Caddy tried to give the appearance of paying attention throughout the rector’s homily; however, when Neal Stradbroke had entered the church just before service started, every pious and worshipful thought fled from her mind. He had been here every Sunday since his arrival in North Parade. But after watching him walk away with the two burly strangers yesterday, she had been prepared never to see him again—or not for a very long time at any rate.
The epistle to the Ephesians, from whence came the proscribed passage for the third Sunday of Lent, was one her father had studied and shared his thoughts about often. The rector of the St. Giles church had obviously not spent as much time developing his opinions of the text as Father had. And he was not so engaging a speaker as Father had been, which gave Caddy’s mind yet more reason to wander.
When the congregation stood to sing the closing hymn, the sonorous bass voice coming from four rows behind wrapped around Caddy like an embrace. She found herself wishing it were more than his voice that embraced her. She remembered only too well what it had felt like to have him wrap his arm around her to help her up the stairs after her injury, and she had allowed herself to indulge too often in imagining what it would be like for him to wrap both arms around her. The idea of giving in to the strength and support he represented was too tempting.
Caddy stopped singing, closed her eyes, and prayed for God to renew her strength and resolve. After all, as Paul had written in the fifth chapter of Ephesians, “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. . . . All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.” And what were secrets if not the “unfruitful works of darkness”? Although, since Dr. Stradbroke continued to cross her path, perhaps God was showing her that she needed to be the one to provide the reproof necessary for Neal to bring his secrets to light.
Just before the hymn ended, Caddy remembered Mr. Longrieve and sent up a quick prayer for his trial tomorrow. She then helped Mother with her cape before donning her own shawl.
Several ladies of their acquaintance surrounded Mother, remarking on her seeming recovery of late.
“I have the most wonderful new doctor. Oh, there he is. Dr. Stradbroke.” Mother waved her handkerchief at him, and with a sheepish smile, Neal excused his way through the exiting parishioners in the central aisle to come to Mother’s side.
“Good morning, Mrs. Bainbridge. You are looking well.” Neal glanced over Mother’s head and caught Caddy’s gaze. “Miss Bainbridge.”
“Doctor.” Caddy glanced away, her cheeks burning with the frustrated longing in her heart to allow her attraction toward him to show.
Mother praised Neal’s doctoring skills until his face was as red as Caddy’s felt. Finally, he gently interrupted her. “If you will excuse me”—he inclined his head to the group—“I must speak with Miss Bainbridge.”
At the glances exchanged among Mother’s friends, even the tips of Caddy’s ears burned. But she kept her expression as neutral as possible when she stepped around the far end of the pew to meet Neal in the side aisle.
He watched his hands as he turned his hat around and around in them. “Miss Bainbridge . . . I know I promised that I would attend the trial with you tomorrow. But urgent business calls me to London.”
Caddy’s stomach dropped as if she’d missed a couple of steps running down the stairs. “What manner of business could be more urgent than the trial?”
Pain—and a good measure of guilt—filled his blue eyes when he finally looked up from his hat. “I cannot tell you how abjectly I deplore the situation. However, I must be on a train bound for London this afternoon.”
Caddy crossed her arms, wrapping her shawl tightly about her in the chilled air of the sanctuary. She had no right to ask, but betrayal knew no censorship. “Does this have anything to do with Mr. Birchip and Mr. Macquarie?”
Neal’s normally ruddy complexion paled. He opened and closed his mouth several times, and he looked as if he waged an internal war regarding whether or not to reveal his secrets. “It is nothing untoward, I assure you. Simply a business matter that must be immediately attended to.”
He hesitated, then reached for her hand and pressed it between his large, warm ones. “I will never be able to apologize enough that I must leave at such a time. But I can assure you that my thoughts and prayers will be with Mr. Longrieve the entire time.”
She pulled her hand from his grasp. “And am I to inform Mrs. Longrieve of this for you?”
His obvious shock came from either the anger in her tone or her unspoken accusation of cowardice. “No. I am leaving here now to go see Mrs. Longrieve to tell her. I know I have not been as . . . forthcoming about myself as you would like, Miss Bainbridge, but I did hope that you would have a higher regard for me than that.” He bowed, turned on his heel, and exited the church.
Caddy grabbed the back of the nearest pew to stop herself from running after him and apologizing. She did have higher regard for him than that—or she wanted to. But she could not give him the trust he seemed to desire as much as she desired his honesty.
After a moment to compose herself, Caddy sidled through the pew to join her mother—and stopped short at the end.
Oliver Carmichael stood, hands clasped behind his back, leaning in toward the small circle of women, speaking in a voice too low for his words to carry the few feet to Caddy.
Mother’s friends wore expressions of awe that someone of Mr. Carmichael’s rank would deign to come to St. Giles, and furthermore that he would make a point of coming over and speaking to a woman of their own social status.
