“What I meant, Lady Hampton, is that I know Mr. Carew is aware of numerous techniques. This diligent man from the colony of Trinidad combines the best of all sciences to treat patients.”
“You are too kind, Your Grace. Lady Hampton asked me to visit for the same reasons.”
“And she wanted an opinion other than the physician Tavis’s family sent.” I folded my arms and looked at the fellow who’d been at this house too many times, often with bad news.
“My conclusion is the same at this point. Lord Hampton will be gone within the hour.”
Lydia started to cry. “Our Tavis gone now too.”
Tears trickled down Scarlett’s face. “He’s a mixed bag, but he was ours. There’s something in that.”
“Remember his laughter,” the duke said. His voice was small and kind and more human than Katherine’s.
She continued to frown, especially when Lydia hugged the duke’s leg.
My throat began to thicken.
No matter how much trouble Tavis had caused us, we did care for him. He made Katherine smile at the darkest point in her life.
“Things have seasons,” I said. “I’ll remember the good, never the bad.”
“Scarlett, Georgina. Take Dr. Carew downstairs with Lydia for sweet biscuits and tea.”
Carew patted Katherine’s elbow. “Since there’s not much to do here and the other physician is inside, I will accompany Miss Wilcox, Miss Scarlett, and Lydia Wilcox to the kitchen.”
“I’ll stay,” I said. “I’ll be with you, Katherine.”
“No, Georgina, go show off your biscuits.” She raised her hand as if to dismiss me. “You make the best ones with ginger and molasses.”
Matchmaking? Tavis was dying and my older sister was trying to act like our mother, setting me up with the honorable physician. But Mama knew her girls and propriety, and she’d not try tofix thingswith a marriage on the day Tavis would die. “I’ll stay. Scarlett and Lydia can reward our old friend.”
Mr. Carew sighed and bent to the littlest Wilcox. “Yes, I saw you come into the world. I’ve sort of been part of the Wilcox family for a long time. I know when it’s time to go and eat sweets.”
“Don’t talk about me being born. You’re going to make me sound young in front of the duke. He smells nice. He’s my new friend.”
Scarlett took Lydia and led her away, asking Mr. Carew about recording facts about patients.
“Ma’am, you ask a lot of questions,” the physician said with a soft accent that sounded of the ocean and drums.
My younger sister offered him a half smirk. “I’m just getting started, Mr. Carew. I need your thoughts on the system of trusses some men of science think can aid the backbone.”
“Ma’am, I looked at your sketch. It’s fantastical. Even if I thought it had a chance of working, Hampton’s too weak. And I’ll be overruled. The viscount’s father has the physician they want inside treating him. That’s not me.”
His tone had turned to a hurricane, speaking of the prejudice we didn’t want to mention in this house. Tavis’s white family, led by his father, the Duke of Hampton, wanted a white doctor to administer care and perform the certification when the viscount expired. He refused Tavis’s requests for money, which made our brother-in-law desperate. In the end, it was the color of silver, the color of money, which did him in.
Though his parents were so concerned about these color details, not a single one was here. Tavis’s Blackamoor wife and sisters-in-law were the only family who loved the fool enough to be near in the man’s hour of need.
Well, us, and the mysterious duke who kept gazing at Katherine.
She opened the door to the bedchamber.
“Sing something, Georgina,” Katherine said when we all went inside. “Your voice is so pretty. Tavis may hear and feel better.”
I began with a hum and then sang a melody of “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” a hymn by Charles Wesley.
“Love divine, all loves excelling
Joy of Heaven to Earth come down,
