First Comes Scandal

“And this will hasten her recovery.” He looked up at the crowd. “My lancets. Now!”

Several men scurried off. Dr. Monro took Georgie’s wrist and started taking her pulse.

“Sir, no,” Nicholas said. “She should not be bled.”

His professor gave him a look of utter disdain.

“She’s been bled before,” Nicholas said. “It does not work.”

He prayed this was true. He had not been there. He did not know the details. But Georgie had said it had not helped, and he owed it to her to trust her account of her own body, of her own health.

Dr. Monro ignored him. “We’re going to have to cut her sleeve to access the veins in her arm,” he said to the man next to him.

“You will not bleed her,” Nicholas said forcefully. “It does not work.”

“She’s alive, isn’t she?” Dr. Monro snapped.

“Yes, but not because she was bled. She said it made her worse.”

The doctor gave a snort. “Patients are notoriously unreliable, especially when recounting events from several years earlier.”

“My wife is not unreliable,” Nicholas said. He looked at Georgie. She was still pale, but her color had improved, and her lips had lost that terrifying bluish tint they’d acquired when the doctor had had her lie down. “Are you feeling any better?” he asked her. “You seem to be—euf!”

One of the other medical students pitched forward and knocked into him. They were all still crowded tightly around, eager to watch the great Dr. Monro at work.

“Back off!” Nicholas barked at the crowd. “She needs space.”

Georgie nodded. “They’re too close. I need—”

Another whistling wheeze.

“Everyone, take a step back,” Dr. Monro ordered. “I need room to work.”

“She needs room to breathe,” Nicholas retorted.

Dr. Monro gave him a sharp look before turning back to Georgie. “I have found that blood in the dominant arm has stronger circulatory properties,” he said, not to her but to the students gathered round. He flicked his eyes toward Nicholas. “I assume this would be her right arm.”

Nicholas gave a curt nod just as someone returned with a set of lancets. “But you will not be—”

“Excellent,” Dr. Monro said. “Now then, observe my selected blade. You want to choose one that—”

“No.” Nicholas jerked Georgie away.

“Mr. Rokesby,” the doctor said, “I advise you to move away from your wife.”

“No.”

“Mr. Rokesby,” Dr. Monro said sharply, “may I remind you that you are not yet a physician? And that your becoming one is predicated upon my approval? I will say it one more time. Move away from your wife.”

Nicholas did not hesitate. “No,” he said again. He gathered her in his arms and stood. “I’m taking her outside.”

“The colder air will be too much of a shock,” Dr. Monro said. “She needs to remain inside.”

Nicholas ignored him. “Clear the way,” he said to the assembled crowd.

“This is a bad idea,” the doctor warned.

Nicholas didn’t even look at him.

“If she dies,” Dr. Monro said, “it’s on you.”

“You’re not going to die,” Nicholas said to Georgie as he strode down the hall.

“Not today, anyway,” she said with a weak smile.

Nicholas gave her a tender smile. “I would scold you for such a joke, but under the circumstances, I’ll take your humor as a sign of improvement.”

She nodded, and when she exhaled, there was less of a whistling sound than there had been earlier.

“Please say I’m doing the right thing by taking you outside,” he said.

“It was too crowded.” She took a few breaths. Nicholas could see that she was focusing on slowing her inhales.

“And the smell,” she added as he pushed through the front door.

Nicholas had noticed that, too. “Did you vomit?”

She shook her head. “Jameson.”

“Jameson vomited?”

“It was the lecture. He’s—” She coughed. “He’s very squeamish.”

“Good God,” Nicholas muttered. “Remind me never to allow him near my offices when I become a doctor.”

If he became a doctor. He did not know if Dr. Monro would make good on his threat. He wouldn’t have thought him so vindictive, but he’d also never seen him so angry.

But Nicholas didn’t care. Not at this moment, at least. He had Georgie outside, and if the city air was not as clear as he’d like, it was still a damn sight better than in the hallway outside the lecture theater, with dozens of men pressing in on every side.

Georgie’s cheeks had even started to show the first traces of pink.

“Don’t scare me like that again,” Nicholas said. His voice trembled. He had not thought it would.

She reached up and touched his cheek. “Thank you.”

“For not letting him draw blood?”

“For believing in me.”

They sat on a stone bench beneath a tree, Nicholas still holding her scandalously close for such a public place. But he wasn’t ready to let go.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Better. Not quite right, but better.”

“How long does it usually take to feel back to normal?”

She gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know, really. It’s hard to say.”

He nodded. And then, because he had to say it—

“I love you, you know.”

She smiled gently. “I love you too.”

“I’m going to tell you every day.”

“I will be glad to hear it.”

He frowned. Just a little. That was not quite the response he’d been hoping for. “And … ?”

She brought one of his hands to her mouth and kissed it. “And I will tell you every day as well.”

“Much better.”

“To think,” she said, with what he could only describe as a mystified shake of her head, “you were right there under my nose, all these years.” She looked up, her eyes suddenly wry. “Do I have to thank Freddie Oakes? Please say I don’t.”

“Freddie Oakes?” Nicholas echoed.

“He did bring us together.”

Nicholas rolled his eyes. “We would have found our way. It just would have taken a little longer.”

She let out a long breath, slow and sustained, and Nicholas was pleased to hear only the slightest remnants of a wheeze. “People are watching,” she whispered.

He looked over at the building. The front door was open, and several of his classmates stood on the front steps.

“I’m fine!” Georgie called out. She waved, but then the exertion led to a little cough.

“Stop that,” Nicholas scolded.

“They’re worried. It’s sweet.”

“It’s not sweet, it’s intrusive.”

“Can you blame them?”

Nicholas supposed not. She had collapsed in front of a group of medical students. There was no way they were not going to be curious.

“Why are you here?” he suddenly thought to ask.