“Because I’d be able to listen to it. I like the pitter-patter sound.”
“Of course.” Irritation tightened his voice. “How thoughtless of me.”
She wanted to tell him that there was nothing thoughtless about him. Instead she held silent, afraid her comment might lead him to think she was becoming overly fond of him - developing a tendre, as it were. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
“Do you think I might be able to persuade you to read a bit once I’ve eaten?” she asked for the sake of changing the subject.
“I, um… There is some work I was hoping to get to later. If you like, I can lend the book to your maid so she can read for you in my stead.”
“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary, though I appreciate the offer.” Louise spoke a little sharper than she’d intended, but hadn’t he offered to keep her company earlier? Or had he merely offered to do so out of politeness, without actually wanting to or having the time to spare? Her heart made an inexplicable dive. How stupid of her. Clearly, she’d placed too much weight on the touch of his fingers against her skin both during the operation and after. She’d thought he might be caressing her and, worst of all, had responded to him on a physical level.Idiot. She turned her head away from where she knew he stood. “Please, don’t let me keep you.”
It sounded like he shifted his feet. “I’m sorry, I—”
“No need for apology, Mr. Berkly. Lord knows it is I who ought to ask your forgiveness for taking you away from London and the other patients in your care.” In fact, when she took the time to think of the demand she’d made of him, guilt chewed its way through her. “By all means, do your work. I’ll ask someone to fetch you if I start feeling worse.”
“Thank you.” He seemed to hesitate for a brief second, until he finally turned and left.
Louise expelled a shuddering breath.
“I can read fromSense and Sensibilityfor you,” Hannah said, reminding Louise of her presence. “Mrs. Winterly gave me a copy earlier when I told her it was your favorite.”
“Thank you. I’d enjoy that.” Louise did her best to pay attention to the story, but the words that had always held her captive failed this time. Instead, her mind remained on Mr. Berkly and her own peculiar response to him. She was still trying to puzzle her way through it when her food arrived - a tasty meal consisting of bite sized pieces of lamb, potatoes, and steamed carrots.
“Shall I keep reading?” Hannah asked once Louise was done eating.
“No. I think I’d rather rest for a bit.” It had been an eventful day and in spite of her earlier nap, Louise was exhausted. Plus, her head still ached. Not as much thanks to the laudanum, but enough for her to long for the unconscious state sleep would provide.
Tomorrow, she thought as she drifted off, she’d tell Mr. Berkly about the project she hoped to one day undertake and inquire about his opinion. What she did not expect was for him to remain absent from her bedchamber for several days after.
“He’s working,” Mr. Winterly said when he looked in on Louise one afternoon and she asked after the surgeon. As promised, her host had stopped by every morning after breakfast in order to read the daily paper to her. Until now, she’d managed to refrain from mentioning the man who was constantly on her mind. “Shall I tell him you wish to see him?”
“No.” She’d hate to force him to her bedside against his will. “I’m all right. There’s no need to disturb him.”
Yet she missed Mr. Berkly’s companionship tremendously, and she could not quite understand why he didn’t come to check on her. Instead, Hannah changed her compresses daily and made sure the bandage was snug. But it wasn’t the same. Her maid wasn’t as skilled and couldn’t make the binding as comfortable as Mr. Berkly had managed to do.
Then, on Sunday when she woke, it was to the sound of his voice as he softly spoke, “Zu hause...ha-u-se...hause...e-in-ge-sperrt...e-in-ge-sperrt.” He huffed a breath, then began again. “Zu hause e-in-ge-sperrt...ble-i-ben...ihm nur di-e...bücher.”
Louise did her best not to smile, lest Mr. Berkly glance in her direction and see her amusement, but it was hard not to when he was quietly sitting there, butchering the German language with choppy, ill-spoken words.
He repeated the same sentence again, then muttered something beneath his breath. “E-in-ge-sperrt, e-in-ge-sperrt.” Pages rustled as if he frantically searched for something in a book. He muttered something else and attempted the sentence once more, his pronunciation as disastrous as before.
Louise sighed and gently told him, “Zu hause eingesperrt, bleiben ihm nur die bücher.”
“You’re awake,” he said, his voice on sudden alert, “and you speak German?”
“My mother is German. She taught me and my siblings how to speak her native language so we would be able to communicate with her side of the family. I trust from your efforts just now that you’re trying to learn it?”
He produced a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a snort. “I know I’m making a hash of it. I’m using a copy ofRe-i-sen e-i-nes Deut-schen in England im Jahr 1782and looking words up in a dictionary as I go along.”
Louise winced. His pronunciation was truly atrocious, because he’d no idea how each combination of letters was meant to sound in their native tongue, so he was pronouncing each word as he would in English.
“What’s your motivation?”
“A lot of medical texts are written in German,” he told her frankly. “I’d like to be able to read them, and should I ever travel to Germany for the sake of studying their surgical innovations, I’d prefer to do so without requiring a translator.”
“I see.” She considered his wish and all he’d done for her. Perhaps this was how she could repay his kindness. “As commendable as your efforts are, learning a foreign language in such a way is difficult. I mean, it may enable you to read and write it, but not to speak it in a manner where anyone will understand what you’re saying.”
“I’m not sure how else to go about it,” he grumbled. Her criticism clearly bothered him, no doubt because of how hard he was trying.
