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Chapter Three
The minute Doctor Newberry entered the upper drawing room, Viv relaxed the rigid smile she had in place for the Strydes. Their daily visit was most ill-timed today. Viv sat within reach of Lady Melforth’s papers and spectacles while from across the drawing room Mrs. Stryde gave one of her scolds.
“Dear Aurora, you will never really recover health without the strictest regimen of abstinence from all stimulants, and avoidance of rich foods.”
At any moment Aurora was likely to snap and send her visitors downstairs.
The doctor flashed Viv a grin that told her he was on her side. He knew the danger she faced. As active members of the London Anti-Vice Society, the Strydes must not discover Mr. Larkin below. They would use his presence as a reason to discharge Viv, and just now when Lady Melforth was at such a low ebb, she might not resist her cousins’ tactics. Viv could be sacked before she and Lady Melforth finished their London guidebook for women.
Newberry crossed the room, going straight to Lady Melforth, inquiring in his warm, direct way about her symptoms.
“Oh, Doctor,” she said. “I’ve had such flutterings and tremblings today.” Lady Melforth lay swathed in a lace wrapper against the cushions of a pale Aubusson sofa, her injured foot elevated on a peach velvet ottoman. Partly, the lacy wrapper and querulous complaints were an act Lady Melforth put on for the cousins, but Viv knew her employer was genuinely ill. For weeks now, maybe longer, Viv had been handling all of the lady’s correspondence and all of the manuscript pages of the guide and making weekly visits to Dodsley, their publisher.
“We’ll put you to rights, ma’am, Miss Bradish, Jenny, and I. Tell me what you’ve taken today for your distress.” The doctor pulled up a chair beside Lady Melforth, and taking her hand, felt for her pulse. After a silent moment, he said, “Let me send Viv downstairs to fix a soothing draft for you.” He winked at Viv.
She grinned back at him and hurried from the room. Newberry might enjoy the awkwardness of Viv’s situation, but he was willing to help. She could count on him to support Lady Melforth for a few minutes while Viv made sure Mr. Larkin was on his way.
Viv wished the Strydes were not so dogged in their attentions to her employer. Their daily visits appeared as concern for Lady Melforth’s health, but Viv was certain it was the lady’s fortune that mattered most to her persistent visitors. Viv did not know the details of her ladyship’s will, but Mr. Stryde, as Lady Melforth’s nearest male relative, would inherit the bulk of her estate. Each of the Stryde’s visits caused Lady Melforth to fret a good deal about being fair to people she didn’t much like. Why must they be so disagreeable? she would ask. The fretting made Lady Melforth uncomfortable at night, unable to sleep, her heart racing.
At the base of the stairs, Viv met her ladyship’s youngest footman, Thomas. She sent him to Mrs. Brandle the cook with instructions to prepare the doctor’s usual soothing draft. Then she squared her shoulders, and turned to the dining room. A word from Haxton stopped her.
“I believe the visitor is in the drawing room, miss.”
Viv corrected course. “He is still here then?”
Haxton nodded. “Jenny has removed all signs of the doctor’s treatment from the drawing room.”
An odd little bud of relief sprouted in Viv. She could count on Haxton and Jenny. Of course, her relief had nothing to do with seeing Mr. Larkin once more. She opened the door to the green drawing room and found him standing at the window looking down into the darkening street, his profile sharp-edged against the blackness outside. His presence added something sensual to the room with its straight perpendicular lines. It was a momentary impression. As he turned her way, she saw that he was his orderly self again, neck cloth, waistcoat, and coat in place so that no one would suspect him of having sustained a wound.
“You’ve been tended to, I see,” she said.
“I have.” He watched her cross the room. “Thanks to your Doctor Newberry.”
“The bullet did not lodge in your side?”
He held out his hand, and uncurled his fingers, revealing the spent ball in his palm. “It caught in my coat.”
“Oh.” It was no bigger than her thumbnail, so small a thing out of which to make a connection. It occurred to her that he would have expenses. “I must apologize to you again for any … inconvenience I’ve caused. You will let me know your tailor’s charges.”
She would dip into the monthly sum she sent her sisters if his tailor charged heavily for the damaged clothes. Each sister was to help the next to a new beginning in London. Pippa, at fifteen, was already dreaming of the pleasure gardens and balloon ascensions she would see when her turn came.
Mr. Larkin looked at the ball in his hand, not at her. “Your doctor friend told me I might treat this as a souvenir.” The word souvenir felt like a dismissal, as if he were already relegating her to the past, to his store of memories. And he seemed to have a wrong idea of her relationship with Newberry.
“Will you make a story of me?” he asked abruptly.
“A story?” It was true, but he had that wrong, too. Surely, there was something more to their meeting, some fated element that made it inevitable and necessary to each of them.
“The doctor said it’s what you do, tell stories to amuse your employer.” His gaze rose to challenge her, the blue intense and bitter. “Every street has a story, you said. So, am I to be the poor sap you shot in the street?”
“Yes, I might tell Lady Melforth a story about meeting you, but no, you will not be a poor sap, as you put it. You’ll be another man who thinks women cannot fend for themselves in our great city, a man who thinks we ought to stick to safe pathways.”
He moved then, coming toward her, stopping just short of the wide circle of her skirts. “What do you know of this city? You have money in your purse.”
She gave a short laugh, conscious of the awkward truth that her purse had been full of pebbles. “Had,” she recovered. “What’s money got to do with it?”
“Without it, without Lady Melforth, you’d find London a far different city. You’d know it better.”
“What?” He trivialized her stories. He doubted her ability to know the city.