He stepped back to allow room for Caddy to come out into the aisle. She hoped he hadn’t noticed her hesitation. Though she did not care much for him, she could not afford to offend him.
She returned his greeting, then turned to Mother. “Are you ready to go?”
“Miss Bainbridge, it would be my pleasure to see you and your mother home.” Oliver moved so he stood in the center of the circle of women, facing Caddy. “My carriage is just outside.”
“Oh, no thank you, Mr. Carmichael. ’Tis only half a mile’s walk. We would not imagine inconveniencing you for so short a distance.” Caddy held her elbow toward mother, expecting her to immediately take the offer of support so they could leave. Mother pushed Caddy’s arm away with a scowl before turning a beatific smile up at Mr. Carmichael again.
He returned Mother’s smile and offered her his arm. “Then allow me to walk you home. I will not take no for an answer.”
Most young women—and many older women, she observed from looking around at Mother’s friends—probably found his playful grin and lowered chin charmingly handsome and irresistible. But with a mind still pondering what Neal Stradbroke’s business in London could possibly be, she had no patience for Oliver Carmichael and his flirtations.
“Of course you may see us home.” Mother wedged between Caddy and Oliver and hooked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “I would be ever so grateful for the support of your arm on the way. This is the first time in months I have felt well enough to walk to church. I am afraid I might tire out.”
Caddy wanted to press her fingertips to her temples to try to alleviate the pounding caused by her mother’s simpering expression as she gazed at Mr. Carmichael. But that would have meant drawing more attention than necessary to the bandage. Caddy had spent extra time this morning arranging her hair and morning cap to provide as much concealment as she could achieve.
As they left the church, to the shocked and delighted gasps of Mother’s friends, Caddy could not keep her mind off Neal. Why did he need to go to London . . . and why so suddenly?
Her obsessive thoughts of the doctor made Carmichael’s presence not quite so odious. She tightened the ribbon bow of her poke bonnet under her chin and stepped out into the uncertain blue-gray spring day behind her mother and Mr. Carmichael.
Mother kept Mr. Carmichael occupied with talk of her gardens from when she’d lived in the country as a girl and then at Father’s parish houses. Caddy followed a few feet behind, allowing her mind to wander—creating scenarios of what Neal might do in London that he could not do in Oxford.
Perhaps Birchip and Macquarie were representatives of one of the lords of parliament who had heard of Neal’s skill as a doctor—possibly a new treatment for gout or some other ailment of the aristocracy Neal had discovered—and had sent them to bring him to London to provide treatment. Unlikely. Maybe one of the royal children needed Neal’s ministrations—or Prince Albert or Queen Victoria herself. There were always rumors floating about that one or more of them were in fragile health.
But as much as she respected his medical skills and knowledge, she doubted it was that which called him to London. Besides, he would not keep something like that secret. And he would not be living in rented rooms in North Parade or working in Jericho if he were providing medical services for aristocracy or royalty.
He could be performing some task for the government he could not talk about to anyone.
Caddy halted, gloved fingers pressed to her mouth. What if he were a spy? The secretiveness. The unwillingness to reveal much personal information. His reaction at seeing Birchip and Macquarie. It all fit.
What if Neal Stradbroke wasn’t even his real name?
Mother glanced over her shoulder with a frown of reproach, and Caddy hurried to catch up with them. She fell into step beside Mother, on the opposite side from Mr. Carmichael.
A spy. It made sense. Only something like that would make him secretive and be of enough importance to draw him away from Thomas Longrieve’s trial.
Or maybe—
“Miss Bainbridge, was that Neal Stradbroke I saw you speaking with at the church?” Oliver looked around Mother at her.
Caddy stopped herself from sighing. “Yes, it was.”
“I heard that the two men who came into your shop looking for him last time I was there returned yesterday. I hope they did not inconvenience you in any way.”
The discomfiture in Neal Stradbroke’s expression upon seeing the two men had haunted Caddy since they’d parted company yesterday. She wanted—no, she needed to know what was going on. “They did not stay for long.”
“I suppose Stradbroke told you this morning why those men came looking for him.”
Caddy turned her head toward Oliver at the sound of knowledge in his tone. “No. Only that he must leave for London this afternoon and will be gone for several days.”
Oliver pressed his lips into a frown, nodding. “That’s understandable. I can imagine he would not want you to know who those men are and why they were here.”
The tiny hairs along Caddy’s arms raised, and her skin tingled. “But you have found out?”
“Yes. I have heard they are strongmen who work for a notorious gaming house in Manchester—or was it York?—and they were sent to collect what Dr. Stradbroke owes.”
Caddy thought she might be ill. Not Neal. She would not believe it of him. Yet why would Oliver Carmichael tell her this unless it were so?
