Chapter 26

Chapter

Twenty-Six

Kathryn

" K athryn." Georgiana nodded at her. "Speak."

Kathryn looked at Doctor Beille first. He was red in the face, restless and clearly very afraid as he turned in a circle, his hands in his hair. Kathryn gulped, knowing that she was the reason that his good reputation as a doctor was now at risk.

"I asked him for lessons."

"What?" Georgiana asked sharply.

Kathryn reached for the chaise longue behind her where she had left one of the books Doctor Beille sent to her. She also snatched up the notebook where she was making her own notes. She crossed the room toward Georgiana and dropped to her knees in front of her cousin, handing her the books.

"I wish to be a healer, Cousin."

"You are not making any sense, child," Georgiana's voice shook as she took the books, looking between them.

"I wish to be a healer, to help people, as Doctor Beille does, as my aunt, the Duchess of Gordon, does back home." The words came fast now, escaping Kathryn in a rush. "Meeting your friends, the ladies of the periodical, I saw the possibility that I could pursue such an ambition. Maybe it is mad, foolish, yes, but it was worth a chance, surely? They had all achieved their aims in life. So, I went to Doctor Beille."

She glanced back at him, feeling her heart ache as she looked at him. He refused to look at her now, with his hands still in his hair as he looked out of the window and into the garden.

She couldn't help wondering who this Emily was that he loved so much. Was she another patient? Perhaps an acquaintance from the ton?

"I asked him for lessons, and he agreed. This is one of the books he sent to me to help me with my learning." Kathryn pointed down oat the book in her cousin's grasp. "You can see the notes I have made myself."

Georgiana flicked between the pages. She glanced up at the doctor, her face sterner than before.

"Doctor Beille, go to the library, if you please. I shall come to you there in a minute to talk in private."

"Yes, my Lady." Doctor Beille bowed and left the room as hurriedly as he could, his face crimson red.

Kathryn hoped to catch his eye before he left, but it was not to be. He was gone all too fast. As the door closed behind him, she turned back to Georgiana.

"Please, believe me," she begged.

"Having you down on your knees before me is testament to your strength of feeling," Georgiana muttered as she looked between the two books. "Though it will take a little more yet to convince me." She looked sharply at Kathryn. "Do you swear it? Do you swear with everything you have that nothing more ever passed between you and the doctor?"

Kathryn inhaled deeply, knowing how much she had longed for something more to happen between her and Doctor Beille, this was hard to say. Yet at least she could be completely honest with her cousin.

"I give you my solemn vow," she said with a deep voice. "Nothing more has ever passed between us. Doctor Beille has been a perfect gentleman."

Georgiana nodded wordlessly and sat straight. She laid the two books in her lap, her hands haphazardly fidgeting with them, before she abruptly shifted them to a table nearby, as if she wanted nothing to do with them.

"He has not been a perfect gentleman. Oh, Kathryn, I know him to be a good man, but a gentleman would have known that giving you lessons is highly improper. He should not have said yes."

"He was trying to be kind."

"Is it kind to risk your name?" Georgiana looked harshly at Kathryn. "No, far from it. Let us accept the facts, Kathryn. I have always known that Doctor Beille puts patients and the sick above everything else. It is something I have admired about him for many years, but this shows me just how dangerous such an attitude is. His wish to help you and the sick people you could have attended has risked you both. How many times have you been to his apartment? Actually, do not tell me that. I fear the answer."

She covered her face, her hand shaking. "Once was enough to risk being seen. If you have been seen, then whispers could be spreading already. Oh God, do you not see the danger here, Kathryn?" She lowered her hand. "Your reputation…it could be torn to shreds even as we speak."

"No one saw me there."

"You cannot guarantee that, can you?" Georgiana leaned forward.

Words failed Kathryn as she sat back on her haunches, realizing that Georgiana was right. As careful as she had been, there was no way to be certain.

