Page 35 of Courting Trouble
A carriage accident, or so the police report stated.
“Inform him that Mrs. St. John is asleep. He can come back during visiting hours.”
“He’s threatening to take her home!” Higgins stomped her feet like a recalcitrant child.
“Impossible,” he said, fighting to keep himself measured as he secured Nora’s dressing. “The woman has an egregious head wound. She can barely stand without getting dizzy and falling over, nor can she feed herself through that broken jaw. I’m not releasing her until I’m certain she’s out of the woods.”
“If you send her back to that man, he’ll kill her.”
Titus’s heart stopped and Mercy’s eyes widened. “Nora? Did you just say…”
For the first time that evening, Nora craned her neck until her chin touched her shoulder, looking up at him with chilling certainty. “Hedid that to her.”
Her words evoked that cold, bleak pain that lived alongside any other emotion regarding Nora. Twelveyearsof marriage to a man ultimately capable of attempting to take her life.
What else had she endured?
The question landed like a brick to the stomach every blasted day.
She rarely interacted with his patients, as they waited until visiting hours were over to attend her for the sake of discretion. So how could she know about Mrs. St. John’s plight? Was this paranoia caused by a decade of mistreatment? Or…did she see something only a refugee of such a life could understand?
As a man who’d been to war, Titus knew that certain experiences could only be fathomed by those who’d shared them. Like Dorian Blackwell and those young lads who’d been locked in Newgate with him, or Morley and their blood-soaked battles together.
He finally looked her in the eyes, only to be unraveled by the beseeching look he found there.
“She won’t survive the next time,” she said with absolute conviction.
“I’ve thought it, meself,” Higgins agreed. “There’s something in that man’s eyes makes me bones feel like they’ve been replaced by snakes.”
As the surgeon, Titus rarely met his patients’ families. He’d simply performed Mrs. St. John’s procedures and moved on to the next patient who needed him, letting his resident doctors and the head nurse deal with kin.
“Why did no one mention this sooner?” he demanded irritably.
“What would you have done?” Higgins eyed him as if his very gender made him dubious.
“I’d go to the police. Demand an investigation. It’s been illegal to hurt your wife for a handful of years now, I think.” How violence against a woman had ever been protected by law aggravated him in the extreme.
Higgins actually scoffed. “Men are never convicted without another male to bear witness. Women are rarely believed. They’d only send her home to him where he’d punish her for her trouble.”
“We have to do something.” Nora stood, suddenly animated, clutching the bodice of her nightshift to her bosoms with her one strong hand. “Mercy, aren’t you and Felicity volunteers with the Duchess of Trenwyth’s Ladies’ Aid Society?”
“That’s right!” Mercy snapped her fingers. “She oversees that sanctuary for women. I’m certain they’d help.”
Titus nodded. “I know of the Duchess; she was once a nurse at St. Margaret’s.”
Nora turned to him, dark eyes wild. “Do you think Mrs. St. John could be moved without her husband’s knowledge? She could hide, like me, until it’s safe. She could divorce him.”
Titus hesitated, quickly making some calculations. “If she’ll agree to it, it could be done… gently. Though, I’ll have to oversee it as I worry about transport with her head wound.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to wipe away fatigue. “Higgins, who can we spare to send to Trenwyth’s to make arrangements?”
“I can go now!” Mercy’s hand shot up like she was volunteering an answer in a classroom.
“What about your meeting?” he asked.
“Hang the meeting, this is more important. I’ll go straight away and return with the news.”
“Be careful,” Nora admonished as she received a vehement kiss from Mercy, who turned to plant one ardently on Nurse Higgins’s cheek on her dash out the door.
“Precocious child,” Nurse Higgins chuckled, swatting at the air. “I’ll go get rid of Mr. St. John, though I’d like to dump his arse in the alley with the rest of the rubbish.”
