“She is not a girl. She’s a baroness, and you will address her as such.” Andrew leaned forward, almost hovering over where the doctor sat. Seagle raised his hands, as if in surrender. “I don’t think you doctors realize the power you hold in the lives of those who are ill.”
Seagle looked up, the proud jut of his chin had softened to something guilty. Like he was a misbehaving child being told off.
“And you’ll tell no one?” Seagle asked.
“Not a soul,” Andrew confirmed. “Unless I have to.”
Andrew had begun to feel bad for the man. The doctor had years’ worth of tender feelings for a woman he could never have. Andrew understood him. He hated to exploit those feelings.
Though even if Andrew wound up the same way, loving someone he couldn’t be with in the end, he’d make sure Della knew she was just that—loved.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Della thought shecould sense a change in the air. It was subtle, but everything became stiffer and more congested the closer they got to London. She tried to assess her own feelings on the matter, but she came up short. They were too complicated to navigate. There was joy, for she thought she’d never return to the place she’d once called home. There was fear, for everything it meant that she was here. There was, more than anything, a longing. London represented so much for her, and returning after so long away was beyond strange. Some part of her longed to be the girl she was when she’d last left. So full of youth and promise, only to be swept away into a banishment she’d grown to love. The more dominant part of her, though, simply wanted what she always had.
Andrew. He brought about an even more overwhelming deluge of emotions, and the thought that she’d get to see him again was the only thing getting her through the last of this arduous journey.
Across the carriage, Clara practically vibrated with excitement. At their last stop, Della had begged Clara to change into clothing that the good people of society wouldn’t find immediately reprehensible. She had, but she was wearing it all wrong. Her day gown hung loosely from her frame, and she was still wearing those men’s boots she always had on. Her hair was escaping its pins, and she wouldn’t sit still. Harry didn’t seem to mind. He was gazing out the window andtapping a beat with his hand against his knee. They seemed rather at peace, actually. As if the tumultuous feelings raining over Della had escaped their notice entirely.
“I believe we are almost there,” Harry muttered. He leaned in closer to the window, trying to see all he could like an eager child.
“What will we do first?” Clara asked. She climbed onto her knees and peered over Harry, resting her palms on his broad shoulders for balance. Della thought she should discourage that kind of disregard for her own safety, but that would be like trying to tame a wild horse. Recklessness was an integral part of Clara’s character. It was quite possibly the reason they were all here in this carriage.
“I am not sure,” Della sighed. Not for the first time, she realized how impulsive and ill-advised this trip was. “I’ve told the coachmen to take us to Andrew’s house, but I do not know what we are to do if he is not home. Or not receiving visitors.”
Della knew most weren’t so formal, even in London. Those of the working class didn’t require things like public drawing rooms for guests and specific hours of the day for calling. She couldn’t help it, though. She could feel her genteel manners overtaking her once again. Something about the London air made her posture straighter and her accent sharper. She wasn’t sure if she liked it.
Harry laughed. She’d been so caught up in her own musings that she almost hadn’t heard it. She couldn’t credit why he’d laughed, and he looked less than proud to have done it.
“I am sorry, Della.” He shook his head. “But I cannot credit the idea that he might turn you away at the door.”
She didn’t know what was more surprising, his assessment of the situation or the fact that he used her name. That may very well have been the first time. It was almost as if they were becoming friends.
“You must admit it is possible,” she tried to tell them—both of them—as they were smirking and giggling at each other in much too close proximity. It was usually very charming, watching them flitaround each other like birds. She didn’t particularly find it so now. “We haven’t sent word that we’re coming, and we haven’t been invited. He left our home abruptly, and I’ve heard very little from him since.”
“I know, Della, but—” Clara began to say, but then the carriage rolled to a stop. She abandoned her sentence and practically dove past Harry out the door as soon as it was opened. She didn’t wait for the help of the coachman or Harry or anyone else, even the stairs.
“Good lord, Clara,” Harry fussed as he followed her into the fading sunshine. “You could’ve injured yourself.” He continued to grumble at her, and she argued back. That was something that wouldn’t change, then. That was a slice of home she’d brought with her.
Della sat right where she was. She needed a moment to unfreeze her limbs. They were stuck, almost completely immobile. With no one on the other side of the carriage, she could extend her legs out in front of her. That was a start. She leaned forward and rocked back, stopping as it began to feel like the bones in her hip were ripping apart.
This happened sometimes, her entire body locking up. Each time, Della considered her surroundings. If she had to live forever in the bathtub or on the second stair or at her seat at the dinner table, then so be it. This place didn’t seem so awful, a rented carriage. She could still be mobile, then. She cracked her knuckles. Rolled her shoulders. Tried to shift some weight onto her knees. She was in the middle of this exhaustive process when she heard a voice.
“Della?” he said, and suddenly he was there. In the open carriage door, backlit by the sun. Beautiful and golden and disheveled. All messy curls and a stern brow. His mouth hung open in what appeared to be shock or awe, and it was enough motion to remind her of that dimple in his cheek.
“Andrew.” She smiled back, and she hoped. That’s what this uncomfortable swelling inside of her chest was. Hope. It was intense and terrifying. She felt it like nausea in her stomach, like the tingling of pinsand needles running down her spine.
He extended a hand into the carriage, and she suppressed a shudder of delight when his palm met hers. In another world, this would’ve been her life. Traversing the city with her friends and coming home to a man helping her down from the carriage. It seemed important, even in this fantasy she’d suddenly made up, that Andrew be that man.
Della took exactly one step toward the edge of the carriage platform, and the effort was considerably painful. All at once, she wasn’t bearing her own weight anymore, and she was flying through the air with Andrew’s hands pressed against her waist. It was an all too brief journey to the ground. Once her feet were under her again, she felt considerably lighter. With her own hands against his shoulders and his still resting just above her hips, Della truly realized what a torment this trip could turn out to be. She’d never again know contentment if she couldn’t have this man.
“What are you doing here?” Andrew finally asked, after they’d spent entirely too long staring at one another. He looked around in confusion, as if he’d never seen his own home before. Clara and Harry had begun unloading the meager belongings they’d brought with them, little more than a traveling bag each, and talking to the hired coachmen.
“I came to see you,” she told him. Her fingers flexed against the collar of his coat. “We... we came to see you. I kept thinking of you doing all of this—God knows what you’ve been doing—for me, alone, and I couldn’t take it.”
Della felt him squeeze her waist. Pull her closer just slightly. It was blatantly inappropriate conduct for the middle of the street, but Della didn’t think anyone would pay them any attention over the commotion Harry and Clara were causing just by existing in their proximity.
“Della—” he started to say, but he was interrupted.
