Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Ellen shook her head, certain she was dreaming.
But no, she sat in a hansom cab leaving Mayfair and headed to Amelia’s dispensary with her husband in tow. This day hadn’t exactly gone to plan.
Her father hated confrontation, so she thought she’d escaped any consequences a full week after her disappearance from the dinner party when he hadn’t said anything.
Turned out he was biding his time. Either that or her mother was put out enough to force his hand.
Before she’d fully dressed for the day, he had knocked on her door and informed her that her hobby was taking too much of her time and she needed to slow down.
Ellen had argued, explaining it wasn’t just a hobby, and her patients needed her.
But he’d merely said the weekly pin money they provided would be disappearing.
Ellen relied on that to pay cabs, and she couldn’t walk everywhere, especially at night.
She also used it to pay for the postage to France.
He suggested taking her on a trip abroad to separate her from her charges.
And so she’d tossed the rest of her clothes on, and practically ran to Mark’s home—her old home, from their married days—and demanded her freedom through him. Which was ridiculous, that even to claim her independence, she needed a man to back her up. But such was life.
Ellen hadn’t intended upon seeing him ever again, after that conversation at Constance’s cemetery.
The anger and hurt that welled up every single time she saw him was a wave engulfing her and bashing her against rocks.
She couldn’t breathe through the storm of grief.
Somehow she’d stood in his bedroom, demanding he listen to her.
And he had. That was the shocking part.
No, he’d always feigned being a good listener. That was how he’d seduced her into marriage in the first place. The shocking part was this time he truly paid attention—and cared.
Ellen glanced at him from the corner of her eye, sitting there as handsome as a bluejay, relaxed as if he belonged beside her.
Her face heated again at the memory of him half-dressed.
She didn’t remember much of him at age twenty, when they’d first wed, though he’d certainly been attractive enough.
But now. Well, eight years in the Navy had certainly grown his muscles.
And that little fuzz of sandy chest hair, the exact shade as the hair on his head, trailing down past his navel and into his trousers—her stomach flipped at the sight.
And those broad shoulders! And those biceps, full and flexed and so strong as he crossed his arms across the bare expanse of his chest. A chest she’d laid upon.
Kissed. Licked, once. A chest that had grown slick with sweat when he’d loomed over her, thrusting into her and making her feel all sorts of pleasure and sensation and delight and—
Ellen broke off, putting cool hands to her cheeks.
Lord, what is wrong with me? She remembered he was a very good kisser, too.
She thought of their last kiss, though she hadn’t known it would be their last at the time.
It had been simple and sweet, with his warm lips melting atop hers, his throaty chuckle at how she’d so eagerly responded to him by grabbing his shirt collar.
“You are a married woman,” Mark broke into her thoughts.
Ellen sucked in a deep, cold breath of air. She fought to regain composure, determined that he would never, ever know how much he still affected her. It was humiliating to be lusting after the man who’d broken her heart.
“What I don’t understand is how your parents can limit your independence. If I recall, our marriage contract stated you had access to your yearly allowance as soon as the ink was dry in the register. And why are you—were you—living with your parents anyway?”
Grateful for the change in subject, Ellen tried to remember her reasons. “I moved in with them the week before Constance was born. I didn’t want to be alone during my confinement. And when she was born still, they didn’t trust me to be alone.”
Mark made an uncomfortable sound in the back of his throat.
Part of Ellen wanted to shield her brokenness from him, but the other part of her decided he didn’t get to be shielded.
He didn’t deserve it. “For six months I was never alone. They found me on a balcony in the middle of the afternoon. I don’t even remember it, but my mother was convinced I was about to jump. ”
Mark stilled beside her.
“So whenever I was in a room, the door was never allowed to be shut. Whenever I bathed, my mother’s lady’s maid sat and watched.
My father had the footmen cut my food for me before serving it.
” She could recount the aftermath calmly, as if reciting from a textbook.
Ellen watched the black horse’s ears flick as a fly tried to land on them.
Mark opened his mouth, then closed it.
