Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Ten minutes later, we’re in the coach. We still don’t know why. Gray tried asking the driver whether there’d been a death in the family, but he said he didn’t know anything about that—Lady Adler just told him to fetch Dr. Gray immediately.
While sitting across from me, Gray explains that Lord and Lady Adler own two homes—one outside the city and one in the Sciennes district.
That surprises me. Sciennes is an unusual part of what I would consider the Old Town.
At one time, it had been mostly mansions and large homes.
But after the New Town emerged, people fled over the Mound to escape the growing congestion and attendant poverty.
So many of those grand homes have been replaced by tenements.
To be clear, “tenement” is just the period-appropriate word for apartment building.
It doesn’t have the connotations it does in the modern world, but given the overcrowding of those buildings, I can see where those connotations came from.
From what I can recall of Sciennes in my day, it’s mostly apartment buildings and row houses.
Being close to the university means it’s heavily student housing.
On a modern-day visit to Edinburgh, I once wandered into a section of stately homes right beside the student housing, and a middle-aged blond in expensive athleisure came down her drive to ask if she could “help me.” I’d said no, but she stood on the sidewalk and watched me like I was wearing a ski mask and carrying a rucksack over my shoulder.
As Old Town neighborhoods go, this is a decent one.
Even those tenements are mostly—for now—occupied by lower-middle-class families.
One building I do know in twenty-first-century Sciennes is the historic A division police office, designed in the Scottish baronial style.
In my time, it’s been converted to apartments. In this time, it doesn’t exist yet.
It’s the Adlers’ Sciennes house where we’re taken, and when I see it, I recognize it as the same house that self-appointed neighborhood-watch woman came from.
The structure itself wouldn’t otherwise have caught my eye—it’s a very basic stone box of Georgian architecture.
What I notice now are the gardens. It’s a country-house oasis in the heart of a city so smog-filled it’s already known as Auld Reekie.
The house is on a small piece of property, but every bit of it has been terraced and planted, and in July, it’s a riot of color.
“You know, if you want gardens at the town house, we could plant more,” Gray says as he catches me ogling the flowers.
“We have a lovely garden.” I smile over at him. “We even have a poison garden.”
“True, but you cannot sit out in it. Not safely. I know you do like to sit in the garden, when the weather is fine.”
He leans across the space between our seats. “Gardens are not something my mother or sisters ever cared for, beyond the more pragmatic plants for medicines and such. But it would be easily done. I noticed how much you admired Dr. Rendall’s country garden last month.”
“I’m a terrible gardener.”
“We have Mr. Tull, and you know he is always asking for more work to fill his hours. He would be delighted if I commissioned a garden. Whatever you like.”
When I don’t answer, he leans further, lowering his voice as if we might be overheard.
“It is your house, too, Mallory. I wish you would make it your own. You will not decorate your bedchamber, much less move down out of the attic. May I give you this? A garden?”
I want to say yes. That’s the obvious response, isn’t it? Gray’s expression says the offer is genuine, even hopeful. Mr. Tull would appreciate it, as would I.
So why do I hold back?
Because it’s not my house, and that isn’t me being difficult or pedantic.
Isla and McCreadie are deep in their romance, and I am so happy for them.
On a selfish note, though, I’m terrified for me.
They will marry. It’s only a question of when, and I suspect it won’t be a long courtship.
They’re in their thirties and have been in love for years, meaning there will be neither a need nor a desire to wait.
Isla has already been slowing every time we pass a baby pram, and while she’d never admit it, I know that’s her dream.
To marry and start a family as quickly as possible.
I can’t keep living in the town house once Isla is gone. As eccentric as the Gray family might be, that crosses a very clear line of propriety. Gray is unmarried. Without Isla, there is no “woman of the house,” and if I am no longer a maid, I must go.
Even having me continue to work there would be problematic when Gray’s business is in his home.
I couldn’t live in the town house. I probably couldn’t work there. I certainly couldn’t hang out there in my free time, as I do now.
Gray has a solution for this. We should get married.
