Page 34 of Miss Ashbury and the Anatomy of Mending a Heart

If anything, Vera’s calm response seemed to infuriate his mother more. She sat up straight, her features smoothed into arctic rage that Stephen had only witnessed several times in his life.

“Vera, I think you’d better go ask Mrs. Portence for a piece of cake, too.”

A sad little smile played at the edges of Vera’s mouth as she picked up her plate and her wine goblet and headed toward the far door without uttering a word.

Once she was gone, his mother rounded on him. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.” He spread out his hands as if to prove his innocence, but his single word of defense hadn’t been quite as firm as it should have been.

She jabbed a finger in the air between them. “If she does this, it will be nigh on impossible for her to marry someone worthy of her.”

“Good heavens, Mother. Was that your intention for the lady? She’s not going to find someone cloistered all the way out here.”

“That isn’t for you to decide, Stephen.”

“She hardly seems concerned with marriage; she’s looking for employment. I heard it from her myself.”

In a round about way, of sorts.

“Society looks down upon those in the medical profession⁠—”

“I’ve survived their judgement.”

“You’re a man. A titled man. It’s completely different, and you know it.”

“I admit I’m shocked at your scruples.” He twirled his fork in the air before cutting into his fish once more. “Aren’t you always the one going on about following one’s heart, one’s passion, and that society can go hang itself?”

“This isn’t her passion; it’s yours.”

He rolled his eyes. “If nursing is good enough for the sisters of mercy, I daresay it’s good enough for Miss Ashbury.”

His mother brought a hand sharply down upon the table top. His empty water glass jolted right along with him. “She is under my protection, and this will ruin her prospects.”

“What prospects?” he asked gently. He canted his voice low so there was no chance his words would seep through the hall to the kitchen and injure Vera further. “The lady is unattached, as far as either of us know. As you’ve pointed out, if home were a safe place to be, she’d return there. As of now, she’s being shuttled from friend’s house to friend’s house, but that cannot last forever, Mother.”

Jacqueline chewed her lip.

“Will you really deprive her of the chance to gain a reference and secure her chance for future employment, over the scruples of a society that you don’t give a whit about?”

She pressed her lips together and blinked.

“Besides, I doubt anyone will even find out. Who’s going to tell them? You? Me?” He exhaled a scoff. “She’ll work her three months and be back to London in a more genteel position before anyone has an inkling of what’s going on.”

“I want her accompanied.” She lifted her chin. “Despite what you say, I won’t have her traipsing all over the countryside in the company of an unmarried man. Regardless of her choice of employment, at least grant that would be inappropriate for both of you.”

He sighed. “There’s nothing less romantic than a medical setting.”

“I won’t hear otherwise. She’ll take a maid with her.”

“Which maid will you send to keep us from ravaging each other over pustulant wounds?”

“Don’t you mock me at my own table, Stephen. And don’t mock me for wanting to preserve what slim chance at a future Vera has. Just because her family’s detestable doesn’t mean she is. There are a hundred gentlemen who’d be lucky to have her as wife.”

“So you say, and yet I look around and see none.”

“I won’t have you sinking her lower just because you don’t believe someone would want her.”

“That’s not at all what I’m saying! She’s pretty enough, I suppose, though she is well on the shelf⁠—”