The Irish Healer (4 page)

“I rather think not!”

“Then I must say good day to you.”

He entered the mews, leaving his sister-in-law to frown after him.

Traffic in the city was as miserable as ever. He might be grateful that the rain promised by the sky all day hadn’t come to pass, but James was too distracted to acknowledge that bit of God’s benevolence.

After an hour’s drive, Joe pulled the gig to a halt at St. Katherine’s Docks. James searched the crowd pushing and shoving past the crates of living—and some not-so-living—animals, the barrels of goods, the sweating wharf laborers and porters. What a wretched sea of humanity, many of them looking as if they’d swum to London rather than come on a boat, they were so bedraggled and salt-crusted. To be lost among this horde . . . disquiet buzzed along his nerves like a relentless wasp. Had Miss Dunne failed to get on the packet from Ireland or fallen overboard during the journey? Or had she been lured away when she arrived, another victim of the criminal element that plagued the city?

“Cor, sir, she’s still ’ere,” said Joe.

“Who? Who’s still here?”

Joe jerked his chin to the right. “That a one. In the dingy brown dress snoozin’ on the carpetbag. She were ’ere before. But she’s no old lady.”

He spotted the woman Joe was pointing out. “Shall I ask if she’s Miss Dunne, Joe?” he asked, only partly serious.

Joe shrugged. “Can’t ’urt, I s’pose.”

“No, it can’t hurt.”

James climbed down and went up to the woman, dozing on the bag she’d sat upon, her back propped against a crate. Young woman, he corrected himself. She couldn’t be past twenty years of age. She was pretty, too, with coppery hair that peeked out from the edge of her plain straw bonnet and fine features, even if those features could use a good scrub.

This couldn’t possibly be Miss Harwood’s relation. He could have sworn she’d said her cousin was older, explaining her extensive experience and utter dependability. She had made Miss Dunne sound so sober he’d expected she would look like his old nurse, wrinkled and smelling of burnt milk. He would never have expected Miss Harwood might mislead him.

Unceremoniously, James prodded the young woman’s foot with the toe of his boot. “Miss Dunne?”

She didn’t respond.

A squat fellow in wildly colored patched clothing sidled up. “I’d leave that piece alone were I you, guvn’r. She’ll bite your head off, sure she will.”

“I think I can handle her.”

Out of the corner of his eye, James saw that the man had shuffled off. He bent down, nearer Miss Dunne.
Bite his head off would she, this petite thing?

“Miss Dunne,” he repeated, more loudly.

Her body jerked, and her eyes flew open. Eyes that were the most extraordinary color—blue-green, like deep water—and unafraid of looking him in the face. She scrambled to sit upright.

“Who are you?” she asked suspiciously, pressing her back to the crate. “What do you want?”

“Don’t be alarmed. I mean you no harm.”

“As you say,” she replied, skeptical, caution keeping her pinned to her spot, courage lifting her chin. “But excuse me if I do not believe you.”

“You can trust me. Take my hand. I’ll help you up.”

He clasped her hand, small and fragile within his, and gazed reassuringly into her eyes. Suddenly he felt a connection
that was startling in its intensity, utterly unexpected, a flash like a spark being thrown from a fire. He felt a pull like an anchor thrown from a ship, sucking him right down into the watery depths of her eyes.

What in heaven’s name was happening?

There was only one explanation.

He had lost his mind.

CHAPTER 4

The man bending over Rachel released her hand so quickly she nearly fell back upon the stack of crates.

“I . . . I . . .” he stuttered, the confusion that flashed across his face turning into a scowl. “I beg your pardon. It was forward of me to clutch your hand so familiarly.”

“Then perhaps you should not have done so,” Rachel retorted sharply. She didn’t care if she was rude. She was angry she had fallen asleep, leaving herself vulnerable. And now some stranger—a gentleman, she corrected, based on the cut of his graphite-colored superfine wool coat and the sound of his voice—had accosted her. “What do you want with me?”

He answered with a question. “You are Miss Dunne, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am. And you have the advantage, because I do not know who you are.”

“No, you don’t.” He frowned deeper, the muscles flexing along his jaw The expression marred the handsomeness of his
face, cast a shadow over his eyes, gray as the stones of the Brownshill Dolmen, and just as hard. “I am your employer.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks flared. Not precisely the gracious first meeting she might have hoped for. “Of course, I should have thought so straightaway.”

“Joe,” he glanced over his shoulder, “this is she, it appears.”

Just then she noticed the boy standing to one side, the one he called Joe. It was the lad from the gig who’d been at the docks earlier.

Joe whistled between the gap in his front teeth. “Cor, sir, she ain’t no agin’ spinster lady.”

“No, Joe, she isn’t. And please don’t say ‘cor.’ Miss Dunne, I am Dr. Edmunds.” He offered a perfunctory bow of his head. “This here is Joe.”

“Good day to ya, miss,” said Joe, a friendly grin tilting his mouth. “Glad to see ya made it safe, after all. We was wonderin’ where you’d got to. Didn’ figure you ’ad any money to run off, though—”

“That’s quite enough, Joe.” Dr. Edmunds’s gaze made a quick assessment of her carpetbag. “Do you have any other luggage?”

“No, this is all I have,” she replied defensively.

“Just as well,” he answered, and signaled for the lad to take her pitiful lone bag. “There’s not much room in the gig.”

He began striding toward the carriage at such a rapid pace that Rachel imagined anyone observing them would conclude he was attempting to evade her.

