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Edinburgh, Scotland
June 1819
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NO TOMBS LINED THE walls of the silent, murky foyer where Millie Pennington stood numb and frozen. This was no ancient crypt with some carved effigy of a crusading knight and his lady lying on a stone slab, blankly staring for all eternity upward into the shadows of a vaulted ceiling. But when the door to the doctor’s consultation room closed behind her, Millie felt sealed in, caught in an eternity of muted desolation, cut off from the world of light and air.
She turned her head at the faint sound of a funeral bell tolling somewhere in the great city. The dark walls wavered around her, moving inward, encroaching menacingly. The distant knell ceased, and her shallow breaths were again the only sound. The small fan-shaped window over the door to the street admitted a brownish light through the soot-covered glass. So far, she’d been able to hold her emotions in check, but now she felt her insides implode. Then the tears came, covering her cheeks and dripping from her chin like ice thawing and pouring from a slate roof.
Not so long ago, her life had been in perfect order, arranged just as she wished it. Twenty-six years of age, she was the youngest daughter to the Earl and Countess of Aytoun. She had four loving siblings, all married with children and another baby on the way. Millie was a creature of tidiness and efficiency, of plans, of thinking through every step she was to take for all the days and months and years ahead. Financially secure, she would be happy to marry if the right man came along, but she could also see herself growing comfortably older and caring for her aging parents. She would be the ideal, doting aunt to a generation of nieces and nephews.
How quickly one’s dreams shattered! Fate had such immeasurable power! It could, in an instant, hurl one from a precipice into a bottomless abyss.
The musty smell of the foyer threatened to suffocate her. Millie couldn’t breathe. She had to get out.
She pushed out the door and stumbled down the stairs. The cobbled lane was slick with the recent rain, and the smoky Edinburgh air offered little relief. The acrid stench of a thousand coal fires stung her nose and lungs, but her mind was elsewhere, filled with countless faces demanding answers.
Millie was a devoted daughter, the most agreeable of all her brothers and sisters. She was a selfless and generous friend. She’d carved out a life path paved with compassion and kindness. She’d walked upon it with a clear conscience.
Still.
She moved forward a few steps, numb and unheeding of where her feet were taking her. Blurred grey and brown brick crowded her on either side.
Why me?
Millie’s knees wobbled as faintness overtook her. She staggered, falling against a wall. Leaning there, she held a handkerchief to her face and tried to force air into her lungs.
Opium, arsenic, salve, balms. Prayers. Lots and lots of prayers. At some time during the consultation today, she’d stopped hearing the suggestions.
Fresh tears sprang onto her cheeks. She couldn’t tell anyone. She couldn’t tell her family. Not even Phoebe. Two years apart in age, the sisters were closest in age. They were the best of friends, confidantes. But Phoebe was due to have a child next month. Millie would never ruin her sister’s happiness by sharing her news. What she’d learned today must be her own cross to bear.
Millie pushed away from the wall. At the bottom of the lane sat Cowgate, and the thoroughfare was a blur of pedestrians and vendors, carts and carriages. As she moved toward it, a narrow wynd on her left led into a dismal close. Two ragged children stood wide-eyed, watching her, just inside next to a pile of refuse.
She motioned to them, and they approached warily. Emptying her purse into their hands, they stared, suspicious of such unknown generosity. The younger girl tried to give her back the bank notes.
“It’s yours to share. All of it. Go. Go,” she urged. The two ran off, disappearing into the murky close.
“I won’t need it. Not today.” Her voice shook, her vision clouded. “Not tomorrow. Not ever.”
She was speaking to no one. They were gone.
Still looking in the direction they’d gone, Millie turned to start down the lane again and immediately bumped into a man coming briskly up from Cowgate.
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DERMOT MCKENDRY WAS late, as usual, but the sight of a woman emptying her reticule into the outstretched hands of street urchins immediately caught his attention. His mind had been on the meeting with a former medical colleague of his, an anatomist connected with the Surgeon’s Hall, not a stone’s throw from here. The man kept consulting rooms in the building at the end of the lane, and he’d recently published a treatise on erratic behavior following traumatic head injuries. Dermot had founded the Abbey Hospital, a licensed private asylum for those suffering from mental disorders caused by injury or disease in the hills west of Aberdeen, specifically to treat such patients, and he was eager to hear his friend’s latest observations.
The woman never saw him before they collided, and Dermot reached out to steady her. She was medium in height, young, from what he could tell. The words of apology forming on his lips were forgotten the moment his gaze fell on her distraught face. As she recovered her footing, her chin dropped to her chest, and the bonnet effectively blocked his view of the pale visage. But not before he saw the tears.
He was stunned for a moment. He knew her.
They’d never actually met, had never been introduced, but he recognized Millie Pennington from her portrait in the family’s Heriot Row home in Edinburgh. He’d been fascinated by her for a year, eager for the moment when they’d finally be introduced. Her playful sense of humor engaged him, her insistence on bringing order to his life tickled him.
Dermot felt as tongue-tied as a schoolboy, and his words became jumbled as he tried to speak. “M’lady—”
“Pardon me, sir.”
Without uttering another syllable, she disengaged herself and hurried down the lane. Dermot looked after her, speechless, and in less than a moment, she’d disappeared around the corner.
What was she doing here? he wondered.
She was clearly quite distressed. He recalled her words to the waifs. I won’t need it. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
The grey eyes had been full of tears, and her demeanor reminded him of a person in mourning. Dermot immediately thought of the Pennington family and what he’d come to know about them. Lord Aytoun, her father, was advancing in age, as was her mother. But he’d heard no ill tidings about them. He would have, for he’d come south from the Highlands to attend their Summer Ball at Baronsford.
Not that he had any interest in dancing. He’d come for one reason only—to meet Millie Pennington.
He turned to go after her. By the time he reached the thoroughfare, she was gone, lost in the bustling crowds and the traffic. He’d never find her now.
Retracing his steps, Dermot picked up a card he’d seen fall onto the cobblestones when she was giving her money to the children.
Immediately, he recognized the physician’s name.