Chapter 8 #2
They loitered in the street, their coats damp at the shoulders, the occasional fat drop of rain splattering onto the brims of their beavers.
Julius exclaimed in delight upon spotting a coffeehouse at the far end of the block.
Though the shutters were still drawn, he assured her it would open soon, offering them an excuse to remain near.
At last, around eight o’clock, Montague emerged from his front door just as the rain eased from a steady fall to a reluctant drizzle. Julius, ever alert, sprang up and tossed a coin onto their table with the casual grace of one accustomed to lingering in leisure.
“Fortune smiles,” he murmured.
Montague strolled directly in their direction, saving them the effort of shadowing him from afar. They waited, adjusting their hats as he passed, then rose and trailed after him down the wet, echoing street.
He led them for several blocks, then turned and knocked at the door of a modest establishment. They paused at the corner until a servant admitted him, then hurried closer, glancing discreetly up at the signboard above the door.
“Dr. Walker,” Julius read aloud.
“It must be a surgery,” Audrey observed, shifting her shoulders against the scratch of the wool coat.
“Then I shall act as lookout and allow you to lead,” Julius replied, stepping aside with a flourish.
Audrey experienced a rush of pleasure that warmed her from within.
Julius had deferred to her, as a healer.
Once more, he had affirmed that he did not see her as a girl playing at medicine but as a practitioner in her own right.
It was a balm to her uncertainty. It was a tiny, precious spark of hope that she might find acceptance in Stirling after all.
Would the villagers recall how often she had assisted her father in tending to their coughs and broken bones? Would they trust her without the solid weight of his presence by her side? She did not know. And if whispers of scandal ever reached their quiet parish …
She shook off the chill that came not from the weather but from apprehension.
They hurried to the end of the block, rounding the corner with practiced caution to seek out the alley that ran behind the surgery.
It stank faintly of wet ash and horse dung, but it was blessedly empty.
With a final glance to confirm they were unobserved, Audrey led the way in.
Her boots rang softly on the slick cobbles, and she counted the buildings with her gloved fingers until she found the one.
Julius kept watch, leaning with studied ease against the wall as though they were simply waiting for someone.
Audrey spotted a high-set window, paned and shadowed. Below it, a battered barrel sat askew beside a stack of coal. She beckoned him over and pointed.
“I need that there, under the window.”
Without protest, he lifted the barrel into place and then, with surprising gentleness, took hold of her waist to boost her up.
His hands were warm even through her coat.
She wobbled slightly and gripped the ledge, but he held her firmly, the scent of rain-damp wool and warm skin rising between them.
She bit her lip. Had he nearly kissed her last night?
Was she sorry he had not?
Was a kiss an inevitable waystation on this strange, breathless journey they had embarked upon together?
Audrey forced herself to inhale and focus.
Inside, the surgery was dim. She blinked through the grime-smudged glass. A man, Montague, she presumed, lay on a treatment table, stripped to his small clothes. The pale flesh of his thighs looked cold, mottled slightly, and his rounded belly was proof of good food and richer drink.
Across the room, a narrow-shouldered man in a stained waistcoat worked over a table, grinding something to powder in a mortar with short, efficient strokes.
He scraped the resulting paste onto strips of linen, his motions brisk and unfeeling.
Then, tray in hand, he returned to the patient and began to layer the bandages over Montague’s knees and ankles.
Audrey’s stomach knotted.
“Butchers,” she muttered under her breath, remaining long enough to confirm what she already feared.
Montague’s face twisted as the compound began to leech into his flesh. The skin on his calves reddened almost instantly. That would burn. The imbecile probably believed it a cleansing treatment. Mercury or turpentine would be next, she thought bitterly.
She lowered herself down from the barrel and brushed her hands against her coat. Julius still leaned against the wall in perfect imitation of idleness, but she saw his eyes flick to her the moment she turned.
“We can return home,” she murmured.
He quirked one dark brow, but said nothing, waiting until they had reached the mouth of the alley. There, beneath a canopy of iron balconies and dripping ivy, he turned to her.
“What is it?”
“They will be some hours, so it is pointless hanging about.”
Julius tilted his head, one brow arched in silent query. The steady patter of drizzle on the brim of his beaver hat lent the moment a strange hush.
Audrey exhaled, still knotted with frustration. “That fool is being blistered for what appears to be gout.”
Julius’s face twitched in confusion, and Audrey had a sudden realization.
He had never been exposed to such travesties of treatment.
His father may have been Lord Snarling, but the earl had always summoned Audrey’s father in times of illness.
A learned man. A physician who read medical texts and used logic over leeches.
