She reached around in the dark, feeling for Clara’s hand. She took it, grasping it between her own. Clara still wouldn’t look at her, and now the barely there light seemed to only be highlighting the rivulets of tears dampening her face.
“You are my sister in everything but name, and that will always be true.” Della squeezed Clara’s hand, willing her to understand. “I don’t know what’s going to change after all of this, but I know we will stay together no matter what. Always.”
Clara finally met her eyes. “Even in Hell?” She smiled, even through the tears.
“Yes, I suppose so.” Della laughed, too. They were delirious with exhaustion, riddled with anxiety, and laughing like schoolgirls. “Even in Hell.”
Their laughter roused Harry from sleep, and he awoke abruptly.
“What’s going on?” he asked, as if he needed no time to adjust to consciousness. He was asleep one minute and wide-eyed the next.
“Nothing,” Clara assured him, patting his arm where her shoulder bumped his. “It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.”
He turned drowsy again in an instant. “You too,” he mumbled. Clara attempted to get comfortable against him again. She wiped away the remnants of her tears.
“You too, Della,” Clara whispered.
They’d drifted into a moment of pitch darkness, and Della could only hear the rustling of the carriage moving. She shifted around for a bit, trying to relax her pained limbs. She stretched out, she curled up. There was nothing for it.
They must be getting close to London, she realized. She could tell from the tense set of her burning joints and the hardening of her fragile heart.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It came tohim in a dream. The idea that just might fix all of this for them. For her. He’d lain awake in bed that night, considering his options. He knew the barony was Della’s. It was an irrefutable fact. He knew if he went digging through public records, he’d find all the proof in the world that Miss Adelaide Harris was a baroness. The proof wasn’t the problem, though. It was her family. They had always been the problem.
The idea had come to him in a dream, but it was his mother who actually convinced him to put it into practice. It was that talk of hers, about being her own kind of dressmaker. It made Andrew realize that perhaps Della didn’t need a solicitor to help her with this. Perhaps she needed a specific kind of solicitor. One who didn’t care about things like rules, not when it came to her.
It was almost poetic, the way he’d been able to connect the pieces of this particularly convoluted puzzle just in time. The way he’d been able to resurrect an old, sneaking suspicion and use its confirmation for exactly what he needed. Well, it would be poetic if it worked.
As Andrew approached the doctor’s surgery, he noticed the many people out and about under the midday sun. It was a rare break in the rain, and Andrew found himself sweating under his many layers. Perhaps that was just the nervousness seeping out of him. It didn’t matter either way. Sweat stains on his shirtsleeves would definitelyundermine the authority he needed to project in this moment, so he willed his body to stop.
He paused at the door, taking a much-needed moment and holding it open for a mother and her son to exit. The young boy smiled at him. He was missing both of his front teeth. The mother didn’t smile at all, so Andrew had no way of knowing whether any or all of her teeth were present. It was unusual, seeing people walking in and out of the doctor’s offices. He was known to make house calls all over London, even as far as Westfield Manor, when Lady Morley requested.
Andrew hoped he was right about those house calls. Hoped he was right about the doctor at all. He was hedging his bets on it, and there was so much at stake. One misstep could send the doctor running to Morley House, killing their entire plan before it had a chance to live.
If there was one thing Andrew had learned in his time abroad, it was to follow his instincts. Nothing was as valuable as his internal compass, and he hoped beyond hope it wouldn’t steer him wrong this time.
He took a step into the office, and he spent a heartbeat thinking about what he meant to do. It was a despicable thing out of context. In reality, it was the only next step he could think to take. All he had to do was remind himself that this was for Della, and any reservations he felt faded away under the force of his adoration.
“Doctor Seagle?” he asked the man sitting alone behind the desk. It seemed fairly safe to assume that he was correct, but he needed to be sure.
“Yes.” The man set down the papers he seemed to be sorting. Andrew wanted to roll his eyes. It seemed everyone in London had gone lax on their document organization just to spite him. “May I help you?”
As the doctor looked at him over the half-spectacles that were too small for his face, Andrew could see the resemblance. That familiarity,even though they’d never been formally introduced, was heartening. A visual representation of the cards Andrew held so close to his chest.
“I need to speak with you,” Andrew said, his tone all business. “My name is Andrew Lockhart, and I’m a solicitor.”
“Lockhart?” the man said, taking off those awful spectacles and twirling them between his fingers. “I knew an Elias Lockhart. Took care of him before he went to his rewards.”
Andrew nodded. He’d expected that. He wouldn’t let it deter him.
“He was my father, but I need to speak with you about one of your other patients.” Andrew stood with his hands clasped behind his back. He refused to sit, but he couldn’t even remember if he’d been invited to do so. This duplicity made him anxious. He knew he wasn’t good at this kind of thing, but he also knew he had to be.
“And who might that be?” The doctor regarded him suspiciously, and Andrew could feel the tension in the room start to build. The suspicion was warranted. He was sure a strange man walking into his office enquiring about a patient wasn’t an everyday occurrence for the doctor.
“Miss Adelaide Harris,” Andrew said, even though her full name sounded wrong on his lips. She was Della to him. She always had been, and he hoped she always would be.
The doctor hummed. “She’s a very ill young lady. An incredibly sad case.”
