Page 16 of Miss Ashbury and the Anatomy of Mending a Heart

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That evening, Stephen frowned at his reflection in the mirror and ran a hand down his face. Perhaps his mother was right—maybe it was time to shave. Yet there was something that stayed his hand when he thought about reaching for the razor. Maybe it was the same something that had him choosing plain, simple fabrics when he’d visited the tailor, the same thing that had him skipping lunch in favor of mucking out the greenhouse.

Penance.

He didn’t know if it was the guilt of leaving India so abruptly—of handing his patients off to another physician with as little care as he’d given the man his clothes—or if it was the pain of losing Samantha. Though “pain” wasn’t quite the right word to describe it, not anymore.

Their relationship had been a brief spark in the pan—a flash of saltpeter. Sometimes, when his head was heavy on his pillow, he wondered if he’d been using the excitement of their romance to try to reignite his love for India.

Stephen adjusted his too-large shirt, tucking it in as tightly as possible before giving up and going downstairs.

The front parlor was awash in the glow of candlelight. The first thing he saw when he entered was the back of Vera’s head. She was seated on a velvet sofa, her profile to him. Her hair was pulled up off her neck in a simple chignon, with sweeping tendrils left to curl against her cream-colored skin.

There was too much of that skin on display, Stephen decided.

Not that she was pressing against the bounds of propriety—far from it. The neckline of her blue-grey dress was modest in comparison to what many women wore to dinner parties. Yet the sight of that luminous expanse, of her collarbones…it felt scandalous.

He frowned and turned toward his mother. She wore a suit of black brocade that nipped in at the waist, with a large bow to one side. A profusion of white lace erupted from each arm of her jacket and around her throat. It appeared as if a great quantity of whipped cream was held in only by her trim jacket.

“Mother. Miss Ashbury.” He nodded at each of them in turn as manners dictated. “Good evening.”

“Stephen.” His mother waved him over, and he deposited a brief kiss upon her cheek. “Allow me to introduce my friend, Mr. Hamish Thornton.”

A man stood from the sofa where he sat next to Vera. It was a testament to Vera’s lustrous skin that Stephen hadn’t noticed him before.

The man was shorter than Stephen, but far broader in the shoulders and across the chest. Something in the way he moved reminded Stephen of a pugilist—but perhaps that was his physician’s eye cataloguing that the man’s nose had been broken at least once before. He had blond-brown hair, blue eyes, and lines in his forehead that spoke of a lot of time spent in the sun. He was thick, muscular—a former dockworker, perhaps?

The man stood and held out his hand to Stephen. He shook it by rote, his eyes flicking to Vera. Was this man connected to her in some way?

“How do you two know each other?” He nodded toward Vera as he addressed the man.

The man smiled, and Stephen didn’t like the knowing little glint in his eye. “We don’t, not really, except that Miss Ashbury is a friend of the Marquess Salisbury’s family, and I’m the Marquess Salisbury’s secretary.”

Stephen frowned. The explanation left him more confused than he had been prior. What was the Marquess Salisbury’s secretary doing at his mother’s dinner party?

“I met the Baroness Winthrop at the Marquess Salisbury’s estate here in Devon,” Hamish said. “She and I have been working on a fox problem.”

“It wouldn’t have been a problem, if you’d left well enough alone,” the baroness chided without any real heat.

Stephen instantly reevaluated. “A pleasure, I’m sure.”

Benjamin stood stiffly at his mother’s side, waiting for Stephen to address him. Stephen suspected the boy had been avoiding him on purpose until now. Benjamin was the spitting image of their brother Anthony at that age, though perhaps a bit taller and broader through the shoulders. He had their mother’s dark hair, though there was something about the nose and mouth that reminded Stephen of their father.

“Hello, Benjamin.” Stephen cleared his throat.

“Hello.” The boy jerked a nod and regained his seat.

The room descended into a sudden, awkward silence that Stephen didn’t know how to break.

In the end, it was Vera who came to the rescue. She leaned forward and asked the baroness, “How is Sheldon today? Is he feeling better?”

“He’s eating well, which is a good sign.”

Stephen looked back and forth between the two ladies. Who on earth was Sheldon? And why had no one asked for his assistance? He was a physician, for heaven’s sake.

“Is someone ill?” Stephen asked.

“Not anymore.” Jacqueline nodded. “Sheldon ate some cake, the little scamp. It upset his stomach.”