“And then, after the worst passed, and I was busy helping Amelia, I realized any money I didn’t use on my household, I could give to the dispensary. Living with my parents meant any servant wages or candle and food bills, even coal or gas, could be saved and sent directly to Amelia.”
“I sent you my wages every quarter,” Mark said quietly. “Into the bank account you had access to. I know I didn’t make much as a midshipman in the beginning, but it would’ve been enough to keep our household running on top of my allowance.”
“I didn’t want your money.” Ellen didn’t mean it as a barb, but he flinched all the same. “It’s sitting in your account, untouched.
“My parents cannot cut my funds from me, but they can make it much harder for me to access them. They don’t mind when I attended lectures, or even when they thought all I was doing was rolling bandages for New Women’s Hospital.
But when they realized I’m pestering prestigious doctors in France with my questions, or when I’m slumming with the rabble, that bothered them.
So they asked the bank to give me my allowance monthly, rather than quarterly.
And require me to come in person to collect it.
And bring all sorts of paperwork to confirm my identity. ”
Mark snorted.
Ellen smiled despite herself. “It is tedious,” she agreed.
“Providing documents in triplicate every month, then never knowing when the account manager is gone for a long lunch or out sick. It slows things down. I try to spend nearly two hours every day with my babies until they reach their full-term date. They have to be watched constantly for signs of cyanotic attacks, and it’s too much to ask a new mother to do that.
So it’s frustrating that going to the bank pulls me away from my work, but I try not to let on to my parents.
Besides, their attempts shall never work. ”
Mark hesitated beside her. “What’s a cyanotic attack?”
“Simply, when the baby struggles to breathe. We lose most of our infants that way. Their lungs just aren’t ready for our world, and their little hearts struggle to circulate the oxygen properly.
” Despite the topic, she turned to him and smiled.
“No one has ever asked me what that means before. Besides the new parents, of course. Either, like Amelia and Mrs. Daugherty they already know, or, like my parents and their friends, they don’t care. ”
“I care, Ellen.”
She felt his gaze on her face, and she didn’t dare look at him, in fear of what she might see reflected in his eyes.
She hadn’t realized how unsupported she’d felt until he’d said those three words.
It was like…having a wound tended. Sometimes a wound’s ache would dull, the nerves too exhausted to continue radiating pain.
But when it was cleaned and bandaged, even gentle care would agitate it, reminding the body of its injury.
A lump welled in the back of her throat, and her eyes burned with unshed tears.
Get a hold of yourself, Ellen. He’s not worth it.
The cab halted, nearly throwing Ellen out of the seat. Mark grabbed her shoulder, pinning her back just in time.
Ellen gasped at the sudden contact, not sure what to make of it. Hot and cold shivers ran up and down her limbs.
He released her before she could interpret what they meant. New Oxford Street bustled around them, full of streetcars and people and animals.
“Oh, look! We’re here!” She threw a shilling up through the trap to the driver. When the driver opened their door, she practically pushed Mark out. “Thank you!”
Once on the ground, Mark looked around curiously. “This is nicer than I expected, based on your parents’ opinions.”
Ellen held back a laugh. “Just wait a moment.” She walked down the street until turning onto a smaller, pedestrian passage.
It was still clean and free of drunk vagrants.
Then turned right on another street, this one dimmer and dirtier than before.
Amelia wanted her dispensary in a place the poor would be willing to go.
Plus, the rent was cheaper. Ellen knew; she paid it.
They halted outside the wooden building, and Ellen let Mark look his fill. She surveyed it with a newcomer’s eyes. The two-story building had a front with bay windows, and a sign hung above it with the symbol of a bronze pole with a snake wrapped around it.
“The Rod of Asclepius,” Mark noted. He glanced at Ellen. “He was the son of Apollo—”
“Yes, and the minor deity associated with healing arts,” Ellen finished, not looking at him.
“Though it’s also reminiscent of the time in the Old Testament when those poisoned by snakes needed merely to look upon the bronze statue and be saved.
” She stepped toward the blue door, paint already peeling from the last coating.
“That’s what the Christian and Jewish patients think of, anyway. Makes it easy for them to find us.”
Mark chuckled. “You are nothing like the girl I married.”