Chapter Thirty-Three
Jamie was running late, and today of all days, that was a terrible thing. He urged his mount forward through the narrow London streets. Sunlight speared between tall buildings, and above them, the sky was a startling, brilliant blue.
He could almost see Alice now. Hands on hips, foot tapping, and those soft lips he’d kissed only last night pursed in that mixture of affection and exasperation that always undid him.
“Make haste, Archie,” he muttered, leaning low in the saddle, “or I’ll be in a world of trouble.”
“It’s not his fault,” Anthony drawled from his left, “that you were too busy devouring that second slice of cake to notice the time.”
“Third slice,” Toby corrected cheerfully.
Jamie grunted and ignored them both. They had been teasing him since they left the tea shop. Behind their teasing, though, was a bond forged through years of shared pain and affection. They were the brothers he’d never had.
Above them, church bells rang the hour. He was definitely late.
They were bound for St Giles, a place Jamie rarely visited until recently. It stood two streets shy of the infamous Rookery but close enough to feel its hellish shadow. The district smelled of despair, horse dung, coal smoke, and the tang of gin distilleries.
“Alice will forgive you for being late, Anthony said.
Jamie felt a smile tug at his lips. “My wife may love me, but she’ll be sorely vexed if I’m not standing beside her when the first patient walks through that clinic door.”
Anthony leaned across his saddle. “Five months wed and still speaking of her as if she’s an angel. You’ll give us all a bad name.”
“Has it passed for you?” Jamie shot back. “You don’t still hang on your beloved’s every word?”
“Never,” Anthony admitted. His wife was due to deliver their first child any day now. Toby’s wasn’t far behind. They were both equally excited and terrified.
Jamie’s smile deepened. “You’ll both make excellent fathers.”
“And you?” Toby asked quietly.
“I hope to,” Jamie said. “Soon.”
He hadn’t thought he’d ever want such a thing.
Not after Blackwood Hall, and the years of darkness that had followed.
But Alice had changed that. In the five months since becoming his wife, she’d filled the hollow spaces in him with laughter, warmth, and that fierce sense of purpose that seemed to burn in her like a flame.
“How was she this morning?” Anthony asked.
“Determined and excited,” Jamie said. “She left early to see to last-minute details with Maggie, Ezra, and Bobby, but said she had no use for me until the opening. But I was told, in no uncertain terms, to be there on time.”
“Ah,” Toby said. “So you are in serious trouble.”
“Very likely.”
They turned onto a broader street, and the building came into view. Even from a distance, it stood out. Three stories of solid brick with tall arched windows, the stone newly scrubbed, and the door painted a deep green. The brass plaque he’d personally had made, gleamed in the sunlight:
The St Giles Medical and Relief House
Jamie felt something swell in his chest. Pride, perhaps. Or disbelief. He shot his friends a look.
A few years ago, they’d all been men clawing their way out of the wreckage of their pasts. Survivors of Blackwood Hall, that hellish school that had taught brutality instead of discipline. Now, they’d built something meant to heal.
All three were now married to women they loved, and with Jackson’s incarceration, their need for revenge was complete. They still watched out for any Blackwood boys in need of help, but for the most part, they were at peace.
“There is a crowd,” Anthony said as they arrived.
“I can’t believe you actually got some of the ton here, Jamie. Not only that, they are standing about outside, in a part of London I daresay they have never frequented,” Toby said.
“I am charming and persuasive when required.” He took in the elegant carriages and their owners milling about before the clinic.
“Really?” Anthony said. “I have yet to see that side of you, Jamie.”
“Very amusing.” Jamie dismounted, handing Archie’s reins to a boy, whom he handed a coin for his troubles. His friends did the same.
Alice had agreed when Jamie said they needed to get support from other wealthy noblemen.
There were good people who walked among them in society, and some he knew would be willing to help fund more clinics in the areas of London that needed it most. Especially after the success of Alice’s first clinic.
