Page 14 of The Love Remedy (The Damsels of Discovery #1)

14

“Good day to you, sir.”

A short man shaped like a chestnut with legs doffed his hat in Thorne’s direction and offered up a wide smile, only to yank the smile back when Thorne growled at him.

Thorne knew a moment of regret when the chestnut man scurried off, but it did not slow him in his march toward Madame Mensonge’s academy.

That was the third time today a passerby had offered greetings.

Never had strangers smiled at Thorne in the street. He’d little control over the expression that rested on his face, due to the shoddy stitching and broken nose. On an ordinary day, his face was so grim that young children cried at the sight of him. This suited him fine. Thorne had no time for people who were indiscriminately friendly.

Friendly people made him itch.

Today, however, it seemed the whole world was smiling at him. This could only be because Thorne was smiling.

How humiliating.

It couldn’t be helped. No matter how he filled his head with things that annoyed him—seagulls, naps, tight shoes, raisins in biscuits—the erotic encounter of the night before refused to leave his consciousness.

A shopgirl cleaning a display in a store window stopped what she was doing to wave at him.

Damn it.

Thorne wrapped his scarf over his mouth.

Tiny pellets of snow rattled on the cobblestones beneath his feet, and he stared at the street in front of him so as not to catch anyone else’s eye.

For the first time in months, his first thought upon waking had not been to catalog the aches that riddled his bones, or how painful it would be to lever his body out of bed. Nor had his heart clenched with the fear that Sadie had not lived through the night.

Instead, his first thought upon waking had been that Lucy’s slightly crooked front teeth biting down onto her lower lip was the most erotic sight he’d ever witnessed. This resulted in a cock stand that refused to settle down until he’d plunged his head into a basin of freezing wash water.

Later that morning, he stopped in at Tierney’s, hoping to find Winthram, but the young agent had taken a trip to North Yorkshire of all places. In his stead, he’d left an envelope with information about the mysterious Mr. Wilcox.

Thorne read and then ruminated on this information, but it wasn’t long before the lemony scent of another agent’s half-eaten scone brought memories of Lucy back to the forefront of his brain.

This was worse than how it had been with Genny. More intense.

This was obsession.

And yet, the two women couldn’t be more different. Genny had a hunger for attention that Thorne could never sate. Over time, he recognized this need was a substitute for something else, but he never persuaded her to reveal what that something else was.

Genny’s life before Thorne was a mystery. He knew she was born in Jamaica to an unwed young mother who had traveled to England in search of a new life. Her mother died a short time after, and Geneviève found herself living with relatives.

She never told him which side of her family the relatives were, but considering slavery in Jamaica hadn’t ended all that long ago, Thorne assumed she’d gone to live with her father’s family. Had her father been a slaveholder? Genny had never said anything about her relatives.

He also suspected they were either unkind or, worse, indifferent. Genny eventually set out on her own and made a name for herself in the demimonde, that group of people who lived on the fringes of polite society either by choice or because society had pushed them there.

“Tell me a secret of yours,” he’d croon into her ear after watching her drink champagne day and night.

“Secrets are currency,” she admitted, her words slurred together. Thorne knew when she was drunk because the smallest lilt of her childhood accent would slip out. “I need enough currency to keep me in style once you leave me.”

Thorne protested that he would never leave her. He’d spent scandalous amounts of money on beautiful furnishings, on gowns that complemented her features, on gardens, musicians, books, and paintings. Anything that would catch her fancy and keep her home with him at night.

Thorne had never believed Genny returned his love.

Now, there was another beautiful woman who took up his thoughts.

This time, he would not make the same mistake.

Later that afternoon, upon approaching the soot-stained building that housed Madame’s school, Thorne spied three figures standing together. Right away he recognized Sadie and the waving feathers of her new goose down–trimmed winter bonnet. Next to her stood the small figure of Juliet Peterson. What brought him up short was the third in their party.

Duncan Rider.

