First Comes Scandal
“Such faith in your eldest daughter,” Billie said in a dry voice. “It is positively uplifting.”
Conversation slowed when the next course was served—rack of lamb with mint jelly, herbed potatoes and French beans with butter, and duck terrine with courgettes.
Georgie turned to Nicholas with a look of pure camaraderie. “Toasted cheese and rack of lamb. We are outdoing ourselves tonight.”
Nicholas nearly groaned with pleasure at the first bite. “I can’t remember the last time I had such a good meal.”
“Is Scottish food so very dreadful?”
“The Scottish food in my rooming house is.”
“Oh,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Did you think I traveled with a chef?”
“No, of course not. I thought—well, to be honest, I don’t think I did think about it.”
He shrugged. He would have been surprised if she had.
She cut her meat slowly, then used her knife to add a bit of jelly. But she had a faraway look in her eyes and did not bring the food to her mouth. “I can’t stop thinking about it,” she said.
His own fork paused about two inches above his plate. “My gustatorial deprivations?”
“No, of course not. That’s just poor planning on your part. I’m still stuck on the broken bones.”
“Why does this not surprise me?”
“As you said, one can’t just open a book in the pursuit of medical inquiry.”
“We do, actually, for much of it.”
“Yes, but there must come a point when practical knowledge is required. As you also said, you can’t go around breaking people’s arms. You have to wait for it to happen.”
“True, but there is rarely a shortage of ill and injured patients.”
She seemed somewhat impatient with this explanation. “But what if they are not ill or injured in the way you need?”
“Will I regret it later if I ask what you mean by that?”
She waved off his (mostly) rhetorical question, and said, “It’s such an interesting ethical dilemma.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“What if you could break someone’s bones?”
“Georg—”
She cut him off. “For the pursuit of knowledge. What if you offered to pay?”
“Pay someone to have his bones broken?”
She nodded.
“That’s inhumane.”
“Is it?”
“Certainly unethical.”
“Only if you do not have their consent.”
“You can’t ask someone permission to break their arm.”
“Can’t you?” She cocked her head to the side. “Consider this example. Imagine that I am a widow. I don’t have very much money. In fact, I have almost none. And I have three children to support.”
“Your life has turned very grim indeed,” Nicholas murmured.
“I’m trying to make a point,” she said, visibly peeved.
“My apologies.”
She waited a beat, presumably to be sure he wasn’t going to interrupt again, then said, “If a doctor offered me enough money to break my arm and then set it, I would do it.”
Nicholas shook his head. “That’s madness.”
“Is it? I’m a penniless widow with three hungry children. It sounds to me as if my only other option is prostitution. Frankly, I’d rather have my arm broken.” She frowned. “Although it would make it more difficult to care for my children.”
Nicholas set down his fork. “Prostitution is not your only other option.”
“What are you talking about now?” his mother asked. She looked very concerned, and Nicholas suspected she’d heard the part of the conversation that included the word prostitution.
“Still on the broken bones!” Georgie said with a sunny smile.
Which slid right into a steely stare when she turned back to him. “It’s easy for you to say that prostitution is not my only option. You have an education.”
“So do you.”
She snorted. “From my governess. It does not compare, and frankly I’m insulted that you’d even imply that it did.” She stabbed a potato with enough force that Nicholas winced in sympathy.
“I beg your pardon,” he said politely.
She waved this off, leaving him to wonder if she found this, too, to be mostly rhetorical.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” she said, “because we are talking about hypothetical me, not real me. Hypothetical me does not have the support of a loving and wealthy family.”
“All right then.” He could play along. “Hypothetical you has three children. Are they old enough to work?”
“Not old enough to earn a decent wage. Unless I send them into the coal mines, and frankly, that seems worse for their health than a broken bone.”
“What are you talking about?” Edmund asked.
Nicholas ignored him. “Wait, so are you now saying you want me to break your children’s bones?”
“Of course not. Not if you can break mine instead.”
“This is precisely my point. You would never allow me to do such a thing if you were not being paid.”
“I’m not stupid.”
“Just desperate.”
Something flashed in her eyes, something pained. Wounded.
“Hypothetical you is desperate,” he said softly.
She swallowed. “It isn’t pleasant to be without choices.”
“No.” He brought his napkin to his lips. He needed a moment. He wasn’t sure what they were talking about any longer, or even if they were talking about the same thing.
“This is why you cannot pay someone to do something like this,” he said quietly. “Consent can be coerced. Hypothetical you says she agrees to have her arm broken in exchange for money to feed her children. But is that really consent if your only other choice is the sale of your body?”
“Some would say that it’s the sale of my body either way.”
“Touché,” he admitted.
“I understand your point,” Georgie said. “I even agree with it a little. There are some things in life that ought not be for sale. But on the other hand, who am I to decide that for another human being? It is easy for me to condemn a decision I would not make, but is it fair?”
“Are you still talking about broken bones?” Violet asked. “Because you look very serious.”
“Our conversation has taken a turn for the philosophical,” Georgie told her.
“And the morbid,” Nicholas added.
“We can’t have that.” Violet nudged her husband. “They need more wine, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely.” Edmund nodded to a footman, who immediately refilled their glasses.
Not that there was much to refill, Nicholas noted. He and Georgie were both staggeringly sober.
“I am not sure,” he said slowly, and in a tone only Georgie could hear, “if we have the right to condemn people for the decisions they make if we ourselves are never forced with a similar choice.”
“Exactly.”
He was quiet for a moment. “This has taken a turn for the philosophical.”