seventeen

The secret to finding true love is not in discovering someone who will give it to you but learning how to give it.

~A scientist’s observations on love

I dropped my reticule in my adjoining chamber, then hurried back to the maid accepting garments as Jenny slipped them off her mistress. I held Golda’s arms to steady her and looked back at Essie. “You’re certain it’s the same person?” I whispered this.

“Oh, yes, quite.” She hugged the stack of linens with joy about to burst as Jenny continued discarding items across Essie’s freckled arms. “I hardly know what to think.”

I felt the same. “Well, what did it say?”

“He thinks my face is beautiful.” She shrugged as her cheeks pinked with pleasure. “He’s happy simply being nearby, even if we never speak. Oh, it makes me so curious, doesn’t it you?”

“Enormously.” My brain spun as Mrs. Gresham donned a burgundy housedress and moved into her sitting room to give orders concerning dinner. I ducked into my own room to change out of traveling garments, eying my patient as I went. She looked tired but poised.

Alone, I stood in the window. Essie was Rose? Aberdeen was here? I shivered with the warm awareness of Grayson’s presence creeping up around me, that foggy sense of something occurring beyond what I could see.

A distant knock on Golda’s sitting room door startled me more than it should. I heard Parker admit Dr. Tillman, and I moved deeper into my room.

“Welcome home, Mrs. Gresham. I trust your trip was uneventful.”

A rustle of skirts. “I wouldn’t call it that, but it was a success.”

“I had a few calls to pay in this district, so I thought I’d stop and see that the trip had no ill effects on you. Also, I wanted to know if you’d given any thought to that specialist I mentioned.”

I imagined her watching him with steely eyes.

“I’ll accompany you, of course, and you can bring along anyone else you wish.”

I held my breath. Would she go?

Her teacup clinked against its saucer. “Won’t you stay to dinner, Dr. Tillman?”

“Dinner? I suppose . . . but I wouldn’t think of imposing.”

“Well now, there’s a first.” The coy curl to her words delighted me. I leaned back against the wall with a smile. She was returning to herself. She seemed stronger, more alive. “Miss Duvall must join us then, so we have an even number.”

So much for a private evening.

When I escorted my patient into the drawing room for the meal at half past, Parker met me at the door with a long white envelope. “This came for you, miss.”

I hardly glanced at the thing, intending to slip it in my pocket, but the return address shocked me. I stopped and leaned one hand on the wall as Golda brushed through the doors—Durham University School of Medicine.

It was a cruel mistake, this letter from the school that had already barred my application. I tore at the wax seal with trembling fingers. I yanked out the single folded sheet, eagerly reading it all.

We are pleased to inform you that your application has been received by the admissions board and we are considering it along with the other submissions. Be advised that, should you be accepted for admission to this university, you will receive a separate letter with the applicable dates for arrival and fee schedule for . . .

My vision blurred, then refocused. I scanned it again. Was this real? Yes, it was. But how? I read the letter again, feeling this moment sinking into the history pages of my life. It was here in black-and-white—they were considering my application, the one that listed a woman’s name on the top. They were considering a woman. This woman.

My heart pounded and tears formed. It was my very own sort of love letter, one that thrilled my heart with a rapture greater than all four proposals combined. I sank onto a page boy stool in the hall, clutching the letter and wondering what sort of magic had occurred. For them to send this, to know I was here, rather than at home—a miracle, that’s how. God is God, Mama had always said. He can do anything he wants.

How interesting and lovely the world suddenly seemed.

I nearly pounced on poor Aunt Maisie when she rounded the corner and held the letter before her cloudy blue eyes. She blinked through it, then that whiskered chin hung down to her chest, eyes wide and lips quivering.

“Ahahah, you’ve done it, my girl. You’ve done it!” She cackled with glee and wrapped her arms around me.

I walked into dinner with poise and tried to focus enough to join the conversation.

“I trust things are going well with your patient, Miss Duvall.” Dr. Tillman spoke from across the table when we’d been seated.