Thorne crossed the street quickly, hiding his form behind a passing wagon, and secreted himself in the doorway of a shop. He pretended to peruse the wares in the shop’s bow window, which hid him from the street.

Rider was gesturing in supplication while Juliet shook her head in the negative. Thorne debated whether to show himself now. If he did, Rider would know that Sadie was his daughter and might make the connection between Sadie, the Petersons, and all the questions Thorne had been asking him the other night at the club.

His decision was made when Rider turned away and hailed a hack. Sadie and Juliet walked in the opposite direction. By the time they reached Thorne’s block, Rider had disappeared in the afternoon traffic. Thorne emerged from hiding, greeting the two of them.

“Did you know that a frog’s poo can measure a quarter of its body size?” Sadie exclaimed after a rushed greeting. “Can you imagine if that were true for people?”

Thorne most likely could imagine but preferred not to. He and Juliet exchanged grimaces and Juliet kindly redirected the conversation from frog feces to their anatomy, which Sadie had begun to study this week.

Thorne waited for a pause in the discussion of scalpels and interjected.

“As I was coming along, I saw you talking to a gentleman. Was this anyone I would know, Sadie?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “We weren’t introduced.”

Juliet slowed her steps so that she and Thorne fell back behind Sadie.

“I don’t want you to think I wouldn’t introduce Sadie to my friends,” she said in a low voice. She needn’t have worried that Sadie was eavesdropping, for the girl had spied a rider atop a pretty gray pony and had eyes only for the animal.

How long would it be before Sadie asked for a pony?

“I’m not certain you’d want her known to him,” Juliet continued. “That was Duncan Rider. I know Lucy must have told you something about what happened with her formula for lozenges if she told you about her missing formula for the croup salve.”

“Ah. There was some understanding of marriage, I believe,” he said.

Juliet hummed in agreement. “Duncan was genuinely fond of Lucy. Anyone could see, but his father forbade the marriage. Duncan simply lacks the ability to say no to people.”

“He said no to marrying Lucy.”

A woman with a brain as sharp as hers could not fail to hear the edge to his words, but Juliet seemed not to notice. Her mouth thinned, and she stared down at her scuffed boots as they clacked against the cobblestones.

Juliet’s shoulders slumped, and her pace slowed even more. “David was furious, of course, and Lucy deserved better, but I understand why he broke it off with Lucy. Defying expectations isn’t easy. It’s exhausting, actually.”

Thorne knew a little bit about this. Unlike Juliet, he hadn’t defied society to better the health and welfare of the poor. He’d defied it out of some dark adolescent urge to break things.

He’d no idea where the anger had come from or why it had retreated. A child with no patience, inexhaustible energy, and two fiercely competitive brothers, Thorne was most often to be found in the corner, where the tutor had likely sent him to await a strapping.

The more his brothers bullied him and the more the tutor punished him, the angrier Thorne became. It was by the grace of God that he discovered boxing. When Thorne fought, his frustrations and fears receded.

For a time.

When fighting didn’t work, he had turned to the bottle.

“Duncan has asked for help getting back into Lucy’s good graces,” Juliet said.

“You can’t be inclined to give it to him?” Thorne asked. Disbelief and something else, something stronger, turned his voice to a growl.

“Lucy needs a husband, Mr. Thorne,” said Juliet matter-of-factly. “If she has help running the apothecary, David and I can be free to pursue our own paths and not worry about her.”

It was a selfish reason to want a sister married.

Last night, Lucy had glowed with enjoyment from the unexpected orgasm, and a great ache had built in his chest alongside her increasing desire. He’d wanted to make her come, not for his own pleasure, though he had enjoyed it, but as a gift for her. A way to relieve the burdens she carried.

“Is it Lucy who wants a husband, or you who wants a husband for her?” Thorne asked. “You would shackle her to a man like Duncan Rider for the rest of her life so that you do not feel guilty when she is overwhelmed by her work?”

What were these words coming from his mouth? Why on earth should a bookkeeper care if his employer were to marry a vapid, selfish young man with excessive facial hair?

