood motionless, her pulse pounding, the echo of her kiss already eclipsed by a dread far larger—whatever lay waiting behind that kitchen door?