Authors: Tania Anne Crosse
‘Has she swallowed a solid object? Or some sort of poison?’ Elliott asked swiftly. ‘Or has she been unwell? She feels really hot and her pulse is racing.’
‘She came over sick yesterday,’ the woman answered with a moan. ‘And she said this morning her throat were really bad.’
‘Glands are hugely swollen,’ Elliott muttered almost to himself. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Maggie,’ her mother sobbed. ‘Oh, my little cheel . . .’
‘Maggie, can you hear me? I’m Doctor Franfield. I need to look at your throat. Can you open your mouth for me? Ling, can you light that lamp and bring it over here?’
Ling caught her breath. There was something about Elliott’s attitude that invaded her own being, and she quickly and calmly obeyed Elliott’s instructions, holding the lamp while he struggled to look into the restless child’s mouth.
He glanced at her with a deep frown. ‘Diphtheria. Get three masks out of the middle left-hand drawer of the desk and give one to the mother.’
Ling found herself moving as if she assisted Elliott every day. When she returned with the linen masks, he was withdrawing a needle from Maggie’s arm and the girl was instantly relaxing.
‘I’m going to make a hole in the windpipe and insert a tube so that she can breathe,’ Elliott told Ling quietly. ‘Get your own mask on first, then mine, if you would. And then hold that lamp for me. You won’t faint on me, will you? If you think you might, just don’t look.’
She nodded, amazed at herself and ready to follow his advice. But it wasn’t necessary. Within a matter of seconds, the incision in Maggie’s neck was made, the tube inserted, and the horrendous wheezing in her throat ceased as she breathed more normally.
Elliott released a massive sigh. ‘Right. It’s got to be the workhouse infirmary. The cottage hospital doesn’t take infectious cases. But we go
now
!’ he commanded. ‘Ling, can you bring my bag? Oh, and my keys. Make sure the house is locked. The medicines, you see.’
‘Yes, of course.’
Elliott scooped Maggie in his arms and hurried out of the front door with the child’s mother following, and Ling was left alone in the little house. The entire episode had taken less than five minutes, and she felt stunned, unreal. To think that only moments before she had been about to go upstairs and make love to Elliott. Was fate trying to tell her something?
She donned her jacket and hat, secured all the doors and windows, and picked up Elliott’s medical bag. He had not stopped to put on his coat and had gone out into the rain in his shirt sleeves. He would be wet through, so she rummaged through his wardrobe for a clean shirt, grasped his coat from the hall stand, and, stepping outside, locked the front door behind her.
‘Will she be all right?’ Ling sprang to her feet as Elliott walked into the cold and unwelcoming hall where she was waiting. She watched as he slumped down wearily on the hard wooden bench and exhaled heavily.
‘I don’t know. I’ve removed as much of the debris from the poor child’s throat as I can, but heaven knows if it’ll work. With careful nursing, and God willing, she might recover. But even after five or six weeks, when they seem over it, a patient can suddenly die. Terrible thing, diphtheria.’ He shook his head in bitter frustration and turned to Ling, his solemn gaze meeting hers. ‘I’ve been exposed to it quite often in London, so I’ve probably built up an immunity. But
you
haven’t. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll catch it from such a short exposure, but promise me that if you feel at all unwell, with even a hint of a sore throat, you’ll send for William. Or the prison surgeon. They’ve got a new one now, thank God, so I don’t have to act as locum any more.’
Ling bit on her bottom lip. The incident with little Maggie had brought the gravity of Elliott’s responsibilities home to her. Life and death decisions were part of his daily routine. And this hardly seemed an appropriate moment to start – oh, she could scarcely bring herself to think the word – an affair with him.
‘Yes, I promise,’ she answered gravely. ‘But I must go now. Barney . . . will be wondering where I am.’
Elliott drew in a deep breath and nodded. ‘Yes, I know. And I want to stay on here for the next few hours at least. I’m sorry, Ling.’
‘Don’t be.’ The compassion on his face brought a soft smile to her lips. She loved him so much she felt her heart would break. She turned and made for the door. When she glanced back, Elliott was already marching briskly towards the wards.
‘Ling!’ Elliott gave a delighted grin. ‘I didn’t know if . . . Come in, come in!’
