MILLIE PAUSED IN THE corridor outside the double doors. Above the entrance, the words Anatomicall Theatre had been carved long ago in old-fashioned script in the dark wood.

The decision to accept the invitation and come had been made on impulse, but the Royal College of Surgeons was far more fascinating than Millie would have ever imagined. Upon arriving, she realized Dermot McKendry intended to introduce her to friends who held classes in the college, but Millie insisted they begin by going through the museum.

Dermot had already told her the old dissection theatre had housed the museum for as long as he knew. As he ushered her in, her attention was arrested by a framed, handwritten advertisement in a case, accompanied by an explanatory card. The cracked and yellowed paper had been inserted by the Edinburgh Gazette and was dated 16th September 1699.

Limbs, morbid specimens, diseased organs, abnormalities. Somewhat to her surprise, Millie found none of it disturbing, though the acrid smells permeating the air were like nothing she’d ever experienced.

“Preservation spirits.” John William Turner, the Keeper of the Museum, breathed in deeply and shook his head. “I don’t even notice it anymore.”

Millie moved with Dermot from aisle to aisle, her curiosity aroused at every turn. Mr. Turner strolled alongside them, explaining in detail the long history of the museum and the plans for expansion. As they walked, the bespectacled young man had the air of a laird proudly showing off his estate.

Directors of institutions such as this always recognized the Pennington name, and Millie was accustomed to efforts to engage the family’s interest in becoming a benefactor. Her parents and each of her siblings had their own projects, and she was involved with all of those. She’d always imagined the time would come when she too would find a cause she could sponsor. Someday.

Millie paused before a display of an amputated arm. Someday indicated an open-ended future she no longer possessed.

A brush of Dermot’s hand against her shook Millie out of her gloomy thoughts. She glanced up at him and realized the touch was intentional. From the moment they’d walked in here, he’d been so aware of her, so attuned to her moods.

Mr. Turner was explaining how the young students used the specimen to understand the connection of tendons and ligament and bone. Then the museum curator pointed out a knee with a gunshot wound and an embedded musket ball mounted on the next table.

“Where did all these come from, Mr. Turner?”

“Many places, m’lady. Since the decision to begin the museum, we’ve been accepting and acquiring specimens from any number of sources,” he explained. “The majority come from private collections, donated by the estates of former surgeons and professors who had assembled their own personal museums. Of course, some of the pieces have been rescued from the cupboards of the Royal Infirmary.”

Having spent all her life in reasonably good health, there was so much that Millie didn’t know about anatomy. But the libraries of Baronsford and their estate in Hertfordshire held many volumes on science and medicine, and because she was an avid reader, she was not completely ignorant of the illnesses that cut lives short.

Nearly three weeks ago, she’d first become aware of a heaviness in her right breast. The lump was palpable.

Right away she’d known, and the days following were lost in a nightmarish existence. Finally, determined to know for sure, she’d gone up to Edinburgh. Her suspicions were correct. The physician’s diagnosis came at her like words spoken from some distance. Cancer of the breast . . . perhaps a surgeon . . . very little hope. She recalled only bits and pieces of what he said after that.

They passed by a long row of shelves displaying jawbones of various sizes. Two upright glass cases at the end held a dozen skulls in a variety of conditions.

Mr. Turner led them around a corner into another aisle. “And here in these bottles, we have twenty-three preserved examples of tumors of the breast.”

Tumors of the breast. Millie’s knees wobbled, and her steps faltered. She pressed a hand to her stomach. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the squat glass jars, filled with small pieces of flesh in clear, yellowish liquid.

These had once been a part of living, breathing people. Women with families and dreams of a future. Was this all that remained of them? Had they moldered away to dust while these tumors that killed them remained here, preserved forever? Would part of her be here one day . . . in a jar with just a numbered card to identify her?

Dermot’s arm wrapped around her waist. Millie needed him at that moment, and he was there. She leaned into him.

“Lady Millie has no need to see every specimen in the museum,” he said sharply to Mr. Turner. He ushered her to a nearby window and pushed it open.

Breathing in the fresh air, she felt the weakness pass as quickly as it had descended.

The museum keeper hovered nearby. “I do hope I haven’t overwhelmed her ladyship. I tend to get somewhat zealous in my enthusiasm, and I forget that lay folk—”

“I’m fine, Mr. Turner. Truly, I am.”

Dermot was slow to release her.

