“I had myself committed to a government lock hospital,” Free said. “I was locked up with three hundred prostitutes suspected of being infected with syphilis, so I could report accurately on the cruelty of the attendants, the pain of the examinations.” She still couldn’t bring herself to recall those in any detail—the feel of being held down, the invasive metal tools wielded without an ounce of gentleness had all hazed to thankful forgetfulness. “I told everyone that there were women dying in pain with no comfort but to be tied to their beds writhing in agony. I reported that there were women who had shown no signs of disease in two years who were still kept like prisoners.”
“And yet the government is still locking up women with syphilis. The Thames rushes on, Miss Marshall.”
“But the two women I learned were free of symptoms are now free. And every time Josephine Butler speaks to a crowd of men, she sketches a picture with her words of what those thousands of women endure. Grown men weep to hear it, and we chip away at that wall, day by day. It will come down someday.” She raised her chin and looked him in the eye. “You see a river rushing by without end. You see a sad collection of women with thimbles, all dipping out an inconsequential amount.”
He didn’t say anything.
“But we’re not trying to empty the Thames,” she told him. “Look at what we’re doing with the water we remove. It doesn’t go to waste. We’re using it to water our gardens, sprout by sprout. We’re growing bluebells and clovers where once there was a desert. All you see is the river, but I care about the roses.”
His eyes were dark and the light was dim enough that she could see scarcely make him out. But his whole body was turned to her.
“Everything about you matters to me.” He leaned in. “It shouldn’t. I keep telling myself it shouldn’t, that it’s only the lust talking. But every time we talk, you turn my world upside down.” His smile was tight and weary.
“You’re wrong again. The world started out upside down. I’m just trying to set it right side up.”
“Either way gives me the most astonishing vertigo.”
He reached out. But he didn’t touch her—his hand was gloved, and he held it, poised, a hair’s breadth from her cheek. She could feel the warmth of him. But he pulled it back with a shake of his head.
“Good night, Miss Marshall,” he said.
EDWARD WASN’T SURE what roused him in the middle of the night. A sound, high-pitched; a rustle perhaps.
He came instantly awake. His heart rate accelerated; he jumped soundlessly to his feet. But there were no footsteps, no sounds of anyone shuffling about outside. And then that noise sounded again—a soft, muffled moan coming from Miss Marshall’s office.
He went to the window that looked in on that space.
The only illumination was the moon, and that came in only indirectly through a single high window. Her form twitched; her hand reached up, as if to push someone away.
He should have let her sleep.
But he was so far beyond should when it came to her that he knew he wouldn’t. Dangerous to enter her office. He was in his shirtsleeves, and she… He could see her ankle poking out from under a blanket, the flash of her wrist. Miss Marshall was far too undressed for his peace of mind.
He opened the door anyway, kneeling beside her. He set his hand on her shoulder.
“Miss Marshall,” he murmured.
She turned again, unwaking. He brushed her forehead. A clammy, cold sweat met his fingers.
“Free.” He ran his hand down her cheek.
Still she didn’t wake.
“Darling,” he whispered.
Her eyes opened on that. She blinked, hazily, up at him. God, he was in so far over his head. With her hair spread out around her, her eyes not quite focused on him, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He could not have captured her, not with pencil or paint. He couldn’t have tried. After all, a man could only draw what he could comprehend.
“Shh, darling,” he whispered. The endearment, once used, came too easily to his tongue a second time. “You were having a nightmare.”
She exhaled, pressing her lips together. Then, very slowly, she sat up. “I know that,” she said tartly. “It was my nightmare.”
He wished he could whisper sweet nothings in her ear. It will all be right. Sleep again; I’ll not let anything harm you.
But he wasn’t a sweet nothing sort of man. She dragged her hand over her face and sighed.
“I’m sorry,” she told him. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It’s just that I know I shouldn’t have nightmares. It’s ridiculous.”
“Shouldn’t you?” he asked gravely.
“It feels foolish to admit it. Like I’m admitting to fear.”
He cast another glance at her. “And you’re not afraid?”
She didn’t answer.
“Of course you’re afraid, Miss Marshall. Fear is only foolish when it’s irrational. You have men painting threats on your door, burning your house down. If they’re writing you letters suggesting that you need a child in your belly, I doubt they’re offering to put it there only if you’re willing.”
She let out a shaky breath. “I still have nightmares about being in the lock hospital.” She took hold of a curl of her hair, wrapping it around her finger. “And that makes no sense. I was there only for a few weeks, and there’s no danger of my being sent back.”
He fell to silence.
“I knew my brother would get me out. And still I remember the baths—ice water in winter. Brown ice water. They didn’t change it between women.”
He shuddered.
“And the medical exams. It wasn’t like having a doctor listen to your pulse. They had to examine you visually.” She let out another breath. “Everywhere. I tell myself I’m strong and brave, but I had been going to spend two months there. I broke after two exams.”
He took her hand in his. He was still wearing his gloves—he’d been feeling too self-conscious to take them off. He didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure if he was holding her hand to give her strength, or to drive away his own plague of memories.
She sighed. “But then, what would you know of it? You’re not afraid of anything.”
He ought to have laughed. He should have told her that fear was for other men, because he was the thing that they feared.
Tonight, he couldn’t make himself tell her that lie. Instead, Edward let out a long breath. “Percussion fuses are the very devil.”