She stepped over the threshold, and all at once the qualms and misgivings that had been trundling round in her head were chased away by the sheer jubilation of being with him again. He lifted her hands to his lips, turning her palms upwards and softly brushing his mouth and tongue over the inside of each wrist in turn. The sensation that shot down her spine took her breath away.
‘I . . . I had to know how little Maggie is,’ she stammered, still taken aback at the effect his kisses had produced throughout her entire body.
‘Holding her own, poor mite. But it’s early days. We’ve put notices up in the town and in the
Gazette
for people to be vigilant, but there’ve been no more cases reported. Thank God it’s the school holidays or it’d be spreading like wild fire. But, as it is, I don’t think we need worry.’
Elliott gave her that calm, reassuring smile, driving away the concern that had begun to grind in her heart. Into its place leapt the reason why she was there as the clear brilliance in Elliott’s eyes seemed to deepen. He was still holding her hands as if he could not bear to let them go, but now he released one of them to gesture tentatively, hesitantly, towards the stairs. ‘Shall we?’ he barely croaked. ‘If . . . if it’s really what you want?’
Ling felt the lurch of her heart and she was sure it missed a beat. She swallowed, and nodded since her voice had suddenly become trapped in her throat. Elliott led her slowly and regally up the stairs and into the front bedroom. She gained a fleeting impression of the vast changes in the room, but she was blind to any detail as Elliott drew the curtains and stepped back across the room. She stood, still as a statue, as he removed her hat. Then his fingers in her rebellious hair found the pins that secured it, and it fell down around her shoulders in a foam of chestnut curls. He cupped her chin in one hand, tilting her mouth towards his, and they met in a soft, moist, lingering kiss.
At last, he drew away and she opened her eyes as she was aware of him unfastening her jacket and the blouse beneath. His brow, though, was furrowed as he glanced at her face, seeking her consent and ready to stop if she so asked. She didn’t. She knew it was wrong but she was lost in this heady passion, this desperate, overpowering yearning. She had never felt this way with Barney, not even on that inebriated evening all those years ago that had ruined all their lives. The mere shadow of remorse flickered across her mind, but was at once obliterated by the here and now, the need, the love that beat so furiously in her breast. Elliott slipped the jacket and blouse from her shoulders, and his fingers searched for the buttons at the waist of her skirt, which an instant later joined her other garments on the floor. There was no going back . . .
‘I’m glad to see you don’t wear a corset,’ Elliott muttered under his breath. ‘So bad for the internal organs.’
The comment seemed so absurdly out of place and yet so typical of Elliott, ever the physician, that it made Ling chuckle. Or was it the perfect release as the tension drained away, leaving her body malleable and open to whatever Elliott wanted to do to her? He sat her on the edge of the bed and knelt at her feet, deftly removing her shoes and stockings, his eyes dark and smouldering as he lifted his hands to run them, soft and leisurely, down her arms. Her flesh tingled at his touch and she nearly swooned as, in one swift movement, he whisked her chemise over her head, exposing her firm, naked breasts. She could feel herself quivering, the fire spiralling down to her loins, as Elliott stroked her shoulders, played his mouth over her neck, the well at her throat, tracing his tongue over the top of her breasts and sensitively drawing a nipple between his lips. Never,
never
, had Barney treated her like this,
loving
every inch of her. The sensation was intoxicating, and she began to give herself entirely to its glory, dropping her head back as she moaned with desire.
The slight pressure of his hand on her shoulder had her lying back on the bed, and his caresses stopped briefly while he took off his own clothing. She feasted her eyes avidly on his naked torso. He wasn’t heavily muscled like Barney, rather his shoulders rippled with a hard, wiry strength, his waist retaining the slenderness of youth that Barney had long lost. He stood beside the bed, his own excitement well in evidence, allowing her to inspect him, his chin slightly raised as if he shared that bewildering mix of desire and embarrassment. And then he reached out, carefully untying the strings of her drawers and slid them down over her knees.
A shiver tumbled down Ling’s spine and crept, strong and tantalizing, into that secret place that was only hers and Barney’s. And yet she yearned for it to be Elliott’s, instinctively knowing by the way he had coaxed and enticed the rest of her body in a way Barney never bothered with, that he would bring that innermost part of her to some fever-pitch she had never known before. He lay down beside her, drawing her body against the hard length of his own, flesh against flesh, kissing her, the fragrance of fine lemon soap on his closely shaven jaw wafting into her nostrils as her hands sought his smooth, warm shoulders. She flinched as his fingers crept sensuously over her thighs and she saw his eyebrows tighten in a quizzing frown.
