Page 1 of A Touch of Charm (Miracles on Harley Street #3)

1818. Silvercrest Manor, a country estate two hours from London…

O n the night of his friend’s wedding, Andre was en garde , like a parent watching their child on a swing. Because of his experience in life, his mind wandered to the dangers he wanted to prevent rather than the enjoyment of the festivities at hand.

“Why are you on the sidelines?” Alfie, the groom, asked in a conspiratorial tone—they were among close friends after all—with a polite nod to Prince Stan, but his gaze remained on Andre.

Because I am not supposed to dance with any of the aristocratic ladies; I’m not good enough for them.

“Just keeping the Prince here company,” Andre smiled, hoping Alfie didn’t catch on. “It’s a beautiful celebration.” Andre bowed to Bea, the bride who was approaching them. She returned a warm smile and a slight blush, just as the perfect daughter of an earl ought.

“He’s looking at us. Baron von List hasn’t let me out of his sight all night,” Prince Stan remarked, a hint of friendly mischief in his tone when he arched a brow and gestured in the direction of a man watching them from afar. Stan, too, was an anomaly in this crowd; his princely bearing matched with a warmth that belied his station. But for Andre, Stan was a friend.

And Andre cherished his friendship too much to jeopardize telling Stan the truth about his heritage.

“As long as he’s just looking,” Alfie said with palpable disdain.

“He’s probably plotting his next—” But before Andre could finish the sentence, the bride had come within earshot and hooked her arm into Alfie’s as if their love celebrated on their wedding day made them invincible.

The most precious kind of love.

And Andre felt deep in the pit of his stomach that he’d do anything in his power to protect his friends.

Andre’s gaze sharpened, focusing on the baron. Knowing the man’s reputation all too well, a chill settled over him. “I see him,” Andre replied, his voice dropping to an indistinct murmur. “We should be wary.” Baron von List, a Prussian baron with criminal tendencies and an appetite for brutality, preyed on the weak and subverted money from those who needed it. Andre despised violence above all else. Since Baron von List was often the instigator of violence and pain, Andre despised the man, especially his smug face and cold, calculating eyes.

“He’s an entitled Prussian aristocrat who inflicts pain to get rich,” Stan said.

Everything I stand against. All Andre wanted was to hide his noble lineage—it had to remain a secret—so that he could continue to heal people. He didn’t need riches as long as he had his friends, and he knew he was doing well in life. As an apprentice in India, he’d only slept in a small tent for a week while tending to patients in the rice fields—and their appreciative smiles and a bowl of water were all he’d needed for thanks.

“Baron von List would siphon the blood from the dead if it served him.”

Andre nodded in agreement with Stan.

“He’s disgusting even when dressed impeccably in all of his finery,” Stan said. Andre knew the baron as well as Stan. “There’s nothing but blackness that even List’s sleek blond hair couldn’t hide from his character.”

Dr. Andre Fernando was a man of science and facts and believed that hard work paved the way to honor—not titles. He firmly believed that only a select few members of the nobility had genuinely earned the honors passed down through heritage, and the man staring at him was not one of them.

“He came uninvited,” Alfie said as he crossed his arms.

Stan nodded, a shadow crossing his features. “His presence sours the evening for me. Shall we make our escape back to London?”

Andre hesitated, glancing once more at his friends. Duty weighed heavy on his shoulders, yet a sense of belonging to his friends tugged at him. “There could be emergencies. One of us ought to be there.”

“Oh, Andre, you’ll miss the festivities,” Alfie protested with a frown, but it was plain to see that the apothecary agreed. Alfie was the groom and should enjoy the celebration. Having a ball after the wedding was unusual, but his match was just as unusual. Particular was the better word.

Romantic , Andre thought with a pang in his heart.

“The patients need one of us to be there at all times,” Andre added when Alfie’s mien fell. They were more than friends and colleagues; the doctors on Harley Street were a family. “I know you left the apothecary well-stocked, and I will ensure you can enjoy a few more days with your bride.”

Andre bowed to Bea and reached for her hand to kiss her knuckles. He was glad to show his respect to the new addition to their family of friends. Of course, she wasn’t a doctor nor an apothecary, but she and her cousin Pippa founded the rehabilitation center that Andre helped to start. And where he might be needed.

