Chapter Eight
The carriage rolled beneath wrought-iron gates and up the drive of a house more like a castle than anything Theresa had imagined.
Cloverdale stood tall and serene, surrounded by its own parkland, with windows spilling lamplight onto the spring dusk.
Theresa pressed her hand low against her insides.
This represented his world. And he had brought her here.
Inside, voices lifted and echoed, laughter threading with the crackle of firelight. A banquet hall had been transformed, candlelight mirrored in cut glass, a table set with more silver than she had ever polished in Oxford. And waiting—waiting for her.
John’s hand on her back steadied her. “Don’t look so frightened,” he murmured, though he looked vulnerable himself. “They’re only people. They’ll love you.”
She wanted to believe him.
A tall gentleman with spectacles and gentle hands greeted her first. John introduced him as an oculist.
His wife, the daughter of a duke and an heiress in her own right, pressed Theresa’s hand warmly. “We couldn’t be happier for you and John.”
Next, John gestured to Uncle Alfie and his elegant wife, Lady Beatrice, whom everyone called Bea.
Bea, with the poise of an earl’s daughter, bent close and gave a conspiratorial smile. “We’ll make your introductions at Almack’s. Vouchers are already in hand.”
Alfie winked, muttering about remedies if the crush of the ballroom proved too heady. Theresa nearly laughed; they disarmed her.
Next came Ambassador Stan von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Prince of Transylvania, bowing low in old-world style. “It is our honor to host a ball in celebration of your engagement.”
Wendy, his wife and director of Cloverdale House, clasped Theresa’s hand in hers. Her gaze dropped, fleeting but sharp, to the hand Theresa pressed against her belly. The nurse’s eyes missed nothing. Theresa swallowed hard.
Then the princess—Prince Stan’s sister—glided forward with her husband, an orthopedist whose hands looked more accustomed to bones than wineglasses.
“We mend people here,” he said cheerfully. “You’ll see tomorrow on the ward when Deena gives you a tour.”
Theresa’s throat closed. She had not lain in a proper bed in years, and now, a ward upstairs, a castle at her back, a marquess at her side.
Finally, Deena, John’s aunt but more like his sister, swept her into a quick embrace, laughter in her voice. “At last. He’s kept you from us too long.”
The warmth of it staggered her. Each new handclasp, each smile—like being stitched into a tapestry. Her chest ached with the desire to belong.
An undercurrent ran beneath it. Between courses, between toasts, words drifted. Delegation. Vienna. Hofst?tter. Theresa’s stomach knotted. She had thought—hoped—they were only bound for Oxford. She sipped tea instead of wine.
Someone asked, laughing, “So which comes first, John—your first day in the House of Lords, or your wedding?”
John flushed, ducked his head, but looked at her with eyes that asked what do you wish? Her heart fluttered. She pressed her hand lower, hiding what neither of them had spoken aloud.
She tried to eat. Couldn’t. The roast smelled too rich, the wine too sharp. Heat crept up her throat. She excused herself.
The cool stone steadied her as she braced against the wall, breath shallow, stomach roiling. The baby—our baby—turned inside her as if to remind her of everything at stake. If they knew. If he knew.
Footsteps. John. His face shadowed with worry. “You’re pale. What’s wrong? Did they say something to upset you?”
She shook her head, unable to confess. He touched her cheek, helpless, as if the blame might be carved into his palms.
More footsteps. Maisie, Felix, his Uncle Alfie—concern piling one voice atop another.
“Tea,” Maisie urged.
“Smelling salts?” Alfie reached for her wrist to feel her pulse.
Felix stared at her with worry until his eyes were drawn to voices down the hall.
Theresa shook her head again, mortified.
And then—another tread. Heavier.
A liveried footman in the same uniform as those in the dining room approached Felix and Alfie with a curt nod. “The delegates came unbidden and asked for a tour.”
*
The latch clicked. Theresa slipped into the little washroom off the corridor and turned the key. He heard it—a sound too final for so small a lock.
Something twisted in his chest. She had looked pale all evening, distracted, fidgeting with her skirts.
Now she was gone, hiding behind a thin panel of wood.
He moved to the door, meaning to call her name—love, are you ill?
—but a man in a surgeon’s coat advanced down the corridor, chin high, eyes bright with something colder than arrogance.
His gaze landed on Felix, then Alfie, and John felt the change at once.
Felix’s hands froze rigid on the arm of his chair.
Uncle Alfie’s jaw locked, the tendon standing out like rope.
Maisie pressed herself back against the wall as if steadying for a blow.
John’s heart kicked. “Who let them in?”
