The Irish Healer (14 page)

Mrs. Fenton-Smith needed little encouragement, rushing out in a swirl of heavy dark skirts. Almost immediately a maid hurried in to empty the chamber pot.

James strode to the window, pulled wide the heavy curtains, and flung open the sash. Air, not exactly fresh but sweeter smelling than the contents of the room, blew in.

“I am sorry for being so little assistance to you.” Miss Dunne’s voice shook. “I was hoping to be stronger than I was with the young apple seller, but I am just as useless this afternoon.”

“You are hardly useless.” He faced her. In the brighter light, he could see the misgiving in her eyes. “And you are strong. You haven’t fainted,” he pointed out.

She smiled a little. “That is progress, I suppose.”

James walked over and took her hand in his. It was cold to the touch. “All you need to do is sit by the bedside, dab Mr. Fenton-Smith’s head with damp cloths, and observe if his fever seems to be worsening. Or if he begins to stir violently, suggesting he is in pain. That is it. Nothing further. I will return from my appointment with Lady Haverton as soon as possible to relieve you.”

“You should have brought Molly instead of me to tend him, Dr. Edmunds.”

I didn’t want her with me. I wanted you
.

He closed his other hand around her one, until it was cradled within his palms. “Mr. Fenton-Smith and his wife need your sort of calmness and quiet. Molly, for all she is willing, can’t provide that.”

“I have not been calm.”

“Yes, you have.”

Her eyes held his and he felt their pull, again. She drew him to her, whether she realized it or not.

“I shall try my best, Dr. Edmunds, but please do not take long.”

“Have courage. I’ll be back as quickly as I’m able.”

Her fingers trembled. If he could will strength into her, he would.

But he had little enough of his own to spare.

A medical education from an esteemed college was not required to understand that Mr. Fenton-Smith was worsening. Rachel’s own experience gave her the ability to see.

She stood up and went to the window, breathing in the
scent of coal smoke and someone’s dinner already cooking. Her dress collar choked her and her knees threatened to buckle whenever she walked across the blue-and-white carpeted room. On the street beneath her, though, life proceeded as normal. Carriages and carts rattled down the cobblestones. A nursemaid hurried by with her charge in hand. Toting a large metal tray hung on straps wrapped around his neck, a pie-man paraded through the intersection of the streets, calling out his price. All this going on while Rachel fervently wished for Dr. Edmunds to reappear so she could escape.

Pressing her back against the sill, Rachel stared at Dr. Edmunds’s patient, muttering to himself in his laudanum-induced sleep. The man was dying. Bathing his head, dosing him repeatedly, was only delaying the inevitable. And all the purging . . .

Her stomach churned as bile rose.
God, why are You doing this to me?
The thought that she might be in this room when Mr. Fenton-Smith breathed his last—when another family member would stare at Rachel with sorrow and disbelief and accusation—choked off her breath.
You let him die. It is Your fault
.

“
You killed her . . .”

The room spun and Rachel clutched at the windowsill, resolved to keep from fainting. If only she could gather her wits to think what to do, what her mother might do. Did he need more fluids or less? A tonic, broth fortified with wine? A cold bath or a hot bath? Blankets, fresh air, windows closed, leeches? She knew she should feel reassured—instead of lost and helpless—that Dr. Edmunds seemed to be no more certain of how to help the man.

A noise out on the street caught her attention. A hackney had arrived and was depositing a man onto the pavement. Dr. Edmunds was back. She grabbed up her bonnet and fled the room. She was down the stairs almost as quickly as it took a maid to appear to open the door to him.

He stepped back, startled. “Miss Dunne!”

“Mr. Fenton-Smith is sinking, Dr. Edmunds. It is well you have returned. Now I must hurry to catch your hackney before it departs.” She brushed past him, hurtling headlong through the doorway.

“But will you be all right?” he asked as she leaped into the carriage.

Rachel slammed the door behind her. “Dr. Edmunds, truly, I wish I knew.”

She rapped on the roof, signaling the driver to depart, leaving Dr. Edmunds to stare worriedly after her.

Moonlight crept along the floor and the sounds of the house dwindled until all Rachel could hear was the noise of carriages returning neighbors from suppers and fetes. Dr. Edmunds had yet to return from the Fenton-Smiths’. The staff had given up waiting and gone to bed—even Joe, who tended to scurry about in the wee hours, attending last-minute tasks. Sleep eluding her, Rachel stared up at the bedchamber ceiling until she memorized every dip and crack in the plaster. She feared the nightmares about Mary would return as soon as she closed her eyes. Maybe they would even include Mr. Fenton-Smith. The sight of
him squirming on his bed, his face beading with sweat and then going dry as chalk while he moaned and heaved, kept swimming in her brain. She should probably just get up and do some work in the library.

Sighing, Rachel threw back the top sheet and counterpane, dropped her feet to the floor, and shimmied them into her slippers. After lighting a candle, she fetched her robe and slipped out into the hallway. She was just passing Dr. Edmunds’s office at the rear of the house when she heard a key in the back door lock. She froze, uncertain whether to flee or scream the household awake. Before she could decide, the door eased open on well-oiled hinges and Molly stepped through.

“Molly! You frightened me!”

Startled, Molly dropped the key onto the tiled floor with a clatter. “Bloo . . . what’re you doing up?” She bent to retrieve the key and held still, listening to hear if the rest of the household had awakened to the noise.

“I came down to fetch some water before doing some work. I could not sleep.”