So, they had worked out with whom they wished to speak, and then had done just that. Alice laid out what she hoped to achieve and explained the requirements. Not everyone they approached had agreed, but most had. They were here today to see what their money had produced.
With his friends, he made his way to the building, nodding to those he knew, and offering smiles and explaining the clinic would be open shortly.
“Jamie!”
Turning, he found his sisters approaching.
“How is it that you are here?” Jamie asked after hugging them. His friends greeted Hannah and Briar the same, as they’d grown close over the years.
“Alice has been corresponding with us, as she is far more diligent in her letter writing than you are,” Hannah said.
He had no answer for that because they were right. Jamie loathed letter writing.
“So we decided to come to London and stay with you for a few nights. The rest of the family will arrive tomorrow,” Briar said.
“And when were you to notify me of this?” Jamie asked.
“We’re telling you now,” Briar said.
“We went to your townhouse first, and your staff are getting things ready as we speak. Plus, your cook is making plum cake, as she’s the best at it,” Hannah added.
“Now go inside and do what you must, and we shall await you out here. I’m sure Alice will speak like she does everything, magnificently, and we shall cheer loudly. ”
“While you stand at her side basking in her magnificence,” Briar added with a cheeky smile, which had Anthony and Toby snorting.
“I’m sure you love my wife more than me,” Jamie said.
“Oh, we absolutely do,” Hannah said.
Jamie reached for her, but she danced away, eyes twinkling. “Love you, brother.”
He looked at his sisters and said, “I love you both too. You two, however,” he said, pointing to Anthony and Toby, “I’m not sure why I put up with. But you are right; I must find my wife. You four behave while I do so.”
“We shall mingle and make everyone happy until you and Alice make your entrance… or exit, as is the case in this situation,” Toby said.
Next to greet him was Aunt Gwen. She was with Anthony’s aunts. All insisted on hugging him, and then fixing his necktie, wafting their scent up his nostrils as they did so.
“We have just arrived and will stand with my nephew and your sisters, Jamie,” Lady Petunia said. “But don’t keep everyone waiting, as Captain Haleigh has that condition, you know. He can’t stand for too long.”
“Well, at least if something happens, he’s in the right place,” Jamie added.
They thought that hilarious and were still giggling as they headed in a gaggle toward the others.
The clinic’s entrance hall had been transformed when Jamie entered.
High ceilings and walls were whitewashed.
The scent of new paint and beeswax mingled with something faintly medicinal.
Tables lined one wall, set with pamphlets and ledgers.
To the right, doors opened into treatment rooms, where white-aproned attendants stood ready beside polished brass instruments and neat rows of bandages.
And in the midst of it all was his love.
Jamie’s heart gave a lurch as he studied her. She was talking to Dr. Hughes, her hands waving as she did when excited.
His fiery wife, who never took a step back when a forward one was offered. Like him, she’d changed. Love and support had helped her to be the woman she was today. Alice smiled more freely and laughed openly and saved all her love for Jamie.
Her dress was lilac, and among the white-clad medical staff stood out, but then to his mind, she always did. Besotted fool that I am.
She turned at that moment, and when her eyes met his, the bustle and chatter around them faded to nothing.
There it was again, that steadiness he always felt when she was near. One glance, and the restless, angry boy he’d once been vanished.
Alice’s lips twitched as he reached her. “Late,” she murmured when he leaned in to kiss her cheek.
“Barely,” he murmured back. “Blame Toby.”
“Do your friends know you always blame them for your tardiness?”
“Of course, because they do the same.” He caught her hand briefly, just long enough to feel her fingers squeeze his.
“Right then, let’s go outside and open this place before there is a riot,” Jamie said. “But I must warn you, my sweet, that there are quite a few society members out there.”
“Really?” Her lovely eyes widened.
“Really, and that is why we will make haste, as it’s not an area many are used to frequenting.”
“And as they opened their purse strings to help us get this clinic up and running, we will not leave them standing for too long?”
“Exactly,” Jamie said.
Leading Alice through the front door, he stepped back to stand with Anthony and Toby. He and his friends may have provided some of the money, but this was her achievement.
