Page 85 of Miss Ashbury and the Anatomy of Mending a Heart

The little girl roused her sympathies to a degree that Vera was inclined to give her anything she wanted. This was an excellent object lesson that doing so wouldn’t be beneficial for Anne; Vera would have to learn to tell her “no” and “that’s enough.”

Stephen had gone to visit Mr. Davis, who lived miles away. The man had a particularly stubborn lung condition that wasn’t responding well to medicine. Still, Stephen had left in the early afternoon and it was now full dark.

“He should be back by now,” Vera murmured for perhaps the third time.

Jacqueline said, “I’m sure he’s fine. You forget that he traipsed all over India by himself. I daresay the back alleys of Calcutta are far more dangerous than the countryside of Devon.”

“But the weather.” Vera glanced at the rain-lashed windows.

“He grew up here; he’s used to it. Besides, he has the carriage and his coat.”

There was a frantic knocking at the front door. Vera stood—she recognized the cadence of that knock, though she had no idea who caused it. There was an emergency, one that required a doctor.

“Oh, Vera, no,” Jacqueline chided. “Not in this weather.”

Vera was already striding toward the hall. She wasn’t a physician; she was no Stephen, but she could still do something to help. She’d learned quite a bit while under his tutelage these past months.

“Please,” a man was saying when she reached the hallway. “She needs help.”

“I’m sorry.” Roland’s tone was firm. “The doctor is out.”

“Roland, what is it? Perhaps I can help.”

Roland didn’t dare contradict her, but his frown said enough.

A young man dripped water onto the flagstones of the entry. He gripped his sodden hat in his hands, unintentionally wringing the water out onto the floor.

“It’s my wife, miss. She fell. Hit her head. My sister’s with her, but please, come quick. She’s not right.”

A chill rolled down Vera’s back; her stomach clenched. Head wounds were notoriously tricky. They could be nothing—no more than rest and a regimen of waking the patient—or they could be finicky and fatal. There wasn’t anything Vera could do if it was the latter. Still, there was a patient’s husband standing before her, asking for her help. She wasn’t going to turn him away.

Vera turned to Jacqueline, who’d followed her out into the hallway.

The woman frowned at Vera’s resolute expression and shook her head. “Very well, but take a footman with you.”

“My lady, Lord Winthrop has the carriage,” Roland protested.

“We have two, do we not?”

“Yes, my lady, but the curricle isn’t sturdy enough to navigate the roads in this weather. They’ll be thrown into a ditch.”

Vera nodded brusquely, already pulling on the thick gloves and cloak she kept hanging in the entryway for occasions such as these. “That’s fine, Roland. We’ll take the cart.”

“You’ll be soaked through.”

“It will make my bath all the more enjoyable when I return, then,” she said lightly.

Vera was bluffing—she didn’t relish the thought of being cold and drenched any more than the next person, but she sensed that if she showed an ounce of weakness, Jacqueline or Roland might forbid her from leaving at all.

The terror in this young man’s eyes as he watched them debate transportation affected her greatly. He kept glancing toward the door as if he longed to run back home to his wife. What was Vera going to tell him—that he’d ridden all this way, only for her to be afraid of a bit of rain?

“Very well.” The baroness nodded. “Have Mr. Frederick prepare the cart.”

Vera picked up her basket and nodded at the man. “Lead the way.”

* * *

Hours later, Vera stood and stretched, pressing a hand to the dull throbbing at her lower back. Mrs. Crawford was going to be fine, as far as she could tell. The woman had fallen on a freshly washed floor and hit her head on the corner of the kitchen table on her way down.