Mother put Caddy’s roiling disbelief in words. “I cannot believe that is true. I am not impugning your honesty, Mr. Carmichael. But I believe you may have received false information.”
He shook his head. “I have checked and rechecked my sources, Mrs. Bainbridge. I am sad to say it looks like the good doctor is an irresolute gambler. And a very unlucky one at that.”
“No.” Caddy’s throat almost choked on the word. “That is not possible.”
Oliver’s brows arched up into the fall of curly hair over his forehead. “And you are able to rise to his defense because he has told you everything about himself? Are you certain he has held nothing back?”
Caddy tripped on an uneven cobblestone and pressed her hand to the wall of the tea shop for stability. No. Neal had not told her everything about himself. Just the opposite, in fact. She knew almost nothing about him. Not in specific terms. But he did not seem like the kind of man who gambled to excess. Or at all.
Of course, Alastair Hambleton hadn’t seemed like the kind of man he turned out to be either.
Caddy fumbled with her reticule to fish out the key to her shop door. “Thank you for escorting us home, Mr. Carmichael. I wish you a good day.” She all but pulled Mother through the door, which she closed almost before he’d said his farewell.
“Cadence Bainbridge, that was unconscionably rude. I would not blame Mr. Carmichael if he never calls on you again.” Mother swept past, her full skirt pushing against Caddy’s and throwing her off balance again. Caddy blamed her imbalance on the aisle’s being too narrow for two wide skirts.
“Call on me? Is that what you think he’s been doing?” Caddy pressed the heel of her hand to her side, wishing she could disrobe and spend the day in her dressing gown and slippers. She needed time to think, time to rest, time to clear her head.
“Why else would a gentleman of his rank come not just to North Parade, but to a dressmaker’s shop?” Mother paused at the door to the stairwell and turned back to look at Caddy, her expression expectant of an answer.
“He . . . I do not know. But he has not made his intentions clear to me.”
“He extended an invitation to you for the servants’ ball at Chawley Abbey.”
“Yes, Mother, the servants’ ball. He did not invite me to tea with his mother or to a ball at which anyone of his station would be present. His invitation merely reminds me of my place in the world. I am welcome to socialize with servants, but not with those above stairs.”
Caddy swallowed past tightness in her throat. “I have long since given up on the idea that a wealthy man of high social standing is going to swoop in and rescue me from my life of labor.”
With a huff, Mother threw open the stairwell door and disappeared.
Mother had no one to blame but herself. She had been the one to indulge in reading fairy tales to Caddy about poor young girls being rescued by princes and dukes. Even as a child, Caddy suspected that Mother wished her life had turned out more like one of those stories. Not that Caddy doubted her parents’ love for each other. But she knew how her mother hated the difficult life a clergyman brought to his family. And just when Father was about to move into a prime position in Oxford, which would have elevated not only his income but also the family’s social status, he died. Caddy was fairly certain Mother still had not forgiven him for that. Her dream of living inside the city walls of Oxford, of participating in social calls and events among the elite of the academic and religious community there, was torn away from her. She had been relegated to living the remainder of her life on the outside, wishing to get in and knowing she never would.
Apparently, Mother believed Oliver Carmichael’s sudden, inexplicable attention signaled the rebirth of her dream. But as affable as he’d always seemed, something inside Caddy warned her to keep her distance from him.
After a noon meal of bread, cheeses, and cold meat—and silence from Mother—Caddy changed into an old day dress and went down to the workroom. It needed a thorough cleaning and reorganizing, and she was in just the mood to do it, even if it did mean breaking the Sabbath with hard labor.
Hours later, with lamps burning and sweat rolling down her spine, Caddy stood with hands on hips and surveyed the room. Everything was back in its proper bin, container, drawer, or shelf. She’d found six silver needles, eight buttons, and too many pins to count amongst the dust, threads, and scraps caught under the armoires and chests of drawers. As much as she prided herself on keeping a clean workspace, the layer of dust and grime now covering her belied her efforts.
But now it was so clean Neal could perform surgery here.
Caddy closed her eyes and shook her head. She’d already expended too much mental energy on him today—after church and during the hours in which she’d been cleaning. She needed to move on, to think about something, about someone, else.
She doused the lamps and made her aching feet and legs carry her upstairs. Mother still sat in her armchair beside the fireplace embroidering a shawl, as she had done all afternoon. Caddy crossed the room to stoke the fire.
When Mother said nary a word and did not look up from her needlework, Caddy retreated to the kitchen, where she set the largest pot on the stove to heat water and pulled out the hip bath.
She’d once caught sight of an enormous porcelain bathing tub in a small room attached to Lady Carmichael’s suite. Not only did it have its own permanent place, the maids did not have to pump water for it at the sink. A tap attached to the tub could be turned and hot water flowed freely to fill the bath.
