Page 34 of Gentleman Jim

At this, Vickers was properly horrified. “I say, St. Clare, you won’t be obliged to spend much time in that fellow’s company, will you?”

St. Clare grimaced. “Good lord, I hope not.”

“I’ll say this.” Allendale addressed his grandson with a measure of pride. “If they’ve come up to town expecting to rattle you, they know better now. By gad, sir, but you can keep your countenance. Such phlegmatic coldness I’ve never had the privilege to behold. I would have done well to follow your example. I might have done, too, if that woman hadn’t had the effrontery to mention my son to me. And then that whelp of hers, calling himself a Beresford! I was hard pressed not to throttle the pair of them.”

“They’ve taken a house for the season,” St. Clare said. “In Half Moon Street, I believe.”

“They may engage as many houses as they please,” Allendale replied acidly, “but if they think to presume upon my acquaintance—”

“Unless you intend to give them the cut direct, you must acknowledge them some time or other.”

Allendale glowered at this bit of reasonableness. “Off with you. Go call on some of the young ladies you’ve met or take a gel for a drive. After what I’ve seen today, if you don’t soon make some advances toward matrimony, I shall be forced to take a wife and sire the next heir myself.”

Vickers stifled a choke of laughter. “He wouldn’t, would he?” he asked as they made their exit.

St. Clare shook his head. He didn’t elaborate. Unbeknownst to Vickers—or to society at large—a carriage accident during the early years of Lord Allendale’s marriage had robbed him of his ability to sire more children. He’d fathered only the one: James Beresford.

If the line was to survive, it must continue through James’s son. Through St. Clare himself. Indeed, it was the sole source of St. Clare’s value to his grandfather, and one that Allendale took pains that St. Clare should never forget.

As if he ever could.

Dr. Felix Hart was by no means the most fashionable physician in London, but after he spent an hour examining her, Maggie was convinced he must be the most thorough one. He was a young man with a kind face and a slow, thoughtful manner. He didn’t merely listen to her heart and her lungs, he asked a great deal of questions, and unlike the village doctor who had treated Maggie during her illness at Beasley Park, he seemed to be more interested in her answers than in the sound of his own voice.

Looking at him now, sitting across from her in the Trumbles’ library, his hair sticking up at odd angles and his spectacles twinkling in the sunlight that shone in through the tall windows, she felt a guarded sense of hope.

“Cases like yours are all too common, Miss Honeywell,” Dr. Hart said as Jane handed him a cup of tea. “Well-meaning family, and if you’ll forgive me, wrongheaded country physicians, who respond to any near brush with death by wrapping the patient in cotton wool. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it one hundred times, the sooner one resumes their normal day-to-day activities after such an illness, the sooner one is restored to health.”

“But how can I resume my normal life?” Maggie asked. “I’m not bedridden, it’s true, but I’m far from being able to walk all over the countryside, or gallop my horse, or any of the number of things I was used to do before I fell ill. Why, I nearly fainted after a simple stroll in the park last week.”

Having finished presiding over the tea tray, Jane took a seat beside Maggie on the library sofa. “Margaret is light-headed and faint whenever she overexerts herself. It’s my constant fear that she’ll swoon during one of our outings and crack her head open on the paving stones.”

Dr. Hart nodded in sympathy. “You are weak, Miss Honeywell. That I will not dispute. But while there’s certainly a portion of your weakness that can be attributed to the influenza, the majority, I believe, is a result of three years of enforced invalidism.”

Maggie listened as the doctor went on to explain how her already weak lungs had been made weaker still by her lack of activity, and in his opinion, two successive bouts of mourning that had kept her confined to the house with little opportunity for fresh air and sunlight—two items he deemed essential for recovery from any illness.

“I don’t hold with keeping my patients in darkened rooms with fires burning all year round. The outdoors is the place for healing. The countryside, ideally. Fresh air, sunlight, and short bouts of exertion several times each day. A turn about the garden, perhaps, or a walk down the drive. It needn’t be strenuous.”

“Then you believe Margaret can recover?” Jane asked. “That there’s a chance she’ll be well enough to do all that she did before?”

Dr. Hart scratched the side of his nose. “Well…No. Not precisely.” He looked at Maggie. “By your own description, your life preceding the influenza was a very active one. It’s unlikely you will ever be strong enough to resume that level of vigor. But you’re still relatively young. There’s no reason to say you won’t recover enough to ride again or to go for walks. It’s a matter of building your strength by slow degrees. Pushing yourself just enough without going too far, if that makes sense.”

The doctor remained another quarter of an hour, outlining his course of treatment while he finished his tea. He might have stayed longer if the butler hadn’t entered to inform Jane that Lord St. Clare and Lord Mattingly had come to call.

“I told them that you were not at home to callers today, Miss Trumble, but…” He gave a discreet cough. “Lord St. Clare was most insistent that I tell Miss Honeywell he was here.”

A smile threatened at the edge of Maggie’s mouth. In the week since St. Clare had first taken her driving, she’d seen or heard from him nearly every day.

One morning he’d contrived to accidentally run into her and Jane at Hookham’s Library. Another morning he’d crossed their path as they were exiting a shop in Bond Street. He’d twice sent her a large bouquet of flowers. And on two separate occasions, he’d come to call on her in Green Street.

Their interaction in town had been limited to a cordial greeting and an equally cordial “I’m obliged to you, my lord” when he’d offered her some assistance. Whether it was reaching a book for her from a high shelf at Hookham’s, or handing her up into the barouche outside the milliner’s in Bond Street, St. Clare never lost an opportunity to do her some little service.

All the same, it was clear to Maggie that what St. Clare really wanted was a moment alone with her. Another chance to talk as they’d done that day in the park. She suspected it was the reason for his calls to Green Street.

Thus far, he’d been consistently thwarted in that regard. His visits to the Trumbles’ townhouse had been brief and heavily chaperoned. Not only had Jane been present, but Jane’s aunt Harriet as well, and on the second occasion, even George.

As a result, St. Clare’s conversation had been restricted to the veriest commonplace. He’d talked civilly with Jane and exchanged a dry witticism or two with George, all while keeping his voice low so as not to disturb a sleeping Aunt Harriet. When he’d addressed Maggie at all it was to remark on such unexceptionable topics as the weather or the quality of the new hunter he’d lately purchased at Tattersall’s.

He was courting her, to be sure, and his conduct in doing so was beyond reproach. But Maggie could see that he was becoming frustrated with the excessive formality.