Page 33 of Doing No Harm (Carla Kelly’s Regency Romances #5)
O live Grant saw Douglas Bowden off on the morning coach a day later, a pasteboard box full of drawings tucked under one arm and his ever-present medical pouch slung over the other. She saw the resolve in his deep-set eyes and she loved him.
After he left, she wondered if she loved him for the good he was attempting to do for Edgar and for the displaced families from the Highlands.
Was it because he was also trying to save her from ruin?
Or did she love him simply because he was Douglas Bowden, the man she had waited to give herself to, after all these years; the man she wanted to make her children with; the man she knew she would do anything for, if he only asked?
These were new emotions, easy enough to brush off because nothing remotely resembling this had ever happened to her before. Maybe she was confusing love with pity or earnest effort. How would she know? When had something like this ever happened to her?
She stood on the steps of the tearoom long after a simple wave of the hand would have sent most people inside again, especially since it was raining.
She stood there, back straight as always, watching as the coach took the little curve that followed the bend of the bay.
To her delight, he looked back on that curve, and she waved again.
She laughed when he took off his hat and waggled it out the open window.
Even then, Olive didn’t want to go inside. The girls had spread the remaining shells across three tables, with hunks of driftwood occupying a table of their own. She wanted to walk somewhere and think about what she felt.
She thought it had begun with the totally impromptu kiss in the backyard, when her arms had so naturally circled his body, pulling him close as he did the same.
Papa would have looked askance to see no space between one body and the other; Mama would probably have smiled and then taken her quietly aside for a discussion on what usually happens next when two people did that.
That thought made her smile, because she had an excellent idea of what happened next.
But it had begun much earlier, maybe even in the first days when she barely knew Douglas Bowden, and he had started to talk in his sleep, his voice deepening in intensity until he whimpered.
A simple hand to his shoulder had ended his nightmare each time and usually led to deep, peaceful sleep, his cheek resting against her hand, until she moved it and returned to her own narrow bed.
He had thanked her once in that straightforward, clinical way of his, and then never mentioned the matter again because he was too busy taking care of too many people and dealing with issues he had never encountered at sea, unless the dratted Countess of Sutherland had found a way to ruin lives on-board vessels of the Royal Navy too.
Olive had quickly discovered him for what he was because he said so: a retired surgeon looking for a trouble-free place to establish a country practice.
She knew he had earned such a place because his nightmares told her so.
She wanted such a place for him, up to the moment when she knew that if he left Edgar, she would never be the same again.
Reading the occasional novel had suggested to her that finding the right man led to tranquility and harmony. The reality was far more wrenching, especially if the right man for her had no idea what he wanted.
“You have to leave it at that,” she advised herself in the mirror that morning.
She knew she must tell herself that every morning, up to and beyond the inevitable morning when he climbed aboard the coach and left for good.
She would probably tell herself that every morning and watch the woman in the mirror grow gray and wrinkled.
She had found the man she loved; there was never any guarantee that such a fellow would reciprocate.
The kiss indicated strongly that he might, but there was a much bigger issue at stake in Edgar, and they both knew it.
And drat the matter, she was a reticent Scot, disinclined to ask advice of such an intimate nature from anyone. Just as well, because she could think of no one to confide in, the irony, of course, being that a woman ought to be able to talk to her doctor about anything.
The only solution in sight was to work harder. After the coach left, carrying away the man she adored, whose mind was completely occupied with finding a shipwright and saving Edgar, she went into the kitchen and banged away at bread dough. Maeve wisely made no comment.
Olive began to feel more satisfaction after lunch, in which she counted more Highlanders eating her beef roast, dripped pudding, and hot bread.
The roast had been a gift from the butcher, who showed her the carbuncle Douglas had lanced only yesterday.
“Look at that, Miss Grant,” he had said, until she was forced to look.
Once the butcher had left and relieved her of exclaiming delights over his carbuncle-free hand, her heart truly had lifted to see Joe Tavish hesitate at the door and then come inside, Tommy with him. He put down a conspicuous coin and asked for beef roast.