“Blistering,” she began, barely able to contain her disdain, “is when the physician produces welts across the patient’s skin by applying irritating compounds, usually mustard paste or cantharides, in an effort to draw out fever or ‘humors.’”
Julius paled visibly. The rain glistened on his lashes. “Good God.”
“It takes hours,” she continued. “It is excruciating. And it has never yielded a single consistent cure, to my knowledge. Yet the practice persists because the guild is rife with men who favor dogma over evidence. They cling to tradition like a drowning man to a plank of rotted wood. It is why Papa began seeking out medical journals from the Continent, why he experimented, tracked results, and wrote findings of his own.”
Julius appeared genuinely horrified now, his features arranged in a grimace. “What would have happened to me if you had not treated me? If I had summoned one of these … butchers?”
She did not soften the blow. “Bleeding. Or blistering. Perhaps both. A few cups of blood drawn to ‘balance your humors’ while they roasted your skin with mustard and mercury.”
Julius recoiled. “Merciful saints.”
“President Washington was bled and blistered during his final illness,” she added, her voice flat. “And thus was hastened to the grave by the very men who claimed to preserve him.”
He was silent for a long moment, his expression drawn. “I knew physicians could be overzealous. But this … this is cruelty cloaked in credentials.”
Audrey crossed her arms tightly over her chest. The discomfort of her starched cravat paled in comparison to the ache within her.
“That is what troubles me most. The patients. The innocent souls who believe these charlatans because of their letters and lineage. No one should surrender their body to a stranger’s command without understanding the consequences. Yet they do. Every day.”
The fog of her breath hovered in the air. “There are tinctures with gentler properties. Diets that could prevent half these afflictions. Herbal infusions, careful physical movement, poultices that soothe instead of burn. My father spent years refining gentler treatments. And he wrote it all down.”
She stopped. Her throat was tight. Her hands balled into fists at her sides. “I must see it published. Papa meant for it to reach ordinary people, so they might choose wisely. For if one loses one’s health, everything else is dust.”
There was a stillness beside her. When she glanced up, Julius was watching her with something fierce and reverent in his gaze, as though he had never seen her before, not truly.
“You are,” he said slowly, “a woman of rare principle and uncommon fire, Audrey Gideon.”
She startled, caught off guard.
“I have never pledged myself to anything greater than my own amusement. But when this murder is solved … I think I would very much like to assist you. With your crusade. It matters.”
A blush rose up her neck like heat from a hearth, spreading beneath her skin with a startling pleasure. She looked away, flustered, her boot scuffing at a loose cobble.
Her heart gave a silly little thud.
Heart? Oh, Lud.
Julius remained dazed long after they left the alley behind Dr. Walker’s establishment.
Her words had not merely stirred him. They had reordered something inside him. Audrey had spoken not from sentiment, but from knowledge. Conviction. Righteous certainty laced with compassion. He had never known a woman—or man, for that matter—so ferociously committed to reason and justice.
By the time they reached the rear mews of Aunty Gertrude’s townhouse, having walked circuitous routes to ensure they were not followed, he was still half-lost in the echo of her voice.
She had been incandescent in that alley.
A crusader in trousers.
And he would never again seek treatment without pausing to consider, without seeking second counsel. She had changed him. Not with her beauty, though that was arresting enough, but with the clarity of her intellect and the courage of her ideals.
He realized, belatedly, that he had been lucky. His father’s peculiarities had spared him the horrors of leeches and blisters. He had thought it eccentricity. He now recognized it as rare prudence.
And he owed that realization to her.
As they stepped through the back entrance, with the lingering scent of damp cobbles and rainwater darkening the brim of her beaver hat, Julius made his decision.
He caught her gently by the wrist.
She paused, surprise flickering across her face as her wide silver eyes searched his.
He offered no words. Only a question in his gaze. Slowly, he bent his head.
She did not pull away.
Their mouths met, soft and still.
A shared breath. A moment suspended in time.
He wrapped his arms about her, cradling her as they kissed. The chill in the air vanished beneath the warmth of her mouth and the tender, clumsy wonder of discovery. She responded with shyness.
And then she stiffened.
Gently, she pressed her palms against his chest.
He stepped back at once. Her eyes, so luminous and so stormy, locked with his.
“I must return to Stirling,” she whispered. “And I believe you wish to remain … free.”
The words rang between them with the solemnity of a vow.
She looked away, her gaze falling to the flags beneath their feet. But not before he caught the flicker of longing in her eyes.
He ran a hand through his hair. The ache in his chest rivaled the one in his healing side.
She was right.
He had made promises to himself. And so had she.
Their paths ran together for now. But every step forward was a step toward farewell.
“Deuce it,” he murmured under his breath. “It is true.”