The Forgotten Room (4 page)

Had her mother danced in the great drawing room on the second floor? Had she dined in state beneath the dark beams in the formal dining room? Lucy didn't know. All she knew was that, somehow, her past lay in this house, with the mural of a knight on the wall.

With the man whose name her mother had uttered with her dying breath.

Harry.

J
UNE 1944

Kate

A golden thread of sunlight wound its way through the side of a blackout shade, cutting a line of light across the attic room and into my eyes. It must have been what had awakened me, or perhaps it was the knowledge that I wasn't alone.

I uncurled myself from the threadbare chaise longue and its faded chintz pattern. It had probably once been a very fine chair, much used and loved, but now it was worn past its usefulness. A spring had found its way through the bottom cushion, and one of the arms hung on by mere threads. I was careful not to put undue stress—or cause myself bodily injury—as I eased myself from where I'd spent most of the previous night.

Captain Ravenel had slept deeply, mostly due to the morphine I'd administered. The previous night I'd had to reopen his wound to clean it thoroughly, and thought the bliss of unconsciousness would be a relief
to us both. The leg was badly damaged, the wound worse for having been sutured before all the bone and bullet fragments could be removed, the infection worse because of the delayed use of penicillin. I had doubts I could save the leg, but I kept them to myself. I continued to see his eyes as he'd begged me to save his leg, and I couldn't allow myself to think of failure.

I looked at my watch pinned to my blouse, realizing it was time for another dose of morphine. Nurse Hathaway, a girl just past twenty who was too young to have formed any traditional opinions about the way things
should
be and didn't seem to mind taking orders from a female doctor, had brought several syrettes of the pain medication the previous evening, sparing me yet another dash up and down the stairs.

When I stopped by the side of Captain Ravenel's bed and checked his chart, I realized that the nurse had been in while I'd been sleeping, had already administered the medication, and had placed a tray filled with a stack of gauze, cotton balls, and disinfectant on the bedside table. I grinned to myself, too thankful to try to figure out her motive.

The patient remained asleep as I slid down his bedclothes to expose his wounded leg so I could examine it, allowing a view of his body, barely covered by a hospital gown. I'd seen up close nearly naked young men thousands of times since I'd arrived at Stornaway Hospital, but this was the first time I'd felt a tinge of self-consciousness. He moaned something unintelligible and I paused, studying his features. He was almost too beautiful to be a man, but the broad shoulders and heavily muscled arms and torso assured me that he was definitely male.

My mind had always been focused on my goal of becoming a doctor, and I'd never allowed myself to be perceived as one of those silly girls swooning over a fine male form like my best friend Margie Beckwith had done since we were twelve and probably would continue to do until she finally found a husband. Her task had been made all the more
difficult by war and the exodus of most of the eligible young men from the city, not to mention her job as a librarian at the New York Public Library, which kept her surrounded by old records and other females in the same predicament.

I stared at his face, at the beautiful straight nose and olive skin, at his strong chin and dark brows, and wished he'd open his eyes so I could see them again. I quickly looked away, ashamed at how my purpose had been taken captive by the sight of an attractive male. My wavering brought back the unexpected memory of my mother and me standing wordlessly in front of this building, staring up at the windows of this very room.

I had spent a lifetime trying to understand my mother, to comprehend how she seemed to pine for something just out of her reach. I knew she'd loved my father and me, yet there had always been a barrier between us, a wall that sealed off half of her heart from us, as if she were holding it in reserve. I knew from an early age that I never wanted to be that way. And when I'd decided I wanted to be a doctor, I threw my entire heart into it. The difference between my mother and me, I'd decided, was that I didn't believe in half measures.

I studied again the beautiful man in front of me, reminding myself of all that I'd accomplished and sacrificed, and all that I could still do as a female doctor, and a familiar calm settled on me. I would do my job, and do it well, and work even harder not to derail my focus.

I took his vitals and, being satisfied with the results, I picked up his chart again from the table at the foot of his bed to make notations. Despite my frantic and constant reading of the chart during the night in an attempt to guide his treatment, I hadn't noticed his full name or where he was from. My eyes drifted to the top of the form where I'd read earlier that he was a captain and that his last name was Ravenel—a name that sounded oddly familiar. My gaze slid to the space on the
form for a first name. Cooper. And he was from Charleston, South Carolina.

He hadn't said enough the previous night for me to determine whether he had a Southern accent, but in my newly awakened imagination, I thought that he would and that his dropped consonants and slurred vowels would sound wonderful emerging from those lips.

I clenched my eyes, reminding myself to remain focused, inordinately thankful that I was alone in the room with nobody to witness my foolishness.

“Victorine.”

The word startled me, and I almost dropped the chart on the wounded leg. His eyes were open but still glazed from fever and morphine, and although I knew he was oblivious to his surroundings, the way he was looking at me made me feel again as if he
knew
me.

I placed the chart back on the table and moved closer to him. “Captain Ravenel? Can you hear me?”

“Victorine,” he said again, his eyes focused on my face, the name filled with hope and wonder, making me want to answer
yes
. But for the first time in my life, I couldn't speak. None of my resources, or my authority as a medical doctor, gave me whatever it was I needed to answer the longing in the soldier's voice. It unnerved me, made me feel the loss of something I never knew existed.

He continued to look at me as I recovered my composure and slipped back into my Dr. Kate Schuyler persona. “Captain Ravenel, you're in a hospital in New York City. Your leg is badly hurt, but we are doing our best to save it.”

As if he hadn't heard me, his hand gripped mine, and I knew I couldn't pull away even if I'd wanted to.

