Chapter 18
Mae noted with a wry sense of amusement that her hands were wobbling again. It took a second longer than usual to line the little tines of the key up with their entry into the lock, and only then because her fingers cooperated after a click of disapproval from her tongue.
She had heard many times in her life, of course, that romance was a danger to any serious woman’s vocation, but she suspected that giving a healer unsteady hands had never been quite what that warning had meant.
It made her chuckle as she dug out the gift-wrapped box from her satchel and relocked the cabinet behind her, returning the key safely to the deepest pocket in her dress.
She supposed if ever she wanted to keep her hands perfectly still again, she could always try to wedge them back into the pockets of Roland Reed’s unnecessarily tight trousers.
That thought, of course, was not helpful, and her hand gave another ticking tremor as she reached for the bannister to begin to climb up to their dinner venue in the rearranged classroom upstairs.
To her surprise, she heard Roland’s voice as she neared the top.
He was standing in the nursery, she found, rounding the top of the stairs, the door hanging open, and he was holding one of the boxes he’d brought from the pub.
“These are a special treat,” he said, pointing to the sausage-and-cheese-stuffed bread rolls inside. “And they come with a price. No wandering through the clinic after dark tonight. Are we in accord?”
She paused, her hand going still as it hovered above the railing and she listened for the answer.
“We don’t,” a small voice said.
“You won’t,” he corrected. “And I shan’t tell Miss Casper about what you’ve already done on nights past, hm?”
She blinked a few times at the chorus of agreement and thanks that followed. She was so taken aback by it that she forgot to resume motion or otherwise look like she wasn’t actively eavesdropping when he emerged, shutting the nursery door behind him.
His eyes fell on her with an immediate and easy grin.
“Precautions,” he said with a little shrug.
“Evidently necessary ones,” she managed to reply, stepping forward as he gestured toward the classroom.
He gave a chuckle, setting warm, easy fingers on the small of her back as he guided her toward the table, where he’d already set out the food on their plates and poured the wine.
“It’s harmless, really. They sit in a huddle at the top of the stairs and dare each other to go down into the dark one at a time.
I don’t think they realize there are patients in the infirmary, so the only explanation, of course, is ghosts. ”
She turned sharply toward him at that, making him laugh again.
“Ghosts are a normal part of child group dynamics,” he assured her. “Do you prefer the duck or the thimble for your seat, my lady?”
“Oh, a choice,” she said, raising her brows. “I shall take the duck for the duration of the meal, but only because I know you so covet the company of the thimble.”
“Ah,” he said, leading her to the seat and pulling it out. “You’re mistaken. It’s your company I covet, Miss Casper.”
She giggled at that. “Is this another mask you wear, Roland?” she teased, taking up her wine as he sauntered over to his side of the table and took his own place. “The dashing gentleman?”
“Hm,” he answered, plucking his own glass from the table and swirling around the red liquid within. “How do you know this isn’t me without any mask at all?”
She gave an indelicate snort, turning and dropping the gift box from Vix on the table’s edge. “Because,” she said, “in all the time I’ve had to observe you rather than speak to you, I’ve gathered quite a lot of knowledge about the masks you wear.”
He watched her, raising the wine to his lips to sip at it, his gaze steady and piercing. He took his time savoring the taste as he looked for elaboration in her eyes.
She sighed, snatching up her own glass and tipping back a gulp.
“It is obvious after a time,” she said, irritated that her tone was just as transparent as she was accusing him of being.
“When your friends are looking at you, you are ever the house cat, smiling and lounging and batting at them with your claws out, but as soon as they turn their backs, it often falls away.”
“Is that so?” he replied, soft and thoughtful. “Perhaps I should have been watching for your back as well.”
“Perhaps you should have,” she agreed. “Your determination to ignore me is the only reason I was able to see it.”
“Mae,” he said, suddenly serious as he set the glass aside in favor of the knife and fork. “I have never ignored you.”
She snorted again but followed suit.
It clearly amused him, a tiny smile playing on his lips as he cut into his dinner, a flaky pastry baked around a succulent cut of beef drowned in a glistening wine reduction, but he kept his eyes on his task, the knife moving in quick, efficient strokes, rather than looking up at her to argue against her skepticism.
It reminded her, suddenly, that she had been at a loss for things to ask him, just an hour or two ago.
She sawed off a corner of her own dinner and popped it in her mouth, leaning back in the chair to watch him at his careful, elegant dissection as she chewed.
She waited until he had arranged his plate in a new and artful preparation for consumption and had lifted the first curated forkful to his tongue before she spoke, perhaps only to goad him with the knowledge that he could not immediately slip into glib rejoinder with a mouth full of beef.
“Two years,” she said, the instant his lips closed over the fork, dimpling at the way his eyes narrowed.
“All that time and we could have been getting to know one another in earnest. Forming—at the very least—a friendship. It seems such a waste to me, you know. I am relieved that it is over, and yet, in the wake of that conversation at the church, I cannot help but wonder … what exactly changed? What could I have done earlier that I’ve done presently to have not suffered your indifference for so very long? ”
He continued to glare through his chewing and swallowing and took his time sipping his wine afterward before attempting to answer.
