Beatrice snapped her fingers. ‘I know when it was! The summer of 1816, the summer you went to the lakes and Jonathon Lashley was home recovering from his wounds.’ May watched in dismay as the wheels of Beatrice’s sharp mind began to turn. ‘Preston always took Jonathon on holiday with your family, but that year he was unable to go.’
It had been a terrible year. Jonathon’s brother had gone missing in action and Jonathon had come home near death after Waterloo, something no one had expected. He was an heir. He was supposed to have been kept safe delivering dispatches behind friendly lines. May remembered hearing the news. Jonathon was one of her brother’s closest friends. The family had gathered in the drawing room, quiet and sombre. Her indomitable mother had been pale and her father had taken her grown brother in his arms and held him tight as if to convince himself his son was alive and healthy. They’d gone to the lakes that summer and Liam Casek had come in Jonathon’s place. Her father hadn’t entirely approved of Liam in the beginning. Her father had liked him a lot less by the end.
‘It’s funny you never mentioned him.’ Bea cocked her head to one side, considering. The next moment she let out a pained gasp, one hand on her belly, the other on the worktable to steady herself.
May was instantly beside her. ‘What is it, Bea?’ Beatrice had gone white.
‘I don’t know. Oh!’ Another pain took her and May got an awkward arm about her waist.
‘Let’s get you to your bed. You can lie down.’ It was all May could think of to do. It was hard work moving Bea from the kitchen to the downstairs bedroom. May was thankful they didn’t have to go upstairs. But Bea wouldn’t lie down. She held on to May’s arm.
‘You need to go for the doctor, May,’ she said softly. ‘I think I’m bleeding.’
‘I’ll go.’ Liam’s voice in the doorway made May jump. She’d have to get used to him being around all over again.
‘I’ll go, I won’t get lost. You don’t know where he lives,’ May insisted. If he was out seeing patients, Liam would never find him.
‘Then give me his direction,’ Liam insisted, his eyes hard as they squared off. ‘We can hardly have you out riding willy-nilly over the countryside presenting an easy target and we can’t both go.’
‘Just someone go!’ Bea said through clenched teeth, doubling over as another sharp pain took her, her grip on May tight.
May relented at the sight of her friend’s agony. ‘He keeps an office in the High Street next to the solicitor’s.’
‘Ah, so you can sue him if you don’t like his remedies.’ Liam chuckled. ‘Very nice arrangement.’ Even Bea smiled a little at the jest.
* * *
Liam was fast in bringing Dr Stimson, a tall, sombre man whose face showed no emotion. He wasn’t the friendly encouraging sort, but he’d been educated in Edinburgh. May didn’t especially care for him under the best circumstances. Today, she had no use for him at all.
He examined Beatrice, suggested she was likely experiencing false labour which was entirely normal and which seemed to have stopped once she lay down. He prescribed bed rest until the babe was born and pocketed a little more of their coin.
‘I could have done as much!’ May challenged, following him out to his horse. ‘It has to be more than false labour. How do you explain the blood?’
The man didn’t even glance at her as he mounted up. ‘All babies come into this world in their own way.’ His voice was weary. ‘When you have birthed as many children as I have, you can tell me how to do my job, Miss Worth.’
May grabbed the bridle of the big horse. ‘She will not be one of the twenty per cent, sir.’
That got a response. He cast her a condescending look down the long pike of his nose. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Twenty per cent of women die in childbirth. She will not be one of them.’ It was a recent great fear of hers since Beatrice had got so big. What if there was no one around to help when the baby came? What if they didn’t have enough skill if the birth was difficult? She knew Bea worried, too, and all she could give her friend were empty promises she didn’t know if she could keep.
‘May, let the good man go. I had to call him away from his supper.’ Liam was behind her, his hand over hers, removing it from the bridle, his touch, no matter how perfunctory, sending sharp pricks of awareness up her arm. He was too close. She had nowhere to go that didn’t involve backing into his chest.
It was too close for the doctor, too. ‘Are you her husband?’ Dr Stimson’s eyes slid between them.
‘No, sir, I’m a friend of her brother who has come to watch over them,’ Liam offered and May bristled. He made it sound like they were children who needed a nursemaid.
The doctor shrugged, ignoring her entirely. ‘Too bad. That one needs taking in hand, a strong hand.’
‘Duly noted, sir.’ Liam nodded and May stepped on his foot. How dare he engage in a conversation about her when she was right there?
‘Ouch! What did you do that for?’ Liam scowled once the doctor had ridden away.
‘Why didn’t you defend me?’ May railed. ‘I despise that man and you kowtowed to him. “Duly noted, sir,”’ she mimicked.
Liam laughed. ‘You don’t need defending, May. You can handle yourself perfectly well when you want to. But you have to learn not to alienate the entire neighbourhood. Don’t you know you catch more flies with sugar than vinegar?’
May folded her arms across her chest, studying him. ‘Is that what you’ve been doing these past years? Catching flies with sugar?’ There’d been nothing but vinegar about him when she’d first met him, this glorious, angry young man who rebelled at everything, who was fiercely proud of being from the streets. He’d been rebellious in ways she couldn’t be or didn’t dare to be. She’d admired what she thought of as his courage.
‘When it suits me, yes.’ The rebel was still there in his long tangle of hair, the rough-hewn planes of his face and the hard muscles of a man who knew how to labour. But the rebel shared space now with a man who carried intelligence behind his blue eyes alongside his anger. This was a man who knew how to control himself, whose anger was no longer tossed about indiscriminately. She wasn’t sure if she resented him for that or if she envied him that control. ‘It’s important to be nice, May, until it’s time to be something less...nice.’
‘You sound like Preston.’
‘Maybe because that’s where I learned it.’ That gorgeous mouth of his smiled at her as winter dusk fell about them. Her knees wanted to go weak. This was the real danger, not the elusive Cabot Roan, but these moments when she could forget the past, forget the problems of the present and lose herself in him. She didn’t want to succumb to his rough charm again. One disaster was enough.
* * *
Disaster seemed to be the theme of the day. May sat on the edge of her bed, unopened letter in hand, staring at it. It was going to be bad news, she just knew it, but there was no sense in waiting. If she didn’t know what was in the letter, she couldn’t begin to plan against it. She drew a fortifying breath and slid a thumb beneath the seal. Her mother’s flowery script always looked so innocent. But she’d learned long ago that doom lurked in those elegantly cultivated letters. May skimmed the opening paragraphs, confirming they were her mother’s standard opening gambit: news about town, friendly gossip to soften the reader up so when the real punch came, it would blindside you.
There it was, four paragraphs in. May re-read it slowly.
We will be in Edinburgh for the holidays in order to conduct some business of your father’s regarding shipping and manufacturing that I don’t pretend to understand. We would kindly request your presence.
We’ve taken a town house in New Town, the address is at the bottom of the page. I’ll