Chapter 6
“Love is three quarters curiosity.”
Giacomo Casanova
With the weight of a thousand cannonballs pressing his lids shut, Julius opened his eyes.
The chamber was cast in soft light from the open windows, and a brisk draught stirred the air, fluttering the edge of a muslin curtain.
The door had been left ajar, no doubt in the hope of coaxing fresh air into the sickroom.
He shivered. Peering down, he realized the bedclothes had slipped, leaving him exposed to the morning chill.
His skin puckered with gooseflesh, a reminder of how near he had come to slipping from this life.
Across from him, on the dressing table, stood a tea tray stacked with cups and cloths soaked through with evidence of fevered care.
And beside his bed, slumped in an armchair, was a sleeping figure—the maiden who had remained through the night.
Her head lolled against the wing of the chair, and her mouth hung open in the helpless surrender of deep sleep.
She exhaled a soft, snorting bleat, which might have startled him if it had not been so utterly endearing.
With her tousled golden hair and the way his richly hued banyan draped about her frame, Audrey was lovely in the morning light. There was something altogether disarming in her lack of vanity, an open-heartedness that warmed even his cynical soul.
His future bride.
His wound pulsed dully, an ache more chastisement than pain.
Julius sighed. He was relieved beyond expression to have survived the night.
The fever had passed its peak, and the mists of delirium were clearing.
But clarity brought its own discomfort. He would now be obliged to deal with the consequences of his actions.
Chief among them, the inconvenient necessity of marrying the young woman who had saved his life not once, but twice.
Like his friends before him, he had stumbled into a scandal of his own making. The only path forward was the honorable one.
I am forced to do the right thing. I hate doing the right thing.
With a growl low in his throat, Julius turned his head away from the sleeping figure and toward the window, where dawn stretched its golden fingers across the rooftops.
He mourned the passing of his liberty with all the theatrical gloom of a condemned man.
Still, if he must place his neck in the parson’s noose, he supposed Audrey was a tolerable sort.
Better her than some feather-brained debutante with nothing in her head but bonnets and scandal sheets.
“You are awake!”
Audrey’s voice rang out, exuberant and bright, slicing through the hush of the morning.
Julius smiled despite himself.
“I am too obstinate to die.”
“I see that,” she returned, an impudent note in her tone. “Which means it is time to drink.”
She thrust a cup into his hand. The brew sloshed menacingly against the sides. Julius eyed the mixture with foreboding, his stomach recoiling in protest. Yet his limbs were heavy, and his body weak. She was right. He needed strength.
“Drink up!”
He tilted the cup and swallowed, wincing at the bitter taste that coated his tongue. It reminded him of earth, charred bark, and something faintly medicinal. “Faugh!”
Audrey laughed—a sweet, unguarded sound. “Now that your fever has broken, you must take that for several days to keep the infection at bay.”
“I suppose foul drinks rarely kill,” he grumbled.
“Just so.”
She moved about the room, gathering her things and returning items to her ever-present valise. In the corner, the little starling chirruped from its cage, greeting the new day with irrepressible cheer. Audrey hummed softly in response as she settled back into the chair.
“I am ever so relieved,” she said quietly. Her silver eyes gleamed with joy.
“Never say you did not want my death on your hands.”
“Of course not! You are my first patient since Papa died.”
Julius gestured toward the starling, which was flapping its free wing. “What of the bird?”
Audrey laughed. The throaty, lyrical sound carried across the room like a songbird’s trill, bright and warm in the morning stillness. Something about it tugged unexpectedly at his chest. He supposed it was a fortunate thing that he found her pleasing, given the looming obligation of marriage.
He wondered, fleetingly, whether there was any way to avoid that outcome, but no reasonable path presented itself.
“It is a pity you cannot be a physician. You are most competent.”
Her expression sobered. She slumped back in the chair, the oversized banyan swallowing her slender frame. “I could practice medicine officially if the Company of Apothecaries would allow me admission.”
