The Irish Healer

Chapter 3





Owing to the solid instincts of his mare, James arrived at his street without incident. If reaching his destination had been solely up to him, he might have found himself in Marylebone or Whitechapel, rather than Belgravia. His mind had kept reexamining the sight of a small child in a dying woman’s house, had prodded the reflection like a scab that wouldn’t heal, drinking in the guilt that accompanied the reflections until his self-reproach made him nauseous.

His mare trotted past the gleaming white-stuccoed terraces, the houses’ matched windows and iron railings and porticos so prim and orderly. A thousand secrets might lie behind those sparkling panes of glass, those crisp courses of painted brick. A thousand regrets as corrosive as the one that ate at him.

One day soon he would be reunited with Amelia, would face down that regret. But not today.

James hopped down from his horse, and—characteristic of the smooth operation that had been in place ever since Mariah had put her indelible mark upon the house—the green front door swung open just as his boots hit the first step leading up to it. His house-maid curtsied as he entered the entry hall, the space with its cut-glass bell lantern, Turkish runners, and polished marble floor just a foretaste of the elegance that lay throughout. More marks left by Mariah. Endless reminders of her. How she had loved this house.

He would not miss it.

“Any patients call while I was out, Molly?” he asked the maid, peeling off his gloves.

“No, sir. But Mrs. Woodbridge is waiting for you in your library. The sweeps are cleaning the drawing-room chimney or else I’d have taken her there, sir.”

Sophia. What did she want? “Tell Joe to take my horse around to the mews for me.”

A flicker of some emotion—disapproval, James thought—crossed Molly’s hazel eyes. “He’s not back with Miss Dunne yet, sir.”

“Maybe the boat was late arriving.” Molly gathered his gloves and hat. “In that case, see that Peg takes my horse around to the mews and bring some tea to the library I’ve no doubt my sister-in-law will want some.”

He headed up the stairs to the rear first-floor room he’d converted to a library Seated in the armchair by the fireplace, Sophia’s spine was wilting, which meant she had been waiting longer than she liked. Her bombazine skirts imparted a crisp and reprimanding rustle as she shifted to face him.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit, Sophia?” He went to kiss her on the cheek. The muted scent of lavender rose from her clothes. She might be in extended mourning for her husband, gone two and a half years now, but she would never give up her love of sachets and sweet-smelling toilet water. Her only frivolity.

“Can I not simply wish to visit my brother-in-law?”

“Usually not without a good reason.”

Ginger-colored eyebrows arched over eyes as dark and piercing as a hawk’s. “I believe, James, you have become an unfortunate cynic.”

“My apologies for the curt greeting, Sophia. I was assisting a colleague with a case and it’s left me in poor humor.”

Skirting the mahogany desk dominating the room, James sat in the burgundy leather chair, felt it close around him like a well-worn glove. He let his gaze wander around the library His sanctum sanctorum, as one friend jokingly referred to it. A space for escape, all muted somber tones and funereal quiet. Here he could read by candlelight the books with gilded bindings climbing the walnut bookshelves, smoke the occasional cigar, sit by the fire and think.

Or not think.

Molly returned with the tea and deposited the oval silver tray on the parquetry table at Sophia’s knee.

“Everything is well with Amelia, I presume?” he inquired politely, guilt looming but held at bay. “Over her croup?”

“She recovered from that ages ago,” Sophia chided. “Surely you remember me telling you.”

“Surely.”

“She sends her love, by the by,” Sophia said, as she always did.

One day he would ask her if Amelia really had. “Send mine in return.”

“I shall,” Sophia said, dispensing the hot water into the painted china cups that had been a wedding present to James and Mariah. Endless reminders.

“So Amelia is well and happy?” he asked.

“As ever. Such an obedient and tranquil child. Just like Mariah.” She beamed, proud as any mother. Raising Amelia was a solace to Sophia, a surrogate for her lost beloved sister and a replacement for the children Sophia never had on her own. She was a better parent than James could ever hope to be.

More than three years ago, at the side of a deathbed, he had made the right decision. Sophia’s contented smile assured him yet again.

Molly quit the room and Sophia brought James a cup of tea. “I did come here on a particular mission. I was sent to invite you to a boating excursion. Miss Castleton has requested your presence.”

“Since when did you become Miss Castleton’s messenger? I didn’t know you were particular friends.”

“It’s true, we are not.” The sniff that emanated from Sophia carried a wealth of meaning he’d long ago learned to interpret—the superiority of her own breeding, disdain for Miss Castleton’s, boredom that she had to repeat her opinion one more time. “I do not dislike her, but I can only object to her unladylike persistence. She desperately hopes you will ask to marry her.”

