Page 65 of Desperate Proposals
“As I was saying, lovely as your eyes are, I can’t help but notice you’ve difficulty seeing things at a distance.”
“Oh,” Evelyn said, curbing her disappointment at the return to the practical. She took a breath and shook her head, expelling the thoughts that had just been running through it.
“But a doctor? What good is it to be examined—”
“No more of this, now,” he responded, not bothering to turn about once more. “I’ll send Dutton back, and take care you dress quickly. Half past, remember?”
She’d no more time to consider the fleeting intimacy of their shared moment even if she’d wished to. She shed her loose, comfortable tea gown and, with Dutton’s help, was turned out in proper dress, bustle and all, in no time.
The doctor’s examination room was well-scrubbed and well-lit, with plenty of tall windows. The idea of visiting a physician, rather than receiving a visit from one, seemed somewhat of a nuisance to Evelyn. But once they were escorted into the office—a strange and sterile place, devoid of decoration aside from a series of strange printed charts hanging along one wall—she forgot to be indignant. Instead she indulged her curiosity, abuzz with the novelty of it all. There were metal apertures that resembled lamps, a tall and narrow chest full of tiny drawers, the peculiar charts on the walls. It all seemed very modern and foreign at the same time.
“Is every doctor’s practice like this?” she wondered aloud, sitting properly in a chair at the center of the room.
“In my experience, no,” Mr. Hartley responded. “The one I’m most familiar with is always a shambles.”
Something caught in her chest at the sight of her husband, sitting in a chair against the wall with a small smile on his lips, those eyes dancing with delight. She looked away, pretending to study the strange chart, full of random letters of varying heights.
“A Snellen chart, I believe.”
“I did not realize you possessed any medical knowledge,” Evelyn said, not trusting herself to look his way again, and focusing instead on her hands, clasped tightly in her lap.
“I don’t,” he replied easily. “But I possess a friend with a great deal of it.”
“Ah yes, your doctor friend.” She recalled the large, handsome man who had accompanied him to the musicale. How long ago that now seemed.
Or, more appropriately, how much had changed in that short time.
For her entire life, the world had seemed as immutable and permanent as Methering Manor; a stronghold of well-worn stone, its only capitulation to the march of time. But the past month had hurtled her from spinster to maid to bride with much the same speed as the railway had swept them across the countryside. For the thousandth time that day she thought of the previous night, and how she’d howled with pleasure—as far as she was aware—as Mr. Hartley handled her so roughly, on a piece of furniture that was about the furthest thing from a bed. Now, in the light of day—and in a different city—she could scarcely believe it had happened.
Her world was changing, and Evelyn sensed something about her was changing as well. She swallowed, then combed about for something polite to say.
“Do you count many friends, then, in London?”
Mr. Hartley sighed. She heard him shift in his seat, but still she felt incapable of looking at him just now.
“There are few I would consider friends. But those that are…” He trailed off, thinking for several moments before finishing. “I keep them close. You may find it difficult to imagine, Evelyn, but I have a bit of a reputation.”
Her head snapped up. He wore a wry smile, daring her to challenge him.
“What sort of a reputation?”
“As a pedantic, self-righteous bore.”
“Oh,” she said earnestly. “I did not think you were aware.”
He laughed, though Evelyn could not fathom how her reaction was humorous. But she did not have an opportunity to ask, for just then the doctor announced himself with a knock.
The examination was strange, involving bright lights shining in her eyes and reading from the silly charts like a child in a schoolroom, even when the marks on them were wobbly little fiends refusing to commit to one letter or another. Then the doctor opened a drawer from the tall, narrow cabinet and withdrew a fascinating object—trial lenses, as he called them. The little glass lenses swung out from the horn case much like a pen knife, if only there were numerous blades rather than just one. In truth, as fascinating as the trial lenses were, she soon found them to be painfully tedious, for she was forced to look through nearly each and every one, all the while explaining to the doctor which ones sharpened her vision more than others. Until finally, when she thought herself very well done in, it was over.
The doctor informed them that her spectacles would be fashioned in due course, and asked to which address they might be sent.
When Mr. Hartley gave his London address, the Berkeley Square home that had been so cramped and hot, Evelyn froze.
London?
Her heart raced, and the back of her neck heated. She heard Mr. Hartley and the doctor exchange further pleasantries, and somehow she managed a polite goodbye as well. But the tightening in her chest and the quickness of her breath would not abate. She suddenly wanted to flee, to run back to Lancashire, to cross the dry moat and shove open the ancient doors of Methering Manor and fling herself upon the stone floor, begging her father to offer her sanctuary.
But that was ridiculous. She was married now.
