Page 16 of A Wager at Midnight (Betting Against the Duke #2)

Chapter 16

S CARLETT —T HE P HYSICIAN’S C ARRIAGE

B y the time I emerge from Somerset House, it’s late in the day. My physician seems to be at a loss for words. We cross the street.

“My carriage is in the close mews.” Mr. Carew seems well, but he hasn’t said much. I suppose he’s still shocked by everything.

“How are you feeling, cousin?”

The handsome man cuts his gaze at me. “We are almost to my Berlin. Once inside, we’ll be able to talk freely.”

That isn’t his typical stern lecturing voice. Maybe he’s still feeling ill.

I look at him walking closer to me, crowding me. This is punishment. And I’m an easy mark, because I care. Goodness, I hate being stupid, hate caring for someone who’ll never see me as an equal.

We arrive at his carriage. He waves at Benny to stand away from the door. Carew rips it open. A wave of hot rosewater fragrance hits my nose.

“Rancid.” Tapping my boot, I turn and look at him. “Have you been back there?”

“Scarlett. That’s from last week. The smell won’t die.” He sighs hard. “Now, please get in. I’ve been thinking of us.”

Thinking of us? As I start to climb in, he says, “The bottle of water and rag are for you. I need to see and talk to Scarlett, not Scotland.”

Carew’s tone is a mixture of anger and begging. Somehow that seems about right for us.

He gets in and sits with me on the same seat, then tosses his hat and mine to the other side. Without saying another word, he opens the bottle. Pouring some onto the cloth, I sniff lemon and rosemary. It’s not just water.

“It will help get that stuff off your face and aid in any blemishes the cosmetics may have caused.”

He stares at me with his beautiful eyes—more begging—until I begin to scrub my cheeks. When all the coal black comes off, the towel looks filthy.

“Better,” he says. His countenance is close to me. “Is all this costuming necessary?”

My hands in these gloves are sweaty. I wrench them off and put them in my pocket. “Yes. Women aren’t allowed to attend the Royal Society, remember?”

“So, the cosmetics and risking scandal is just to advocate for a woman’s right to see a nude man. Surely there are easier ways.”

His tone has become smug. I can match his—always could. “Well, if my prostitute Chrysanthemum had dallied a little longer, I’d have had a full view of you in such a condition. You can say you’re welcome. I buttoned your breeches all by myself.”

His whole face darkens, and he looks straight ahead. “So you are ready for more of an education? Or will any man’s breeches do?”

Wait. What? “No lectures. You can leap to your own opinions without my participation.”

He glances at me with a look I can’t trace. He takes the damp cloth from my fingers and wipes gently along my jaw, then rips off my sideburns. His motion is quick and painless, but I guess he’s used to adhesives and bandages.

“Why bother lecturing you, Scarlett? You see no risk to your own reputation. The Wilcox name is not exactly spotless, so muddying yours by viewing a man’s posterior or physician’s breeches has little to no consequences for you.”

Well, it was more than the model’s buttocks. A lot more. “I came for anatomy. I stayed for adventure.”

The cloth tumbles in his fingers, then he sets it aside. “Scarlett, I care about your reputation. I care about you. And though you’ve been to Somerset and White’s and—”

“A brothel. Don’t forget about Madame Rosebud’s. I did this all as Scotland Wilcox or Scotland Carew.”

“What if you were Scarlett Carew?”

“No, Scotland is the name when I dress up to be in men’s spaces. It was my brother’s.”

His mouth gapes open. No doubt preparing to say something witty or demeaning. He looks down at the floor. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“Most don’t. He died at age six.”

“How old were you?”

“Six.”

He closed his eyes. “Fraternal twins. I’m sorry, Scarlett—”

I turn from the pity in his eyes and glance out the window. The route his man is taking us is familiar. I’m being dropped back to Anya House as a naughty child. “Since I now have so many names, I’m glad you chose Scarlett. You should use my first name, as if we are friends.”

“We are, and have been forever.” A sigh blasts from his nostrils. “And since we are now sort of related, and definitely entwined, you must call me Stephen.” He folds his arms. “How did your twin—”

“A high fever.”

Stephen slaps the seat. “That’s why last year when Lydia had a fever, you had the idea for willow bark tea.”

“I’ve studied everything I can. It’s for Scotland. I stayed at his side that long horrible night. I held a compress on his head, trying to cool him down. Papa went to get a doctor. Then I fell asleep. My fault.”

“No, Scarlett, you were just a child. These things happen.”

Tears wet my face. I haven’t thought about the exact moment of losing my brother in so long. “I woke up, and he was all red. The compress I had been using to cool him was on the floor. If I hadn’t fallen asleep . . . If I’d worked a little harder . . .”

