Chapter One
London, August 1878
Augusta Browning, sister of the Earl of Whitehall, was twenty and four and happy to be unhappy in peace.
And so it was that she found herself at the writing desk in her room, crossing out yet another sentence in her notes on ergot. How on earth the damned fungus was supposed to help patients was beyond her. Evidently, it was also beyond the writer of the textbook opened next to her, as none of it made a lick of sense.
She decided to start over at the beginning of the page, reading carefully over each word and attempting to piece it together with her crude drawing of the brain, which heretofore had been no help. This second attempt yielded poorer results than the first. Should a doctor ever attempt to give her ergot for any reason, she would have a great many questions and stern words for them, that much was certain.
A knock at her door made her jump. In her fright, her pen scratched across the parchment, crossing through nearly a whole paragraph.
Clucking her tongue in frustration, Augusta grabbed her pen, paper, and book in one fell swoop and tossed them into the top drawer of her desk before slamming it shut.
“Come in,” she called, not bothering to add the layer of sweetness to her voice that she so often had to affect. It was only her brother, no doubt.
Reginald stepped into her room, clasping his hands behind his back with the greatest look of annoyance etched into his features. They looked much alike, both of them with hair black as coal and eyes of dark brown, but Augusta was certain she’d never looked so pinched as her brother did at that moment.
“You’ve forgotten again.” His voice was clipped, though it did not spill over into anger. He was merely vexed with her.
“Surely when you say what it is, I shall be reminded.”
“Dinner with the Wallingfords. I reminded you yesterday and the day before as well. You have less than an hour to get ready for the carriage and you’ve hardly left your room.”
Yes, somewhere in her hazy memories of the last fortnight, Augusta could recall her brother mentioning something about such a dinner. It was a smaller gathering, a precursor to the Wallingford ball that would happen that Saturday night. That event was meant to be one of the greatest crushes of the season, an apt way to close things out now that August had arrived and the rest of society would be returning soon to the country.
Augusta groaned. “I’ll be ready.” She stretched, her stout limbs crackling at the joints. She’d been in this chair far too long. “You have no faith in me, dear brother.”
He scoffed, but a sliver of amusement shone in his eyes. “At times, I believe I have far too much faith in you.”
“It is not misplaced. I’ll have the maids draw a bath. I’ll be ready in time.”
“See that you are. I won’t abide lateness, fa-”
“-shionable or otherwise,” Augusta finished for him. “Understood, Reginald. Now be on your way.”
With a frown, Reginald turned on his heel and started to walk away. Before he reached the door, he turned back.
“A Dr. Pinkton called for you yesterday.”
Now, Augusta looked up with a speed that dizzied her.
“He what?” she asked, unable to hide her mortification. “Did he…did he say anything to you?”
Reginald shook his head. “No, the servants told me about it only afterward. Was he here for a treatment?”
“No,” she said quickly. “No, nothing of the sort, I have felt well recently, I promise.”
“If that is the case, then who is he to you?”
“No one.”
He huffed. “A man who is no one to a woman does not call on her at home. Spit it out.”
She could not spit it out. She could never, ever let her brother - or anyone - know who Dr. Pinkton was, nor why he wanted her.
“I have done some business with him in the past.” There. It was not a lie. Merely an abstraction of the truth.
Reginald eyed her with suspicion, but did not press her with questions. “Is he titled?”