They’d paired us together at the end, as we had both been included by a technicality of social graces, and Aunt Maisie eyed us with her shrewd monkey-eyes. She’d turned into her usual dinnertime statue, but I felt her gaze. Oddly enough, I seemed to have Celeste’s as well. “As well as can be expected, I suppose.”

“Glad to hear it.” Tillman smiled around his bite and continued to watch me expectantly.

I gave a faltering smile, uncertain exactly what I was supposed to say. “And you? Did you pass a few productive days in town?”

“Quite.”

A pleasant hum of voices punctuated by clinking flatware served as the background noise. Golda spoke to Burke about her presentation of verses and meeting Longfellow. Burke and Clara hardly spoke, and Celeste’s frequent glances toward our end of the table did not go unnoticed.

Then a door banged open toward the front of the house, echoing through the front entry, and the pleasant chatter dimmed. The dining room door opened, and it was Mr. Gresham, that ghostly shadow of a man filling the doorway behind Parker. The butler bowed and removed himself, leaving the awkward owner of the house to face us all.

He shifted, looking at the faces turned toward him, and fiddled with the buttons of his suitcoat. “Well then, carry on.” He seated himself as a footman pulled out a chair at the far end between the doctor and myself, separated from his wife by the massive walnut affair holding our meal.

“Why, Mr. Gresham, what a surprise.” Golda’s slight frown said it wasn’t a welcome one.

“I do live here, after all.” He lifted knife and fork, eyeing the meat on his plate.

“So you do.”

I flashed a glance toward Golda and suddenly became aware that her husband was here because I had goaded him into it.

Which had been less than brilliant, as it turned out.

The diners returned to eating, but the talking had ceased. Footsteps of the staff moving here and there punctuated the hushed moments. Mr. Gresham sat at the head of his own table clearing his throat and keeping his gaze down as if he were a guest at the palace. “You look well, Mrs. Gresham.”

Golda gifted him with a tolerant smile. “I’m glad I appear that way, Mr. Gresham.”

Celeste and Burke exchanged looks of longsuffering while Gabe studied his mother with keen eyes.

Celeste forced a bright smile. “What sort of adventures have you had lately, Father?”

“Business matters, mostly.” He took a bite. “I’ve been pursuing a lead on a completely new type of stallion. It’s an untapped opportunity, and I’ve arranged to travel there and pursue it before others get wind of it. It’ll be a big undertaking, but an even larger reward, if it pays off.”

Golda froze, napkin at her lips. “I see.”

“I meant to write you about it, but I thought—”

“That it was meaningless, of course, as my opinion often is to you.”

He hunched his tall frame over his food and silence reigned again. The web of private tension thickened, all of us finding ourselves caught up in it.

Burke spoke in low tones to Celeste about a garden party, and the attention of the room dissipated. A sense of release spread over us.

“So here I am, Miss Duvall.” Mr. Gresham leaned toward me as he sipped his drink and blotted his lips. “Is it what you hoped it would be, having me at Crestwicke?”

“Ah, so you are the reason for his return.” Dr. Tillman smiled at me, one eyebrow raised. “Very keen powers of persuasion.”

Gresham turned to his physician. “Speaking of which, the entire board is still in shock over what you’ve done.”

“Oh?” Tillman stared at his plate, avoiding my gaze.

What had the man done now? Perhaps “Tillman’s Tablets” turned out to be a hoax, and now he had to answer for them.

Gresham buttered his bread. “On that note, Miss Duvall, I wish you all the best in medical school.”

I bit down hard on my tongue, and cried out, blinking back tears. Silence blanketed the room again, but with my small smile of apology, the talk resumed around us. Heat washed over my skin. The letter from the admissions board—that precious letter, in the long envelope. Magic, indeed. The board hadn’t changed their minds—Tillman had.

But why?

Mr. Gresham slipped out the tall doors after quickly clearing his plate, and I turned to Dr. Tillman, looking over his scholarly face behind the spectacles. “Whatever you did, thank you. But I hope it wasn’t some misguided effort to gain my affections.”