Yep, an old-fashioned marriage of convenience.
I consider myself a practical person. I am also, however, a terrible romantic, and those two parts clash here. I’m horrified by the thought of marrying him.
Horrified because I don’t think of him that way? Nope, and that’s the problem. I absolutely do think of him that way, however hard I’ve tried to stop.
Maybe marrying a guy you’re secretly crazy about seems like the perfect solution.
Every romance-novel marriage of convenience tells me this will go smashingly—we’ll marry and he’ll fall madly in love with me.
That’s the fictional version. The real-life one is that he sees me as a platonic friend, and that isn’t going to change with a wedding ring.
I don’t want to marry a guy who doesn’t love me. And I sure as hell don’t want to marry a guy I’ve fallen for who doesn’t feel the same way.
But after my initial horror—and epically bad reaction—I’ve agreed to consider it if we can’t find another solution. And so far? We can’t find another solution.
So when Gray wants to build me a garden, it’s like seeing a shimmering fantasy . . . and knowing I can’t have it. The garden, maybe, but not the life to go with it, at least not in the way I want.
Luckily, I’m saved from a response by the driver, who has stopped the coach and is now opening our door.
Gray sits up quickly before he’s seen leaning intimately toward me. Then he exits first and helps me out. When we turn, the front door to the house is already open, a butler standing stiff in the entryway. I can’t read the man’s expression, but when we approach, his cool gaze lights on me.
“I realize the hour grows late, sir, but Lady Adler expected you to come alone,” he says, in a tone that suggests Gray rolled out of bed and brought his lover.
“This is my assistant, Miss Mitchell.”
A long silence, equally frosty with reproach.
We deal with this all the time. I don’t look like Gray’s assistant; therefore my position must be a facade, hiding our true relationship.
Or, at the very least, while I think I’m his assistant, he really only hired me to get in my drawers.
Salacious rumors about us abound, and nothing we do squelches them.
“I am also a companion to his sister, Mrs. Ballantyne,” I say. “I reside in the family home she shares with her brother.”
His look softens. “Mrs. Ballantyne is a fine woman.”
“She is,” I say.
He nods, accepting this explanation for why I’d be with Gray at this hour, and as he ushers us in, I am reminded yet again of how things will change when Isla is gone.
“Before we see Lady Adler,” Gray murmurs, while we follow the butler down a long corridor, “your driver was not able to tell me the circumstances regarding this late-night call, and I fear the worst. I should like to be prepared. Has there been a death?”
“I would not know, sir.”
Gray and I exchange a look. If someone in the household has died, all the indoor staff would know it.
We continue down the corridor. It is oppressively dark, with only a few gas fittings, the light sputtering and hissing.
I can barely make out portraits on either side of the hallway.
The doors we pass are all locked, and if this weren’t a respected patron of Gray’s, I’d be questioning this journey down a foreboding hall.
When the butler finally stops at a door, it too is closed. He raps twice. A man opens it. Dressed as if for a formal dinner, he’s in his late thirties, tall and broad-shouldered, with a solemn expression and guarded eyes.
“May I introduce Dr. Gray, Mr. Parsons,” the butler says. “And his assistant, Miss Mitchell.”
“Yes, please, come in.”
The man steps back. Inside, it’s even darker than the hall. Every drape has been drawn, and the room is lit only by candles. I can make out a table ringed with people. At the head of it is a white-haired woman with a cherubic face, dimpled and button-nosed, her brown eyes glittering.
“Dr. Gray,” she says, reaching out.
He walks over and lifts her hand to kiss it, making her titter. “Lady Adler. I hope you are well.”
“As well as can be expected under the circumstances.”
“I understand,” he says, as if he actually does.
I certainly don’t. I discreetly scan the room for clues. When Mr. Parsons met us at the door, he looked solemn, but Lady Adler—despite her words—is positively vibrating with excitement.
As I noted, the curtains are all drawn, and the gaslights are off, with candles flickering instead. The room is dominated by a long table with a black cloth, which suggests mourning, but no one is in mourning clothes.