Page 7 of Grace in Glasgow (Seduced in Scotland #3)

Although visibly hesitating, Mrs. Monty handed over the baby, who wailed even harder having been placed in a stranger’s arms. To her credit, however, Grace appeared unfazed as she laid the child down on the only small mattress in the corner of the room.

The little boy stood up from the floor and reached out his hand to her.

“What do you have there?” she asked gently as he dropped a small, cone shaped piece of wood with a rusty nail in it.

“It’s a spinner.”

“Is it?” she said, inspecting the roughly made top toy. She held it up so that James could see. “Impressive little toymaker, isn’t he?”

“I didn’t make it,” the boy said.

“Charlie, stop it. Let the woman work,” Mrs. Monty scolded as the boy went back to his makeshift treasures.

“Are there any rashes? Has their diet changed?” Grace asked matter-of-factly as she lifted the nightgown.

“That one has little red spots on his back,” the mother said, tension in her voice. “But the other one doesn’t.”

James and Grace immediately looked at one another. Blisters and a fever could be one of two things. Either it was varicella, a relatively harmless illness, or smallpox, a deadly sickness that could wipe out hundreds of people if allowed to spread.

“His back, you say?” James said, noting that one of the only few deciding factors was that smallpox showed up on the palms and soles of the patients. James bent over Grace who had the child on his stomach, pointing to a small cluster of spots. “Are there any on their hands and feet?”

“No,” the mother said.

“Have there been other spots before these?” Grace asked.

“Yes, some on the legs, but they’ve disappeared a bit now.”

Grace turned to James.

“It’s likely varicella then. Smallpox lesions usually show up all altogether.”

“Smallpox?” the mother repeated in a frantic hush. She reached for her baby, snatching her away from Grace. “My babies don’t have smallpox.”

“I know, I was just explaining—”

“You’ll have us kicked out onto the street if you say that too loud.” She glared at James. “Are you trying to get us booted from here, doctor?”

James lifted his hands, in an attempt to calm her down.

“It was a mistake, obviously, but the good news is the babies will likely just need rest for the next few days. I’ll come back before next week to check on them, if you’d like.”

The woman hesitated, her eyes on Grace.

“Alone, I should hope?”

He sighed.

“If you wish.”

“Yes, please,” she said pointedly.

James was quick to give her a tincture of chamomile.

“This is for the itching. Just dab a little on a clean cloth and wipe down the lesion.”

“Yes. Thank you, doctor.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, closing his bag and he made his way to the door.

Grace left first, and waited for him as the door closed.

“I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” she said. “I mean, I did, but I didn’t know she could get in trouble.”

“You’ll have to learn to keep your voice down,” James said as close to her ear as possible, ignoring the scent of sweet mint that seemed to cling to her.

“These people are suspicious at best and hostile at their worst. An outbreak, even the suggestion of one, could see an entire family attacked or thrown out of their rooms.”

“That’s awful.”

“It’s a reality.”

“Is there something we can do? Someplace they can go?”

“I fear the only place they can go is worse than here.”

The misery in Grace’s face was telling, but it wasn’t something James had time for. There were at least ninety families that lived in the building and at least eighty required his attention.

“All right?”

“Yes,” she said, shakily at first, but then firmly. “Yes.”

“Good. Just remain quiet if you can. These people can be apprehensive.”

Grace nodded again as another woman, a Mrs. Hader, waved James over.

“Wot’s this?” she asked, staring at Grace. “A lady doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Madness that is,” she said, before crowding James. “Er, have you heard? Two more graves been dug up over near St. Mungo. They saying body snatchers be doing it, but I think something more sinister than that is going on.”

“Is that so, Mrs. Hader?” James said, glancing back at Grace.

She tucked her head to the side as if to question what she was speaking about, but James gave her a small shake of his head. If either of them asked Mrs. Hader to elaborate, they’d be stuck in her rooms for half an hour.

After setting a dislocated finger, they went to the next room.

“A woman doctor? Are you mad?”

And that was the third time out of eighty-eight other times that James was questioned about Grace.

It had started to aggravate him after the tenth time, enraged him around the twentieth, and made him aware of how exasperating it must be to be questioned constantly around the fortieth time.

By the sixtieth, he realized that even with this small glimpse, he wouldn’t ever actually understand how much Grace would have to put up with as a female in this profession.

Thankfully, Mrs. Muller had no such comment.

“’Bout time they start allowing us to be doctors.” The elderly woman elbowed Grace as James restocked her medical cabinet with bandages, salves, and the like. “Having been doing all the work all along.”

“I suppose,” Grace mumbled, an oddly charming blush touching her cheeks.

She really must have heard every opinion a dozen times over since she started studying with Dr. Barkley.

James himself knew at least a dozen doctors who wouldn’t have stood for it and likely would have left the profession altogether if they were questioned as much as Grace already had been, and yet, still she was willing.

It was impressive. The tenacity of this woman with amber eyes made James thoughtful.

After finishing up in the tenant building, they went next door to visit the barracks where they treated fourteen men with fevers, six with boils, and twenty-two who were suffering from various wasting diseases.

One man actually lunged at Grace, who was quick to sidestep him, and then promptly scolded him for being a poor patient, much to the delight of the other soldiers.

James had to restrain himself from grabbing the ill man, but he kept his composure and by the time he and Grace returned to the hackney, he was contemplative.

Why had he had such a visceral response toward her? Surely it was because she was the niece of someone who had been a patron of his since his youth, but a part of him wondered if that was completely true.

“You did well today. Better than I expected,” he said as the sun set across the city.

Grace’s tired eyes opened and she grinned, a genuine, exhausted grin. One he knew well, but seeing it on her made his heart begin to beat erratically.

He shifted in his seat.

“I mean it. You didn’t let the inane questioning distract you from the tasks at hand. You were aware of your surroundings the whole time and correct in all your diagnoses.”

“Thank you.”

But he hadn’t told her all this simply because he wanted her gratitude. He wanted her to know that she seemed far more capable than he had originally believed. But perhaps that would be insulting to hear and for the first time in a long time, James couldn’t think of what to say to fill the silence.

Grace seemed unaffected and after he dropped her off at her house, he was consumed with the idea that he couldn’t speak the usual nonsense he spoke with patients to fill long silences. But then, maybe she liked the quiet.

Peering out the hackney window as the night settled over the city, James tried to ignore the sudden wish to know everything Grace Sharpe was thinking.