“If I may, I have a question, Dr. Edmunds,” Rachel said, clutching at her skirts as she struggled to keep up. “Your lad there seems to think I was supposed to be an aging spinster. Was there some confusion over my age?”

His eyes grew even stonier, if such a thing were possible. “Yes, there was. I was expecting someone nearer forty, which is why Joe didn’t recognize you initially.”

“I see.” The confusion explained the scowl. “You do not think that my cousin and I intentionally misled you about my age, do you?”

“Should I?”

“Of course not. I would never . . .”
lie to you?
But wouldn’t she, when she planned to never admit to him the most critical detail of her life? “I did not ask her to give you the impression I was anything other than twenty years old.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I trust my youth will not be a problem.”

“That depends on you, Miss Dunne,” he answered, stopping to look at her as they reached the gig. “If you do good work, then there is no problem at all.”

“I will work very hard, Dr. Edmunds.” So long as he did not ask her to sit with his patients, as Claire had assured her in the letters she had sent to Mother, all would be well. She could never sit with a sick person again. She had made a vow to herself never to fail again, and attending the ill would only result in failure. “You will have no complaints about me.”

“As I expect of any of my staff,” he said tersely, conversation concluded, and climbed into the gig.

Joe easily hoisted her carpetbag onto the back of the vehicle. It was pathetically light, holding only another gown, a thin cloak, some undergarments, and a few items to dress her hair. She had left her Bible at home, sitting atop her chest of drawers. If God had forgotten her in her time of crisis, she’d reasoned, there was no need to remember Him.

Once she settled in the gig, Dr. Edmunds grabbed the reins and steered them away from the docks, Joe clinging like a boy-sized spider to the rear of the vehicle. They journeyed up one street and down the next, past warehouses and bustling markets overflowing with vendors. Church towers pierced the sky like so many upraised arms reaching for God. Officious buildings with grand columned entry ways fought for space. And all the people—the clamor and the commotion—were stifling, making Rachel long for air and open sky. There would be no more of that here, though, where any glimpse of green seemed unlikely, where any hope for the sound of a warbler’s trill would be muffled by the impossible din, and the warm smells of a neighbor’s oven would be drowned in the cloying stench of sewer.

She must have shuddered, because Dr. Edmunds glanced her way. “Overwhelmed, Miss Dunne?” He almost sounded sympathetic.

“It is quite different from home.”

“But there is some beauty here, beneath the filth. Many magnificent buildings that are the glory of England. Such as that one.” He nodded toward a building with a great dome rising. “That is St. Paul’s. I’ve been promising my staff I would take them to services there, but I’ve not found the time. They’ve had to make do with our St. Peter’s.” He peered over at her. “By the way, I would expect you to attend church services with the rest of the staff.”

Rachel could not bring herself to nod. God was not a part of her plans. “What are those buildings?” she asked, pointing to the right.

“They’re the Old Bailey and Newgate Prison. There’s
been a prison on that site since the time of Henry Plantagenet. I’ve been told that when those doors close behind a prisoner, the sound they make is like entering the realms of hell. A very fearsome place.”

Her skin prickled; she knew exactly how fearsome the interior of a prison could be. In considerable detail, she could describe the smells and the chill and the ungodly noises, the weeping and wailing. The other sounds people made while they bade their time and avoided contemplating their fates. She could tell the good doctor precisely what it was like to face a bewigged judge, her hands gripping the rubbed-smooth rail of the defendant’s dock, the sounding board overhead echoing every tremor in her voice as she pleaded to be believed. Even as she had stopped believing in herself.

Heavy traffic forced the gig to halt, and Rachel felt Dr. Edmunds watching her. Did he see the guilt on her person, like the mark they used to put upon thieves’ hands?
Here sits an accused murderer
. Someone he might not want within a hundred miles of his patients, let alone living in his very house. The irony . . .

With all the courage she possessed, Rachel returned his gaze.
Look him in the eye
. He must not suspect she had any secrets to hide. Her future depended upon him believing her to be the most upright woman in the world.

“Being inside a prison must be very fearsome,” Rachel replied, grateful the shaking in her voice was just a tiny echo of the shudder moving through her body, relieved when the traffic cleared and they began moving again. “The most dreadful experience imaginable.”

The remainder of the trip to Dr. Edmunds’s residence passed in awkward silence. Although it might have only been awkward for Rachel. Dr. Edmunds simply seemed irritated, his back as stiff as a hitching post, his grip strangling the reins.

He bounded out of the gig when it stopped in front of a terrace house, the iron railing surrounding its area perfectly black, the steps gleaming white, the brass door knocker shining in the dim sunlight sifting through the clouds. The house of a gentleman.

Joe offered his hand to help her down, giving a wink before handing her carpetbag to her. “Welcome to the ’ouse of the esteemed Dr. James Edmunds. Beware what lies within.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see, miss.”

Two women waited in the entry hall. The younger one, dressed in a black frock topped with a crisp apron, was obviously the maid. The other, imperious in widow’s weeds, scrutinized Rachel like she was a blot on the carpet.

“Sophia, I’m surprised you’re still here,” Dr. Edmunds said to the widow.

“I wished to see your aging Irish spinster, James. Who actually looks to be a young woman. A very dirty young woman. Are you certain you’ve got the right one?”

Rachel flushed.

Dr. Edmunds cast Rachel a quick glance. She thought she saw an apology in it. “Sophia, this is Miss Dunne. Miss Dunne, this is my sister-in-law, Mrs. Woodbridge.”