A Kiss For Midwinter (Brothers Sinister #1.5)(2)

The father pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed angrily at his eyes. The only dry-eyed one among them was the girl. She stared across the room almost defiantly.

God damn that superstition. Jonas damned himself, too, for agreeing to keep silent as a condition of these visits. He hadn’t chosen to become a doctor so that he could foretell the death of children. He’d been seduced by the stories—the stories of John Snow saving hundreds of lives by careful observation, of men who noticed the world around them and cared and thought, men who set aside irrationality in favor of cures supported by statistical research.

Parwine gathered up his things and motioned for Jonas to follow.

I have seen no scientific study that suggests that life is foreshortened by moral decay, he imagined himself saying to her father as he crossed the room to the exit.

Or maybe this: Don’t take the prussic acid. Whatever you do, don’t take the prussic acid.

Perhaps he might whisper a single phrase: Don’t believe a word he said.

But he’d given the man his word. Besides—he told himself—he knew his place. He was scarcely twenty-one, hadn’t even had his first lecture in medicine. He was not at the point where he should be publicly contradicting a man more than three times his age. Besides, what did he know? A little book learning was all he had. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Parwine’s experience meant he did know better.

All that was rubbish, and he knew it. As he left, her eyes fell on him. He didn’t even know the girl’s name, but his guilt made him see accusation in her gaze. You could help me.

Superstition, that—nobody could read thoughts from a single glance. It was his own conscience that he saw reflected in her eyes. But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t speak because he was young. He didn’t speak because he doubted his memory of the pharmacopeia. And most thorny of all, Jonas kept his silence because Parwine had offered him his practice once he graduated.

It was the last reason he remembered in the weeks that followed when he queried one of the instructing physicians about the recommended dosage for prussic acid. Almost nothing, the man told him. And for pregnant women? Never.

For years afterward, Jonas dreamed of her eyes—those harsh, cold, accusing depths. He could have helped her.

When he finally graduated, he swore the oath of Hippocrates on Apollo the healer. But it was her face he saw when he spoke, her eyes that bored into his when he promised to do no harm.

Five years later

THE MOST UNREASONABLE NOTION JONAS EVER HAD—the nonsensical fixed point of his adult life—started from an excess of rationality. And yet at the time when it happened, everything he did made perfect sense.

He first heard the name “Lydia Charingford” on a brilliant summer day nearly five years after he’d made the rounds with Parwine. He discovered it, not because he recognized her, but because he didn’t. He liked the look of her, so he asked his friend who she was after service one Sunday.

“Would you like an introduction?” Toford asked, a knowing look in his eye.

“It depends,” he responded. “I’m trying to decide whether I favor round numbers or complete information.”

Toford frowned. “For God’s sake, Grantham, use English. What the devil do you mean by that?”

They were standing in a corner of the churchyard, looking over the crowd. It was a fine day at the end of summer, and all the ladies were wearing their loveliest—and their lightest—gowns. The young ladies had been casting welcoming glances his way throughout the rector’s lengthy sermon. Jonas was young, handsome, and—with Parwine now retired—in possession of an excellent income.

Those curious, hopeful glances had made him feel very nice indeed. The breeze was refreshing, the sun was warm, and the ladies were all vying to make a good impression on him. It was a damned good time to be a man.

He was watching the ladies in return. No point in pretending he wasn’t; he intended to take a wife and had only to choose her. But Toford was still staring at him in confusion.

“I mean,” Jonas told him, “that during the service, I made a rank-ordered list of the ten prettiest young ladies in Leicester. I intend to speak with every one of them.”

Toford nodded thoughtfully. “Good plan, Grantham, good plan. I did much the same thing last year, and see how it served me.”

Mrs. Toford had teeth that were far too large. She wouldn’t have ranked anywhere on Jonas’s list. Jonas managed a polite murmur of approval.

“Ten, though,” Toford continued. “Ten’s a lot of women to speak with. You’re tall. You’re respectable. Why not limit yourself to three, maybe five? It’s hard enough work, trying to see if one woman will suit you. My head hurts just thinking of the effort.”

Jonas waved this off. “Yes, well. I have demanding tastes. What if number one snorts when she laughs? What if number six is untidy? What if number eight doesn’t like me?”

“Doesn’t like you?” Toford’s brows rose. “Grantham, I think you have it all wrong.” He looked around and then lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “See here,” he said. “We’re men. We don’t have to marry. These girls, here? They’ve seen their sisters, their friends placed firmly on the shelf. They know their prospects if they don’t catch a man. It’s not their place to like or not like. It’s their place to marry any way they can, and it’s ours to choose.”