Charlotte marched toward Dr. Hutton’s office.

Perhaps if Charlotte had been another woman, her heart would have increased the frequency of its beats when the Duke of Vernon landed in her cart. His sudden arrival was the sort of thing less scientific minded women might have labeled fate. Perhaps then she would have imagined how her name would have looked beside his. Other girls were in the habit of doing this with men with whom they’d exchanged far fewer words.

Instead, the duke was only an annoyance; she was late. It had been difficult to secure an appointment, and more difficult to sneak from her home.

Charlotte inhaled. She couldn’t have a problem.

It was ridiculous.

She had to be healthy. Had to be.

It wasn’t unusual for people to see a physician, but usually the physician came to them. But it wouldn’t do to worry Mama. She had enough things to worry about. Besides, this physician came highly recommended.

Charlotte opened the door and stepped inside. Marble tiles, arranged in geometric patterns of calcite and dolomite, covered the floor, like an easier-to-clean Persian carpet. Elaborate vases, a testament to the financial success of the physician’s practice, crowned slender-legged sideboards. Landscape paintings in gilded frames lined the walls, though if they were placed to generate calm in the patients, they were ineffective for her. Charlotte’s heart still swerved and swung inside her chest, as if at risk for toppling to the marble tile.

A young man sat at a desk. He hadn’t been there when she last visited.

She inhaled and approached him, even though she despised meeting new people. “I’m here to see Dr. Hutton.”

“Dr. Hutton has left.”

“I-I had an appointment.”

“Then you were late,” the man said.

Lateness was an unusual pastime for her, and warmth descended up her cheeks, as if Satan himself were lighting them with embers from the underworld. “When will he be back?”

“One month,” he said. “He’s attending a very important conference in Scotland.”

“Oh.” Charlotte’s shoulders sank, as if compelled by the same gravity that seemed inclined to tip over her heart. “Dr. Hutton’s letter said I should come most urgently. Did he leave a message for me?”

“No.”

Fiddle-faddle.

Charlotte had missed her important appointment. She didn’t want to come back next month. It had been sufficiently horrible to visit Dr. Hutton’s office this time.

She resisted the temptation to slink back through the door and squared her shoulders, even if the narrowness of their breadth was unlikely to be intimidating. The doctor’s assistant must have information. A place like this would have documents in well-organized cabinets. “It’s just, I had these chest pains...”

The man’s eyes rounded, and a look of nervousness that seemed entirely novel came in. “Forgive me. You’re Miss—er—Butter...?”

“Butterworth,” she said.

A pained expression came over the man’s face, and he fiddled through some papers on his desk until he held one. “I’m Dr. Hutton’s apprentice. I—er—didn’t expect you to look so young. There was something he wanted to impart. Something—er—vital. Something not good.”

“Not good?” Charlotte’s voice wobbled.

“Indeed. Not good. Most—er—definitely not good.” The man’s gaze wandered about the hallway, as if searching for a fainting couch on which to place her. None existed of course, only the cold marble floor.

“I suppose I may as well tell you. No use you waiting. You’ll want to leave soon.” He emitted a laugh, but Charlotte had the impression he did not find what he was laughing at amusing, and the unpleasant feeling continued to gnaw on her heart.

Her heart always hurt when she worried, and sometimes, when everyone looked at her, she would gasp for breath. Georgiana and her parents said it was the way she was, but their hearts never hurt, and they never gasped for breath. Perhaps it was serious, just as she feared.

The apprentice inhaled, as if to calm himself, when she was certain the news would be unwelcome to her. “I am afraid you are going to die.”

The man’s voice, which had seemed unremarkable before, now seemed to possess the fortitude of thunder. Die. The word echoed in her mind.

She squeezed her eyes shut. He couldn’t mean...that. “We will all die.”

“But—er—your death will be soon. In a few months, in fact.” He gave the same horrible, awkward laugh again. “You beat us.”

“I-I don’t understand.” Something had seemed wrong, but the finality of the doctor’s diagnosis shook her.

“Your heart pains are serious. Dr. Hutton said your death will be in a few months. At least you won’t need to make Christmas presents.”

I’m dying.