James frowned. Louisa Castleton, sister to his good friend Thaddeus, young and pretty and full of schemes, had settled her hopes on him. She would be better served bending her energies toward wishing for the stars or hoping a lord might ask for her hand.

“I’m aware of her goal, Sophia,” he said.

“That may be, but have you made it clear to her you cannot possibly be interested?” Her teaspoon clinked irritably against the edge of her cup.

“Thaddeus would love to see us wed.” He’d said as much a dozen times or more.

“And what else would your friend, the esteemed Dr. Castleton, think? To be sure, Miss Castleton is a fine, churchgoing woman and not unpleasant to look at. But honestly, James . . .” Here she paused, readying for the volley that always came next. “She would never make a good mother for Amelia. She is not fit to hold a candle to the memory of my dear, dear Mariah.”

James clenched his jaw against the bitterness, tired of Sophia’s reminders that she—and his father—had thought Mariah the most perfect woman in the world.

“Do you love me, James?” Mariah’s pleading words echoed in his memory.

“You needn’t fear my marrying Miss Castleton, Sophia,” he said, working his jaw loose. “I have no intention of taking another wife. I promise you that.”

Her smile was small, tight, swift as the dart of a kingfisher plunging. Concerns relieved. “I merely expect that someday you might change your mind. Provide a mother’s guiding hand to little Amelia.”

“She has you. What more could I want for my daughter?”

“You do truly mean that, don’t you? I often wonder . . .”

“Sophia, you stepped in when I needed someone most. You know I’m grateful to you.”

“I try my best, for Mariah’s sake.” Sophia rearranged her skirts around her like a bird fluffing its fine plumage. “So I should tell Miss Castleton that you send your regrets?”

“Even if I wished to go boating, I’m far too busy preparing for our move to Finchingfield. I haven’t the time for pleasure excursions.”

“Poor creature shall just have to be disappointed,” she said. “But we all have our crosses to bear, don’t we?”

Knuckles rapped on the library door, and Molly stuck her head through the opening. “Sir, I’m ever so sorry for disturbing you, but there’s been a problem with Miss Dunne. It seems, well, it seems Joe couldn’t find her at the docks.”

James struck a knee against the desk in his haste to stand. A jolt of pain shot through his leg, making him flinch. The day was going from bad to worse. “What do you mean, he couldn’t find her?”

Behind Molly, Joe shuffled his feet and twisted his scruffy wool cap in his hands as if he hoped to strangle it. “Sorry, sir, but there weren’t an older Irish lady come off the boat. Well, there were one, but she ’ad a ride an’ all and didn’t ’ave reddish hair. Our Miss Dunne’s gone missin’.”

“James, what is this?” Sophia’s attention perked like a hound on the scent.

“The worst,” he replied. “It seems the woman I’ve hired to assist in packing the library and office has gotten lost.”

“You’ve brought a woman from Ireland to help with your collections?” she asked, her voice rising, latching onto the piece of information that troubled her most. The possibility Miss Dunne had drowned in the Irish Sea or been accosted off the boat didn’t concern her.

“I have tried to bring a woman from Ireland to help, yes.”

Sophia swept her arm to point at the bookshelves. “But these books are valuable. They’re to pass to Amelia, and I’ve been told some have been in your family for generations. How do you know this Irish creature won’t steal some and sell them for profit?”

“It’s not as if she is some St. Giles street urchin,” he said impatiently, rubbing at his throbbing knee. “She is Miss Harwood’s cousin. You remember her, don’t you? Mariah’s good friend.”

“Yes, I remember, James.” Sophia huffed. “However, I do not find you hiring a relation of Miss Harwood a comforting thought. The Harwoods may be wealthy and influential, but Claire Harwood herself . . . a reprehensibly immoderate do-gooder.”

“Joe, bring the gig out again,” he directed, turning away from Sophia’s pique. “I’ll go back to the docks with you to search for Miss Dunne.” Molly lurked near the doorway, a half smile on her face, apparently relishing the clash over the new arrival who hadn’t arrived. “And you may return to whatever you were doing, Molly.”

They both hustled off. James left the library and started down the stairs toward the back of the house, Sophia on his heels.

“You did not send this Miss Dunne the money for passage, did you?” asked Sophia. “If you did, she’s probably made off with it and never got on the boat at all.”

Such a typical comment; Sophia always thought the worst of everyone. “I didn’t send her money Miss Dunne paid her own way.”