Julius blinked. “The apothecaries allow women in their ranks?”
Audrey heaved a heavy sigh. “Under special circumstances, they have permitted women into the guild since the seventeenth century. I have petitioned them several times but have been unsuccessful as yet. I await a response from my most recent request.”
Julius leaned in slightly, intrigued despite himself. “What sort of circumstances?”
“Usually, it is the widow of an apothecary, if she can prove that she apprenticed successfully at her husband’s side.
The Widow Wyncke was one of the first, having worked in her husband’s business for decades.
The guild considered that he had rendered a great service to them and was favorable to her circumstances. ”
“So you wish to practice medicine?”
Audrey’s nod was enthusiastic. “Once I convince the guild to accept me, I will return to Stirling to tend to the villagers.”
Julius felt an odd relief settle in his chest. It appeared his prospective bride had no great designs on London or the ton. The daughter of a physician would be content in the country. He would do the honorable thing by marrying her but then, perhaps, retain some semblance of freedom thereafter.
“Why have they rejected you? Dr. Gideon apprenticed you from your earliest years.”
She appeared dejected. “It is politics. I cannot join the physicians without a university degree, and Papa was a member of the physicians’ guild, which is a rival to the apothecaries’ guild.
In my most recent petition, I provided them with documentation that he was a committed student of Nicholas Culpeper’s works and apprenticed me in the apothecary arts, but …
I am not certain that it will be well received.
They might be irate that he infringed on their domain. ”
“Ah, yes. The pettiness between the guilds is not to be underestimated. What will you do if they reject you again?”
She fidgeted with the tie of his banyan, smoothing it with absentminded care.
Julius found himself suddenly and acutely aware of her nearness.
He averted his gaze, uncertain why his breath had caught for the briefest moment, only to be rescued by a loud growl from his stomach, which issued a stern reminder of its unmet needs.
He sincerely hoped Patrick would appear with his tray before long.
“I suppose I shall apply again,” Audrey said with quiet resolve.
“And I will continue to apply until they accept me. I could practice in Stirling without their permission, but as a member, I would publish my father’s notes so that others can benefit from his research.
Just as Nicholas Culpeper did when he published his book to encourage ordinary people to care for their own health. ”
Something twisted in his chest. It was not discomfort exactly, more like the slow, quiet unfurling of sympathy. Or admiration.
Stuff! Audrey was now the second female he had allowed to breach his walls in recent weeks.
Fraternal bonds were supposed to be the province of men—of comrades and brothers, not women with clever fingers and wide, honest eyes.
But there was no denying that the new baroness had earned his loyalty by throwing her reputation to the wind to rescue Brendan from the hangman’s noose.
And Audrey, by charging into a street fight to protect him and then nursing him through fever, had now claimed a place in that sacred circle.
Julius was … feeling things … on her behalf.
Egad! Is this … compassion?
But how could he not feel for her? She had lost her only parent, and now she was challenging the very walls of convention to protect his legacy.
It was brave. Laudable, even. She deserved every success.
And once she won her petition, she would surely be content to retire to the Stirling estate.
As his countess, yes, but not as his companion. That would suit him well enough.
He had no wish to become a humorless husband entangled in the rituals of domestic drudgery. He certainly did not wish to repeat the pattern set before him by his own parents.
They had been happy once, his family. Laughter had filled the halls, his father had bounced him on his knee, and his mother’s arms had been a place of comfort.
But it had not lasted. As his father became increasingly entangled in his work for the Crown, joy had evaporated.
His brother Pierce no longer came home from Oxford, his little sister had vanished into the care of relatives, and his mother’s face—once so familiar—had blurred in his mind’s eye like a fading miniature.
The loss still clawed at him with a slow-burning fury.
His thoughts scattered when Audrey stood and crossed the room to ring the bell for the servants. The sharp peal broke through his memories and spared him the need to frame a response to her tale of bureaucratic resistance and unmet hopes.