The day was pleasant, so Suzanne had decided to walk through the park, then call on Madeline to see if her friend or one of the women’s group knew a good midwife who was still in the city. She’d donned her hat and was about to step outside when the door knocker sounded. Since she was right there, she swung open the door and blinked at the tall, shabby man on her doorstep.
“Madame Duval?” was the hesitant question. “Suzanne?”
The rich voice was familiar. Suzanne looked more closely and gave a sudden gasp of shock. “Frère Jude!” She stepped back from the doorway. “Please come in! I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you at first.”
He entered with an apologetic smile. “That’s because I’m not Frère Jude anymore. I never really was, I think, so I must be Lucas Mandeville again.”
He took off his hat and she saw that the top of his head didn’t shine anymore because the tonsure was filling in with his tawny hair. “What should I call you? Monsieur Mandeville? Lord Foxton?” She smiled tentatively. “Foxy?”
He laughed at that. “Lucas will do. Is Simon home?”
“He’s . . . been away for several weeks,” Suzanne said. “But I’m sure he’d be over the moon to know you’re here. Will you stay? Please? Until he comes home?” Assuming Simondidcome home, which was the kind of horrid thought it was impossible to suppress.
“I’d like to stay here for a while, at least. Is there stabling nearby for the Magdalene?”
“Of course there is.” Suzanne laughed as she peered out the window and saw the white mule tethered patiently to the iron fence in front of the house. “There’s a stable behind the house and Maurice is probably there. He’ll be happy to settle the Magdalene. I’ll have a room prepared and order tea and sandwiches for you.”
“I’d like that.” He gave her a gentle, beneficent smile that made her wonder how much of a friar he still was. She guessed that even he didn’t know.
She gave orders for the room to be made up and for food to be brought to the drawing room. Lucas joined her soon and attacked the sandwiches as ferociously as a well-mannered man could.
When he’d cleared two platefuls of food, she topped off his tea for the third time. “Perhaps it’s presumptuous of me to ask when you barely know me, but Simon talks of you and thinks of you as a brother, which means you’re my brother-in-law.”
He smiled at her. “You are desperate to ask questions. Feel free to do so.”
“You say you are no longer Frère Jude, but he was your life for many years. Was it meeting Simon that made you decide to become Lucas Mandeville again?”
He nodded. “It was . . . shockingly wonderful to see Simon again. The shock was first, but it got me to remembering all that was good in my early life. I realized that if I felt a true vocation for the religious life, I would have taken vows by now. I craved solitude and needed to serve others, but I can have those things outside the religious life.”
“Did you convert to Catholicism?”
He smiled. “I consider myself a fellow traveler. A mule-riding fellow traveler.” He paused to consume a small tea cake in one bite and swallowed it with obvious pleasure. “Your lecture on not wallowing was very potent. I have wallowed long enough. Since I exiled myself from the life I was born to, only I could free myself from that exile.
“I also realized how much I want to see my great-aunt and uncle again. Apart from Simon, they are my closest family. How selfish it was of me to think only of myself and not of them!”
“Pain does that,” she said quietly.
“Pain, and shame. I felt too dishonored to associate with honorable people,” he said quietly.
“Honor matters, but rigid definitions of it are not to be worshipped as gods!” she said with exasperation. “Being a mere female, I think one’s obligations to friends and family matter more than self-crucifixion over abstract definitions of honor.”
Lucas gave her a slow smile. “How very wise Simon was to marry you. Having decided not to wallow, I fulfilled my obligations to the communities I visited by sending another friar whom I’d trained. He is a truly good man, a good bonesetter, and will get better. I travel a different road now.”
“Is that why you came to Brussels? To see Simon as a first step to returning home?”
“That is a large part of it. But . . .” He smiled a little bashfully. “You’ll think this is absurd. But I often have a sense of where I am needed. I have a strong feeling that I’m going to be needed here. I’m no surgeon, but I’m good at splints and resetting bones into joints and such things.”
“War is coming, so your instincts are correct,” Suzanne said. “I fear there will be much to occupy you very soon!”
She thought a moment, then asked, “Incidentally, have you learned anything about midwifery? You may soon be the only person around with any medical skills.”
Lucas looked startled. “I’ve delivered several babies in dire straits, but I’m no expert. Why do you ask?”
“Our cousin Marie is very near her time and the midwife we’d engaged has fled the city,” Suzanne explained. “I’m going to try to find another, but if I’m unsuccessful, it will be good if someone in the house knows how to deliver a baby!”
“Bonesetters are at the very bottom of the medical hierarchy, so I shall pray that you find a proper midwife,” he said gravely. “But if you don’t, well, I shall do what I can.”
“What is the medical hierarchy?” she asked.