"I am afraid we must take action." Georgiana sniffed, as if she held back tears. Kathryn strained to see her eyes, but she could see no trace of wetness in Georgiana's blue gaze. She was a lady who was always in full control, even now, when faced with scandal. "We must do what we can to avoid any possibility of rumors spreading. I am sorry to say it, Kathryn, but you know as well as I what must happen next."

Kathryn nodded, knowing what words were to come now, even without Georgiana having to utter them.

"You must return to Dorset."

Kathryn gulped around a sudden lump in her throat. Minutes ago, she had been hoping for such an outcome, but after having a brief glimpse of Doctor Beille again, she realized how foolish her heart had been. Despite all her heartbreak over the last few days, a part of her had been holding onto the hope of seeing him again.

From today, I will not see him anymore.

"I shall make the arrangements," Georgiana said hurriedly. "You shall leave for Dorset tomorrow."

Nigel

"Lady Georgiana." Nigel stood to his feet from the chair he'd chosen in the library. With his stomach knotted, his hands repeatedly fidgeted with the handle of his leather case. He couldn't settle, not for a single second. It had been hard enough to sit as he waited nervously, figuring out what to say. Now Lady Georgiana was returning to the room, the thought of being still was impossible. "Please, allow me to explain."

"Pray, do not." Lady Georgiana waved a hand in dismissal at him as she closed the door behind her. The tightening in his stomach grew worse as she refused to look at him. Instead, she strode further into the room, her walking stick clattering against the floorboards, her chin turned away.

For so long, he had considered her a friend as well as a patient. He knew now that had all come to an end.

She would never trust me as her doctor again.

"I cannot deny my disappointment in you, Doctor Beille." She halted a few steps away from him, her eyes on the window and the garden beyond. Her bony fingers rested on the walking stick in front of her, and she didn't move them, unlike Nigel, whose fingers constantly fidgeted.

"I know I have not covered myself in glory these last few weeks, but I beg you, allow me to explain?—"

"Kathryn has done that already on your behalf. Strangely, I do believe her. Fortunately, Kathryn has an innocent soul beneath all her mischief. I can tell when she is lying to me, and I know in this regard, she is not." Lady Georgiana angled her head, just enough to look over her shoulder at him.

Nigel flinched at the power of that icy blue stare connecting with him.

"Maybe you were only her tutor, Doctor, but you must realize I question your motives…?" She raised her eyebrows.

"I never?—"

"You had a young woman alone in your apartments. A woman who I have seen countless times, you had a connection with. There was a spark between you, just as I have observed in many couples of the ton before."

"But—"

"You wish to claim you never acted on it?"

"If I could speak, yes." Nigel instantly regretted his words as Lady Georgiana's eyes narrowed. "Forgive me," he muttered hurriedly. "Yes, I cannot deny I have a…sincere admiration for your cousin." Even as he said the words, they felt meek in comparison to what he felt. What he did nurture for Kathryn was certainly stronger than an admiration, but he was hardly going to declare that to Lady Georgiana now. "Yet I have never acted inappropriately towards your cousin. I endeavored to help her, to teach her. The friendship that formed between us was natural because of it."

"Then I speak to that part of your friendship now." Lady Georgiana turned to fully face him. "Your upbringing, your father's lessons, your brother's too, you must know as well as any other man in the ton that the connection between the pair of you is now at risk of scandal. If Kathryn was seen going to your apartments," she paused momentarily, shuddering, "then her reputation could be ruined by nightfall."

"I would not let that happen." Nigel stepped forward with sudden eagerness.

"And how do you intend to stop it?" Lady Georgiana quizzed, knowingly. "It cannot be stopped. Whispers of these kind can only be quelled, but they cannot be halted completely. Kathryn is to return to Dorset tomorrow."

"She is to go home? So soon?" Nigel's voice quietened. "But–"

"It is for the best. If she is not here to whisper about, then any such mischief makers will feel less temptation. I suggest the same about you, Doctor, not just for my cousin's reputation, but your own. If you were to stay in London and this news was to break, whispers of your professional integrity would abound. You know that, do you not?" She waited for an answer, her face angled to the side.

