Chapter 16 - Stephen
Stephen gripped the reins and darted another glance at Vera.
Her profile seemed backlit by the sun—a line of gold edged her delicate features, that set of overfull lips.
In the light, her freckles looked like gold dust sprinkled across the bridge of her nose.
Her ash-brown hair shone, several strands glowing like bronze threading fresh from a forge.
For the life of him, he couldn’t understand how she’d gone overlooked in all those ballrooms. For years.
Stephen frowned, shifted on the driving board. Perhaps there’d been an outbreak of early-onset glaucoma amongst the male nobles. Or maybe it was ocular presentation of syphilis.
Or perhaps it was as his mother claimed—that the whole lot of English nobility had but a few brain cells, and they used them all upon the wrong thing.
Stephen had told Vera he wished to be friends with her, and that was the truth.
The problem was, he didn’t know quite how to manage it.
The only question he longed to ask her was an insipid, self-centered one—did she like how his valet had cut his hair?
What did she think of how he’d carefully trimmed and shaved his beard?
It had taken him well over an hour to accomplish, and he didn’t want to admit—even to himself—how often his thoughts had strayed toward Vera in the process. He smoothed a hand through his much shorter dark hair and frowned, racking his brain. What did friends talk about?
He and his physician friends spoke of medical things, but such topics would be abhorrent to a lady…
wouldn’t they? Then again, Vera had shown a remarkable aptitude for care.
Though she lacked Stephen’s education, she had an innate desire to help, to make their patients more comfortable.
She hadn’t blanched once—not even when Mrs. Edgar had been sick upon her shoes.
Not even when they were tending to Mr. May.
Perhaps he shouldn’t sort Miss Vera Ashbury into the same drawer as other young ladies. She’d surprised him, again and again. Which shouldn’t be that shocking, upon reflection. His mother liked her, very much.
He decided to test his new hypothesis; he cleared his throat. “What are your thoughts on Mr. Cardwell?”
They’d visited the man only days earlier, at his wife’s request. Vera had stood unobtrusively against a wall as Stephen performed a cursory examination of the man’s vital signs and questioned him.
Vera slid him a glance and said in a dry tone, “I think he’d stop having such bowel calamities if he’d desist with the great quantities of bran.”
Stephen laughed. He saw Vera studying him and wondered if she’d spied the lone dimple that peeked out from beneath his goatee. He was self-conscious of it—dimples, as a rule, should come in matched sets—but there was nothing he could do about it, save for growing his beard back.
“Why haven’t you married? Before your betrothal, I mean,” she said, surprising him. “Or was Samantha the first lady of your acquaintance?”
He chuffed a laugh. “I blame my mother.”
Vera frowned. “I think she’s wonderful. What’s the problem—did she not approve of your choices, or did your choices not approve of her?”
“It’s not that. When one is raised by a woman of such singular quality, it makes one realize that nothing less than a woman of singular quality will do.” Stephen glanced out over the fields surrounding them. “I thought that Samantha was that person, but she proved me exceedingly wrong.”
“Do you want to tell me about her?”
Vera’s question was plain, honest, and Stephen was surprised to find that he did want to tell her about it. He hadn’t told anyone before. Not even when his mother had asked a similar question.
“She was…in some ways, she was a lot like you, actually. In that she was helpful and kind.” He winced, embarrassed by the admission, and plowed onward, hoping that Vera wouldn’t focus on what he’d said.
“She was the daughter of a missionary, and she and her mother helped in my clinic. Her parents were good people. I think she was, too.”
Vera’s eyebrows raised. “That’s a very charitable statement, considering what she did.”
“I know it would be very easy for me to cast her as some kind of villain, but at the time, I didn’t see that she was truly miserable in India.
” He shrugged. “And not just in the general way that India makes all outsiders miserable—the heat, the smells, the great cacophony of it all. She wanted to leave just as much as I wanted to stay.”
“Then why did you come home?”
“I think her breaking our engagement, marrying someone else—it stripped me of my idealism, in a sense. I hate to say it, but it helped me grow up. Even when I left, I was still very naive.”
“How can you say that? I’m sure you’ve seen unimaginable things.”
“Yes, but in some ways, I was still a little boy, running away from home.” He glanced at her and admitted the truth. “You helped me see that, you know.”