“As I had no plans to tell you I’d done it, it’s safe to assume that wasn’t the reason.”

It was impossible to believe. There had to be more. I stared at him unflinchingly, waiting for him to crack, but he didn’t. “Then what was it?”

“What?”

“The reason.”

“Are you suggesting I recommended a potential student for reasons other than pure talent and suitability for the field? I pride myself in a keen perception of people and their abilities. I happen to believe you’d make a fine doctor. Better than most, actually.”

I narrowed my gaze. “Why?”

“Well, your research, for one. It’s quite impressive. But mostly . . . let’s just say I’ve watched you face the flames of a rather sizable dragon and barely flinch at the heat.” The edges of his mouth jerked up in the hint of a smile. “If that is any testament to how well you can hold your own with patients, this profession needs at least ten more of you.” He paused to wipe his hands with a napkin. “Congratulations, Miss Duvall. I wish you every success.”

What in the world was he doing? He flustered and flattered me in the same sentence, his even tone conveying thoughts I could hardly wrap my mind around. I clamped my mouth shut, horrified to realize it had been hanging open.

He sipped his drink. “Is something the matter?”

“I’ve said nothing.”

“Exactly.” He winked.

A series of tingles passed over my skin in quick succession, the sensation not altogether unpleasant.

He threw me a terribly playful grin then, and it only made it worse. “Well?”

I blinked, faltered, then returned his charming smile with a shy one of my own. He’d asked how I was. “I’m better than I ever have been, Dr. Tillman. Which I suppose I owe to you.”

“It was your skill that earned my recommendation. I only suggested they reconsider you. I’m honored to have you as a colleague in this harrowing world of medicine.”

Colleague. My mind fixated on the term he’d so casually dropped into conversation. He saw me as a peer? With all the suitors who had scraped together the words of a poem-worthy proposal, none had ever granted me this level of dignity.

I rather liked it.

Our eyes met for a moment and I straightened. Those uninvited chills continued to climb into my scalp. I couldn’t make head or tail of the man before me, or my own heart for that matter, but I knew that the icy air of Crestwicke had been pierced by a small sliver of warmth. He’d done this, knowing I didn’t care for him. I studied his familiar features, the once-despised face that now seemed . . . what, exactly? Tolerable? Handsome? He met my stare with unblinking ease, his eyes crinkling at the edges in an endearing way, and I hadn’t any idea what I was supposed to do with my arms, my fidgeting hands.

The moment snapped with the shove of a chair. Celeste rose with unusual force and hurried from the room.

I followed her into the hall, wondering if I should fetch my medical bag. “What is it, Celeste?”

She turned troubled eyes on me when I reached her. “Trying for a fifth proposal now, are we?”

I blinked as hot and cold chased through me. “Who? What?”

“You are considering Dr. Tillman now, are you not?”

Was I? “Well, he isn’t completely odious.” I lowered my gaze from the accusation in hers. I could only picture the hope in her eyes when she’d first asked if I was “one of us,” and I felt now as though I’d betrayed her, even though nothing had occurred. I still wanted, more than anything, to be a doctor—especially now.

She stepped back, her eyes narrowed. “You spoke with more passion about him when you hated him.”

“I never hated—”

But she was gone, sailing through the door. I exhaled.

“Well, what was that about?” Aunt Maisie moved up behind me.

“I’m not certain, truly. I want to help, but I feel as though I’ve only stirred the pot.” I shifted on my feet. “Why can’t I ever seem to say the right thing? My words . . . they’re still wrong, Aunt Maisie.”

“Because they’re yours.” She hobbled close and rested a crooked hand on my arm. “Make your heart a deep well of the Almighty by saturating yourself in his presence, and your words will come out drenched in him no matter what you say. I can promise you, no matter how many brilliant things you have to say, he has better ones.” With a nod, she hobbled out of the room.

The whole thing left me confused and not a little unsure of myself. I’d stepped into the middle of a novel—no, a chapter—and was attempting to fumble through it.

Yet I wanted the rest of the story.