The Irish Healer (34 page)

He released her fingers. “All this is about Mariah?”

“I do not want you to ever have regrets. I want you to be certain you know what you are asking.”

“I was certain.” He rocked back on his heels. The light in his eyes guttered out. “It’s you who apparently has doubts.”

“I just know how much your wife meant to you.”

“You do, do you?” James straightened and began pacing. “Maybe I should tell you what Mariah meant to me so you really understand.”

Rachel couldn’t bear to see him upset, and she certainly didn’t want him to notice if she began to cry, so she looked away, down at the gravel, at an insect crawling along in the detritus of scattered dead leaves. As vulnerable as she was.

“I knew Mariah since she was a little girl,” he began, like he was commencing a storybook tale. One with an unhappy ending, though. “Our families were close acquaintances and my father always adored her. After all, she was perfect—lovely, pristinely respectable, accomplished, demure. Well bred.”

“She does sound perfect.”

“Hm. Perfect.” He paused. He might have run his fingers through his hair. She didn’t look up to check. “The perfect and only possible wife for me. There was only one problem—she didn’t love me, and I didn’t love her. That’s no
great sin; many people marry without love, I know I didn’t dwell on the inadequacy of our feelings for long. Once I was financially able to set up a household, I asked for her hand, even though it meant giving up my plans to spend time in Scotland and on the Continent furthering my studies. The marriage proposal greatly pleased my father, which almost made up for my sacrifices. For once, I didn’t fail him. Instead, I failed her.”

His voice cracked. Rachel held as still as her wobbling spine would allow.

“I respected Mariah,” he continued. “I cared for her, and she was a good wife to me, but our relationship was always cool. I thought it might change when she got with child, but we’d grown too distant by then. I had spent so much time building up my practice, I hardly ever saw her. The worst of it was I didn’t realize how difficult her pregnancy had been, how weak she’d become. I was honestly surprised when she came down with the childbed fever. Mariah, afflicted? She had always seemed healthy. And then she was gone, too quickly.”

He stopped talking, and she wondered if he had concluded his tale. The clatter and hum of the city intruded in the silence, reminding Rachel that the day was advancing and she still had to wash up. Pack. Leave.

His feet came to a halt in front of her. “When Mariah died, my father was fiercely angry, utterly disgusted with me. We fought terribly for days until he stormed out of the house and never crossed the threshold again, leaving me with a newborn child and a shattered heart. Poor little Amelia, who looked exactly like Mariah from the minute she was born. Every time I saw her, I knew I would be reminded
that I had failed to be the husband I could’ve been. That I couldn’t even be a good enough physician to heal my own wife. And that my father despised me for it, which made me despise myself.”

He squatted on his heels, bringing his face level with hers, forcing her to look at him. “I hid from this garden and from Mariah’s portrait for the same reason I hid from Amelia—self-loathing. However, last night I learned that I’m ready to move past my pain. That God will give me the strength to start a new life if I’m willing to reach for it. But I want that life to include you.”

From somewhere, Rachel found breath. “I do not know what to say, Dr. Edmunds.”

“First, you can stop calling me Dr. Edmunds and call me James.” He gathered her hands to his chest. She could feel his heart beating through the layers of his waistcoat and linen shirt. “Listen, Rachel, I love you. Say you love me too. Say you’ll come with me to Finchingfield. Be Amelia’s mother. Be my wife.”

Her pulse beat in time with his, swift as a fiddler’s jig. She was tempted to fall into his arms, whisper her love, but she had to say what was in her head, not in her heart.

“There are too many obstacles. For instance, there is still my family to consider,” she said. “What of them? Would you have them live with us in Finchingfield?”

“Can you only think of obstacles, Rachel?”

“It is frighteningly easy, when there are so many,” she answered. “Such as Mrs. Woodbridge. If you still intend for her to live at Finchingfield House, how could I live there as well? She despises me and would make our lives miserable.”

His jaw set and he pulled Rachel up from the bench. He tugged her toward the house. “Come with me. We’ll attend to this right now. I did not spend last night praying for forgiveness and strength, asking God for a second chance, to have you doubt my commitment to you.”

“Where are we going?” she asked, tripping behind him.

“To talk to Sophia. Mrs. Mainprice,” he shouted, spying his housekeeper on the kitchen steps, the empty soup bowl in her hands. “Can you take a moment from tending Amelia to bring the smelling salts to the drawing room? We may have need of them.”

James pushed open the drawing room door. Sophia dozed on the settee, a lap rug thrown over her legs, loose hair straggling across her wan cheeks. He had never seen her look so exhausted.

“Maybe we should come back later,” Rachel suggested, halting in the doorway.

“Oh, no. I’m not waiting any longer.”

Leaning over the settee, he gently shook Sophia’s shoulder. “Sophia, wake up. I must speak with you.”

“James? When did you return?” She rubbed her eyes, stuffed her pins back into her hair and slowly sat up. “Amelia isn’t worse, is she? When I last spoke to Mrs. Mainprice, she was doing better, but that was hours ago.”

“She will be quite fine. Thanks to Rachel’s loving care.” He signaled for Rachel to join him. When she came to his side, he slid his arm around her waist and tucked her close. Her slim, small body fit perfectly, as if made to be a part of him.

Sophia’s gaze flicked over them. “What is the meaning of this? And what is she still doing here? I thought she was supposed to be moving to a lodging house or some sort of place.”

“That’s not going to happen now. I want you to be the first to know.” James held onto Rachel and felt her warmth spread, fill him like a balm to his soul. “I intend to take Rachel as my wife.”