“But I can’t abandon the patients,” Alfie protested.

“You can’t leave your bride alone on your honeymoon. I will ensure that none of the patients feel abandoned.” Andre put a hand on his heart. It was the truth—whether or not he told Alfie—the doctors on Harley Street would prioritize their patients over all else, and Andre was no exception.

No further words were necessary; Andre was the one who could most easily leave and not be missed for the remainder of the celebrations.

“You’ll tell me everything when you return to London,” Andre said, thinking wistfully that Alfie would return to the practice at 87 Harley Street, but it wouldn’t be his home anymore. He’d move into the townhouse prepared for him and his bride, Bea. Although Andre was happy for his friends and glad they found love, he felt a pang of sadness that the practice was emptying like a nest. One by one, the doctors were taking flight.

“Let’s go to my carriage,” Stan said. “I’d like to return to London before the baron does.”

“I think it’s time. My patients await, and so does the rehabilitation center.” Andre nodded to Alfie and watched him escort Bea into the bustling ballroom.

“And I have to get back to my task at hand,” Stan added. “After all, I’ve come to England to find the reason for the trade problems at home in Transylvania.”

“You said that it had been a surprise, even to you, to pinpoint all the trouble to the Prussian baron.” But Andre decided not to push his friend further, he knew it was a matter that caused him much distress.

“Yes, I need to heal my country, and you need to heal your patients. Let’s hope they don’t share the same source of the violence,” Stan said with one last glance in Baron von List’s direction.

Andre Agreed. What took a moment to inflict could forever occupy a person’s life, as was the nature of many of his patients’ injuries.

With a final wave to his friends, Andre joined Stan, stepping away from the warmth of the ballroom. The night air was crisp, filled with the scents of blooming flowers and distant rain. His heart felt light despite the weight of responsibilities, his resolve firm as he climbed into the carriage beside Stan. The road to London stretched ahead with uncertainty and promise. Andre settled back, determination mingling with the soft rhythm of hooves against cobblestones, his mind already shifting to those who awaited his care. Yes , he thought, his place was at the practice with his patients and not among the nobility.

And it was never going to change.

*

Upstairs in Silvercest Manor…

Everything had changed since Thea had come to England. Her full name, Princess Josephine Theodora Andrea Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, seemed as far as her home these days, for she didn’t feel very royal. Well, she wasn’t letting anyone know that she was—royal that was—and liked the predictability and freedom of life as a governess, except when the mattress’s spring poked her in the back. Plus, letting people know where she was would allow the one person she was hiding from to find her.

Never!

But even though she was purposefully hiding, in the spartan room designated as the nursery for her six-year-old ward, Mary White, Thea couldn’t sleep. Although Mary should have had her own room, there wasn’t enough space, and Thea was glad to be there for the little girl and not at home awaiting her wedding just in time for her twenty-first birthday.

Silvercrest Manor, where Mary’s parents stayed for a ball underway downstairs in celebration of a wedding Thea knew little about, was only supposed to be a stop on a longer journey while Mr. White pursued his business. They’d already said their goodbyes before dinner and planned to reunite in London at a later date. In fact, Thea was to take Mary to London and tend to her on the morrow until Mr. And Mrs. White returned from their travels. Thea felt a deep empathy for Mary, understanding her loneliness and promising herself to be present for her own children, just as she and Mary were there for each other now.

Mary put her fingers in her ears. The music from the ball two floors down was altogether too loud, and she was too secluded; this was the first time in Thea’s life that she wasn’t the princess with a filled dance card.

“I can’t sleep,” Mary said, sitting up in her frilly white nightgown. She brushed her hair out of her face. She usually slept like a log, but not tonight. “I can’t go to Europe with Mother and Father. It’s not fair.”

“How can I help?” Thea asked, moving as little as possible lest the bed screech with the shrill sound that made her cringe every time. It had been her fault for running away; from her elegant silk pillow covers and the comforting canopy over her bed, in the same dusty pink as her favorite roses in the gardens outside Bran Castle. Instead of her sizeable four-poster bed, she was in a cot. But she was free, anonymous, and there wasn’t a royal in sight forcing her hand in marriage—not her father or her alleged betrothed. She was free.