“Even so, she hardly sounds competent. Getting lost when she has just arrived. You should just leave her at the docks. Or suggest to Miss Harwood she go and retrieve her cousin. Isn’t that what family is for?”

James gripped the finial at the first-floor landing and propelled himself down the stairs. Sophia’s thin-soled shoes slapped against the treads behind.

“I am responsible for her, Sophia, and I won’t just leave her at the docks.”

“There are plenty of perfectly fine English girls you could have hired.”

Abruptly James stopped, Sophia nearly skidding into him. “None with the skills Miss Harwood assures me her cousin possesses. Miss Dunne required a position, and I have one. It was a serendipitous solution for the both of us, and I’ll not pass it up.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Mariah always said you were too trusting. A strange Irish girl whom her London relatives have foisted upon you. Bah.”

“They haven’t ’foisted’ her. Miss Dunne is only half-Irish, and she isn’t a girl. She’s an aging spinster. Even more harmless.” James turned and marched down the hallway.

“I refuse to be swayed by your arguments. The Irish are dangerous, young and old. I cannot believe you would let her into your house.”

They swept through the back door, crossed the garden. He shot a glance at Sophia, struggling to keep up. “Are you intending on accompanying me to the docks to search for Miss Dunne?”

“I rather think not!”

“Then I must say good day to you.”

He entered the mews, leaving his sister-in-law to frown after him.





Traffic in the city was as miserable as ever. He might be grateful that the rain promised by the sky all day hadn’t come to pass, but James was too distracted to acknowledge that bit of God’s benevolence.

After an hour’s drive, Joe pulled the gig to a halt at St. Katherine’s Docks. James searched the crowd pushing and shoving past the crates of living—and some not-so-living—animals, the barrels of goods, the sweating wharf laborers and porters. What a wretched sea of humanity, many of them looking as if they’d swum to London rather than come on a boat, they were so bedraggled and salt-crusted. To be lost among this horde . . . disquiet buzzed along his nerves like a relentless wasp. Had Miss Dunne failed to get on the packet from Ireland or fallen overboard during the journey? Or had she been lured away when she arrived, another victim of the criminal element that plagued the city?

“Cor, sir, she’s still ’ere,” said Joe.

“Who? Who’s still here?”

Joe jerked his chin to the right. “That a one. In the dingy brown dress snoozin’ on the carpetbag. She were ’ere before. But she’s no old lady.”

He spotted the woman Joe was pointing out. “Shall I ask if she’s Miss Dunne, Joe?” he asked, only partly serious.

Joe shrugged. “Can’t ’urt, I s’pose.”

“No, it can’t hurt.”

James climbed down and went up to the woman, dozing on the bag she’d sat upon, her back propped against a crate. Young woman, he corrected himself. She couldn’t be past twenty years of age. She was pretty, too, with coppery hair that peeked out from the edge of her plain straw bonnet and fine features, even if those features could use a good scrub.

This couldn’t possibly be Miss Harwood’s relation. He could have sworn she’d said her cousin was older, explaining her extensive experience and utter dependability. She had made Miss Dunne sound so sober he’d expected she would look like his old nurse, wrinkled and smelling of burnt milk. He would never have expected Miss Harwood might mislead him.

Unceremoniously, James prodded the young woman’s foot with the toe of his boot. “Miss Dunne?”

She didn’t respond.

A squat fellow in wildly colored patched clothing sidled up. “I’d leave that piece alone were I you, guvn’r. She’ll bite your head off, sure she will.”

“I think I can handle her.”

Out of the corner of his eye, James saw that the man had shuffled off. He bent down, nearer Miss Dunne. Bite his head off would she, this petite thing?

“Miss Dunne,” he repeated, more loudly.

Her body jerked, and her eyes flew open. Eyes that were the most extraordinary color—blue-green, like deep water—and unafraid of looking him in the face. She scrambled to sit upright.

“Who are you?” she asked suspiciously, pressing her back to the crate. “What do you want?”

“Don’t be alarmed. I mean you no harm.”

“As you say,” she replied, skeptical, caution keeping her pinned to her spot, courage lifting her chin. “But excuse me if I do not believe you.”

“You can trust me. Take my hand. I’ll help you up.”

He clasped her hand, small and fragile within his, and gazed reassuringly into her eyes. Suddenly he felt a connection that was startling in its intensity, utterly unexpected, a flash like a spark being thrown from a fire. He felt a pull like an anchor thrown from a ship, sucking him right down into the watery depths of her eyes.

What in heaven’s name was happening?

There was only one explanation.

He had lost his mind.