10. Sound #3
They worked together to clean and dress the wound, their hands occasionally brushing as they passed instruments and supplies. Each touch sent a jolt of awareness through Emma, but not in the same way it had during their lesson. Even her body questioned whether his touch would gratify or doom her.
She applied her special poultice—a mixture of yarrow, comfrey, and calendula she’d learned from an elderly midwife—before they carefully wrapped his head in clean linen.
Once Everett and the farmhand settled Mr Thorpe in his bed, propped with pillows to aid his breathing, Emma turned to his wife.
The woman’s face was lined with exhaustion and worry, her rough hands ceaselessly twisting her apron.
Emma felt a surge of compassion for this woman who had already endured so much.
“Now, Mrs Thorpe,” she began, keeping her voice gentle but firm, “I know this looks frightening, but we’ve done everything possible. The next few days will be critical.”
She proceeded to give detailed instructions about care and monitoring, reaching for the laudanum in her bag. As she explained the dosing, Emma noticed Everett watching her with an expression that made her heart flutter; pride mingled with something deeper, more personal.
“I’ll return at first light,” Emma promised, squeezing Mrs Thorpe’s work-roughened hand. “Remember what I said about washing your hands with soap. It’s crucial.”
As they stepped out into the bitter night air, the adrenaline of the emergency began to fade. Emma found herself stealing glances at her companion, seeing him in an entirely new light. Who was this man who could shift so seamlessly from passionate lover to skilled surgeon?
Everett met her questioning gaze, a flicker of vulnerability passing across his features before his usual confident mask slipped back into place. They had much to discuss, but for now, the weight of their shared secret, and shared success, hung between them in the frosty air.
“We make quite a team, Dr Brown,” he said softly as they walked toward the waiting wagon.
The ride back from the Thorpes’ farm was thick with unspoken questions. Emma’s hands trembled slightly as they boarded; not from the cold, but from the tumult of emotions threatening to overwhelm her carefully maintained composure.
When they reached her house, she rounded on him as soon as they were inside. “Who trained you?”
“Emma—”
“Don’t.” Her voice shook. “No more lies. I’ve seen battlefield surgeons with less skill than you showed tonight. Your technique with the trephine…that’s years of formal training. Royal College, if I had to guess.”
Everett sank into a chair, the weight of his deception visible in the slump of his shoulders. “You’re correct. I trained at St. Bartholomew’s.”
“Why the charade? Why pretend to be a—” She couldn’t even say the word anymore.
“I was sent to investigate reports of an unlicenced physician performing surgeries.” He met her eyes steadily.
The betrayal left her feeling as if the air has been knocked from her lungs. All those intimate moments, sessions discovering their desires, had they been merely a means to gather evidence against her?
“Get out.” Her voice was ice.
“Emma, please. Let me explain—”
“Explain what? How you used me? Gained my trust while plotting my ruin?” She advanced on him, fury lending her strength. “Or perhaps you’d like to explain how you justified our intimate moments as part of your investigation?”
“Nothing about my feelings for you was false.” He stood, reaching for her, but she stepped back. He tousled his hair roughly with one hand. “Yes, I came here with a purpose, but what I found—who I found—changed everything.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that? From a man who couldn’t even tell me his real name?”
“You already know my real name, Everett.” His voice softened. “Moreland.”
Emma gawked at him. “Moreland? The President of the Royal College, Moreland?”
“My father.”
Emma walked in a circle, one hand on her hip and the other on her forehead. Everett watched her in silence, looking sufficiently wretched. She was not about to forgive him considering the severity of his deception.
Everett spoke during her seventh circle. “I’ve been fighting my feelings for you since you saved me that first night. I was torn between my mission and this passion you’ve stirred inside me.”
“Your feelings?” She laughed bitterly. “Was that what our lessons were about? Love? Or were you gathering evidence against my moral character to add to your report?”
“No.” He strode over to her and stood mere inches away. Despite her anger, her body betrayed her with a shiver of awareness. “Those lessons were about this.” His hand came up to cup her face with exquisite gentleness. “About the way you make me forget everything except how desperately I want you.”
Emma's anger still burned beneath her skin like fever as she faced him, each heartbeat a war between betrayal and desire. The candlelight caught the planes of his face, highlighting the anguish there that matched her own. How dare he look at her like that, as if he were the one wounded?
"One more lesson," he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. His thumb traced her lower lip with such exquisite gentleness that her breath caught despite herself. "Let me show you the difference between lies and truth. Between duty and desire."
"You think you can seduce your way out of this betrayal?" But even as the bitter words left her mouth, her body swayed toward him like a compass finding true north.
"No." His eyes held hers with an intensity that made her chest ache. "I think I can show you that some truths live in spaces words can't reach. That what we share transcends any lie I've told.
She should push him away. Should remember every careful deception, every moment he'd watched her while gathering evidence against her.
Yet when his fingers traced the line of her neck, her memory betrayed her.
Her body remembered how perfectly they'd moved together in surgery, the seamless way they'd anticipated each other's needs.
How natural it had felt to trust him with a patient's life, even as he'd planned to destroy hers.
"One lesson," she whispered, hating the tremor in her voice, hating herself more for yielding. "Then you leave."
His smile held such sadness it made her throat tight.
"As you wish." His hands slid into her hair with devastating familiarity, loosening pins until golden strands tumbled free.
Each brush of his fingers against her scalp sent shivers down her spine.
"Though I warn you, this lesson might change everything. "
"Everything has already changed," she said softly, the words tasting of ash and longing.
His eyes darkened at her tone. "Has it?" One hand cupped her face while the other traced patterns on her nape that made her shiver. "Or have we simply stripped away pretence to find what was always true beneath?"
Emma's response died in her throat as his lips found that sensitive spot beneath her ear. Her hands fisted in his shirt, torn between pushing him away and pulling him closer.