Talk Sweetly to Me (Brothers Sinister 4.5)

She tried to tell herself she was seeing things that weren’t there. He’d come so highly recommended after all. Before he’d retired to civilian practice, he’d spent thirty years as a naval physician. Maybe that air of his was nothing more than residual military discipline.

Patricia’s husband didn’t have that air—but then, he was only thirty-two. Maybe, she thought dubiously, it took years to develop.

Chillingsworth took off his galoshes, an outer coat, a scarf, and finally, a blue-striped hat. He came forward.

The examination was brief, almost cursory. Patricia’s eyes squeezed shut and her breath hissed when he set his stethoscope against her belly. The metal must have been ice cold. But she didn’t complain.

The doctor straightened after he’d finished. “Well,” he said. “I was roused from bed for nothing.”

Patricia blinked.

“Mrs. Wells is having false labor pains,” he announced.

At first, Rose had no idea who he was addressing—the room at large, perhaps?—until she followed his line of sight to Mr. Josephs, who was doing his best to wipe up the water that had splashed in the entryway when they had arrived.

How odd of him to talk of Patricia’s health with the servant. But then, people sometimes made that mistake. Mr. Josephs may have been a servant, but he was the only man—the only white man—in the household, and people often got confused or uncomfortable as a result. It never did to make a fuss about it. They’d all feel better if they just imagined Chillingsworth making pronouncements to the room.

“It is not yet her time,” Chillingsworth said. “The baby has not even turned, and she is not dilated. Women like her are often given to dramatics. Next time, make sure the contractions are coming closer together before sending for me in the middle of the night.” He glanced back at the entrance. “In the cold rain.”

“Yes, Doctor Chillingsworth,” Patricia said contritely. “I’m sorry. It’s my first time, and I don’t know what to expect.”

“Humph.”

“Would you like a cup of tea to warm up?” Rose offered.

“I’d like my bed,” Doctor Chillingsworth said curtly. He stalked back to the entry without looking at her, stamped into his heavy galoshes, and gathered up his things. He muttered to himself as he wound his scarf about his neck. Then he picked up his umbrella, tapped it against the floor—sending droplets of water all over the entryway—and left.

“Dear.” Patricia stared after him. “That went…not so well as one would hope.”

“That was rude,” Rose pointed out.

Patricia waved this away. “Nobody likes being woken in the middle of the night for no reason.”

Then maybe he shouldn’t be a physician, Rose thought with annoyance. But she did not say that. Instead, she helped her sister to her feet.

“There we are,” Patricia said cheerily. “It looks like the bloated duck is here to stay for a few more weeks. And thank God. That means Isaac will be home after all.”

MISS SWEETLY HAD MOVED their lesson outside on the next day. Stephen didn’t know if she’d done so to cool off his imputed ardor, or if she’d just thought it a good idea. Either way, she’d brought them out along the river past the docks. They stood on the water’s edge, in the lee of a lamppost that provided not one whit of shelter from the wind.

The people who made their way past reminded him why he had moved to Greenwich. Here, he wasn’t the lone Irish interloper in a hoity-toity neighborhood. The nearby docks brought visitors from around the world: lascars from India, midshipmen from the West Indies, swarthy sailors from Portugal…and yes, a goodly number of Irish toiling on ships and in warehouses.

Here, an Irishman standing with a black woman might get an idle second glance, no more. Stephen caught sight of a dock-laborer that he knew from church and gave the man a nod.

The wind gusted around his collar as he did so, bringing in a damp chill off the Thames. Stephen’s nose was cold; his hands were going numb. But Miss Sweetly stood beside him, looking as if she were comfortably warming her hands over a fire instead of holding a metal disc in her gloved hands. If she didn’t feel the cold, he wouldn’t, either.

Mrs. Barnstable, by contrast, had given up in the first five minutes. She’d decamped to a nearby tea shop, promising to keep up her vigil from the window.

“To make a measurement by parallax,” Miss Sweetly was telling him, “you must be able to determine angles and distances. You can obtain angles on land most simply by using a prismatic compass. Hold the compass—”

He held out his hand; she dumped it unceremoniously into his palm. The metal was cold; he’d been taking notes, and one could hardly wield a pencil while wearing gloves. His breath hissed in.

“Now look through the eyehole, and adjust the prism until the wire contacts the object you are measuring. Read the magnetic angle here.”

Someone else might think those words devoid of emotion.

But when she said the word “prism,” her lips formed almost a kiss. She reached out and adjusted the compass in his hand, her fingers brushing his palm. And when she looked up after her explanation, she glanced into his eyes and the flow of her words tumbled to a halt. She stood in place, her fingers on the compass, and her eyes widening.

He fascinated her. He was good at fascinating women; he didn’t even really try to do it. The only difference was that Miss Sweetly thought him both fascinating and frivolous, all at the same time—and he was fairly certain that she was right.

He pulled his hand away and made the measurement, focusing on the building she’d chosen, lining up the wire, making a notation of the angle in his notebook.

“Now to make a second measurement. It must be from a different angle, and a known distance away.” She adjusted her spectacles on her nose.

He wondered if her nose was cold. It had to be; they stood in the same wind. But she didn’t seem to flinch at all from the weather. He paced off a distance and measured the angle without saying anything. He made a diagram in his little notebook; she came to stand behind him, looking over his shoulder.

“Having you watch me calculate is like…” He paused, searching for an appropriate analogy. “It’s like having Beethoven attend a child’s first recital on the pianoforte.”

She gave a little snort behind him. “I shouldn’t think so. There are a few salient differences.”