My eyes close.

I feel stupid for being so emotional in front of Stephen, of all people. Oh, Lord. I can’t stop crying. “Sorry.”

A hand grasps mine. Stephen tugs me to him. “Not your fault.”

The peppermint on his breath feels clean, cleansing in a sense. Then his deep melodic voice whispers. “Not your fault. De longer yuh live de more yuh learn. I’ve seen everything done well. And death, he still comes.”

I’m against his chest. His heart is strong.

“Now stop crying.” He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket. “Dry dem eyes, Scarlett.”

Stephen taps his roof.

His driver stops and then comes to the window. “Yes, Mr. Carew.”

“Benny. Head to Gunter’s. We will remain in my carriage while you order pineapple ices. Then we’ll take our treats to Anya House.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Carew.” Benny stares at me. “You’re right. She’s much prettier without all the paint.”

He walks away.

Stephen still has his hand behind me. “Now tell me who has cataracts. You have been working hard to help someone.”

No one can ever say Stephen Adam Carew isn’t smart. “Let’s get the ices first. You know I’m much easier to bribe with sweets.”

“I remember when it didn’t take a bribe to get you to talk to me, Scarlett. Even when we fought, I knew you cared. You’ve been easy with me. Then something changed.”

The man is literally inches away from holding me in an embrace and kissing me. A real kiss, not just a bump in the night. And if he did, him doing so in his right mind, would mean something?

But he doesn’t. His hand absently plays with my fingers along the seat. Stephen is clueless. I have to realize he’ll never become wise when it comes to my heart. I shrug. “Things change.”

“Fine. Sweets. Then talk.” He shakes his head. “Deal. I guess you doh ketch fly with vinegar.”

I’m not an insect, but at least this imagery gives me wings and agency. I can do what I please and buzz and annoy Stephen even if I’ll always be a mosquito, a no-see-um, that he can’t actually see.

Stephen’s carriage parks in Berkeley Square across from Gunter’s. Benny dodges traffic to retrieve two pineapple ices. I wonder what whimsical shape he’ll retrieve.

My carriage mate now sits on the other side. The caring man who just held me tight has gone away. Why must I be weak for him to show me kindness?

“Why do you look at me like that, Scarlett?” His voice is low. “What have I done?”

Folding my arms, I lean forward a little. “What do you think you’ve done?”

“Other than compromise you in a brothel, can’t think of a t’ing.”

I laugh. “So that’s why you look so pensive. That’s a new look for you.”

“Pensive,” he repeats. “I have to figure out how not to disappoint the aunties. They will be expecting me to bring a beautiful woman with me to Wesley’s Chapel on Friday.”

“That’s the church on City Road?”

“You know it? Of course the Wilcoxes would know it. It’s one of the more liberal churches in London.”

Liberal’s a nice way of saying welcoming of all people, all races . . . on Friday. On Sunday, I suspect the Wilcoxes, aunties, and de community are allowed in the last pews. “We went when Mama was well.”

“Mrs. Wilcox was a beautiful, gentle soul. She could handle Mr. Wilcox.”

“And he, her. My parents loved each other fiercely. They fought but always made up.”

“My father was an honorable man but his marriage to my mother was more duty. Her father made the arrangement happen.” Stephen softens his tone. “It never was loving. My mother was unhappy for years. She died while I was away at school. My father was killed in a rebellion two years ago.”

“I’m sorry, Stephen. You know tragedy.”

“I do. That’s why I want to change the world, Scarlett.”

Another honest moment between the two of us. I don’t want it to end, but I have to poke. It is our way. “My parents stopped going to Wesley over the missionaries and other things.”

Stephen stretches, then rubs his neck. “I’m conflicted. Missionaries bring food and medicine to hurting places, but Wesley’s sends missionaries across the seas to teach the savages. I don’t like to think of my homeland as savage.”

“The hang it on their beastly papers put it. It mirrors their attitude.”

He grimaces and again looks away.

Then I realize he’s trying not to argue. That means he’ll share less and less. We can’t get along. “Well, I hadn’t expected you’d agree with me and find fault with the missionaries. I suppose no one is safe from your judgment.”

“Yes, Scarlett, I have strong opinions. I may not rail at everything like you or frolic in costume, but I have them. And it bothers me, the hate. That my church is a symbol of unity for my community but uses even harsher words for those in the West Indies. ‘Devils’ and ‘heathens’ are commonly said in sneers.”