She glanced back at the bottled specimens. In spite of her initial reaction, she wanted to look at them more closely. The unknown terrified her, and simply seeing them removed some of the mystery of this disease.

“Perhaps,” Dermot suggested, “we should go outside. You can accompany me to the lecture halls, and I can return these notes to Dr. Liston.”

“I’m quite recovered.” Millie put a reassuring hand on his arm and looked into his eyes. He was still worried.

How serendipitous that he had come into her life at this moment. His kindness, his wit, his flair for the comic brought something into her world that she needed right now. It was as if heaven above had sent him to give her strength and clarity at a time when she needed both. Even bringing her here and showing her—without knowing it—that she was not alone in what she was facing. When had she ever met a man like him? Never.

“I’m at your disposal,” Mr. Turner broke in. “Whatever you decide to do.”

“Is there a library attached to the museum?”

“The museum does keep a collection of books for reference, of course. But I’m afraid we have no lending library.”

“I meant, do you keep a catalogue of all these items?” She gestured to the aisles. “A summary of their history, perhaps.”

Twenty-three breast tumor specimens seemed like so many. Did this indicate that the disease was common? Of all the women she’d known in her life, none had ever received the news she did. At least, none ever talked about it. She wanted to know more about these tumors and what had been the outcome for the patients.

“We do, m’lady.” Mr. Turner gestured toward an open office door at the end of the hall. “My duties include keeping accurate records of the items we house. I can’t affirm the earliest entries were recorded as faithfully as I attempt to do, but I’d be happy to show them to you.”

“Wonderful.” Millie turned to Dermot. “Dr. McKendry, if you have no objection, I’d like to stay here while you return the lecture notes to your friend.”

He did object. She could tell by his darkened expression. “To be honest, I would not feel entirely comfortable leaving you alone, having brought you here.”

“I’m certain if I faint dead away, I’ll be quite safe,” she teased, trying to ease his concern. “You don’t have any piglets in these bottles, do you, Mr. Turner?”

“None, m’lady,” the museum director replied, perplexed by the question.

“You see? I’ll be fine, Doctor.” She touched his hand. “You won’t be gone too long, will you?”

“If you insist, I’ll go.” He bowed, acquiescing to her wishes. “And I’ll return immediately.”

She saw him glance back at her before he went out. If life were a fantasy and she had a tomorrow to dream of, Millie would choose to imagine that look as a next step in their relationship.

Mr. Turner escorted her to the office and seated her at his desk. Pulling the first of three oversized leather-bound ledgers from a bookshelf, he turned and then paused.

“Pardon me if I’m overstepping myself here, m’lady.” He stared down at the volume in his hands and then smiled at her. “But after all Dr. McKendry has been through, it’s quite gratifying to see his attentions fixed on a young lady again.”

Millie felt her face flush. She saw no reason to explain that they were merely friends. That was all. But his comment piqued her curiosity.

“What do you mean, Mr. Turner, about what he’s been through?”

Now he was the one to blush, and he went red from his collar to his scalp. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I beg your pardon. I never should have mentioned it.”

“But you have, and now you have me fretting. What did you mean about Dr. McKendry?” she asked again.

Her host was still hesitant, but Millie persisted until he explained. “My thoughtless words referred to his late fiancée. He lost her just as he was finishing his medical studies at the university.”

Millie remembered everything her sister had said about Dermot. He wasn’t looking for love. Jo heard him say he wished for no heir. He was committed to his hospital. His time was consumed by patients who needed his care and attention. Now Millie knew why.

“You say he lost her? How?”

“She killed herself just a few days before the wedding,” Mr. Turner said gravely. “She’d been battling melancholia for quite some time, I understand.”

To lose the person one loves at a time when the future appeared to be so bright. How heartbreaking for him.

Millie thought about her own future. She didn’t know how this illness would affect her as it progressed, but she had an idea the end would not be pleasant. That was the reason she was traveling to America, to spare her family from a long period of pain, watching her decline when they should be thinking of babies and the new generation of Penningtons.

Dermot’s fiancée had been fighting melancholia, that all-encompassing gloom that caused a person to waste away in darkness, unable to rouse herself from the depths of despair. At least, she had a man who loved her. That was something Millie had never known.

“How does one recover from such tragedy?” she murmured.

“Her death hit him quite hard, understandably. He closed down entirely. It was as if he too were dead. For his own safety, Dermot was committed to the asylum over in Livingston Yards.”