“I think our doctor overpaid me for a handful of sketches,” he whispered to her.
“He knows the value of your drawings, Mr. Tavish,” Olive assured him. “They will very likely tip the balance in favor of finding a shipwright.”
He nodded at that, shy now, but with a certain quiet pride that seemed to radiate from him. Olive felt certain such a feeling had not come his way in several years, if ever. She served father and son and calmed her heart.
Blissful afternoon. A quick visit to Mrs. Aintree found the widow sitting up and looking cheerful. Rhona Tavish had put the widow’s arm in a sling and sat by her bed, darning stockings.
“Joe and Tommy ate beef roast in my tearoom for luncheon,” she said.
“Our surgeon paid him well for those sketches,” Rhona said. She looked so kindly at Olive and taught her worlds about marriage. “I like to see them together, father and son. Nothing changes here right now, except that we’re breathing a bit easier, Miss Grant.”
Anyone would , Olive thought, who is not teetering continually on ruin . She wished with all her heart that Douglas Bowden, Edgar’s “our surgeon,” knew what it was like to breathe easier.
All was equally well at the Hare and the Hound, with Brighid Dougall selling a fancy to a tall woman, all planes and angles. Brighid gestured her closer.
“Mrs. Fillion, this is the lady you have been inquiring about, Miss Olive Grant,” she said.
Olive curtsied, wondering where she had heard the name before. The unknown traveler took Olive’s hand in hers, to Olive’s surprise, but not her chagrin.
“Miss Grant, I was supposed to mail a box of sea shells from the Drake in Plymouth to a certain surgeon we know. My son reminded me that that I have not had a holiday since forever, and I am decidedly curious about what Douglas Bowden is doing. And so I am here.”
Ships pass in the night, Olive reminded herself. “He has mentioned you. We would let him tell you in person, but our surgeon has scarpered off back to Plymouth.”
Mrs. Fillion’s startled look was certain proof she was not a Scot.
This was not a lady to hide her light under a bushel.
“Well, take out me eyes, scrub them, and put them back in,” she exclaimed.
She took a close look at Olive. “He wrote me that he looks more at the brown one than the blue one. Miss Grant, what is this man up to?”
“How is it that you know about my eyes?” Olive asked, her guard down as she listened to words spoken in the soft burr of the West Country, so pleasing.
“Miss Grant, he has written me all about you, and this village, and a sweet child named Flora, and … and …” She held up the little trinket she had just purchased and gave it a little shake. “… and Seven Seas Fancies. I have known that man for years, but not this man.”
Olive leaned closer. “Did he tell you about the man he struck with a stick and who thrashed him and gave him a black eye?”
“He didn’t!” Mrs. Fillion put her hand to her mouth.
Mrs. Dougall leaned over the counter and gestured Olive closer. “You should take her to your tearoom and give her an earful.”
“P’raps I should,” Olive said, curious to know what else Douglas Bowden had told this woman about her.
And why should she seem so surprised about the man of action that everyone in Edgar knew?
“Mrs. Fillion, may I offer you tea? My tearoom has turned into a factory for Seven Seas Fancy production, so you can meet Flora MacLeod and her confederates.”
She carried the box of seashells for Mrs. Fillion, who walked beside her with a traveling satchel to Olive’s tearoom, where Maeve was ready with green tea and biscuits.
“You’ll stay here too,” Olive said. “I don’t rent my rooms above, but I know it is quieter than the Hare and Hound. You will be my guest.”
Mrs. Fillion’s eyes were on the three little girls who had created workstations as soon as the luncheon eaters finished. They had looked up when Olive and Mrs. Fillion entered the tearoom. A quick glance satisfied them and they returned to aligning and threading the shells.
“Nonetheless, I will pay you,” Mrs. Fillion said, in a voice that brooked no disagreement. “You can call it my contribution to the drink and victual fund. Aye, miss, Douglas wrote me about that, too.”
Mrs. Fillion touched Olive’s hand. “I was wondering what he would find in Scotland.”
“He hasn’t found it yet,” Olive told her with a shake of her head.
“I rather think he has,” the woman replied. “Up these stairs?”