"I do." Nigel's voice was small as he looked down at the medical case in his hands. It wasn't something he wanted to consider. Perhaps the last few minutes in this room, he'd acknowledged it was possible he'd have to leave, but now it was presented before him, he didn't want to take it.

Can I do it? Can I leave?

He would be leaving all his patients behind, turning his back on them, some when they needed him most, including Lady Georgiana. Then he thought of the other he would be parted from. He thought of not seeing Kathryn again, and his chest ached. He shifted his weight between his feet, struggling for words.

"For her sake, and your own, I think it best we separate you both from this city and those that will whisper. There must be some place you can go, Doctor. Something you can do for a while to avoid this place," Lady Georgiana went on.

"Yes," he spoke eventually, working hard to keep his voice level. "I was offered a position as a military doctor some time ago by an old friend. It's an offer I could reconsider."

"Excellent, yes, that is quite perfect." Lady Georgiana nodded, more to herself than him, as she turned away. "I hope you know that urging you away is not a decision I make lightly. I have come to rely on your sound advice these last few years."

"I will be sorry to leave your service under this cloud," Nigel accepted, hoping she believed the genuine words. "I shall ensure I have left enough medicines for you when I leave. I can also brief another doctor on your condition, so they are brought up to speed as soon as possible."

"As always, Doctor Beille, thinking of others." Lady Georgiana sat down in the seat he had not long vacated. She turned interested eyes on him, narrowed in their curiousness. "Once more I find myself baffled, as to what it is you are truly thinking right now, truly feeling, what you are afraid to talk of."

A strange silence descended between them as Nigel shifted once more. He could not talk about what he felt. To do so would be laying his heart open. He was too used to heartbreak now, too used to pain. He knew the best course of action at once – he could not speak of it.

I must keep my cards close to my chest.

"I have already behaved inappropriately to your family. I will not sully that further by praying on your time any longer." Nigel bowed to Lady Georgiana. "Please know that I wish the best for you and your cousin, Lady Georgiana. Indeed, I do."

Her lips flickered into the smallest of smiles as he straightened up, then it was gone, and he wondered if he had imagined it.

"I shall miss your good company, Doctor. Yet it is for the best. Take care of yourself."

"And you, my Lady." He bowed his head one more time and turned to leave the library. He walked hurriedly through the house, suddenly feeling a desperation to be out of this house. If he had to leave London, if he would never be permitted to see Kathryn again, if he had to become an army doctor, then let it happen now. Let him be far away from here, so he wouldn't have to suffer the pain of actually removing himself.

He hastened outside, where Lady Georgiana's carriage waited to return him home. He stopped by the door, his sudden vigor failing him, as he felt eyes in the back of his head. Turning on his heel, his gaze searched the windows.

There you are.

In one of the upstairs chamber windows stood Kathryn. She leaned against the windowsill, watching him with tears on her cheeks. She raised her hand and offered the smallest of waves.

Nigel indulged in a sudden fantasy of breaking back into the house, of running up the stairs and embracing Kathryn in his arms, whispering to her how he hated seeing her in pain.

I cannot. I can offer her nothing, only scandal now.

He bowed his head to her, in a way he hoped that showed to her the true depths of his respect, then he turned to leave. When he closed the carriage door and blocked out the view of Kathryn, he felt sick, and leaned forward, burying his face in his hands.

When he returned home, Nigel hastened to the task of packing at once, not wishing to drag it out. He wrote a letter to his friend in the army who had once offered him the position and asked if the offer was still open. As he walked around his apartment, packing up various books, he heard something tinkle as he kicked it across the floor of his sitting room.

Stopping, Nigel bent down and reached for the gold glittering thing that he had kicked. It was tiny with a small chain and a pearl droop. It was Kathryn's other earring. He enclosed it in his palm, holding tightly onto the jewel.