How to Heal the Marquess by Sally Forbes
Chapter Nine
“Daisy, darling,” Dr. Gibson said, barely stifling a yawn. “Did you rest well last night? We were in such a hurry that I neglected to ask you this morning at breakfast. Please, forgive my thoughtlessness.”
Daisy smiled fondly at her father, gently touching his arm as they waited in the hallway of Berbrook Manor.
“Think nothing of it, Father,” she said. “And yes, I slept very well, thank you. Did you get some rest?”
The physician nodded, giving Daisy a weary smile.
“I slept well enough, my dear,” he said.
Daisy nodded vaguely, noting her father’s reddened eyes. She knew he was not being truthful, and she was concerned for him. Dr. Gibson had been the prominent physician for the ton throughout her entire twenty-three years of life. In fact, his practice was already well-established by the time he and her mother had married. And now, it was becoming increasingly clear that he was wearing himself thin.
He was spending all his time caring for the sick and tending to the needs of others, herself included. He never took any time off, despite her many offers to handle patients for him, even if just for half a day, so he could relax.
Daisy knew that he could not continue pushing himself so hard. But nor could she convince him of it. Nevertheless, seeing his vain attempts to hide his yawns and his rubbing of his eyes, she could not help speaking up once more.
“Father, it would be more than a pleasure for me to come here alone this morning,” she said gently. But before she could finish, her father held up his hand.
“My dear, I am quite fine,” he said. “And besides, you need my help to tend to the patients.”
Daisy bit her lip. She and her father both knew that was untrue. She had learned enough from her father over the years to be fully capable of taking care of his patients. In fact, she knew enough to take over his entire practice.
But with the stigma attached to women practicing medicine, her father had been publicly reluctant to allow her to do so. Though why he should suddenly speak against her skills amongst just the two of them was a mystery to her. Why did he sound as though he had no intention of giving her the chance to assume his practice when surely, that was what he had been preparing her for all these years?
“Good morning, Dr. Gibson,” Lord Penwell said, interrupting Daisy before she could continue questioning her father.
She and her father looked up, greeting the marquess politely. Daisy was instantly aware that the marquess was pointedly ignoring her presence, and she cursed herself for having not prepared for him to do so. Still, she held her head high, choosing to look only at her father as they followed the marquess up the stairs and to the duke’s bedchambers.
When they reached the room, Dr. Gibson turned to excuse himself and Daisy to tend to Lord Berbrook when Lord Penwell reached past them and opened the door, stepping inside. Daisy exchanged a look with her father, who she could see was clearly preparing to protest. The marquess would not be moved, however. He stared at Daisy and her father and when they did not immediately move to enter the room with him, he frowned.
“I should like to be present for Grandfather’s examination this morning,” he said. “I believe it will help me to better explain his condition to those to whom it is relevant.”
Daisy glanced at her father again, her heart squeezing when she saw that the weariness had deepened in his features. But rather than going ahead with his protestation, the physician simply nodded.
“Very well,” he said. “Let us get started, shall we?”
Daisy silently followed her father into the duke’s bedchambers, but she was angry with Lord Penwell. Who was he to insist that typical medical protocol be altered simply because he willed it so? Did he not understand the importance of an uninterrupted, unhindered examination, especially of a patient who was as sick as Lord Berbrook?
When she reached to take her father’s medical bag from him, she gave him a sympathetic smile. She had to bite her lip to stifle a giggle when the physician gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes that was visible only to her, as his back was to the marquess.
She knew well that her father preferred to conduct his work without a hovering eye, and she admired his ability to keep himself calm when some upstart noblemen were breaching his preferences and protocol.
She patted his arm and began to unpack his bag while the doctor went over to his patient and examined his chest. Meanwhile, she pointedly avoided looking in the marquess’s direction. She could see him, from the corner of her eye, watching her father very closely, and she felt her earlier anger begin to rise again.
Never mind that her father was indubitably one of the best in all of London. He had already well-proven his skills and expertise with curing his patients when they had first been called to rush to the duke’s aid. For the marquess to scrutinize her father so made Daisy all but furious. She started to say as much when her father turned to her, his eyes wide and full of grave concern.
“Daisy, darling,” he said, glancing over her shoulder toward the duke’s vanity across the room. “Please, prepare a bowl of lavender-infused water.”
Daisy’s eyes widened. She understood that meant Lord Berbrook once more had a tremendously high fever. She set aside her animosity toward the marquess to focus on the task her father had given her. She placed the medical bag on the sofa nearby, going through the items inside with great care until she found the lavender.
She bit her lip as she saw the other herbs and extracts, debating on whether she should add some of them, as her uncle had been teaching her. But she decided, in the end, to only infuse the water with lavender, as her father requested. It would hardly do to go against his request right in front of a marquess who already believed her to be incapable.
Lavender in hand, she turned to walk to the vanity, upon which sat a clean crystal bowl. From the corner of her eye, she could feel eyes upon her, and she turned to see the marquess staring intently at her.
Heat rose in her neck, and she glanced at him, but only momentarily. Her heart began to race, leaping into her throat and making her feel unsteady under his gaze. His expression was hard to read, but his handsome features were quite obvious, and she knew that to look at him too long would be her undoing, especially in the middle of such an important task.
She forced herself to approach the vanity calmly as though she had hardly noticed Lord Penwell. But truthfully, realizing that he had been looking at her nearly made her forget what it was that she was supposed to be doing. She kept walking until she reached the vanity, repeating her father’s request to herself over and over again.
She tried to think of the duke rather than the marquess and how important it was that she did as her father asked efficiently. She tried to will her shaking hands to steady as she set about carefully filling the bowl with water, and she concentrated on her breathing. She knew she must regain her composure, lest the marquess thinks her more unfit to care for his grandfather than he already did.
But all the while she worked, she could feel Lord Penwell’s gaze burning into her. With her back to him, she could hardly tell if he was glaring at her or merely watching her with curiosity. Ultimately, it mattered not, as it was making her just as nervous, no matter what the reason behind it.
She prayed her father would engage him in conversation or notice his staring and ask that the marquess leave the room while Daisy finished her task so as not to distract her. But no such luck befell Daisy. Instead, by the time she had finished infusing the water with the lavender, she felt more anxious and on edge than she ever had in her entire life.
As she reached over the fresh, full bowl of water to fetch some clean clothes, she felt her hip bump into the vanity. Her heart swelled in her throat as she felt the bowl begin to teeter on the edge of the table.
For a brief instant, she thought she could stabilize it, and she reached down to use her hands to try to brace the edges of the bowl gently. But her hands were trembling worse than ever, and rather than support the bowl. So she sent it tumbling the rest of the way of the vanity.
With horror, as though everything was moving in slow motion, she watched as the bowl toppled toward the floor. She made one final clumsy attempt to catch the falling water, but she only succeeded in hastening its descent to the ground.
The room was as silent as a crypt as the crystal made contact with the floor and shattered into pieces. The sound was deafening, piercing Daisy’s ears like the screech of a banshee. She stood frozen, staring at the mess quickly growing at her feet.
Her cheeks burned, and her body would not cooperate and move to clean up the mess. She had never been so clumsy, and her embarrassment had her glued to the spot. Any hope that the marquess would ever see her as a viable medical professional had shattered with the crystal bowl, and all she wanted was to disappear.
