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The gentle swish of her skirts lingered like an echo, a whisper of grace against the dusty gloom. She had held her ground through storms he would not have blamed her for fleeing. Heaven help him, but she was remarkable.

“She is lovely,” Brendan finally commented when she was out of earshot. “She seems a fine match, Julius. Are you to do the right thing?”

Again with the pressure. Did his friends think him a veritable scoundrel who would desert a gently bred young woman to the feckless judgment of polite society? Did they not trust him to take care of his Audrey?

Not just take care of her—cherish her, if he had the wit and fortune to earn the right.

“Of course I will do the right thing … as soon as I figure out what that is.”

Three heavy sighs ensued, all three of them walking over to slump on a bench against the wall to stretch out their legs.

“This has been a blighted summer,” Brendan declared, contemplating the work boots of his disguise.

“That it has,” agreed Abbott. “I am just thankful to have put right my bungle with Gwen. Attempts to unmask a killer has unexpected ramifications and is rather trying on one’s nerves. I confess I may have caused some chaos myself with one or two poorly judged decisions.”

Julius snickered, his mind racing through the recent bedlam the late Lord Filminster had instigated when he had chosen to attend the coronation back in July.

“If the baron only knew that his death would result in new unions. It is rather ironic considering his insistence that Brendan marry this year. He achieved his goal, if not in the way he might have hoped for.”

Abbott scratched at his ear. “Deuce it! The late baron has much to answer for. I am wearing a powdered wig, for the love of heaven!”

They burst out laughing, and Julius acknowledged that if nothing else, he had acquired new chums on his quest to help Brendan with his troubles. It was a comfort, considering there was much melodrama yet before them.

Friendship, after all, was a kind of armor. And perhaps, love was the sword.

“I propose we win the day, gentlemen, and not allow a tragedy to unfold. Much has been sacrificed to uncover the truth, and I want to see this scoundrel brought to justice.”

“Aye,” replied his companions.

Julius’s friends departed, and Audrey watched from her post, musing on what she had overheard—that the idea she had proposed would worsen her own situation. A cloying feeling of dread rose each time she thought of returning to the earl’s home to face the consequences.

The needs of the patient outweigh any other considerations.

However, now that Julius was on the mend, the other concerns had inevitably presented themselves. Audrey rubbed her thumb across the pads of her other fingers in a repetitive motion while she tried to imagine what would happen when she returned across the street. Would she have to face anyone besides the earl? How would he receive her? Would he be furious?

Surely, not if I saved his son?

She was not close to Lord Stirling, who was as solemn as Julius had remarked, but he had always been generous to her. Discovering that he was her guardian had been a surprise, but not altogether so. And he had been kind enough when he came to attend Papa’s funeral and escort her to London.

Audrey had been grateful to leave Stirling while she recovered from her father’s abrupt death. He had been called to deliver a baby and returned home alone in his curricle in heavy rain. Best they could tell, something had startled his horses—perhaps booming thunder or lightning striking too close—and the curricle had been overturned in their panic, crushing her father.

Papa had been instantly killed, a fact for which she was grateful. It was a comfort to know he had not suffered, yet she had.

Her entire life had altered in the course of a few hours, and soon after, she had arrived in London, dressed in the black garments of mourning.

At first, she had been relieved to leave Stirling while she was grieving. Audrey knew that the process of healing from her father’s death would have been all the worse if she had woken in the familiarity of their home each morning, only to remember he was gone. To go about her day in their home, or to visit the village without his presence nearby, would have been more than she could have borne.

Instead, she had spent her time walking about the earl’s palatial townhouse, surrounded by silence and space. She studied the art of former centuries displayed in ornate gilt frames and wandered the halls with measured tread, as though afraid to wake the past. When she had been ready, she began to plan her future without Papa.

He had been her parent, her mentor, and her tutor. They had assumed she would continue working at his side for years to come, but she knew, wherever her father was now, he was gratified that she had not accompanied him that night.

Unfortunately, they had never discussed how she would succeed as a healer without him. Her first patient and she had immediately been compromised. There were logistics to her being an unmarried young woman that they had not considered.

Despite the looming controversy, Audrey did not regret what she had done. If there had been time to think, to plan, perhaps an alternate course might have been conceived, but in the heat of the moment, she had made the right decision.

The rules of polite society did not supersede life and death, after all.

However, polite society would not concur with her point of view.