Her legs wobbled, and she clasped a nearby sideboard. The demi lune shape and Queen Anne legs scarcely seemed suitable for supporting its own weight, much less hers. The Oriental vase wobbled, a flurry of cranes and jagged mountains she would never see. She’d never even been on the ocean, and her heart tightened. The most independent thing she’d ever done was to venture here without her mother.

How will I tell her?

“Perhaps it’s a mistake,” Charlotte said. “It must be a mistake.”

“I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly. “You can read the note yourself. Dr. Hutton was quite clear.”

Charlotte forced herself to nod and took the paper. The physician was the best. Charlotte knew that. She’d researched him carefully beforehand.

“Can anything be done?” she asked finally, even though she knew the answer. If something could be done, he would have told her already.

The apprentice shook his head, but the action seemed as violent as if he’d jabbed a sword into her chest.

“Dr. Hutton recommended you get your affairs in order and to shield yourself from stress. Any excitement could be fatal.” The apprentice was scrutinizing her, as if calculating the likelihood she might steal the Oriental vase displayed on the sideboard or if she were simply susceptible to shattering it.

The air cooled, and if the apprentice spoke, she couldn’t hear him. Life consisted only of the doctor’s dreadful prognosis.

She wasn’t supposed to die. Not yet. Not without decades and decades of glorious memories. Not without a husband, a child or two, and ideally grandchildren. That had been the plan.

But people died. People died every day. She simply hadn’t believed she would belong to that category. Not yet.

Dr. Hutton’s prognosis was unambiguous. She’d seen him for chest pains, and she’d been right to be concerned; her heart was malfunctioning.

She’d made an oversight in not considering she was approaching her death with a speed held in people whose total years numbered three digits.

Perhaps her life could be prolonged. Wouldn’t an extra week, even an extra day be beneficial? Perhaps her parents might move to Bath. Wasn’t that what other people might do in her situation? But the thought of spending all her time taking the cure, of being the youngest dying woman, of having strangers feel sorry for her—she despised that.

She couldn’t stay here. She scrambled for the door and did her best not to stumble from the physician’s office.

England had had terrible weather all year, but this morning rosy light splattered across the ivory facade of Dr. Hutton’s building. Rosettes and cornices glowed under the uncharacteristic burst of sun rays. Birds chirped to one another in cheerful tones, as if to remind her life was good, and she wouldn’t experience it for much longer.

I don’t want to die.

She quickened her pace and attempted to keep her face calm, before the finely-attired men and women of the ton who paraded the square. She managed to keep her chin parallel with the ground, but she found herself blinking, and her eyes burned.

“Miss Butterworth?” The duke’s voice interrupted her musings, and she widened her eyes. The duke was leaning nonchalantly against the cart.

“You’re still here,” she said.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t have to remain.”

In fact—she’d rather he hadn’t. She was in no mood to make small talk with him.

*

THE WOMAN SEEMED RATHER less confident than she’d been when she’d entered the physician’s office. Though Callum would have liked to have credited her pale face and quivering gait to a belated recognition of the handsomeness of his features and significance of his title, Callum feared that was not the case.

Her gait lacked its earlier confidence. Her movements were languid, and her face inscrutable.

“Is everything fine?” he asked.

She gave a quick smile, no doubt intended to dismiss him, for her eyes did not sparkle, and Callum noted she had not answered his question.

“You needn’t have waited for me,” she said finally.

“I know.”

“Or did you desire to be driven somewhere else? Hacks function quite well and come with much less scandal.”

“I’m aware of the wonders of hacks,” he said, refraining from admitting his experience with them was minimal.

Dukes had a variety of carriages from which to choose, but the list did not generally include vehicles for hire.

“You should go,” she said.

Callum considered her words. He had no desire for scandal. If he had any sense, he would have scampered off long ago. At this rate, one of her parents might shout “compromised,” and he would find himself engaged to her within the week. The engagement with Lady Isla sufficed in intolerability.

The last thing he desired was to have her father come after him. Vicars had a well-developed sense of right and wrong, and he was certain her father would consider spending time with his unmarried daughter was decidedly in the wrong category.

Still, he lingered.

Something about her demeanor seemed to have shifted, as if she were on the verge of collapsing. Her face was damned pale.

“Did you have bad news?”

