Page 18 of Bernadette’s Dashing Doctor (The Bookshop Belles #4)
CHAPTER 18
An Elegant Evisceration
G lynn hated having his back to the street, but the rearrangement of his consulting room served its purpose in that he no longer suffered the torment of regularly seeing Bernadette Baxter. Or looking at the bookshop door in the hope of seeing Bernadette Baxter. He sat at his desk, the sun behind him causing his body to cast a shadow over the papers he wrote on.
The other issue of facing away from the street was that he could not see patients approach Mrs Bell’s door. A customer knocked, which caught him off guard and he smudged ink on the paper.
Sighing impatiently, he put his quill in the ink pot and walked to the front door. An elegantly-dressed man stood there, with curls of golden hair that shone like a halo in the late afternoon sun.
He smiled broadly and said, “Dr Williams, I take it?”
“Yes,” he said. “Is this a medical emergency? I’m finishing up my paperwork for the day.”
“Not at all,” the man said and stepped in anyway, placing his hat on the hat rack beside the door. “Well, yes, it is an emergency, but far from medical. Wait, I am wrong,” he kept on talking as he walked into the consulting room, “This is all fine and modern! It’s good to see Hatfield has a modern medicine man.”
Glynn scratched his head in confusion and said, “Come in,” even though the man was already in the room and looking about.
He carried the energy of a curious puppy. Broad smiles, bright shining eyes and a sense that something valuable might suddenly break if he weren’t careful.
“How can I help you, Mr…?”
“I am Felix Yates,” he stated, then stood there.
Was he waiting for applause?
“I’m terribly sorry, Mr Yates, the name doesn’t ring a bell. I’m still rather new to Hatfield.”
“Give it a moment. I’m sure you know Miss Florence Yates, who’s on all the committees.”
“I do, yes.” But she was a spinster.
“And my grandfather, Lord…”
“Ferndale!” The pieces clicked together in Glynn’s head. Then he suddenly wanted to be copiously sick. “You’re married to…”
“Estelle, Bernadette Baxter’s sister. Yes.” He sat on the edge of Glynn’s desk, grinning with glee. “And Bernadette Baxter is at this moment weeping copiously on my wife’s shoulder, after a failed attempt to use a kitten as a handkerchief. I adore my wife and do whatever I can to keep her happy, Dr Williams. Alas, we arrived in Hatfield barely half an hour hence and my wife is already dreadfully un happy.”
Glynn stood there not sure how to proceed. Did he take a seat? He would be far lower than Mr Yates… which, of course he was. Mr Yates would one day inherit the Ferndale Barony, and also be his future employer.
“Do sit down,” Mr Yates said, and Glynn’s behind found his chair.
“Honoured to meet you at last, Mr Yates.” He finally managed to say something coherent and sensible.
“You should probably call me Felix. And what’s your first name?”
“Glynn,” he said, before blinking. “But I couldn’t possibly…”
“Well, perhaps it can wait until we are brothers-by-marriage.”
Glynn choked.
“Or have I got quite the wrong end of the stick?” Mr Yates’ cheery blue eyes hardened, becoming suddenly quite icy. “Would you care to enlighten me as to exactly why Bernadette was crying into a kitten about you when we arrived?”
He absolutely should not feel even the slightest bit happy that Bernadette cared enough to cry over him. Glynn firmed his jaw and looked Mr Yates in the eye. “Regrettably, Miss Baxter has mistaken a professional respect from myself for stronger emotions. I’m afraid she fancies herself in love with me.”
“Dear me.” Felix’s eyes were still rather icy. “Fancies herself in love with you. And you are not available to return her feelings because you are… already married?”
“No!” Glynn flinched. “What do you take me for? I’d never have ki…” he caught himself just in time.
“Kissed her, I see,” Felix said, just as though he hadn’t stopped at all.
