First Comes Scandal (Rokesbys #4)(88)
And a long book, she thought.
He held out his hand to help her down, and then, once the carriage had departed she turned to him and said, “You need not come into the building with me.”
She was quite certain Jameson would rather stay outside. The last time they’d been within earshot of the lecture he’d gone a bit green about the gills. Marian had later told her that he’d confessed that he sometimes fainted at the sight of blood.
But he shook his head. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but you can’t go in by yourself.”
“I will be just fine,” she assured him. “I know exactly where to go. And there is a bench right outside the lecture theater. I can sit quietly while I wait for Mr. Rokesby to emerge.”
Jameson did not look convinced. “I don’t think Mr. Rokesby would approve.”
“He won’t mind at all,” Georgie said, which was only a small fib. Nicholas would almost certainly prefer it if Jameson accompanied her, but he wasn’t likely to be angry if he did not.
“I will be sitting right outside the room,” Georgie continued. “If something happens, all I have to do is raise my voice, and Mr. Rokesby will come running.”
But Jameson would not be swayed, so the two of them walked into the building together. Georgie brought the large green textbook with her, thinking it might make her look as if she was meant to be there.
Obviously she wasn’t meant to be there—the University of Edinburgh accepted no female students—but maybe she’d look like someone’s assistant, or a visiting dignitary.
Still unlikely, but she felt better with the book. Academic armor, so to speak.
They walked in, and Georgie took a seat on the bench, right next to the open door to the theater. Jameson stood across the hall, but she had a feeling it wasn’t far enough away to keep him out of earshot because he started to look ill within minutes.
It wasn’t surprising. Today’s lecture topic had something to do with wound care, and the professor had just begun talking about worms.
And maggots.
Georgie wasn’t sure she understood the relevance, but that was the least of her concerns. Jameson’s skin had gone gray and pasty and he was clutching the wall. Surely he would do better outside. “Jameson,” she whispered, trying to get his attention.
He didn’t hear. Or possibly he needed to focus all of his energy on remaining upright.
“Pssst. Jameson!”
Nothing, but he swallowed a few times.
Georgie’s eyes widened. This did not look good.
“Jame—” Forget that. She stood and hurried over. “Jameson, I think you shou—”
“Urg uh blear …”
Oh, God. He was going to—
“… uharff!”
Everything—and Georgie meant everything—that was in Jameson’s stomach came out of his mouth.
She jumped back, but she wasn’t fast enough to avoid it all. It hit her shoes, and probably the hem of her dress, and—Oh dear God he must have eaten fish.
Her own stomach started to turn. Oh no …
“Oh, Mrs. Rokesby,” Jameson groaned. “I don’t think I can …”
Apparently he hadn’t expelled everything the first time around because he heaved again, this time spewing the dregs of his breakfast.
Georgie clamped her hand over her mouth. The smell. Oh, God, the smell was making her sick, too.
“I have to go outside,” he moaned.
“Go!” Georgie clutched at her own roiling belly. She needed him gone. If she could get away from the smell she might be able to keep her own breakfast down. “Please!”
He ran out, just as men poured forth from the lecture theater.
“What’s going on?” more than one demanded.
“Is someone ill?”
“What is—”
Someone slipped in the mess on the floor.
Someone else crashed into her.
They all wanted to be of service, to be the doctor who would save the day.
“Are you ill, ma’am?
“Are you fevered?”
They kept pushing forward, and none of them were Nicholas, and she couldn’t get away from the smell …
She tried not to breathe.
She took a gulp of air.
And another. But it smelled terrible, and she gagged.
And then she tried for another, but it didn’t seem to come.
She gasped.
“Miss, are you—”
“Nicholas,” she wheezed. “Where is—”
She couldn’t breathe. She opened her mouth, and she thought she was pulling in air, but it wasn’t reaching her lungs.
She couldn’t breathe.
She needed air.
Everyone was so close.
She couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t breathe.
NICHOLAS ALMOST ALWAYS sat near the front of the lecture hall. He had a sneaking suspicion that his eyesight was not what it once was—probably from all the close reading he’d had to do these past few years—and he’d found his attention was less likely to wander if he could see the expressions on his professors’ faces as they lectured.
Today he was in the second row, which was why he was among the last to realize that something odd was happening just outside the lecture hall. Most of the students near the exit were gone by the time he turned around, and several more had jumped up from their seats and were hurrying out.