Alone.

Penniless, lest for the small salary she received from the Whites to look after Mary.

And it wasn’t easy for a princess to make do without her lady’s maids and all the little luxuries she took for granted before she left Bran Castle.

Thea shifted, and the bed screeched again. She grimaced when the sound assaulted her ears. She didn’t mind working as Mary’s governess; the little girl was darling. However, life without the comforts of being a princess in a castle proved to be exhausting. She had to wash and dry her clothes, and there were no gowns tied in the back but rather sensible and simple dresses with buttons in the front.

“Are you thirsty?” Thea asked, noting that the water jug on the side table was only half full. “Or cold, perhaps?”

“So many questions,” the little girl waved grandly. Her philosophical streak often gave Thea reason to suppress a chuckle.

“Tell me.” Thea spread her arms, and Mary pulled her white sleeping gown up and climbed onto her lap. Mary’s thoughtful expression was a welcome interruption to Thea’s musings.

“Well, why do girls pull all the time?” Mary asked.

“Pull what?”

“In the Latin declination you put on the board today. Nominative: puella , the girl, genitive: puellae , of the girl, dative: puellae , to or for the girl.”

“ Puell , not pull,” Thea said when she realized the clock on the mantel showed eleven o’clock, which was long past the time of a Latin lesson—or Mary’s bedtime. Thea yawned and blinked groggily.

“Do the boys in Rome pull the girls because of their pigtails?” Mary asked again.

“Why would they do that?”

“Because girls are called puellae .”

“First of all, boys in Rome speak Italian these days. They’re not like the stories you learn to translate; they are ancient. Nobody truly speaks Latin anymore.”

“You do.”

“I speak several languages that came from Latin, and studying it as the basis of proper grammar was part of my education, but I still don’t speak it in conversation.” Mary didn’t need to know exactly how extensive Thea’s education had been; she was a princess in hiding. It was unheard of. Rebellious. Dangerous. It was empowering, in moments when she didn’t sit so uncomfortably on the cot. Her new sense of freedom had come at the cost of comfort and security. How odd that freedom and security were like two geometric shapes that never overlapped.

“Then why do I have to learn it if I could much better learn Italian to fend off the boys in Rome who pull my hair?”

“You’ve never been to Rome, dear. And as long as I’m watching out for you, nobody will pull your pigtails.” Mary looked unconvinced. “Remember, ‘ Lingua viva sensus revocat ’—a living language revives the senses. Even if Latin isn’t spoken commonly, its essence lives on through the languages we use today.”

“The roots are common for all?”

“Perhaps yes. Everything has the same origins. All people are equal; the differences are nuances like shapes on paper, but the essence of what they are made of, ink on paper, is the same for all.”

Mary seemed to contemplate that for a while as Thea put her back into bed and draped the covers over her. “So, words are ink on paper, and all share communities?”

“Communication,” Thea corrected her. “Yes.”

As sweet as Mary was, the life of a governess was not what Thea had had in mind when she’d left her home, Bran Castle, in the Grand Principality of Transylvania, which was under the control of the Habsburgs. They had been in search of her brother, Stan. She’d hoped to escape from the fangs of her parents, eager to organize her arranged marriage to Prince Ralph Maximilian von Habsburg, whom she’d never met; only her brothers had, and her father had promised her to his father under the pretense of a charter to prevent the exploitation of Transylvanian gold from its mines. But, there had to be another way to unite her family with the Habsburgs and give her people more power under the Habsburg rule.

And that’s why Thea needed to speak with her brother. She wanted to find out what he’d accomplished, not merely read the occasional letter with a three- or four-month delay. She wanted to be part of the excitement that was her brother’s life in resolving their family’s conflicts with the Habsburgs and their Prussian followers— accomplices was a better word, but that was neither here nor there in the nursery.

Thea drove her fingers through Mary’s soft ringlets of curls that fell from her night bonnet, her braided pigtails peeking through. These days, they only had each other.

Mary jolted back, her eyes wide as saucers. “A monster!” she cried, leaping out of bed and clutching Thea with tiny, trembling arms.

