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Rosherville Pleasure Gardens, 1878
EDITH HAD ALWAYS wanted to visit the famous Rosherville Pleasure Gardens—until she did.
The place wasn’t different from Hyde Park, really. Lots of trees, bushes, and green grass. So she didn’t understand why Rosherville was all the rage at the moment. To make things worse, the breeze kept turning over the pages of herAnatomy, Descriptive, and Surgicalhandbook— the abridged edition because the original one was too heavy to carry around, but it was better than nothing.
Focusing on the development of the human skeleton and memorising the names of all the bones was a chore, what with the children playing cricket, ladies chatting, and birds singing. Honestly, she should have stayed home and studied.
She groaned inwardly when another gust of wind deposited a buttercup in the middle of the illustration of a skull. She brushed the flower off with a huff.
Preparing for her upcoming admission test at the London School of Medicine for Women was her priority. The incredibly difficult test was only a week away and would decide her future, but instead, she was promenading in a crowded, loud, glorified park, getting behind on her work.
A laughing child jolted her. Another child running on the gravel distracted her, and the chatter confused her.
“Can’t we find a quieter place?” she asked her mother and sister.
No answer.
“I said—” She lifted her gaze from the book and searched around. Mother and Marianne were nowhere to be seen.
“Mother? Marianne?”
Many ladies strolled under the shade of their parasols along the gravel path. Other people rested under the weeping willows on picnic blankets, and birch trees swayed in the wind. But there was no trace of her mother or sister.
She snapped the book closed.Bother. She’d lost them. They must have taken a turn when she hadn’t paid attention, likely on that particularly crowded path where they’d slogged forwards through pressing bodies.
Her current situation was worse than the last time when she’d lost Mother and Marianne at the British Museum during that exhibition about…she didn’t remember. She’d been studying the pathways of the main arteries back then, and the museum’s corridors had confused her. Rosherville Pleasure Gardens were ten times bigger than the museum. It’d take ages to find her family.
Standing in the middle of the path, she craned her neck right and left, trying to choose a direction. She didn’t have the slightest idea where to go. The last place she remembered having been with Mother and Marianne was… the swan pond. Maybe. Marianne had made a remark on how fashionable a certain viscount was, and Mother had told Edith, ‘You never listen to me.’ Or something like that.
The problem was Edith didn’t know if the swan pond was right or left. Holding the book against her chest, she turned around and started to walk. Surely, Mother and Marianne weresearching for her, and if she walked along the main path, she was bound to meet them.
She was striding past a gigantic oak tree when something large and black dropped in front of her. A scream tore out of her as a groan of pain came from the crouched figure at her feet.
“Ouch!” Not a creature but a young man.
He clamped a hand on his arm, staggering to his feet.
“What are you doing?” She clenched her book more tightly. “You gave me such a fright.”
He raked a hand through his black hair that touched broad shoulders. “I fell.”
“So have I noticed, too.”
He angled towards her, showing a pair of sharp blue eyes that could have been cut from a sapphire. “I wanted to reach the top branches of the tree.”
She gazed up. The tree was a tall one. Several feet, for sure. “For what possible reason?”
He lifted a shoulder. “The view? It’s beautiful up there. Peaceful. And climbing a tree is a good exercise.” He tried to brush a few leaves from his dark-green waistcoat but winced. “Bugger. I think I broke my wrist.”
The shock due to his vulgar language couldn’t push aside her medical interest in his injury. Broken bones. That was a great coincidence.
“Let me see. I might help.”
He opened and closed his hand. “Are you a nurse?”
“I’m studying to become a surgeon like my father.” She showed him the book.