The man stopped. Inclined his head with false courtesy. “We’ve announced our inspection.” When did a visit become an inspection? “Hofst?tter, in the name of the Kaiser. Junior, if you like.”
The name landed like a blade. Hofst?tter.
John had heard it whispered his whole life, muttered with bitterness, spat in rooms where grief could not be contained.
Hofst?tter—the name that had driven his family from Vienna, the name tied to attacks in alleys and emptied practices, to Maisie’s father buried early, to Felix’s nights spent swallowing fury with a broken heart.
Now the son stood here, smiling like a man admiring his own work.
John straightened, shoulders back, spine iron. “John Spencer Marquess of Stonefield.” His voice cut the air sharp as steel drawn clean.
Another tread followed—heavier, deliberate. An older man appeared. Hofst?tter himself.
The man’s gaze swept the hall, lingering on Felix, Alfie, Maisie—then angled toward the closed door behind which Theresa hid.
“Did someone say Marquess of Stonefield?” the older Hofst?tter asked.
He heard the faintest gasp from behind the door. Theresa. He didn’t know why she had hidden, why fear had driven her to lock him out—but her absence stung.
John moved before Hofst?tter’s glance could land on Maisie and Felix, planting himself squarely in his sightline, a shield in human form.
“That’s me.” John swallowed but stood rigid. You are the reason I never met my father.
“What are you doing here?” Disdain thickened Hofst?tter’s voice, as if he had found a servant out of place.
John did not flinch. “What are you doing in this establishment?”
Silence pressed.
Maisie’s breath caught.
Felix’s mouth hardened to a line.
Alfie’s fists curled white.
John felt the weight of the corridor, candlelight flickering against stone. Felt every story he had been told—every wound, every loss—humming in the air around him.
The elder Hofst?tter smiled, thin and cruel.
John did not yield an inch. He set his jaw, voice steady. “You’ll find that our halls are not yours to walk unchallenged.”
Hofst?tter Junior smiled without warmth.
“And yet, here we are.” His accent curled sharply around every syllable, Viennese vowels clipped into something colder.
He turned his gaze deliberately past John, over Maisie and Felix, to Alfie—then back again.
“I see you keep old company. One would think London had higher standards. So sieht man sich wieder.” And so, we meet again.
Maisie’s breath hitched.
Felix shifted as if to step forward, but Alfie’s hand caught his sleeve, holding him back.
John ignored the insult because he knew the authority was borrowed.
By Metternich’s orders, and in the wake of the 1818 Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, the Austrian delegation had been dispatched to England—a gesture of goodwill and reform-minded diplomacy—to inspect British philanthropic medical institutions and report home on their wards, lecture-halls, and theatres.
“You came with your delegation. Tour the wards, the lecture halls, the theatres. But you do not insult my family in this house.” His voice deepened—more marquess than boy, more man than son.
“My dear marquess,” Hofst?tter Junior drawled, “your family are physicians and apothecaries. Worthy tradesmen, perhaps, but hardly company for a peer of the realm. Does the House of Lords know who you sup with?”
“And how many Jews you keep?” His eyes narrowed, voice slick. He appeared younger than John expected, near Felix and Alfie’s age, but thinner at the temples, his stare stripped of warmth.
John lifted his chin. “My family. I don’t keep people. I cherish them. Respect them.”
“That’s the sort of talk,” came a heavier voice behind him, “that took your father into an early grave.”
John turned.
The elder Hofst?tter stood at the edge of the corridor, shoulders square, eyes hard as slate. “I reckon you’ve never met him, never visited his grave in Vienna either, hm?”
John’s hands flexed at his sides. Rage wanted release, but Maisie’s voice lived in him: nails, John, not fists.
Build a table that will last. He drew slow breath, forced stillness.
“They know I sit with men and women of skill. With those who heal what others break. That is all anyone needs to know.”
The elder Hofst?tter’s mouth curled. “Well. We shall see what your skill amounts to. The Kaiser expects a report. We have found… troubling gaps in your records.” He let the words hang, sharp as hooks.
Alfie’s head came up. “What records?”
“Patient ledgers. Admissions. Death rolls.” Junior’s smile widened, cutting and cruel. “We are tasked to discover the truth. Some patients are never discharged. Some names… erased. If a place hides one fugitive, how can it claim honor?”
Felix’s voice was low, steady. “You mean to blacken Cloverdale House.”
“We mean,” the elder Hofst?tter said, each syllable deliberate, “to discover the fate of one in particular. Theresa Magdalena Hofst?tter, who entered England years ago and vanished. If she cannot be accounted for—dead, alive, buried, or wed—then none of your establishments shall receive recommendation. The Royal Warrant itself may be… reconsidered.”