Chapter 11

Chapter

Eleven

Nigel

" I know this is bold," Miss Fitzroy murmured, hanging her head forward a little.

"You think!?" he spluttered, stepping forward once more when he heard the staircase creak. Peering over her shoulder, he saw a shadow on the stairs, fearing someone would come up to investigate all this noise.

"Very bold, I am aware," she spoke hurriedly. "But I have come to ask something of you. It is important, so I beg of you, please do not send me away now."

"You beg me?" he said in amazement, jerking his head toward her. Standing so close to her, he found the perfume she wore lingering once again. That honeysuckle fragrance was a strong contrast to the must and dampness of the apartments and the piles of books. It was a pleasant change indeed.

"Yes. Do you wish me to get down on my knees to beg?"

"For heaven's sake, we do not need an even greater scandal!" He looked to the stairs once more, noting that the shadows were moving.

Someone's coming.

"I cannot believe I am about to say this but get inside." He stepped back and held the door open wider. She hurried in without a hesitation and he shut the door sharply. He did his best to peer through the gap between the door and the frame, trying to see something about what was happening on the landing. The moonlight through a distant window cast onto the stairs.

A shadowy figure lurked in the middle of the staircase, craning his neck back and forth. He hovered there for a minute, clearly hoping to see what the source of the sound was, before he retreated back down the stairs again.

Sighing with relief, Nigel turned, leaning against the door. The sight of Miss Fitzroy wandering around his rooms made him stiffen once more. She trailed a hand over one of the stacks of books, her cloak slipping off one arm in the heat. His eyes followed her, in a way that they should not have done, admiring her figure. Draping the cloak across the back of a chair, she looked at the jar full of quinine, her eyes widening.

"This is extraordinary. What is all this stuff?"

"Oh no. you cannot possibly expect me to have an ordinary conversation with you now." He stepped away from the door, abruptly aware what state he was in. He was hardly dressed, so proceeded to roll his sleeves back down to his wrists. He looked around for his cravat, but couldn't remember where it was, so just held the neck of his shirt together instead.

"Have I made you nervous?" she said with a giggle.

"No jesting now." He shook his head slowly, his tone deepening, and her giggle faltered altogether. "Why are you here? If you're seen, it will be awful for us both. Your reputation will be damaged, and you can bet I'll never be hired as a doctor again."

She picked up one of his books off the table and turned it over, reading the spine.

"That is not my intention. I do not wish to hurt either of our names, but I had to see you," she murmured, seeming amazed by the book before her.

Nigel hurried around the table to her side and snatched the book away, holding it behind his back.

"That got your attention," he remarked, nodding at her. She huffed and folded her arms. "Come, Miss Fitzroy. What is the meaning of all of this?"

"I wish you to teach me." She reached around him, trying to get the book back again.

"Teach you what?" He turned, attempting to stop her from getting the book. She simply moved around him faster. She tripped on one of the chairs beside the table, planting her hands on the table. Nigel went to help her to stop her from falling, then realized how awful it could be if he touched her and backed up. In his momentary distraction, she managed to right herself and snatched the book away again. "Miss Fitzroy!"

She walked around the table, increasing the distance between them as she flicked though the book. He followed her, half tempted to demand she left at once.

"I wish you to teach me more about healing, please." Her words shocked him so much he stopped walking. She continued to walk around the table, until she reached the other side and looked up from the book, her manner now much more serious. "You know many things, a lot that I do not, and I am in need of a teacher."

"Wait." Nigel placed his hands on the table between them, leaning forward as she rested the book on the other side. "You wish to heal people, Miss Fitzroy? This fancy of yours to read books on botany, it is not just a casual interest?"

"This fancy?" She spluttered, shaking her head and laughing. "Now I see how you look at me, Doctor. Tell me, am I just a child in your eyes? Or a young woman with her head so full of gowns and the latest fashions that I must be incapable of having a serious or noble thought in my life?"

"That is not what I said." His tone deepened.

"Yet it is what you think, is it not?" She matched his stone, her deep tone turning huskier still. Nigel didn't answer for a few seconds, distracted by that tone.

"Maybe I have met many women in my life who would not think of healing." He accepted with a slow nod. "You are something of a surprise, Miss Fitzroy."

She revealed the glimmer of a smile. It made his stomach knot once more.

"I suppose that is a compliment."

"It is." His hasty answer made her shift, that smile growing a little more. "Yet there is something I have to know. Why do you wish for such learning? Do you wish to be a healer? As a woman, you cannot be a doctor." He gestured toward her, and that smile fell. "Yes, I heard how that sounded that time." He sighed deeply, looking down at his books. "I did not mean it to sound so…"

"Disparaging?"

"Yes." He lifted his eyes to meet hers. "Tell me why, Miss Fitzroy?"

She stepped back from the table and moved toward the other one where his many medical instruments rested. She reached for the jar of quinine and peered through it, talking as she fidgeted.

"We all have people we admire in our lives, and the person I admire more than any other is my aunt. Her name is Arabella, though most call her the Duchess of Gordon." She smiled over her shoulder at Nigel. "And she is a healer."

"A duchess? A healer?" Nigel murmured in surprise. He followed her to the other table. When Miss Fitzroy lifted the bone saw beside her, he took it out of her hands, not wishing for her to end up hurt. "How did she become a healer?"

"She trained from a young age. She helped many people and continues to. There was a time when people were not so welcoming of her ways." Miss Fitzroy's nose wrinkled. "The foolish gossipers called her a witch."

"Some old healers were thought of as such things," Nigel said rather sadly.

