“Worms in the belly.” Mr. Vroomen took a roll from the basket on the table, applying butter to it liberally. He pushed his cup over for the servant to pour him tea. He rarely ate more for breakfast.
“Nonsense,” Mr. Hughes replied between bites. “He suffers from an imbalance of yellow and black bile, a condition that allows the worms to thrive. He will certainly benefit from the waters with time. He simply hasn’t followed the treatment long enough.”
“You and I shall not agree on that point, Mr. Hughes.” Mr. Vroomen softened this with a smile. “I shall give him a dose of gentian.”
As they continued to debate preferred methods for treating the condition, James finished his meal without allowing the dissection of various ailments to affect his appetite.
When James and Mr. Vroomen had both breakfasted, they began by calling on Mr. Vroomen’s patients who were staying in private houses that rented out rooms. Following those visits, they went to the newly built Hôtel d’Irlande, where Mr. Vroomen had been called to examine the Honorable Rebecca Bainesworth, a young woman who complained of ceased menstruation.
James knew little of her family other than that her father, Lord Spencer, had engaged Mr. Prexley as his attending physician and was rarely seen in public. The baron had arrived in Spa a mere two weeks earlier, and his daughter attended all of society events, though it seemed to James that her goal was to make herself invisible. Her mother, Lady Spencer, meanwhile, commanded the attention of everyone in the room with plunging bodicesand extravagantly tall hairstyles that forced her to duck under some of the doorways. There were whispers that she had married up and couldn’t remove the taint of vulgarity from her past, but James never listened to gossip.
A maid showed them directly to the patient’s bedroom, where Miss Bainesworth sat in the chair beside her bed. She could barely lift her eyes to meet the doctor’s regard. When she did speak to answer his questions, it was with timid glances sent James’s way. He was not surprised when Mr. Vroomen looked up from listening to her pulse to address him.
“I will examine Miss Bainesworth in privacy. Why do you not call on Mr. Gatcomb in the Lorraine, then meet me in the drawing room there.”
James nodded and picked up the leather satchel that held his medical tools. He understood Miss Bainesworth’s reticence to divulge her ailment before him. His youth and lack of marital status—although that would soon be rectified—made it difficult for many female patients to feel at ease in his presence. It did not matter. Trust would come with time and perhaps a few gray hairs on his head.
Mr. Gatcomb was a timid man of an accommodating nature, and he had been following James’s recommendations without question. The visit was efficiently concluded, and James bid Mr. Gatcomb farewell, wishing more of his consultations could be so satisfactory. It was not that he minded the difficult cases, but it was refreshing to have a patient who placed such absolute trust in his methods.
He exited and descended a flight of stairs. The stairwell on the opposite end led directly to the drawing room on the ground floor without requiring one to traverse the main hall and dining room, so he turned in that direction. As he strode down the corridor, a door to one of the rooms opened, and he saw a flash of a burnished silk skirt as someone exited. Guessing it might beone of the new arrivals, he lifted his head and prepared to smile in greeting, curiosity pulling at him.
His first welcoming instinct gave way to shock, which loosened his grip, and his satchel fell to the wooden floor with a dull thud. His head grew suddenly light, and there was a sort of whistling in his ears.
It can’t be.
The woman he almost feared was an apparition gave a sharp gasp and stopped short, her hand flailing out. They stared at each other for an astonished moment as the evidence before him pierced the fog of his amazement. It was indeed Amy Bridwell. The rich chestnut curls, the brown eyes that lit with understanding and playfulness—although he saw none of that now—the full lips that hid white teeth as perfect as a row of pearls. The woman with whom he had once hoped to build his life until she had suddenly engaged herself to another was inSpa!
She lowered her hands to her sides, clutched her skirts, and curtsied silently.
“Miss Bridwell—or rather, Mrs. Bromley.” He bowed. It was a curt, bobbing gesture that must have revealed the depth of his bewilderment if his strangled speech had not already done so.
“It is Miss Bridwell, Mr. Fletcher.” Her voice was so low he didn’t recognize it.
She is unmarried.He froze in place.She never married, he thought again, the words spinning through his mind in a loop. His family never told him that the marriage had been called off. Unsurprising, he supposed, since his father had been against his attachment to her.
“Why are you here?” It was curt to the point of rudeness, but he was not capable of hiding his emotion behind pretty words.
She raised her eyes to his, her face a dull red. “My father wished to tour the Continent, so we have come. We are residing in Spa for five months. Perhaps more, if my father’s treatment requires it.” She shifted her gaze to stare at a spot on the wall behind him.
“I see.” His throat felt tight, as though his cravat were choking him, and the detestable wig he wore suffocated his head. Numbly, he leaned down to pick up his satchel. He could not bring himself to ask about her broken engagement.
The depth of emotion in seeing her surprised him after all these years. It was dashed inconvenient. He had nothing else to say to Amy and must show her a cold and reserved front. If only his knees were not so weak he feared they might buckle.
“Did you know I was here?” he asked instead.
Her eyes darted to his again as she dipped her head.
Oh, for heaven’s sake!She’d known it! Did she persuade her father to come to Spa because she knew I resided here?What a waste of a journey—what a fruitless endeavor! Another insidious voice whispered inside of him,If only she had come a month ago.
“I saw you in the dining room yesterday before we were led to our rooms.” She glanced at the door she had just come from and then at the stairwell as though plotting her escape.
Oh.She had not come to Spa in search of him. Of course she had not. That had been a foolish notion. His head spun so that his thoughts could not keep up. He could not decide if it was better or worse that she had not. It must certainly be better. Perhaps she had forgotten all about him, and he was the only one plunged into a sea of regret by the chance meeting.
“If you will excuse me,” she said after the silence stretched. She glanced at the stairwell again. “My maid is waiting for me downstairs to retrieve our calling cards from Mr. Gaetano.”
“Please.” He stepped aside and gestured to the stairwell where he had been going. She curtsied, her body half turned from him, and he scrambled to remember his manners as he gave a more proper bow. “Good day, Miss Bridwell.”
As quickly as she left, he spun on his heel and marched to the obscurity of the stairwell he had just quit. When the wall there hid him from sight, he leaned against it and stopped to catch his breath. It was just the surprise of seeing her here that had caughthim off guard. He did not have any lingering feelings for Amy. After all, a connection so many years ago was no longer a connection; it was merely a cumulation of memories.
