Page 49 of The Gentleman Physician

Nathaniel put his cup down on the side table roughly enough that the liquid inside nearly left the vessel. “That was on your advice.”

“I was advising a man I thought was no longer in love.” Timothy shook his head. “It was good advice.” He pushed himself off the couch and went to a small desk by the window. “I am going to write to Mr. Macon. Why not ask Mary what she thinks?”

Nathaniel slumped backward in his chair, dropping his head back to stare up at the ceiling. “Mary, as my friend is obviously going to nag at me until we discuss Miss Devon, what do you think about the situation?”

“I’m not entirely sure what the situation is,” she said, her voice taking on an airy, unconcerned quality. “You either love her or you don’t.”

“That’s oversimplifying.” He closed his eyes and raised his hand to rub his forehead. “My feelings hardly matter, one way or the other, given all that has happened.”

“Nathaniel Hastings, do you love her or not?”

He kept his eyes closed and pictured Julia as she had appeared the first time he’d seen her, innocent and enraptured by the sights of London. She’d looked about herself with such wide-eyed wonder, a pleasant change from all the calculating debutantes he’d seen in his time as a member of a noble family. He’d been halfway in love with her from their first meeting.

Then the day she’d sent him away, as indifferent to his suit as her dreadful father. But viewing the past through what he’d learned of her father only recently, knowing what he did of her sister’s marriage, he wondered if Julia had only meant to spare him more pain. Nothing about her character now, or ever before, had been cold. She’d never scoffed at his dreams, never made him feel inferior, only explained how things must be in her world.

A woman of only eighteen years had no say over her future.

Seeing her again, thinking of her, made his heart ache. And of late, being so near one another, it had taken all his willpower to remain at a distance from her. He wanted nothing more than to go to her and see her through the lonely watch.

“I love her,” he said, his heart rising within him, making all his cares lighter. “I don’t think I ever stopped.” He blinked and focused on Mary, sitting across from him and grinning in a most unladylike manner.

“Bravo. But you said your feelings don’t matter. Why?” She narrowed her shrewd blue eyes at him, studying him closely. “She is ready to become a hired companion or a governess. It does not sound as if her heart belongs to another, and that is the only reason I can see that would put you off a courtship.”

“That is too narrow a view of the matter.” Nathaniel leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and tried to ignore the sound of Timothy’s pen scratching out the note meant for Gerard Macon. “We are not in a position to court, assuming Miss Devon would even wish to try.” He dropped his face into his hands and sighed.

“You are both free. She is of age, you are an accomplished physician, I think you would do well together.” Mary’s voice stated each word boldly, without hesitation, and Nathaniel wondered if she imitated her husband’s courtroom manner in arguing.

“She is in a household which has gone into mourning. I cannot even call upon her.”

“And she might not even have him,” Timothy said in an overly cheerful tone. “As we said, he did tell her off.”

“Miss Devon accepted my offer of friendship afterward.” Nathaniel felt it necessary to point that out to the other two. “And she’s been nothing but courteous towards me ever since.”

“Then you ought to find a way to tell her how you feel and let her make up her mind about the situation.” Mary’s eyebrows lifted and Nathaniel clearly saw her fighting back a smile. “Love finds a way, Nathaniel. And Miss Julia Devon, I believe, is quite taken with you.”

“Dreadfully obvious,” Timothy said, most unhelpfully. “The way her eyes looked so often to you when you were both here.”

Nathaniel cast a glare over his shoulder at his oldest friend. “Haven’t you a letter to write?”

“It’s done.” Timothy stood with the folded and sealed missive. “Informing Mr. Macon of his brother’s passing with instructions to come at his earliest convenience tomorrow. I’ll see about sending Robert, our cook’s boy."

“Let me, dear.” Mary stood and took the letter from him. “It sounds as though you and Nathaniel ought to talk.”

“The last time I talked to him, he told me to have done with Miss Devon and find a wife,” Nathaniel said, his voice lowered resentfully. “And at present he maintains it was good advice.”

“Given the information I had to work with, it was excellent advice.” Timothy stood as straight as a soldier but clasped his hands behind his back as he did in court.

Mary cast her gaze upward and sighed. “Men.” Then she left them with a swish of her skirts.

“What do you say now, with the new information you’ve been given?” Nathaniel asked, frowning darkly at Timothy. He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. He ought to go home and get a good night’s rest, his errand done. But with thoughts of Julia carrying on a lone wake, a few streets away, he knew he would not sleep.

Timothy strolled calmly across the room, then twisted deliberately on his heel to face Nathaniel again, regarding him with a serious expression. “I say you find a way to marry her, if she’ll have you, and then go forward making your lives happy.”

Nathaniel threw his hands in the air and jumped to his feet. “As though it’s a simple thing! When am I to see her to profess these feelings? She’s assisting her cousin, who has only tonight become a widow, and living in a house of mourning. Where will we go to discuss such things? Balls and assemblies are out of the question. Who will chaperone her? The woman who has lost her husband? What sort of beginning would this be? And let us not forget that Lady Heatherton is going to have to fight to remain the guardian of her own sons. Now is not the time to give that family more to worry about.”

“And that’s your final word on the matter?” Timothy asked, arching his eyebrows. Nathaniel absently noted that the cut above his eye must be nearly healed to achieve that level of skepticism.

“It is. Yes. Final.” He thought carefully on all he had said, nodding. He went to the window to look out over the dark street, ignoring the quick thrumming of his heart.