“Me?” She straightened, as if surprised.
“That sharp tongue of yours…” He shook his head. “It helped me realize that my priorities needed to shift. Back here. To my family.”
Vera scrunched her nose as if she were uncomfortable with the notion. He wished he didn’t find it so adorable, and decided to ignore it.
He continued slowly, finding his words as he went. “There is a strange kind of entitlement that is born from coming from a happy family. You begin to believe that they will always be there, that your family will always be all right, because it began that way.”
“Your family is all right,” she protested.
“Not because of me.” Stephen straightened his shoulders as if to defend himself, but these words were true—they deserved to be said out loud.
“I should never have left after my father died. I should have been here. I should have taken over the estate, helped raise my brother. Filled in for my father where I could.”
Even he could hear the guilt in his words, but that was fine by him. He wasn’t trying to hide it.
“They are happy. Whole. Healthy.” Vera looked up at him, her eyes wide and earnest. “I was perhaps too harsh when you first returned. We didn’t start well, you and I.”
He grinned. “We certainly didn’t, but that doesn’t mean what you said wasn’t true.
Distance didn’t absolve me of my responsibilities here.
Though I am a physician, I’m also a title holder, which comes with a host of responsibilities—both of people and lands.
Even before that, I’m a son, a brother. I don’t…
I don’t think my father would have been pleased with my choices these past few years. ”
There it was—the deep, ugly fear that crept up to Stephen’s bedside while he stared into the dark of his bedroom at night, beneath the weight of his bedcovers and guilt.
“I don’t think that’s true.” Her gentle voice had him meeting her eyes once more. “Your mother is very proud of you. She was even before you returned home. By the tell of things, she and your father were nearly of one mind.”
Stephen was grateful for her words; he smiled. “There’s no way for me to know. I simply must go forward in the way I think he’d be proud of, now.”
She nodded with finality, as if he’d come to the most logical conclusion and she was proud she hadn’t had to steer him there.
“What of you?” he asked. “What are your plans for your life? Did you want to become a governess, before…?”
He trailed off, trying his best to treat her situation as delicately as any surgery.
“No, I didn’t.”
Stephen searched her face for the telltale lines of pain with which he judged every patient. Surprisingly, all he found was a slight tightening around her eyes. Mild discomfort, then—nothing more.
Vera continued, “I wanted the same thing every young lady wants, I think. Well, most ladies of my acquaintance. I wanted a home of my own. A family of my own.”
Stephen noticed that she hadn’t mentioned a husband and suddenly wondered if that was her pain point.
Had Vera had someone picked out—as he had—and the connection had gone wrong?
Suddenly, it was all he wanted to know, but he didn’t want to embarrass her, either.
He’d done more than enough of that for a hundred lifetimes.
“You wanted love,” he said carefully.
“I suppose I did.”
“Did? Do you not still want it?”
Vera laughed, but he could hear the ache riding the low song. “I am twenty-five now. Such concerns are gratefully behind me. Perhaps if my mother hadn’t been as she is, I might have had a chance, but it has been several years since I disavowed myself of the notion.”
Not completely, he thought. Otherwise, she wouldn’t care at all.
“One of my mentors—Dr. Halveston, in London—he didn’t meet his wife until he was forty-four.”
Vera smiled. “It hardly matters how old the gentleman is, in the eyes of society. Lord Fettiwig is still browsing for wife number three, and he’s not looking in the appropriate shop, age-wise. Why, he made an offer to Candace only months ago, and she could be his granddaughter!”
“Some ladies might take him up on it,” he teased. “They might do the calculations in their head and deem a year or two of misery a fair price for a lifetime of freedom and comfort.”
“If the man were guaranteed to obey the laws of nature, perhaps. But he’s outlived two of them, and both were much younger than he. I’m starting to think he might be killing them off, just for the thrill of selecting a new one.”
“A shocking assertion.”
She tilted her head. “But perhaps that will be my backup plan. Yes—I’ll train with you for three months. Doubtless you’ll teach me the recipe for a tonic that could be fatal. Then I’ll write to Lord Fettiwig myself, see if he’ll condescend to a wife as old as twenty-five.”
Stephen laughed.