He waited for the storm to break over their heads. It was not long in coming.

“What?” Sophia screeched, throwing the lap rug off of her. Rachel jerked nervously, her hip bumping against his. “You can’t be serious, James. Have you gone utterly mad? What has she done to persuade you? I shudder to think.”

James clutched Rachel’s arm to keep her from marching angrily out of the room. “There was no subterfuge, Sophia, no persuasion, other than me finally recognizing how much she means to me. I love her and want to marry her.”

“How could you even contemplate such a thing?” Sophia asked, her eyes turning dark as jet as she glared at Rachel. “You claimed you never wanted to marry again, James, yet here you are, telling me you intend on replacing dearest Mariah with this Irish nobody. A servant with a dubious past. You are a gentleman, and she is beneath you. Mark my words, I will find out everything there is to know about her and prove to you she’s unworthy.”

Rachel eased out of James’s embrace. “I shall tell you, Mrs. Woodbridge, everything there is to know and save you the trouble.”

“Rachel, you don’t have to,” he said, trying to drag her back to the security of his arms.

Her eyes sought his. “Yes, I do. I cannot hide any longer.” She interlaced her fingers with his and held on while she faced Sophia. “All you need to know is that my father was an Irish shopkeeper and my mother is the daughter of an English rector, a gentleman’s daughter. That her eldest brother was Anthony Harwood, whose widow lives in Mayfair, which I have seen to be a genteel neighborhood. That we led a decent and upright life in Carlow, Ireland. Until I was accused of murder.”

“Murder!” Sophia’s shout rattled the windows.

“I was accused but found innocent, because I was innocent,” Rachel continued, her voice gaining strength. “Unfortunately, the gossip damaged my mother’s business as a modiste and the work she did as a healer. I was forced to leave Ireland and come here to find work. Your brother-in-law did my cousin a great service and took me in.” Her fingers pressed his and she smiled all her gratitude at him. “A more generous act than the respectable Harwoods were willing to perform for me. You are a good man, James.”

His heart swelled with love for this incredible woman. He tucked her into his embrace once more and dropped a kiss onto her head. “You make me good, Rachel.”

“Oh no, James, no.” Sophia collapsed onto the sofa. “You cannot marry this girl. You’ll be drummed out of proper society. No one will speak to you. No one will look at you. Think of what you’ll be doing to Amelia, to her future. To all of us. Ruined. Utterly ruined.”

“The only way I’ll be drummed out of proper society is if you tell people what happened to Rachel back in Ireland,” James said pointedly.

“But others know,” Sophia sputtered.

“Miss Harwood and the rest of Rachel’s family would never breathe a word.”

Sophia sank into the cushions as if her bones had lost their ability to hold her up. “You can’t do this. I won’t let you.”

“It isn’t up to you. I’m lost and lonely, and Rachel can heal my heart. I love her more than life.” He smiled down into Rachel’s face and saw the answer to every prayer he had ever breathed in the line of her cheek, the curve of her lips, the warmth in her eyes. Here was God’s plan for him. This woman. Their future together. “I do, Rachel. I do love you more than life. All this time I’ve been beseeching God to show me the way, He was bringing me you. My hope for healing, my very soul.”

“Oh, James,” whispered Rachel, tears in her eyes.

“Oh, James,” Sophia echoed, a sob choking her words, “you’ve ruined everything.”

Mrs. Mainprice tapped on the door, the bottle of smelling salts in her hand.

“Here. Give those to me,” commanded Sophia, snatching the bottle out of the housekeeper’s hand. She uncorked it and inhaled, flinching from the sharp scent.

“Thank you, Mrs. Mainprice,” said James, excusing her.

He took the bottle from Sophia, set it on the table at her knee, and clasped her hands between his. They were cold and quivering with anger. “Please be at peace with my decision. I’ll never be happy without Rachel.”

“You will make us the laughingstock of all of England, James.” Desperation deepened the faint wrinkles that fanned out from her eyes. “Why cannot life stay as we’d planned? You and I and Amelia together in Finchingfield? It would have been perfect.”

“Because it isn’t enough for me any longer,” he replied. “I need Rachel.”

“You will be miserable, James,” said Sophia, her voice gone small and tired. “She isn’t the right one for you.”

“Yes, she is. God has been kind by bringing me Rachel, and I won’t turn away from His gift.” Sophia’s garnet wedding ring jabbed into his palm, but he wouldn’t let go until she understood just what Rachel meant to him. And if it required another hour—another day, weeks—of explaining, so be it. He wouldn’t be a coward any longer. “I want you to continue to be a part of my life, for Amelia because she loves you so; but that life has to include Rachel from now on.”

Sophia frowned and let out a sigh, all the fight exhaling on her breath. “It seems my brother-in-law insists upon having you as his wife, Miss Dunne.”

Rachel beamed at him. “It seems he does.”

“Then take him,” she said with a flick of her wrist. “Because I’ve had enough of his nonsense.”

“I believe she has given us her approval, Rachel,” said James, grinning. When was the last time he’d done that? Years. Maybe a lifetime. “Would your father have a saying for this moment, my dear?”

“The only one that comes to mind is something about a man’s wife being either his blessing or his bane.”

“You shall definitely be my blessing.” He glanced over at Sophia and took Rachel’s hand. “If you’ll please excuse us, Sophia, I need a private moment with my betrothed.”

James guided her down the hallway. Rachel’s heart fluttered like the wings of birds, and her head was so dizzy with love and hope and excitement she had to concentrate hard to keep from stumbling.