“I didn’t kiss her, I kissed her back ,” Glynn said mulishly, aware even as the words left his mouth that they made absolutely no sense.
“Bernadette.” Felix’s lips twitched. “I should not have thought it of her. And following this episode where you did not instigate the kissing, but kissing nonetheless occurred?” He raised a golden eyebrow.
“I came to my senses,” Glynn said bluntly. “With respect, Mr Yates. I’m barely a gentleman - I certainly wasn’t born one. I have little except my salary; not even my own home. I’ll be living in a house provided by my employer. I have nothing to offer a wife, and certainly not a lady like Miss Baxter.” He stared at Felix. “A lady who has one sister a countess, and another a future baroness. Miss Baxter can look far higher than a man who works for a living.”
Felix nodded slowly. “I see, indeed. I suppose I should have thought of it earlier; Grandfather and I really should have set up something to provide dowries for the other sisters after I married Estelle…”
Glynn saw red. Jumping to his feet, he snapped “I am not going to live off my wife’s money. I’ve worked hard for everything I have, I’m not an aristocrat .”
Immediately he wanted to bite his tongue. Mr Yates was the epitome of a born aristocrat, for all he didn’t yet have a ‘Lord’ in front of his name. The golden-haired man didn’t seem to take offence, though, letting out a hearty laugh.
“Well, I dare say I deserved that, Glynn! You have your pride, I see. But let me caution you.” Felix slipped off the desk and walked over to the door, a loose-limbed, utterly confident stride. “Pride is not a dish that tastes too pleasant. I trust you’ll discover that soon enough.”
Glynn wanted to punch the smirk off Felix’s too-handsome face, but somehow, he kept his seat. He’s going to be my employer, was all he could think. I can’t.
“Good evening, Glynn,” Felix said cheerfully. “I’m sure we’ll meet again. Soon.”
Dear Lord, I hope not.
“You’ll be being invited to Sunday dinners at Ferndale Hall as one of the family before you know it, I’m sure!”
Glynn blinked at Felix’s parting shot. Sunday dinners at Ferndale Hall had been a regular event almost since he arrived in Hatfield. Did that mean he was… already accepted as one of the family? He’d come to be extremely fond of Lord Ferndale and Miss Yates. The kindly old gentleman and his sweet sister had filled a hole in Glynn’s life he hadn’t even realised was there.
Would he ever be invited back to dinner after apparently breaking Bernadette’s heart? How could he go anyway, even if he was invited, and look at Bernadette across the dining table?
“This is a fine mess you’ve made of things, boyo,” he muttered to himself, hearing his late father’s voice in his head as he slumped back into his chair and stared at the floor.
The door closing heralded Mrs Bell’s arrival home. She looked through the open door of his consulting room - Felix hadn’t closed it on his way out - and saw Glynn sitting alone.
“What an idiot,” she said scornfully, and the honest truth was that Glynn was beginning to agree with her.
“You as well?” Glynn looked up at his landlady and winced. He should have stayed mute and let her pass, but now that he’d responded, she marched into the consulting room and stood by the desk.
“Come on, let’s move this furniture back to the way it should be.”
The woman was right that the furniture was much less conveniently placed now, but fixing it was the last thing he wanted to do at the moment. All he really wanted to do was sulk about how unfortunate he was to have such misdirected affections when there was nothing he could offer Miss Baxter.
Thinking about her as Miss Baxter instead of Bernadette helped, marginally. In the same way that it marginally helped to bang one's head against a timber wall instead of brick.
Apparently, however, it was entirely futile to resist. Mrs Bell wasn’t taking no for an answer, and Glynn sighed and got up, grasping hold of one end of the desk.
As they shifted the desk back into its old position, Mrs Bell said, “Now you will be able to see your patients on approach.”
He clearly took the hint. She wanted him to see Miss Baxter when she walked in and out of the bookshop.
“You clearly want to give me a piece of your mind, Mrs Bell?”
