From Governess to Countess (Matches Made in Scandal #1)(19)

‘But you do not advocate their use?’

‘No, I do not, and that is part of the problem,’ she said, with a bitter smile. ‘My methods and my remedies are quite different from those prescribed by physicians and apothecaries. I do not claim they are always more successful, I do not claim to have the skills, for example of a surgeon, but I am an excellent healer. Yet despite that, my sex prevents me from being recognised by the exalted Society of Apothecaries, which means I have no legal right to practise. My clients turned a blind eye to that, but society viewed me differently.’ She felt herself colour. ‘My appearance and my vocation—men take me for a woman of—of loose virtue. No, let us be plain. Men assume I’m a harlot. It is but a short leap from herbalist to sorceress, you see, and there is something about me...’

‘There is, most definitely, something about you,’ Aleksei said with a rueful smile. ‘Though I suspect that is something you have heard too many times and have no wish to hear repeated.’

‘What I wish is to be judged on my skills as a herbalist and not my appearance. Such a simple ambition, you might think,’ Allison continued, almost to herself, ‘and so it would be, were I a man. But as a woman, I must not only prove my skills, I must prove myself a paragon of virtue.’

She blinked. Her hand was curled tightly around her champagne glass. ‘I’m sorry. I did not intend the conversation to take such a sombre tone. It is ancient history and has no relevance now. You do realise that we will be the subject of lurid speculation in the servants’ hall?’

‘I don’t give a damn what they are saying about us. Unless you do?’

‘No.’ She smiled. ‘I really don’t. Let them talk.’

*

But it was they who talked. Aleksei pulled a chaise longue in front of the fire, and they sat together before the flames, sipping wine and chatting.

‘From Seanmhair—that is, my grandmother,’ she told him with a tender smile, when he asked her how she acquired her knowledge of herbs. ‘Seanmhair is what is known as a fey wife or wise woman in the Highlands of Scotland. It is from her that I inherited my love of herbs and healing, though she always said I derived my ambition from Lady Hunter.’

‘Lady Hunter?’

‘The laird’s wife. She took a shine to me. My grandmother said it was her having no daughter of her own. It was from Lady Hunter I had my English lessons, and learnt to go about in polite society, learnt also to use my skills there with discretion. When Seanmhair died, it was Lady Hunter who encouraged me to seek my fortune in London.’

‘And what of your mother?’

‘She left me in my grandmother’s care when she married. Her husband was not my father, you see. I would have been a great inconvenience to the pair of them.’ Allison was curled up on the chaise longue beside him, her feet tucked under her. ‘You must not be feeling too sorry for me, mind. If she’d taken me with her, I’d never have become a herbalist, and if I were not a herbalist, I would not be here in St Petersburg. What was your own mother like, Aleksei?’

‘Very beautiful. I’ll show you her portrait tomorrow.’

‘And do you look much like her?’

‘Now how am I to take that?’

‘Are you fishing for a compliment now, Polkovnik? Then I will tell you that I’ve not seen a finer figure in uniform. An opinion shared by every other woman I talked to in the Winter Palace the other night, I might add. They would be as green as this dining room with envy if they knew I was sitting here alone with you, round the campfire, so to speak.’

‘I can honestly say that I’ve never sat around a campfire with such a charming companion.’

‘Now how am I to take that, given that my competition consists of gnarled, battle-hardened soldiers?’

‘Soldiers whose penchant for singing folk songs is rarely matched by their musical ability.’

‘Ah, then that is something I must confess to sharing with them. I too love singing Scottish folk songs, but I am, in my grandmother’s words, tone deaf.’

He could not resist testing her. ‘I don’t believe you.’

Allison, to his delight, responded to the challenge by getting to her feet and clearing her throat. There was a gleam in her eye that made him want to laugh, and he bit his lip. ‘This is a wee song in the Gaelic,’ she said, ‘which is my native language. It is about a woman whose sailor husband has been lost at sea. She goes down to the beach every day and sings to the seals in the hope that her husband is a selkie—a drowned man returned in seal form.’

‘And is he?’

‘Well, now, he might be, for there is one particular seal with big brown eyes who gazes at her longingly, and she is fairly certain it is her dear one.’

‘But don’t all seals have big brown eyes?’

‘Indeed they do,’ Allison said, nodding sagely. ‘And all Gaelic folk songs have a tragic end. I’m sorry to have to warn you that in this one, our poor widow throws herself into the sea and is drowned.’

‘Not saved by her seal husband?’

‘That is for you to decide. Are you sure you want to hear this tragic tale? I warn you, it is a great deal more tragic when I sing it!’

‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ Aleksei said. ‘Miss Galbraith, the stage is yours.’