So that I may restore my appearance in privacy.” She smoothed her skirts, happily in much better shape than her bodice.
But the dress as a whole had well and good been ruined, if not by powder burns then—as she’d already accused him—by his big hands. His big, strong hands that had touched her flesh and left it feeling pleasantly, if disturbingly, warm. She dared not meet his eyes. Dared not let a hint of cordiality into her voice or he’d know that she was feeling things she shouldn’t be feeling.
“No,” he said. “It’s not that. I want to know why you intentionally sacrificed yourself. You put your body between a gunman’s weapon and the queen.”
“You think I was being patriotic?” She laughed. Did she sound a little hysterical? “She’s my mother.”
“Of course. But you didn’t know there were blanks in his pistol.”
“No, I didn’t. And I wasn’t trying to make a martyr of myself. Or take a bullet for her. I was attempting to smack his arm out of the way, dislodge the gun. But I lost my balance and fell into his gun’s path as a result of my haste. It was quite clumsy of me.”
She felt more embarrassed than anything, what with the lingering sensations of his fingers plying open her bodice. And why was he staring at her so critically? The nerve of the man.
“That was one of the bravest acts I’ve ever witnessed,” he said, his stone-cold-sober gaze holding her eyes, making it impossible for her to look away.
She didn’t know what to say, but he gave her no time to say it. In the next second he was up and out of the carriage, making way for Lady Car who, with frightened eyes and tear-stained face, rushed in, carrying an armful of clothing.
Eight
“Off on her honeymoon, she is. Lucky gal,” Amanda said. “Oh, Henry, I wish you’d been there.”
“Been where?” Her husband’s attention remained on his black medical bag. He carefully wrapped two more vials of amber liquid in gauze and packed them, with several white paper envelopes of powders, into it.
As a physician Henry Locock diagnosed illnesses and diseases and dispensed medications but left broken bones and other injuries to the lowly surgeons. Because surgery required work with the hands, its practitioners were afforded less prestige. The theory being that manual labor of any sort was ungentlemanly—a notion that she thought laughable.
As the wife of a physician, if Amanda wished she could be presented in court, whereas the spouse of a surgeon or pharmacist could not. But the intrigues and formalities of Victoria’s court held little interest for Amanda. She only cared for their effects, good or ill, on her dearest friend, the Princess Louise . . . and for the chances she sometimes got, as Louise’s guest, to hear the exquisite music of great composers and musicians of the day.
“Been where? Why, at the wedding concert, my love. Weren’t you listening to me? The music, it was like nothing I’ve ever heard.” She came up behind Henry and hugged him around the waist, lying her cheek against his shoulder blade. “It was so very beautiful, the Great Hall all hung with garlands of flowers, and more violins, harps, and trumpets than Eddie could count on his little fingers.”
“I always say, more musicians than you can count on your fingers is far too many.”
She laughed at him. “You never said such a thing.”
Henry Locock turned to face her, his eyes twinkling with mischief, and captured his wife in his long arms. He towered over her petite figure by two heads and was a good deal thinner around than she, even when she wasn’t pregnant, but she felt there could be no more perfect match for her.
“How do you know what I say when I’m away from you?” he teased. “Do you know me that well?” He kissed her on the mouth, and she let her lips linger on his. This was more happiness than she believed she deserved.
“You are an ongoing mystery to me, sir. But I am learning a little more each day. I doubt that caring for your patients has given you time to even think about royal orchestras and such.”
He smiled down at her. “So true.” He gently freed himself from her embrace. “And now, I must be off. I have more calls to make than will fit in one day. Yet I must make every one or we lose patients.”
“If you had fewer, you’d have more time to spend at