Her own sigh caught her by surprise. She’d always been content with her life. Indeed, it was the only one she’d known. But her sojourns into the homes of her wealthy clients had given her a glimpse into what life could be like if one had the money to afford such luxuries as lady’s maids and porcelain bathtubs.
She poured the boiling water into the small metal tub, refilled the pot, and heaved it back onto the stove. By the time she retrieved her toiletries and dressing gown from her room, the second pot of water was steaming.
The additional hot water filled the small tub halfway. Caddy filled the pot yet again and set it on the back of the stove to warm, to be ready to wash her hair in a little while.
Her bath did not take long, uncomfortable as the hip bath was. Oh, to have a tub like Lady Carmichael’s, in which she could submerge fully—legs and feet included.
“Stop it. Be grateful you have this.” Caddy spoke her reprimand aloud. “Think of those women at the castle with no tubs for bathing at all.”
“Yes, those women do have a harder life than we do.”
Caddy nearly jumped from the tub at her mother’s soft voice. Even though only she and Mother were home on Sunday nights, she’d set up a screen for modesty’s sake. Which was why she hadn’t noticed Mother’s entrance to the kitchen.
“Did you want to take a bath tonight, Mother?”
“No, I will wait for Mary’s help tomorrow. I came in to see if you’d like some help washing your hair.”
Frowning, Caddy reached for her towel. “You haven’t had to help me with that since I was a young child.”
“I know. I just thought . . . I thought it would be a way to apologize to you without actually needing to say I’m sorry.”
Caddy finished drying and wrapped her dressing gown around her before moving the screen out of the way.
Mother sat at the table, hands folded, looking for all the world like a reprimanded child. “I never meant to push you toward Mr. Carmichael if you do not like him. I know what it is to have a mother whose idea of a good marriage is finding the wealthiest man whose attention could be captured.”
“But Father—”
“Was not the man my mother wanted me to marry. She grew up a farmer’s daughter and became a farmer’s wife. When the son of the local magistrate—the man who owned the largest estate in the county—showed interest in me, my mother did everything she could to encourage the match. She cared not that he was boorish and rude, always making cutting remarks about people who were supposedly his good friends and wanting to pursue nothing more than sport and pleasure.” Mother looked up. “I do not know if Mr. Carmichael is the same or not, but I will not do to you what my mother did to me.”
Caddy sank into the chair across the corner of the table from Mother. She had never heard much about her grandparents. “What did she do?”
“When I refused to place myself in a compromising position so that he would be forced to marry me, Mama locked me in my room and withheld food, trying to get me to agree. She didn’t know that I had already met and been secretly courted by your father and that I was already in love with him.” A vague smile of reminiscence overtook Mother’s face. “She also did not know that I was just as stubborn as she. And that Papa was sneaking food to me.”
“How long did you stay locked in your room?” Caddy leaned forward, horrified at the story, but fascinated at the rare peek into her mother’s past.
“Three days. Father finally convinced her that if I died of starvation, it would raise too many questions. And I realized I could use that against her. I refused to eat until she agreed that I could marry whomever I wished.” Mother wiped at the moisture welling in her eyes. “If only Mama had lived to see you born, my darling daughter. She would have forgiven me for not marrying the magistrate’s son.”
Caddy gasped. “She never forgave you for marrying Father?”
Mother patted Caddy’s hands. “She did. But whenever we had a row—which was quite often, given how stubborn we both were—she would accuse me of marrying your dear father just to spite her. She did grow to love him, though, in the end.”
Shoulders slumped, Caddy sighed. “I shall never have that kind of love, I fear.”
“I pray every day it will come to you. I had hoped . . . but, alas, I will not push my hopes and dreams onto you. You already try too hard to please me—you are so like your father in that. I am afraid that I might become my mother and you would give in rather than displease me.”
“You make me sound so much better than I am.” Caddy clasped Mother’s hands in hers. “I do wish to please you, but I do not know that I would sacrifice a lifetime of happiness or love to do so.” The corner of her mouth quirked up. “I can be just as stubborn as you if I want to.”
Mother laughed and squeezed Caddy’s hands. “Well, then, my stubborn child, before you devise a way to spite me just to prove me wrong, let us wash your hair and turn in for the night. And I will pray that love will sweep you off your feet.”
Caddy stood and hugged her mother. “And I will pray that my feet stay solidly planted, even if I do, one day, fall in love.”
Mother scrutinized her when she stepped back from the embrace. Caddy turned to pull the pot off the stove before kneeling at the tub and pulling the pins out of her hair. She feared she was well on her way to losing her footing when it came to a certain handsome doctor.
While Mother prayed her prayer, Caddy would pray that she did not come crashing back down to earth whenever Neal Stradbroke’s secrets were revealed.