‘Oh, God, what if I get pregnant!’ she suddenly gasped in sickening terror. ‘What if after all these years of trying with Barney—’
‘You won’t.’ Elliott was smiling faintly, his eyes a deep aquamarine she could drown in. ‘It would hardly be right for me to preach contraception to my patients and not use it myself. You . . . do trust me, don’t you, Ling?’
She blinked at him. Oh, yes, deep in her soul, she trusted him with all her heart. Trusted him and loved him. He encompassed her in his arms, comforting and reassuring her, soothing away the doubt. She whimpered softly as he began to lead her on once more, enticing her, exploring her body until it cried out with eager need, an urgent desire to reach some frenzied height of rapturous wonderment. And when he slipped inside her, it wasn’t the quick, painful thrusting that she was used to, but a slow, languid pulsing that sent exquisite ripples through her being until she suddenly exploded with an indescribable joy that flooded into every inch of her body. She gasped aloud and then, in that same split second, Elliott became rigid and then juddered against her. And they were clinging to each other, shocked, amazed, glorying in the natural intensity of their love. Was that what she should have felt each time she granted Barney his conjugal rights? And Elliott had not turned his back, leaving her in some cold shadow now that it was over. He was kissing her, holding her, and muttering endearments against her cheek.
‘Do you know how I’ve longed for that, my dearest love? Oh, Jesus, if only you could be mine.
Really
mine.’
His voice vibrated with emotion and she stared deep into his anguished face. ‘But I am, Elliott. I love you, and I wish . . . I never feel like that with Barney. He just . . . For me, it’s just a duty. He never thinks that
I
might . . . But I suppose you know how a woman . . . You’ve had the experience—’
‘Good Lord, no!’ Elliott sat bolt upright in the bed. ‘You don’t think . . .? I’ve studied female anatomy inside out, of course I have. But we don’t study how a woman
feels
. And . . . you may find this hard to believe, but until today . . . just now . . . I’ve never . . . Well, only some adolescent fumbling with the daughter of one of my mother’s friends. My God, my mother would have killed me if she’d known!’
Ling was still in that sublime state of euphoric contentment, and she sat up next to Elliott in astonishment, her hair falling forward over her breasts in a riot of cinnamon and gold. ‘What! You mean this was your first time?’
‘Oh, please don’t laugh at me,’ Elliott said with a groan. ‘The first time
properly
, if you understand me.’
‘I’m not laughing. I’m just surprised.’
‘I know. Ridiculous, isn’t it?’ he murmured. ‘Twenty-eight next month and . . . Most men have a tribe of children by my age. Or a string of bastards. I was mocked for not seeking female company but I didn’t have
time
if I really wanted to study hard. And anyway, I had a teasing memory of a young girl who liked to jump under trains. And I just hoped with every week that passed that she’d write to me.’
‘Oh, Elliott,’ Ling breathed, resting her head against his shoulder. ‘If only I had. If only I’d
known
. And then I wouldn’t have to be sneaking away to see you.’
Elliott lifted her chin to gaze at her, his eyes ardent with desire again, and leaned forward to kiss her delicately on the lips before springing to his feet to pull on his under-drawers and trousers.
‘Don’t get cold. Put something round you, and I’ll bring up a cup of tea.’
Ling laughed softly as she heard him pad downstairs. A cup of tea, what else? Oh, she felt so happy! At that very moment, she didn’t care that she was an adulterous wife. She loved Elliott. She was still fond of Barney, of course she was. But she recognized that she had never loved him with the force, the passion she felt for Elliott. Her father had been right.
She spied Elliott’s dressing gown and slipped it around her naked form. The garment smelled of the same lemon fragrance she had noticed from Elliott’s skin, and she breathed it in deeply before wandering about the room. All was neat and tidy and very masculine. And then Ling saw the bookcase, not stuffed with medical tomes as downstairs in the consulting room, but overflowing with works of fiction and poetry: Browning, Keats, Wordsworth, Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Hardy and even Mary Shelley, every writer Ling could think of.