He took a deep breath and shook his head, extending one finger and tipping the thimble onto its side. “Many things,” he said, “have changed.”
“Have they?” she pressed. “In truth, between the two of us?”
“I have been working in your clinic,” he reminded her. “It is not the same as the occasional social event putting us within proximity now and then.”
“Perhaps not,” she allowed, “but we met under similar circumstances, did we not?”
He hesitated, looking like he wasn’t certain whether to be amused or annoyed.
He tapped the tip of his knife against his plate and shook his head, his hair catching the candlelight as he did.
“That was the trouble. That first meeting was so damned odd and I felt so … hm. I’m not certain what the right word for it is.
When that shoreman bit me, it was as though … as if …”
Mae pressed her lips together for a moment, her fingers tightening on the stem of her wineglass. “You felt exposed,” she guessed. “Embarrassed?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe. I felt thrown off-kilter, in any event, and I didn’t like it.”
“I doubt anyone would like it,” she said softly. “Being bitten by that man.”
He paused, flashing her a little sheepish grin.
“Not just him,” he said, opening his hands and lifting his shoulders one more time.
“You too. I wasn’t expecting you. I was off balance from the second I walked in that room, and I didn’t want to feel off balance again, so I avoided you. Until I couldn’t anymore.”
“Well, now, wait a moment,” she said, plucking a tiny roasted potato from her plate and biting the end off it.
“You still managed to avoid me when you came to work here, even when you were standing shoulder to shoulder with me in the same room. I don’t know how you managed that, but you did. You avoided me expertly until …”
“Until?” he prompted, watching closely as she licked a fleck of salt from her thumb. “Until when, Mae?”
It was her turn to look sheepish, her cheeks warming. “Until I showed up at your father’s doorstep?” she guessed, winning a curling at the corners of his mouth. “In my defense, Sybil arrived here and invited me directly.”
“A defense?” he returned, leaning forward and lacing his hands together on the table. “I thought the point of this entire subject was that if you had known the trigger, you would have pulled it some two years earlier.”
“Oh,” she said, faltering for a moment. “Well, that isn’t exactly what I meant. Unless you are saying that that specific sequence of happenings were required.”
He smiled. “Who can say? All we can know for certain is that they were effective as they occurred.”
“As they occurred,” she echoed, gesturing down to the tipped-over thimble. “Including that.”
His smile slipped, a little sigh escaping as his eyes fell to it, his fingers unlacing like they were tempted to reach out and toy with it. “Ah,” he said. “Vix’s meddling. Yes, I suppose so.”
“Speaking of which,” Mae said, glancing at the gift. “This may be more meddling still. She was deliberately evasive when I asked her what it was for.”
“Deliberately evasive is her default state,” he replied, giving in to temptation and letting his pinky flick out to spin the thimble. “What did she say?”
“She said it was a symbol of her confidence,” Mae replied. “And that I oughtn’t open it in public unless I wished to scandalize people.”
That gave him pause, his eyes flicking up at her with interest. “Oh? Well, now I must see it.”
She released a short little laugh, shaking her head. “That is funny. I think it was why I have been avoiding seeing it.”
“Feel free to borrow my strength,” he offered, spearing another bite of his dinner and gesturing toward the parcel. “Please.”
She gave him a look, just a little one, to let him know that he was ridiculous, and reached out for the gift, pulling it across the table and nudging her plate away so that she could remove the wrapping.
She held her breath even as she unveiled nothing more scandalous than a tasteful printed box and settled her hands on the lid, resolving that nothing inside could be as bad as the things she was imagining.
“I thought it might be a dress,” she confessed, pulling the lid away and stroking the tissue paper inside. “Even though the box is too small for that. But this is indeed from the modiste.”
“Intriguing,” he said. “Another ball gown for her scholarship ball?”
“In this little box?” Mae asked, her eyes twinkling as she peeked up at him, her hands already buried in layers of tissue. “Doubtful. How did you know she bought me a gown for that ball?”
He flashed her a smug showing of teeth. “What is it?”
She clicked her tongue, looking down as she pulled away the final barrier to answers.
She pulled out a delicate, glinting pool of golden satin edged with matching lace. Beneath it was a matching set of stays in identical golden silk, embroidered with pale blue details, wrought in fine whalebone and finished with glinting laces that looked to be woven with real fine metals.
“Good Lord,” Mae muttered, stroking her fingers over each item and glancing up at Roland just to ensure that her eyes were not playing tricks on her.
If anything, he looked more shocked than she was. He was openly gaping.
Mae blinked and looked back down at the box, finding a small handwritten note in the bottom.
Casper,
You admired this once in inferior cotton and drab blushing pink. I had it fashioned to your measurements and in suitable colors and fabric for a woman of your comport and complexion. Wear it well or I shall know.
Yours,
Vix