“It’s of no concern to you.” Miss Butterworth’s expression remained calm and controlled, but her eyes didn’t meet his, and he was certain she was swaying.

Damnation.

The news seemed very much to concern her.

He wasn’t going to allow her to faint on the pavement. What on earth had the doctor told her?

“Let me talk with the doctor,” he said.

Her eyes widened, and perhaps she would have protested, but he brushed past her. He strode toward the building. The ivory exterior seemed innocuous, and he glared at the Grecian goddesses perched on the facade, smug in their immortality.

“Your Grace! You mustn’t!” Miss Butterworth called, and he assumed the footsteps scampering behind him were hers.

He quickened his pace, pushed open the door and stepped into a hallway.

“Sir?” A young man, most likely an apprentice, eyed him suspiciously. Most likely the man had a sufficient familiarity with his schedule to know Callum was not expected.

“It’s, Your Grace,” Callum said shortly. “I am the Duke of Vernon.”

“Your Grace?” The apprentice sputtered, and his cheeks pinkened in a manner that emphasized his youth. “Truly?” 

“Truly,” Miss Charlotte Butterworth said miserably, entering the building.

Callum was not prone to announcing his title and prestige to workers, but this was the sort of occasion that demanded it.

“Forgive me, Your Grace,” the apprentice said.

Callum had no interest in seeing how much the apprentice’s once rigid posture might collapse. The man’s grovel was unnecessary, and he firmed his expression. “I demand you tell me what you said to that young lady.”

“You mustn’t do that,” Miss Butterworth exclaimed.

“Tell me,” Callum said sternly.

“Are you a relative?” the apprentice asked.

“He most certainly is not,” Miss Butterworth said.

“She’s my betrothed,” Callum lied, and Miss Butterworth’s eyebrows jolted up. She seemed momentarily too stunned to say anything. Good.

“I am afraid...” The apprentice’s voice croaked. “She’s going to...die.”

“Die?”

The man nodded vigorously, as if pleased to have gotten the word out. “Quite soon. A few months.”

Callum’s stomach again attempted an elaborate knot, and he turned to Miss Butterworth’s pale, brave face. “But you’re young. This must be a mistake.”

“I did expect more years.” Miss Butterworth rested a quivering hand on her chest. “Yet statistically it is not impossible I should be one of those people to die early.”

“But your health—”

“—Worried me sufficiently that I came here.”

He was silent. He didn’t know her. He shouldn’t be arguing over this.

“I should never have shared this with you,” she said.

She was correct.

People died all the time.

How long had his parents lived? How old had Aunt Edwina been when she’d passed?

That was different.

He turned to the apprentice. “Perhaps the doctor made a mistake.”

“The physician does not make mistakes.” The man had the unctuousness and slavish attention found in men of lesser position. “Dr. Hutton attended Paris University.”

Callum hoped he’d done so before the war. It did not speak to the man’s judgement to study in the country of Britain’s main enemy.

“If he says it’s correct—”

“—Then it must be correct,” Callum grumbled.

“Quite,” the apprentice said.

“And where exactly is the physician?” Callum asked.

“On his way to Edinburgh.” The apprentice’s eyes glimmered. “The physician is attending a most important conference.”

Callum had previously expressed pride at Edinburgh’s reputation as a center for medicine. He rather wished now that London had exerted itself more. He was hardly going to go to Edinburgh to question the validity of a doctor’s diagnosis.

Not that it would have been any use. The physician would hardly have told Miss Charlotte Butterworth her life would be sharply curtailed unless he was certain. Even a man educated in Paris could find no amusement in that.

My parents died.

The room’s temperature soared, as if placed in the Sahara, and sweat prickled the back of his neck. Callum yanked his cravat, and the apprentice widened his eyes. Most likely the venerable Dr. Hutton never yanked his cravat. Callum’s legs wobbled, as if he were not only in the Sahara, but experiencing a sandstorm.

Miss Charlotte Butterworth’s blue eyes rounded. “Are you well, Your Grace?”

“Er—naturally.” Callum wasn’t dying after all. He forced himself to straighten and maintain some semblance of dignity. “I’ll see you to the carriage, Miss Butterworth.”

“That is unnecessary,” she said primly and hurried from the building.