How had it come to this?

Thorne chastising Juliet Peterson was not going to solve Lucy’s problems, nor help him finish his assignment. Lucky for Thorne, Juliet was distracted, whether by Duncan Rider or her own worries over the clinic and her patients, and she didn’t take offense.

“Lucy needs someone to help her but will never admit to it,” Juliet said, picking up the pace now that they’d rounded the corner. “It is a lonely life, being a pioneer, Mr. Thorne. She and I are the only women apothecaries in London, perhaps even all of England. We have no counterparts, and at the end of the day it is very difficult to come home and have no one there who understands your burdens or how to lift your spirits.”

Thorne disagreed. Lucy did not need someone to help her at work, and she didn’t necessarily need another apothecary. Lucy needed someone to support her so that she had the time and energy to work. She needed someone to hold her when the burdens she carried became too great. Did her own sister not see this?

His irritation at Juliet’s ignorance faded as they rounded the corner and caught sight of the entrance to the shop. A claw of worry poked at his stomach.

Two women were knocking at the main doors to the apothecary, and one was peering into the front window. As Thorne, Sadie, and Juliet approached them, the women shrugged and left. The curtains were pulled tight, and a painted sign hung on the door’s knob announcing the apothecary was closed.

—

“Why have you closed the shop? There were two customers walking away as I... Oh, my dearest. What happened?”

Juliet had come into the apartment calling Lucy’s name, only to find her sister curled up in her bedroom.

Lucy pulled her bed quilt tight around her shoulders and gazed at Juliet, guilt warring with exhaustion. “I just couldn’t go on today, and Katie’s da needed her to watch the younger children while their ma is sick.”

The same bedchamber in which Lucy had lived her whole life was like the comfort of a womb after this morning.

“It was me alone, which was fine, only...”

Lucy had received word that morning that the baby she had been treating had died.

Despite Lucy and Juliet’s best efforts, the baby’s humors could not be balanced. There was nothing Lucy dreaded more than the loss of a patient. She could never do what Juliet and Mrs. Sweet did, treat women who were destined to die young and often painfully.

“The baby’s father was the one who came to tell me,” Lucy said.

She’d been chatting with a customer while she wrapped up their purchases, and a young man had come into the shop. The sun was out for a change and the pale light, more watery than golden, was still blinding, showing off the dirty spots on the windows, allowing no comfort, only light.

A greeting sat at the front of her throat for a moment before she issued it, knowing from the hair standing on end on her arms and the back of her neck that something had knocked this man askew.

Tall, his shirt cuffs too short so that the white knobs of his wrists stood out, the man doffed a battered black felted hat. He was gaunt and unshaven, with black circles that made his eyes look sunken. His chapped lips were tightly drawn as he advanced toward Lucy at the counter, and she subtly stepped toward the back wall. On one of the shelves lay a hammer and a bell—the bell would have been more helpful if someone else had been in the shop. The hammer, Lucy had no idea if she could use to defend herself, but its presence reassured her.

Usually.

“Can I help you?” she asked, knowing the answer was most likely not.

“I’m James Hoekle,” the man said.

Hoekle? The name hit her like a slap.

James Hoekle was also the name of the baby Lucy had been treating.

“Is it...” Lucy’s mouth was too dry to finish the sentence, but she did not need to be told. Hoekle’s distraught expression said it all.

“My son. My namesake. He’s dead.”

When he reached in the pocket of his coat, Lucy’s skin went cold and clammy. Slipping one arm behind her, she searched for the handle of the hammer without being able to look.

Before she could feel her way to the weapon, Hoekle had tossed a linen pouch on the counter in front of her.

What was left of the tonic she’d given the baby’s mother was in the bag, along with a handful of coins.

“My wife insisted we consult you,” the man said. There was no specific inflection in his voice, but it made Lucy’s heart start to race. Arm still behind her back, she closed her fingers round the hammer, finally, and readied herself.