The crowd had grown, he noted. A small line had formed a short distance away, those waiting, careful not to step too close to the clinic’s benefactors.
They did not wear elegant fashions, but rather threadbare coats and patched skirts.
Faces hollowed by worry, shoulders stooped from long days and longer nights.
“Clearly, they know the clinic is opening soon,” Anthony whispered into his ear.
“Thank you all for coming,” Alice said, stepping forward to look at those assembled before her.
“There are many, many people who live within walking distance of us today, who were not born into privilege or can readily seek medical help. It’s my hope that for a few, we can change that with this clinic. ”
She was magnificent, Jamie thought proudly, clapping loudly along with the other guests when Alice had finished talking.
Some polite, some genuine. The wealthy smiled as if they’d discovered philanthropy for the first time.
But the locals like the mothers clutching their children, and the old men leaning on sticks—their faces told a different story.
Wonder, disbelief, and something dangerously close to hope.
Jamie’s throat tightened. He’d spent years surrounded by privilege, insulated by power. He’d worn his title like armor. And yet, standing there, watching his wife bridge two worlds with nothing but compassion and determination, he realized how thin that armor was.
When the speeches ended, the crowd began to move inside, curious to see what was beyond the facade.
He turned to Anthony, who stood beside him with Toby. “Did you believe we would ever one day be here? We were unfit for anywhere but hell for a while, but—”
“If you say the love of a good woman again, I will hit you,” Toby added.
Jamie laughed. Blackwood Hall had tried to break them and had nearly succeeded. But the scars that had once marked them had now become their strength.
“Do you recall,” Toby said, “that miserable classroom where we were locked for days without food?”
“I try not to,” Jamie said dryly. Searching inside himself, he felt nothing but pity for the boys they’d been. The anger had gone.
Toby’s smile was grim. “I thought then we’d never be free. And now look at us. All married to women far too good for us.”
“Speak for yourself,” Anthony said, though his grin gave him away. “And now we had better mingle, or Alice will scold, and then tell our wives, as they meet often at the book club my aunts lured them into.”
Anthony and Toby drifted off to speak with patrons, leaving Jamie to wander back inside. Alice joined him a few minutes later, her hand light on his arm as they stood to one side of the room and looked at the guests mingling with the clinic staff.
“I’m so proud of you, Alice.”
“I’m proud of us,” she countered. “Proud of the people we have become together.”
“Together,” he agreed. “Now, and always.”
“Do you ever think of Blackwood Hall? Do Anthony and Toby?”
“Every day,” he said. “But it no longer owns us. We can now speak to each other freely of that time, and there is healing in that too.”
Alice rested her head on his shoulder briefly.
“You’ve done something extraordinary here, Alice,” Jamie said.
“We,” she insisted.
He turned her toward him and kissed her, brief and over in seconds. Someone gasped. Someone else tittered. But Jamie only smiled against her lips. Let them talk. He was a marquess. More importantly, he was her husband.
“And now that I’ve disgraced myself, I will mingle,” Alice said, her cheeks flushed.
“Disgracing yourself in public again, Stafford?” Toby asked as he arrived with Anthony.
“Tradition,” Jamie said. “You’ll recall it started at my wedding.”
Anthony nodded. “I’d like to make a toast.”
“You don’t have a drink in your hand,” Jamie added.
“To hell with tradition. I’d like to say, to the friendships that kept me sane, and alive, and to the women who saved us from ourselves.”
Jamie raised an imaginary glass. “To that.”
They clinked the air between them, the gesture simple but weighted with everything they’d endured. The years at Blackwood, the fights, the nightmares, the redemption.
Behind them, the clinic buzzed with life. Soon, the first patients would be seen. The future was not perfect, but it was theirs and so much better than he’d ever thought it would be.
Jamie looked at Alice once more, her face alight with purpose, and realized that the hell inside him had truly gone quiet, and the future dawned clear and bright with the woman he loved.
The End