Thea, feeling Mary’s small body’s warmth pressing against her, gently murmured, “A tree branch hit the window.” Her voice was calm, a steady anchor in Mary’s storm of fear. She stroked the girl’s hair, a gesture intended to soothe, as her mother’s touch did for Thea when she was little. “Come, I’ll show you there’s nothing to fear.”

With practiced ease, she took up the oil lamp, its light casting a soft glow that danced across the walls. She slipped into her gown, then helped Mary into hers, the fabric rustling like whispers of reassurance.

“Where are we going?” Mary asked, her voice a fragile thread in the quiet room.

“We must meet our fears head-on, little one. We must take the power, or the fear will control our actions.” Thea winked, offering a playful smile.

We ladies must always support each other.

Together.

And yet alone.

Together, they descended the servant’s stairs, the house around them sighing with the night’s sounds.

“Look, it’s just dark. Nothing to fear,” Thea said when she’d opened the door. “Let’s see.” That’s all she’d intended, a look out through the door. But Mary ducked under Thea’s arm and slipped before she could grasp her. “No, Mary! Come back!” When Mary had gone further than the lights from the building reached on the grounds, Thea knew the little girl had gone too far, and had no choice but to follow her. “I didn’t mean for you to face your fears outside like this.”

Too late.

Thea rubbed her arms and blinked several times until her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Then, she found Mary again and took her hand. Outside, the air was crisp, the remnants of the ball’s music still fading to the garden’s nightly sounds.

Thea’s grip on Mary’s hand was firm yet tender, a silent vow to protect her.

Time to face some fears…

The night hummed with life—the distant hoot of an owl, leaves rustling in a breeze—each sound amplifying the unease that prickled at her senses.

As they moved through the hedges, a sudden crack startled Thea, and her heart lurched. The darkness was thick, the moonlight weaving shadows that cloaked the truth. She glanced back, her breath caught as she scanned the gloom. Was it merely a deer moving through the underbrush that had snapped a twig with its hooves? Or a fox? Suddenly, the air erupted with a flurry of wings—bats, their erratic paths cutting through the night. Thea pulled Mary closer, the bonnet slipping over the child’s face like a shield. Her eyes darted about for answers, catching a glint—metal, cold and gleaming, momentarily revealed by the moon’s light. Once a place of serene beauty by day, the garden now held a chilling mystery, the thrill of the unknown tightening her grip on the nightly dangers.

Navigating the hedges, Thea’s thoughts danced between the house’s safety and the night’s mystery. Had she left her apprehensions behind with the guests who laughed and twirled inside? What shadows lurked in the garden’s darkness?

“Do you remember what I told you about nocturnal animals?” Thea asked, gripping Mary’s tiny hand with both of hers.

The girl nodded frantically.

“Well, we are diurnal. Humans sleep at night. Thus, we are not easily scared of the animals we are used to encountering, such as rabbits, birds, and butterflies.”

“But what about owls? I want to catch a fluffy baby owl!” Mary whispered, her breath hitching as she looked over her shoulder. “Where do we find one? Or a baby wolf, like a puppy, right?”

“I don’t think wolves come so close to gardens and roads. I’ve rarely seen them beyond the Carpathian Mountains.”

“Never mind. Mother said there are no wolves in England,” Mary whispered again, reminding Thea how different the countryside was from home.

Thea bit her tongue. She’d said too much. Anyone who knew how terribly far those mountains were would question where she was from and who she was.

Note to self: European mountain ranges in Mary’s next geography lesson.

But being found out wasn’t Thea’s problem in this instance.

As they skirted the garden’s edge, everything went dark with a suddenness that stole her breath. Her hand grasped the air where Mary’s had been, but the connection was severed.

“Mary?” Panic rose within Thea’s throat. “Where are you?”

A large, moist hand came from behind and slapped her on the mouth, holding her so tightly that she could barely exhale through her nose. Then the hand disappeared, and Thea’s senses flared, every sound and scent magnified, but something rough was shrugged over her head. In the fabric’s suffocating embrace, Thea took a deep breath and heard heavy steps. It smelled moldy. The rough fabric poked Thea’s skin, probably jute or hemp. A sack enveloped her head, and the world narrowed to the frantic beating of her heart.