Stephen releases a bitter chuckle. “You go places feeling you have to defend your sex; I have to defend my nation. Patients think I will treat them with magic or bones of some sort. They should know I save my secrets for special people.”

“Like I said, that’s why the Wilcoxes stopped going. We come from proud Jamaican stock.”

Stephen sighs. “At least at Wesley’s, I’m not relegated to the last row like at St. George’s.”

He groans deeply, then again plasters a smile to his lips. They are smooth and not ashy today. “You said other reasons?”

“Yes, the sickness. They know it’s in our blood. Wilcoxes can ostracize ourselves. No hypocrites required.”

Stephen raises a hand then drops it to his knee. “It’s scary. The suffering, no one wants that for their family.”

“Why go, when we are as good as lepers to the nice Wesleyans?”

His dips and he nods, then says, “I can’t fix that. It’s terrible. But I need help now. Scarlett, will you dress properly and go with me on Friday? If I don’t have someone with me, my aunties will again push for me to be with Eveline. I don’t want that.”

I’m supposed to go? I’m supposed to be the one he’s courting? “Why? Why me?”

“Why not you? You came up with the ruse.”

“Surely, you can make up an excuse, Stephen. Then you can be in love again with the woman you were going to marry last year, once you completed your three-part plan. Or was it four?”

“I do like the way your mouth sort of hisses as you say my first name, but I’m not interested in her or my aunties’ games. I much prefer yours.” He folds his arms. “You should know I have no intentions to marry her. How can I trust her, knowing she kept secrets?”

“Perhaps if you were honest with your intentions, she wouldn’t have been so secretive.”

He frowns at me. “I was honest with her. I was building my practice and exploring the idea of opening a hospital. I have priorities. My practice has now tripled in size. I can support a wife and household comfortably.”

Why does it feel like he’s made some sort of pronouncement for my benefit?

“Course you don’t understand.” Stephen sits back. “You keep secrets so you would take the side of a secretive woman.”

“So my way of fighting for my beliefs makes me the same as an untrustworthy woman or missionaries for heathens? Good to know.”

Stephen laughs in my face. “Playing dress-up is an odd form of rebellion.”

Noting my frown, he puts his face in his hands. “Stop looking like that. Sorry. I’m trying not to get us into an argument. We have much to discuss. And, Scarlett, I know you’re bright. I realize you’re passionate, but you don’t take reasoned risks. That’s dangerous.”

“Is that why you were so fretful about me seeing a man in the nude? It’s too dangerous?”

“Scarlett, you should have the decency not to look.”

“Decency? It was a science presentation. I was in a brothel with you and several men of science. They slobbered over scantily dressed women. You probably would’ve, too, if you hadn’t fallen asleep.”

Beating the back of his head against the seat, I hear him chanting. “I’m not going to let you make me angry and say something I don’t mean. And the fault of the brothel visit was not yours or mine but Livingston’s.”

“Do you listen to yourself? Men can look all they want at a woman’s body, whether for science or lust, but women are supposed to have decency and not look. Hypocrite.”

His jaw tightens. The spark in his eyes blazes like fire. “It’s not the same. A doctor has to be comfortable looking at all bodies.”

I shrug and mouth h-y-p-o-c-r-i-t-e.

“Scarlett—”

“If you’re not, then you simply understand that now I’ll have an image for comparison. Today’s lecture gave a very good comparison.”

“Good comparison?” He mimics my voice but then adds, “Woman. Where deh get such ideas? Why, yuh crazy girly?”

Wow. His temper has loosened his tongue. His accent is so strong I smell salty sea air. I tap my brow. “Believe it or not, I think. I read. I’ve seen da Vinci sketches of the beauty and wonder of the human body, and I must say that Mr. Model was well muscled, very well strung. I believe an audience of females shall be well pleased. Is that why you don’t wish us to know? You like limiting our pleasure?”

“Deh . . .” He sputters and goes silent. Stephen’s rich complexion becomes pale.

I’ve stunned him into silence. I feel powerful. And it’s wonderful to offer him these sentiments men voice all the time, while women are expected to stay silent and not look.

Several minutes and miles go by before he says a word. “You want to shock me, Scarlett. Fine. I’m shocked. Yuh wanna say shocking things, but yuh act like yuh have everything well in hand until things go wrong. With medicine you have to be open to learning, setting expectation, and failing. Clearly, you’re not ready for that. Why keep playing? I thought you weren’t a child.”

Now I’m stunned silent.

“I’ve known you since you were nine. Scarlett, do you know how hard it is to see with the care-for-nothing attitude?”

“I’m twenty-one. Back then I let you into my chaotic house because Mama needed help. Physicians coming to Ground Street are rare, and I already live with the consequences of what happens when we can’t get help.”