“We went to a doctor, first. A man from Harley Street.” Hoekle paused, then nodded as if Lucy had asked a question. “That’s right. A man .”

“I am so sorry for your loss,” she said, trying to buy time. “I will return your money—”

“My wife said apothecaries have the same education as doctors.” The words shot from Hoekle’s mouth like tiny pellets of hail. “She said a woman would better understand how to treat a baby, said you’d a womanly intuition .”

Lucy did not bother to argue that her only intuition had been that the baby was certain to die as soon as she examined him.

This was the great dilemma of what she did here. There were no cures for so many of the childhood diseases Lucy encountered, but the palliatives she offered instead would sometimes prove to be helpful, enough to even save lives.

Sometimes.

“My uncle’s been banging on at me to join the Guardians,” Hoekle told her. Lucy’s stomach sank and she briefly closed her eyes. This was not good.

“A woman shouldn’t be allowed to dispense medicine like a real doctor.”

Despite her certainty that this was a lost cause, Lucy tried to explain. “Mr. Hoekle, your baby had an imbalance in his humors that would not right itself. The only difference between the medicine I gave him and what a doctor would do is they would have bled the baby along with—”

Hoekle’s hand flew up to deflect Lucy’s calm explanation. “Aye. They would’ve bled him and let the poison out of him.”

“That isn’t—”

“You talked my wife out of listening to a doctor, and now my baby’s dead.” Hoekle’s voice crackled with pent-up rage and sorrow. “You stupid cow. You just couldn’t let a man have the last say.”

Lucy slowly lowered the arm holding the hammer to her side and hid the weapon in the folds of her skirt. There was no point in telling Hoekle that her treatment and opinion would have been the same if the doctor were a man or a woman.

Holding a shaking arm up, Hoekle pointed to her with his first finger like an avenging angel pointing to a sinner.

“Don’t ever come near me or my family again,” he said. Lucy nodded quickly, unwilling to say anything that might antagonize him. “The Guardians will take care of women like you. They are watching.”

As soon as Hoekle shut the outer door behind him, Lucy had rushed over and locked it. Slipping down to the floor with her back against the door, she’d sat there and concentrated on just breathing until she stopped shaking.

“Oh, darling. I am so sorry,” Juliet said now, after Lucy recounted her day. “You and I both know the baby was too sick when the mother brought him to us for a cure to work.”

Lucy shrugged. Did she know? Her fallibility ate away at her day and night. Nothing she did ever seemed to be enough.

Pulling open the curtains, Juliet let in the pearl-gray light of the winter’s afternoon. “Do not stay in here and hide away. Come out with me. Imagine how much better you will feel someplace well lit and jolly.”

Lucy barely listened as Juliet pleaded with her to come to a lecture at Athena’s Retreat. Mrs. Sweet was giving a talk in the public rooms about the ideal diet for a pregnant woman. They hoped some of the women there could be counted on to help the clinic financially.

“No. Please. I am not fit for company,” Lucy said. “I’ll just have a lie-down and then I’ve masses of orders to fill. Just having you listen has helped so much.”

Shaking her head, Juliet nevertheless did not argue. She’d made her own blanket cocoons many times before when she’d lost a patient.

“I can’t leave you when there is no food in the larder,” Juliet said. “Shall I ask Mr. Thorne to order you some pies while you sleep?”

“You will do no such thing,” Lucy protested. “He has enough to do with sorting our accounts and taking care of Sadie. I could hear her chatting in the hallway about dissections. She will have him out searching for frogs at the Serpentine, I reckon.”

Juliet laughed and stood from the bed, saying something about fathers and daughters and science, but Lucy had already begun to doze by then.

Sometime later, a knock woke her.

Lucy stumbled to the door, wondering if Juliet’s talk was over and she’d forgotten her key, but the door had been left unlocked. Standing on the other side was Thorne, mud at the hem of his trousers and holding a parcel wrapped in newssheet and smelling of hot lard.

Pasties.

Thorne.

The presence of both left her dizzy and weak in the knees.

She let him in.