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“It’s not up to you or me. Autonomy is more important to Tuppence than survival.”
“That doesn’t strike you as a fucking pointless victory?”
“Of course it does,” Reina shot back. “But I’ve never been attacked the way she was. I’ve never suffered the way she has, which is one of many reasons why I don’t have the right to compel her to endure an operation she doesn’t want. The last thing that would ever happen to her is yet another man doing something to her body that she hasn’t agreed to. How can you justify that?”
“In one scenario, there’s a chance that either she or the baby, or possibly both, might live. In the other scenario, no one does.”
“A very slight chance.”
“It’s still a chance, by God.”
Reina was silent, thinking over the situation, rapidly sorting through options. John waited with forced patience, realizing she was trying to find some intersection between pragmatism and principle.
In a matter of moments, she came to a conclusion. “Go fetch the doctor. I’ll sit with Tuppence and try to guide her into a way of accepting this. Maybe if Mrs. Caswell stays in the room during the procedure, that will be enough of a compromise.”
Flooded with relief and gratitude, John seized one of her hands and crushed an impassioned kiss into her palm. He felt her fingers shape to his cheek. In a moment, her other hand came to his head, fingertips softly stroking through his hair.
He heard her quiet voice. “I’m glad I have you to rely on.”
Damn this woman and what she had done to him. He was afraid of what she had come to mean to him. It was so much better when he’d had nothing, when he’d had no idea this degree of feeling was even possible.
“I would lay the world at your feet,” he said raggedly, and left before she could respond.
He found Maddock in the kitchen, using a brass pump sprayer on the corner where Alan’s bed usually was. June was busy folding freshly laundered cup towels at the long table. John nearly recoiled at the tarry sting of carbolic acid solution in the air. Although June often used it to disinfect the kitchen and reduce odors, especially in the larder, she rarely mixed such a strong concentration.
They both looked up as he came to the threshold.
“Maddock, go hitch the horses,” John said.
“Thank God,” June burst out.
Without a word, Maddock set the pump sprayer aside and vanished from the kitchen.
By the time John had grabbed his hat and coat and run out to the stable yard, the coachman had already attached the traces to the carriage.
“Where to, sir?” Maddock asked as he clipped the horses’ reins to the bit rings.
John hesitated, damning his own lack of familiarity with London. He knew Maddock, as a former carriage thief, was well-versed in the layout of the city’s districts. What was less certain was whether he had any kind of nuanced understanding of them.
“Maddock . . . what would you say about a surgeon who has a private practice in Soho?”
The coachman immediately understood what he was trying to find out. “Soho’s a place for working-class folk. A sawbones who sets up shop there . . . I’d say he’s not likely top o’ the lot, but probably ain’t no butcher neither.”
John frowned. “Probably not a butcher” wasn’t nearly skilled enough for an operation with a one-in-five chance of survival.
A detective wouldn’t risk buggering up an investigation. Nor would he allow himself to develop personal feelings for the same bloody people he was supposed to be investigating.
A butler, on the other hand, was responsible for the well-being of the staff. They depended on him.
What right did he have not to do his best for Tuppence, even if a sacrifice was involved? When it came to having someone look out for her interests, defend her, protect her from harm, he was all Tuppence had.
He was all any of them had.
You sodding idiot, he told himself grimly, knowing he was about to demolish any chance of a position in the criminal investigation department. But everyone who lived at Westbrook House had become important to him. Every last one of them. An economist, a foul-mouthed cook, a group of paroled prisoners, and a rat-catching dog.
How the hell had this happened?
“Do you know where Eaton Square is?” he asked brusquely.
