First Comes Scandal (Rokesbys #4)(85)

“But when someone is having difficulty breathing,” she said quietly, “there may not be time for a second measure.”

A cold shiver passed through Nicholas, the kind one didn’t feel so much as sense. He had never witnessed one of Georgie’s breathing attacks. He’d heard about them over the years, though. He hadn’t given them a lot of thought—it always seemed he found out about them well after the fact, when it was clear that she’d come through with no lasting implications. So he had not realized just how serious they had been.

And besides that, he’d been young. And not medically minded. Certainly not thinking like a doctor.

“Georgie,” he said slowly, his thoughts coalescing as he spoke, “did your doctor ever suggest you might have asthma?”

“Oh yes, of course,” she replied, with a tone and expression that suggested she found his question somewhat silly.

“No, no,” Nicholas said. He had a feeling he understood her reaction. Many doctors—especially those who were not affiliated with a university and thus not as up-to-date on medical progress—used the word “asthma” to describe any sort of breathing malady. He explained this to her, then asked, “Did anyone ever use the term spasmodic or convulsive asthma?”

She thought for a moment, then gave an apologetic shrug. “I don’t know,” she said. “Not to me. Maybe to my parents.”

“It’s a very specific sort of breathing disorder,” Nicholas explained, “one that manifests itself differently in different people.”

“And this makes it difficult to diagnose?”

“Not that so much as difficult to treat. Different people seem to respond to different treatments. The good news is it is rarely fatal.”

“Rarely,” she echoed, her voice flat.

“My late professor—he died just last year—wrote extensively on the subject.”

At that she smiled. “How fortuitous.”

“To be honest,” Nicholas said, “he wrote extensively on almost every topic of medicine. His major life’s work was the arrangement and classification of disease.”

“In a book?” Georgie asked. “I should like to read that.”

He regarded her with some surprise. “You would?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I already have done,” he answered. Dr. Cullen’s tome was required reading of every medical student at the University of Edinburgh. Nicholas knew that some of his classmates had skipped the sections they were not interested in, but he had tried his best to give his full attention to the entire work.

Which hadn’t always been easy. Synopsis Nosologiae Methodicae was, in a word, dense.

“Did you find it interesting?” Georgie asked.

“Of course. Well, most of it. I don’t know that there is any doctor who finds every aspect of medicine interesting.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “I think I would enjoy reading it.”

“You probably would. Although you might like a different one of his texts better. It’s less about the classification of diseases and more about how to treat them.”

“Oh, yes, that does sound more interesting. Do you own this book?”

“I do.”

“Is it here or at Scotsby?”

Nicholas glanced at his overflowing bookshelf, and then tipped his head in its direction. “It’s right there.”

She twisted to look, not that she could have possibly known which book he was motioning to. “May I take it back with me? Or will you need it?”

He smiled. “Not between now and when I next see you.”

Her entire face lit with anticipation, and it occurred to Nicholas that she looked far more excited at the process of reading First Lines of the Practice of Physic than any medical student he’d ever seen, himself included.

“Thank you,” she said, before snuggling into the pillow with a sigh. “It will give me something to do while you’re gone.”

“Is it so very dull, then?”

One corner of her mouth turned down—not sad, but a little sheepish. “It shouldn’t be. I have so much to do. But at the same time it feels like there is nothing to do.”

“Nothing you want to do,” he said.

“Something like that.” She inched up a little on the pillow to look at him. “I want to set up our household. I think it will give me great joy. But that’s not Scotsby.”

“One more week,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze.

She nodded, closing her eyes as she slouched back down into the pillow. “I wish I didn’t have to go.”

“As do I,” he murmured. Although it had to be said, his bed was uncomfortable enough with only him sleeping in it. If she spent the night, neither of them would get any sleep. And not for the reasons he’d like.

“Do you know what time it is?” she asked. Her eyes were closed; she looked almost unbearably content.

Unbearable because he was going to have to rouse her from her position momentarily.

He reached over to his nightstand and checked his pocket watch. “We’re going to need to leave soon,” he said. “You’re due back at the carriage in half an hour.”

She let out a groan. “I don’t want to go.”