Augusta held her even tighter.
When they finally split again, a part of her felt as though her own heart were walking out the door, soon to go to Derbyshire. She was glad for Sebastian’s negotiations to spend the holidays there, knowing that she would get to retreat into the arms of so dear a friend.
Lord Bancroft shuffled on his coat and made small talk with Ginny as they exited, only some of which Augusta heard. As they disappeared down the hall, she caught one final part of their conversation, asked by Ginny.
“I say, my lord, what on earth has happened to your nose?”
She did not hear his response - she did not have to. Instead, she smiled, and picked up her speech, and all felt right with the world.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The crowd was immense.
He had known that it would be. It was, after all, blasted Trafalgar Square, of all places.
“Do we really need to be in the bloody center?” Bancroft grumbled, pulling his coat tighter around himself. Breath escaped him in strong spurts against the frigid winter air, like an angered bull.
All around them, it seemed that the entire city of London had been enticed by the chaos of the rally, which thus far had been filled with noisy bluestocking women with megaphones shouting in the streets. Having wound down the theatrics, the ladies had then expertly corralled the crowd toward the stage, ensuring a greater audience than Sebastian had ever expected.
And soon Augusta was to be their sole focus.
“Yes,” Sebastian said, moving aside as people around him pressed in even tighter. “I want to be equidistant to all sides, should anything happen.”
Bancroft pursed his lips, but had the sense to say nothing else. A man nearby said something gruff about the ‘medicine chits,’ and anger flared in Sebastian’s chest.
“Stand down, old boy,” Bancroft said quietly.
“Wouldyoustand down?” he shot back.
“Absolutely not, but you have always been the better of us, and you shall continue to be so.”
That was the honest truth. Though he still was unsure as to how he could stand there whilst his wife prepared to take to the front lines. It felt useless, and therefore all he could do was get angry at the bystanders around them.
“There she is,” Bancroft said quietly.
Whatever foolish thing that Sebastian’s anger might have led him to do would remain unknown, for at that very moment he caught sight of her.
She’d appeared suddenly from behind the stage’s curtain - a thin, absurd thing that barely whispered of safety - and began up the steps. No fanfare, not even a clearing of the throat to garner attention. It was so unassuming. So…Augusta.
A modicum of stress left him at the sight of her, only to be swiftly replaced once more when he recalled the size of the crowd. All week, possible scenarios of the impending rally had played endlessly in his mind. Unruly crowds erupting into violence, or a single outraged attendee taking his anger out on Augusta as she exited the stage, or lightning arriving out of nowhere to strike her down for the sin of going against the grain…
Perhaps his imagination had begun to get away from him.
Now, as his wife came to face her audience, all he could do was hold his breath and wait.
She opened her mouth once, then closed it again, pausing to look across the faces of the crowd. She was nervous, he knew, and it waswritten in the rigid, serious lines of her features.
Sebastian’s heart thudded in his chest - a new feeling of worry not only for her safety, but for her damned speech.
“What if they cannot hear me properly?” she’d asked in the carriage on the way over. One of those small moments of weakness that she had actually allowed him to see, one of those little hints she’d been dropping throughout the week that maybe, possibly, his efforts to rekindle her love had not been in vain.
“You will do fine, love. I am sure the Society has thought of everything.”
Finally, her voice reached the crowd.
“Good morning. I would like to thank the Society of Women in Medicine for inviting me to speak today. The experience of treating patients these past months has given me the understanding necessary to stand here and speak to the issue of women in medicine.”
A small rustling nearby caught Sebastian’s eye. He glanced over, but did not see a scuffle or any danger. His attention returned, therefore, to his wife.
