“The Garland is a gathering place—” Ned started.
“But only for you men and just a few of you at that.” She set down her cup. “Come, Ned, your thinking is more independent than this. The Logical Men’s Society was never meant to be a serious idea.”
There was an uncomfortable truth in her statement.
Then she leaned forward and said, “As for the matter you brought up earlier with Mrs. Crisp and her ailment—sometimes a woman wants to talk to another woman. It has nothing to do with your capabilities as a doctor. We can be shy about intimate matters.”
“Are you shy around me?” Was that what she was saying?
She blinked at his questions and then laughed and shook her head. “No, I’m fine with you. And you have seen a good deal of me as of late. I’m just saying that country women have perhaps different values. Especially on personal matters.”
“I am discreet.”
“You are,” Kate answered with a small shrug. “But you are still male.” Then she added, “A handsome one, too. Yes, I can see some of the local women being very ill at ease.”
There it was again: talk about his face. He wanted to say he couldn’t help the way he looked or that it made some women . . . Well, he couldn’t quite define how it made them feel. However, he noticed Kate suddenly looked exhausted and that was a sign Ned needed to leave.
He stood and Balfour rose with him. “Thank you for dinner. I needed your friendship this evening.”
“You are always welcome at our table, Ned,” Kate said. Her husband helped her up from her chair. “Will we see you on the morrow?”
“Absolutely.” Ned understood why Balfour adored his wife. Kate was the sort of companion who would make any man proud. She was graceful, intelligent, and had courage.
She said her goodbyes at the door while Balfour went out with him to where Hippocrates waited.
Once they were out of earshot of his wife, Balfour said, “The baby . . . It isn’t hurting her, is it?”
“No,” Ned hastened to say. “It is just a chore to bring a life into the world. No small feat. It also calls for every bit of energy she has. She is tired. What will help is if she eats more.” He could also add that she needed to keep her fears at bay.
He was glad he kept quiet when his friend confided, “I had a dream last night. I dreamed she died. It upset me. Thurlowe, if this baby takes her life—”
Ned held up his hand to cut his friend off. “You don’t believe in omens, do you?” Was everyone starting to grow irrational?
“Not usually and yet, the dream was very real. Too real.”
“Does she know you had this dream?”
“She woke me. She said I was distressed.”
Ned took a step toward his friend. “Listen, these last weeks of preparing for a baby can make one anxious. I can imagine how I would feel.” He couldn’t. Not actually. Ned knew how much was out of the control of mere mortals, and that was the way life was. “Your dream is not prophetic.”
“You don’t believe so?”
“No, it’s probably a sign of indigestion. Perhaps you should chew a piece of ginger root.”
Balfour laughed and then sobered, placing a hand on Hippocrates’s neck. “There was another baby who died. In Fullbourne. The mother lived.”
Ned knew the Fullbourne midwife, a competent woman named Liza Dearman. If she wasn’t so far away, he would have recommended Mrs. Dearman for Kate.
“Is this what was wrong with Kate tonight?”
“The news weighs on both of us. Kate is concerned her body is too old. She doesn’t want to fail the baby. But here is the truth, Thurlowe. If it comes down to choosing between my wife or this child, save my wife. I can’t live without Kate. If there is a choice to be made, I wish you to make the right one. Do you understand me?”
He did. He also knew that if that moment of decision came, so little would be in his hands. “Stop fearing the worst. Have faith, man.”
“I don’t let Kate see my concerns. Unless I’m dreaming.”
Or so he thought.
Ned was now convinced that the secret worries the Balfours were keeping from each other explained Kate’s paleness and lack of appetite.
“Childbirth is not easy,” Ned cautioned his friend. “However, I will do everything in my power to see both mother and babe through. You have my word.”
It was a promise Ned had made to Balfour many times before, and one he knew he might not be able to keep.
Fortunately, his friend was mollified. “Thank you. I know you will do everything in your power. Still, I needed you to know how I feel.”
“Duly noted,” Ned answered, taking the reins and mounting. “I’ll see you on the morrow. And thank you for the good hospitality tonight. I needed it.” With a wave, he and Hippocrates were off.
As he rode home in the dark, the horse knowing the way, Ned mulled over the weight of what he’d promised his friend. Humans were surprisingly fragile creatures, especially in childbirth. He was sorry that the Balfours had heard of the deaths in Thorpton and Fullbourne. The mothers had been young. He understood why Kate was nervous.
And there was no escaping the fact that Balfour would blame Ned if something happened, even if he did all he could.
Ned tried to imagine himself in such a fevered state over a woman, and failed. He tried to personalize the image and picture himself beside Clarissa Taylor. He couldn’t. He never could—
Until . . . A childhood memory, one he hadn’t realized was closeted in his mind, flew to the forefront.
There had been a woman he had cared for so deeply he’d been inconsolable when she’d died.
He’d been about four. Her death was the reason his father finally came for him.
Ned couldn’t remember her name but she’d been important to him. He could also recall her consumptive cough. That rattling, hacking sound had been common in the back rooms of the brothel where he’d been raised up to that date.
The girl had not been his mother. Sarah Middleton was alive and quite well in London, fleecing her lovers.
No, this girl might have been a scullery maid. She’d given him food and at night, he’d shared her pallet. He’d listened to her when she’d scolded him and he had trusted her.
In the dark shadows of the road, he could recall the sounds of adults talking over his head. Their voices echoed in his mind, and then his father, a man he’d never seen before, had appeared. He’d picked Ned up by one arm and dragged him out of the house. He’d taken Ned to his big home and given him a bed to sleep in and the praying nurse to watch over him. She was the first of several until he was sent off to school a year or two later.
However, no one had ever cared for him like the nameless girl.
Certainly, his mother had never given two thoughts toward him.
And it was good Ned had been taken away. His father had seen to his education and had corresponded with him from time to time. What more could a father do for a bastard child? Ned had learned not to mind.
After all, his background was somewhat unusual but hardly unconventional. Besides, he had standing in a community and was to marry a lovely woman, even if he couldn’t picture himself beside her or her carrying his child.
They had reached the village. All was dark and at peace.