She may as well flay him, he’d already been so cheerfully put in his place by Mr Yates. Which also added to his pain. His place was so far beneath Miss Baxter, how could an aristocrat like Mr Yates not see how poor the match would be? Yet he seemed to encourage it? He’d heard the nobility were a little batty, even eccentric, but Felix Yates took the biscuit.
“I don’t need to tell you anything you don’t already know to be true. You and Miss Bernadette are made for each other. Now get over yourself and apologise and beg her to take you back.”
He wasn’t going to argue how impossible that would be. He let her have her triumph.
“I’ll take dinner at the Red Lion tonight,” he said, suspecting that if he was silly enough to eat at home, Mrs Bell’s usually excellent cooking might turn out to be less so tonight. Burned or over-salted would likely be his lot.
“How very sensible of you,” Mrs Bell said.
From the glint in her eye, Glynn suspected she might even have had something worse planned! And since he didn’t want to spend the night becoming more closely acquainted with his chamber-pot, he very wisely took himself off until her temper cooled.
Glynn would far rather have avoided Felix Yates for the rest of eternity, but fate saw fit for the next town council meeting to be scheduled just two days later, and when Glynn entered the assembly room at the Red Lion, Felix Yates was seated in Lord Ferndale’s place at the head of the table.
Everyone else already knew Mr Yates, it seemed, including Mr Charles and Riot Jones, who must have made his acquaintance in the last couple of days. They were all shaking his hand with great cheer, before inquiring anxiously about Lord Ferndale’s health.
“Grandfather is in the very best of health, it’s kind of you to ask,” Mr Yates said in his annoyingly cheerful way. “But he has been expressing for some time that he would like me to take on a greater role in the running of the barony, and, supported by my estimable wife, I am delighted to follow his instructions and do whatever is necessary. Starting with standing in for him today.”
“Congratulations are to be offered to you and Mrs Yates, I understand,” Riot Jones said. He was standing in for Shaun Jackson; Glynn had rather hoped that his fellow Welshman, a very down-to-earth man, would share Glynn’s opinion of the ridiculous young aristocrat, but Riot seemed quite impressed by Mr Yates.
Glynn wanted to growl under his breath at how irritatingly likable Mr Yates truly was. He slumped into his chair and tried not to sulk, doing his best to ignore the proceedings unless he was called upon to vote.
Unfortunately, Glynn could not pretend he wasn’t there for the entire meeting, as the matter of the hospital was soon raised for the council’s attention, and Mr Yates seemed exceedingly interested. Mr Charles was happy to tell the council that the bishop had accepted his recommendation that the large piece of vacant land beside the vicarage be used for construction of the hospital.
“Most excellent news,” Mr Yates said. “And do we have the workmen and materials available?”
“Soon,” Riot said. “The men are completing work on the doctor’s cottage this week, but harvest is beginning and all hands will be needed. By the time the crops are in, the materials we’ve ordered will have been delivered, and it shouldn’t take long to clear the ground and get the building up.”
“And for the furnishings?” Mr Yates looked at Glynn. “Doctor?”
“I have a list,” he said ungraciously. “I can place the orders at any time, if we have somewhere to store everything until the building is completed.”
“Stacks of room at Ferndale Hall.” Mr Yates made a note in a book in front of him. “Please go ahead and order everything delivered to the Hall, Doctor. I’ll make arrangements to have it transported into town when you’re ready for it. Better to have everything on hand than be waiting for things that take an unexpectedly long time to arrive.”
He was right; and that was generous of him. Glynn clenched his teeth, trying very hard not to like Felix Yates, but realising that it was impossible. The man was too nice. He was handsome, generous, sensible… he was exactly the sort of man a Baxter sister deserved. No wonder he’d married one of them. He probably had a dozen friends just like him he would be ready to introduce Bernadette to.
Glynn didn’t realise he was clenching his fist until his pencil snapped between his fingers.