Molly closed the door behind her and threw the bolt. “Well, get some water then.”

“I did not realize you were out. Is everything all right? It must be past eleven.”

She tossed her head flippantly, the action making her wobble as if she was having difficulty maintaining her equilibrium. “It’s none of your business what I’ve been doing.”

“You should be thankful it was me rather than Dr. Edmunds coming through the hallway. He would not be pleased to find you out at such an hour.”

The maid crept close. Her eyes were watery and slightly unfocused. Rachel could smell the sweet aroma of gin on her breath. “Are you planning on telling him?”

“I would not do that, Molly, even though it is not right for you to break the rules.”

“You’re a fine one to lecture me on breaking rules.”

A frisson of apprehension shimmied along Rachel’s arm. “You have been out drinking. I can smell it on you.”

“I know your secret, so don’t be trying to scare me.” Molly inched even closer, and the stench of alcohol stung Rachel’s nose, making her choke. “I know about your trial. Oh yes, Miss hoity Dunne, come to help the master as a special assistant, has a criminal past. Wouldn’t the good doctor be shocked to hear about that? I’m thinking of telling him too.”

She had listened at the library door during Claire’s interview and . . . 
the letter
. Rachel had left it in the pocket of her apron, tossed hastily onto her bed when she’d gone to Claire’s house. She hadn’t retrieved the apron until after she had returned from Mr. Fenton-Smith’s. Had Molly been prying in her room and found the note?

Rachel hoped her expression concealed her mounting alarm. “I do not have a criminal past, so there is nothing for you to tell Dr. Edmunds except lies. And what if I told him that I encountered you creeping about in the dead of night, returning from an assignation, stinking of cheap gin? He would not be happy with you either, Molly.”

Rachel could see Molly calculating the possibility she might inform Dr. Edmunds, though in truth she never would.

The maid retreated and lifted her chin. “I’ve decided I won’t say anything to Dr. Edmunds for now. I’d rather you
worry awhile about when I might. Yeah. I think I rather like that idea.”

Molly smirked, gathered her cloak around her, and barged past. Pulse hammering, Rachel waited until the girl was out of sight to hurry up to her room. Slapping the candlestick onto the chest, Rachel grabbed her apron off the hook where she’d hung it that evening. She examined each pocket—twice, foolishly enough. No letter. Molly must have found it. Its contents would be serious evidence against Rachel. She grabbed up the candle, swept it before her. She had to hold onto hope the letter might still be somewhere in the room.

But there was nothing. Not beneath the chest of drawers. Not beneath the narrow bed. Not slipped under the rug.

Rachel’s heart sank. The letter was gone.

CHAPTER 13

Two days later, Rachel sighed at her reflection in her bedchamber’s mirror. She’d had another sleepless night, and no matter how much she pinched color into her cheeks, nothing would mask the dark circles beneath her eyes. Nothing would banish the apprehension in them either. Even the beautiful dress Claire had sent for Rachel to wear to her interview today was failing to make her feel better, feel confident.

Rachel fastened the last hook-and-eye on the gown. It was cut to the latest fashion, with a high bodice, belling sleeves closed at the wrist, and a wide ribbon of patterned cream at the waist. Its soft calico material was printed with a pale copper and red flower motif that echoed the shading of Rachel’s hair. The last time she had owned anything as handsome was when she’d turned twelve and Mother had presented her a lovely violet dress for her birthday, sewn by her own hands. Rachel had worn that dress on every occasion until the lace had frayed and the hem mended to where it had become far too short.

If Molly destroyed her reputation, though, and Rachel didn’t obtain the teaching position at the school, this dress might not ever have the opportunity to fray from too much use.

Stop it, Rachel. You are worrying over matters you cannot control. Be strong
.

Squaring her shoulders and snapping taut her bonnet ribbons, Rachel descended the rear stairs just as the hall clock chimed eleven. Out on the street, Claire waited in her carriage. Perfectly prompt.

Her brown eyes lit when she spotted Rachel.

“I see you received my gift,” Claire said as her driver handed Rachel into the carriage.

“I did, and thank you, Claire.” Rachel ran her hands over the printed cotton, smooth beneath her fingers. “It is quite fine.”

As the carriage pulled away from the curb, Rachel stared back at the house. At the face she fancied she spotted peeping through the drawing room curtains.

Claire shifted to get a better look at Rachel. “What’s the matter? Are you not happy with the dress? Or perhaps you’re nervous about the interview. Is that it?”

“Of course I am happy with the dress!” Rachel assured her. The last thing she wanted was for Claire to think her ungrateful or spineless. “And I am a trifle nervous about the interview, but that’s not what is bothering me. It’s one of the maids. Molly. She found my letter from home and now she knows about the trial.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Indeed.” Rachel shuddered, as much from exhaustion as worry. She relayed to Claire her encounter with Molly as the carriage rumbled toward the center of town. “I have not been able to sleep, petrified Molly will show the doctor
my letter. And for the past two days I have crept about like a frightened rabbit, certain I would be called to Dr. Edmunds’s office and told to leave his employ.”

“She won’t dare show him the letter.” Claire sounded convinced. “The fact you saw her coming in late, smelling of alcohol, is just as damaging to her as the little she’s learned about you. She would risk losing her position without a reference. Her threat to show Dr. Edmunds the letter is just that—an empty threat.”

“I hope you are right.”

Claire patted Rachel’s knee. “I am right. I know servants.”