Book Two Sneak Peek
THE GENTLEMAN LOVES LIKE RUIN
Two years after the wedding. Hampshire. Late autumn.
The surgery on Mill Street had the best light in the village.
Edmund had chosen the building for precisely that reason—tall windows facing east, glass-fronted cabinets filled with brown bottles, an examination table worn smooth from use. The smell of dried lavender mingled with vinegar and beeswax, his coal stove crackled against the autumn chill.
He had arrived in this village nearly three years ago with nothing but a medical bag and the raw wound of a broken engagement he refused to speak of. He had needed to disappear—from London, from society, from the pitying glances of everyone who knew that the baron’s daughter had made a fool of him.
Now his name was known in every cottage for miles. Dr. Hartley, who came when you called. Dr. Hartley, who didn’t charge the families who couldn’t pay.
He had just turned forty-one years old. His hair had gone more silver than brown; his hands were steady, and his life was quiet, and he had made peace with that.
Mostly.
The clock chimed six. He extinguished the lamps, locked the laudanum cabinet, reached for his coat—
The door burst open.
Mrs. Briggs stood gasping, her round face flushed from running, one hand pressed to her heaving chest. “Dr. Hartley.” She gulped air between words. “Express rider from London. He said it was urgent.”
She thrust the letter toward him. Cream paper. The Pembroke seal pressed into red wax—a stag’s head crowned with roses.
He broke the seal.
My dear Edmund,
She’s back.
She arrived in London three days ago. Edward turned her away from the door—my own son turned his sister away, and I couldn’t do a thing.
I cannot find her. She looked like death itself. I am desperate.
You loved her once. If any part of you remembers the girl she was, I beg you: help me find her.
— Helena
Edmund read the letter twice.
Three years of silence. Three years of pretending he had forgotten her face. And now this. Looked like death itself. Edward had slammed the door in her face.
“Mrs. Briggs.” He folded the letter and slipped it into his breast pocket, his movements precise despite the tremor threatening his fingers. “I’ve been summoned to London. Send for Dr. Fenton in Thornbury if there are emergencies.”
“Sir?” She stepped closer, her brow creasing as she searched his face. “Is everything all right?”
He paused at the door, one hand on the frame. Looked back at the surgery he had built, the life he had made, the peace he had fought so hard to find.
“I don’t know.” He pulled on his hat and stepped into the cold. “I honestly don’t know.”
Then he was gone, boots striking cobblestones as the first flakes of snow began to fall.
London was a few hours away.
She was back.
And God help him, he was going to find her.