He lifts his hands and then jerks them to the tufted seat. “Your mother was one of the best women I’ve ever known. Patient, always composed. Never frivolous, and forever trying to clean up disasters. I promised your father on his deathbed to be a mentor, to protect you and your family. I’ve not done a good job. I owe it to Mr. Wilcox, to fix this.”

Tears threaten again, as I sit fighting the shame he wants me to feel. “My father was a good man, but he valued my mother’s wisdom. As opinionated as he was, he sought my mother’s advice. Mama was amazing, but I’m not her. I’ve learned to clean up my own problems.”

His palms grip the seat as if to keep him in place. “You take it upon yourself to put yourself in jeopardy, Scarlett, while in my care. That creates problems which I need to clean up. You forget everything that can potentially harm you and embroil your family in scandal. How many fake courting schemes can the Wilcoxes endure?”

“I do not put anyone but myself in danger.”

“Do so.”

“Do not. And I kept you out of danger. How are you going to lecture me? I’m not working myself to exhaustion until I faint in a gentlemen’s club or a brothel. Maybe if you’d opened that hospital, you wouldn’t have to travel all over London.”

“Don’t change the subject, Scarlett. Can you not see how much I care?”

Of course I can. That small part of my heart that bears his name loves that he does. But those pieces need dissecting. Anything that makes me weak or wish for things I can never have, like the love and respect of a man who doesn’t respect my dreams, must be cut away.

“I see you thinking. Let that brainbox work. The duke and I, we are respectable gentlemen. We live to protect. Livingston cares for nothing but his pleasures. He took you to a brothel.”

“But he did offer to pay for my prostitute. That’s a gentlemanly act.”

I love how Stephen sighs at such a ludicrous statement. His nostrils flare. He struggles with the carefully controlled demeanor he wishes to portray.

I want him to burn.

I want him, Stephen Adam Carew, to burn with the fire of seven suns. Burn away the fears that make you walk such a tight path. Burn it all down and be free.

That’s what I want, too, because I’m on fire. I see the care, the passion, the caution, and I smolder for him. I suck in a breath and fan my jacket to let out heat. “You might be respectable now, but when you were young and not an aged frump, you probably were wild. I know the duke was scandalous before. He and my sister—”

“Excuse me. Lady Hampton knew the duke before?”

“Uhm . . . yes.” I bite my tongue. I can’t tell Torrance’s secrets. “It doesn’t matter. You’re just being a hypocrite, Stephen. You think you’re wise, but you are stuck, stuck in mud that’s as old as dirt.”

He rubs at his face. “You’re mixing metaphors. And I’m younger than . . . dirt. I’m not stuck. I’m a gentleman. There are many men who aren’t. They’ll use you. You deserve better.”

“Do these users happen to model naked and have the attributes of well-hung gods? Then maybe I wouldn’t mind the company.”

“Scarlett, you don’t know what you’re saying. A deflowered woman—”

“Is looked at a little worse than one paid for her services? Hypocrites put women in horrible positions. I go to Bridewell. I provide aid to forgotten women, and I keep going back to provide aid.”

His brow wrinkles. “You do that? It’s not safe. What kind of aid?”

I smirk at him and say, “The best that a valiant woman can give. Definitely more than well wishes and prayers. More than missionaries who travel abroad but can’t help the sick and poor at home. So many hypocrites. Most physicians are loath to go to my side of town.”

“You know why, Scarlett? You know the stigma of the chronic disease. Many don’t know what causes it or if it’s catching.”

Sinking in against my seat, I feel like weights press against my shoulders. “That’s why I must help.”

The door opens. Benny has returned. “Two cold bowls. Uhm. Is everyt’ing alright?”

“Fine.” I take the cold dishes and marvel at Gunter’s treats.

One’s shaped like a banana, the other is a bunny. Stephen looks up at his driver. “That’s all they had?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, Benny. The molds are so innovative.” I stab the banana-shaped one with my spoon and put the tip in my mouth. “Not a drop will be wasted.”

“Put a whole ice in your mouth?” Stephen groans and wipes at his face. “Benny, get us to Anya House as quickly as possible.”

This tone is different. Did he just growl like a bear? What? He doesn’t like his bunny bowl?

“Yes . . . yes, sir.” The driver runs away. The carriage jerks forward.

Stephen’s frown grows. It may be permanent. He’s not looking at me but the bowl and my spoon. Does he want to say something? Unless it’s an apology, I want nothing more from him.

I’ll eat my ice, knowing the good physician won’t say a single word, not until I lick my bowl clean.