"A cruel thing to call any woman who tries to help others." Miss Fitzroy looked suddenly fierce. The anger in her tone captivated Nigel as much as any of her previous smiles had done. He waited for her to go on, tilting his head to the side as he watched her. "Yet she has done much good in this world. She has been successful and has helped those in great need." She smiled sadly now. "I wish to be like her. If I could learn something more from your teachings, then maybe I could be of use to people. Is that so wrong an aim, Doctor Beille? To wish to help people?" She leaned on the table.

Knowing her clumsy ways by now, he conveniently slid one of the forceps away before she press upon it and mistakenly pinch herself with the implement. He rested forward too, moving that inch closer to her.

His eyes darted over her face, noting the genuineness of her expression and the earnestness of her tone. She truly meant her words, keenly.

"I know what that wish is like." His voice softened. "Trust me, I do. Yet local healers…" he grimaced, already sensing the way she pulled back form him. "They can often do more harm than good. All the good intentions in the world cannot make a difference if a healer gives the wrong thing to a patient."

"Some local healers are excellent," she argued, her tone firm. "Take my aunt."

"Yes, and some are misinformed. They cling to old wives' tales and out-0f-date practices that can do more harm than good." He waved a hand in dismissal.

"And here I thought you were going to refrain from being disparaging anymore." She folded her arms across her chest.

"I am not being disparaging, I am being practical." He sighed heavily, thrusting a hand into his hair and pulling on the tendrils in frustration. "Healers can be dangerous more so than helpful if not taught right."

"Then teach me not to be dangerous." She stepped around the table, speaking with such sudden passion that Nigel didn't walk away. He watched her to approach him, his body strangely still.

Tongue-tied, Nigel said nothing. He ran a hand over his face, scratching his jaw in stress.

I can understand that.

Something inside of him twinged at the pain on Miss Fitzroy's face.

"You have gone quiet, Doctor," she observed.

"For one thing, stay here. You and I keep standing far too close to one another for what is appropriate." He walked away across the room, putting as much distance between them as possible. He stood between a settle bench and a full armchair, walking back and forth.

"Well, you have already pointed out it is scandalous for me to be here, so we are down the rabbit warren regardless." She shrugged, calling his attention back toward her.

"That is not helping," he said simply, glancing toward her. She smiled a little, showing she was enjoying teasing him. "Enough," he warned, surprised when a smile leapt to his face. "You have a habit of doing this, do you not?"

"What's that?"

"Jesting with me."

"Life's too short not to smile, Doctor." She picked up the book she had been reading and lifted the front leaf, reading the text. "Do you intend to snatch this book from me again, I wonder?"

"Desist," he said softly, still unable to take the smile off his face.

How did she do this?

She had made him smile, more often than he had thought possible, considering she was in his apartment so late at night, in a very scandalous situation indeed.

"Well?" she murmured after a minute. "Would you teach me some things, please?" She looked up from the book. "I wish to be of some use in this world, Doctor. You could teach me, and those teachings could be a way to make me of some use to this world, if you'd be willing to help me."

He sighed deeply, lowering his hands to his side as he considered her offer.

He could empathize with her longing to do something good for this world, and he could also sympathize with the wish not to be dangerous.

I know what it is like to make an error that can be all too costly.

As the image of that graveyard flashed in his mind, he turned away and rubbed his eyes, abruptly needing to remove Miss Fitzroy from his thoughts entirely. Such errors had haunted him for years now. He may not have lost a patient since, but once was enough. He didn't want to have to revisit those memories.

"Please?" Miss Fitzroy's voice was closer than he had expected it to be. He turned, lowering his hand to see she had stopped on the other side of the settle bench. "I wish to help people, Doctor. That is not so awful, is it?"

"No, but you ask a lot." He sighed deeply. "Miss Fitzroy, look at the position you have put me in by coming here. This is not only a scandalous position, but if I were to help you, then you would no doubt wish to come here again. What position would we both be in then?"

"I am not asking for you to risk your name," she said with sudden passion. "We could find a way to make it work. I am asking you as someone in need of your help. Your guidance. You were quite happy to crow over me in the library the other day that you knew so much more than me?—"

"I was not crowing." He disliked this description of herself.

"Well, here's your opportunity to do something with that knowledge. Teach me," she pleaded, leaning toward him, her hands pressed to the back of the settle bench.

God, do I wish to say yes.

He stared at her, thinking of spending more time in the captivating Miss Fitzroy's company. He was tempted indeed, but it was also dangerous.

"I need to think about it."

"Is that a ‘yes?'"

"No."

"But it's not a no either?" she asked with a small smile. In answer, he raised his brows, showing her he was not going to say anything more. "Then I suppose I shall have to be settled with such a thought." She turned back to the table and collected her black cloak from the chair, wrapping it around her shoulders. "I have stayed too long. You have clearly been desiring my absence, so I shall go."

As she reached for the door, Nigel felt as if he had been wounded, as though someone had kicked him harshly in the stomach.

"Wait," he called to her and crossed the room.

She hovered by the door, turning back to face him.

Nigel looked at one of his stacks of books. Sifting through the top three, he chose one which was relatively small and well thumbed. He crossed toward her and handed it to her.

"What's this?" she murmured, taking the book.

"If you wish to be a healer someday, then this should be the first book you read beyond any others."

"Is this a ‘yes?' Are you saying you will help me?" she asked excitedly.

"No. I'm saying, get reading." He folded his arms across his chest and nodded at the door. "Goodnight, Miss Fitzroy."

"Goodnight, Doctor Beille." She left the room, smiling so broadly that the feeling of being winded loosened from his stomach. She passed through the doorway as she tucked the book under her arm and raised her cloak to cover her face.

As the door closed behind her, Nigel released a shuddery breath.

"You are dangerous, Miss Fitzroy. In more ways than one."