“It's you,” he whispered, his eyes settling on my face.

A sensation like hot chocolate sliding down my throat cocooned me
so that I was aware only of this man, and me, and the heat of our clasped hands. My logical mind tried to reason with me, to tell me that Cooper Ravenel was in a feverish delirium and had no idea who I was. But there was something in his eyes that made me cling to the fallacy that there was something more.

“I'm here,” I managed to say. “I'm here to take care of you.”

“I know,” he said through dry lips.

I knew there was a glass of water on his bedside table and that I should give him some to drink, yet I couldn't look away or drop his hand. Not yet.

His words rushed out, like they'd been held back for a long, long time, his sentences broken in the middle as he fought for the energy to speak them. “I've been . . . waiting a long time . . . to meet you.” With great effort, he lifted his other arm and touched my hair. “Take it . . . down.”

Since medical school, I'd worn my long hair twisted into a tight bun and held securely with a large comb at the back of my head. My hair was my only vanity, and I couldn't cut it even though I knew it would be so much easier than putting it up every morning. But it was long and dark like my mother's, which had framed her face with a pronounced widow's peak just like mine, and I remembered how as a little girl she'd allowed me to brush it before bedtime, giving it one hundred strokes, until it crackled. Nobody at the hospital had ever seen it down; to allow them to do so would have seemed like a nod to my femininity, an admission of weakness. I clung to that thought, the word
no
hanging on my lips as he reached for me.

“Take it . . . down,” he said again. Before I could pull away he reached up with his free hand and dislodged the large comb.

I reached up with my hand to keep it in place, but I was too slow. It fell below my shoulders, almost to my waist, long enough for him to
grab and pull a handful toward his face and breathe in deeply, keeping me pinned to his side.

“It's how . . . I always thought . . . it would be,” he said, and I heard the soft cadences of his words, his accent touching briefly on each syllable, just as I'd imagined.

As if unaware that he was hurt, and lying in a hospital bed, he moved to sit up, grimacing as the pain coursed through him.

His words startled me, making me forget where I was. Who I was. “How do you know me?” I asked, transfixed by his eyes and his accent and the way he breathed in the scent of my hair.

His eyes drifted closed, and I wanted to protest, not ready to stop staring into them no matter how inappropriate it was.

His lips moved again. “I've always . . . known you,” he said, his words slurring as he fell back to sleep, my hair sliding from his grasp.

I became aware of footsteps on the stairs leading up to my attic room, and for once I was grateful that the elevator didn't come this far. It was too quiet and I would have been aware of visitors only right before they entered.

As it was, I'd just finished twisting my hair in a knot and fastening it to the back of my head with the comb when the door was thrown open without a knock. I knew it was Dr. Greeley and didn't give him the satisfaction of turning around with surprise. Instead, I leaned forward toward the washbasin Nurse Hathaway had brought up the previous night, and dipped a cloth into the water before gently dabbing at Cooper's face. He was drenched in perspiration from the fever, and it was warm in the attic despite the electric fan I'd purchased at Hanson Drugstore and guarded greedily.

“How's the patient?” he asked, his tone carefully guarded. It wouldn't do for a doctor to want a patient to deteriorate. He picked up the chart and began to scan the latest notations.

“No change, which means he's not getting worse,” I said optimistically.

Dr. Greeley grunted, then replaced the chart on the bedside table. He crossed his arms, lifting one hand to his chin. I was sure he thought it made him look scholarly, but I had the feeling that he did it to hide the slight paunch he'd begun to develop despite his relatively young age of thirty-one. “But he's not getting better, either.”

I shook my head. “He's been here less than twenty-four hours. He's feverish, but I can tell he has a strong will. That will go far in his recovery.”

He looked bored. “Medicine heals, not wishful thinking. Eventually his leg will have to come off. I'm keeping operating room one open just in case.”

I focused on wiping Cooper's face, glad my hands were otherwise occupied so I wouldn't be tempted to throw something at the doctor.

In an attempt to change the conversation, I said, “He keeps saying the name ‘Victorine.' It must be a Southern name because it's not one I've ever heard before. Do you know if his family in Charleston has been notified that he's here? Families are usually notified as soon as the ship docks, but his situation is different because he was sent here instead of on a train home. I'd hate to think of his family worried about him and not knowing why they haven't heard from him.” I had been about to say that his Victorine must mean a great deal to him, which was why her name was always on his tongue, but I couldn't bring myself to say it. I didn't know this man at all, and there were no logical reasons why I'd be feeling a sense of jealousy toward a woman I would never meet.

“You could always write to them yourself. In your spare time, of course. I came up here to remind you that you're late for your rounds.”

I dropped the cloth into the basin and stood quickly. “Of course. I lost track of time. I'll be right there.”

“We'd be delighted for you to join us, of course. And if you need
the captain's home address, I have his personnel file in my office. You can stop by after rounds.”

I knew better than to ask him to bring it to me. The whole point of this exercise was to get me alone in his office again so he could try to pin me against his desk. This had happened twice before, and both times I'd been successful in outmaneuvering him and making it out of the office unscathed. The sheer fact that he was my superior was the only reason I hadn't used his gold letter opener for a greater purpose.

“I'll do that,” I said, my mind already trying to figure out a way to obtain the folder without having to actually go into his office. My problem was solved when I passed Nurse Hathaway on the stairwell leading toward the mansion's ballroom on the second floor, which was now used as a patient ward. I disliked taking advantage of her willingness to help, but I knew I didn't have the energy needed to fend off the doctor's advances.