your duchess. That is why you came all this way, after all,” she reminded him, pausing for a breath and studying him, gauging his reaction. “Of course, nothing quite compares to visiting a patient in person and performing a proper examination, but if you could relay her symptoms to me along with the duration—”
“Forgive me,” he cut in, his voice tight with exasperation. “But I find myself with limited trust when it comes to you. I have no intention of discussing the Duchess of Birchwood’s private health matters with you. I should like her to live, after all.”
“Oh!” Wretched man! She stopped and glared at him. “I know what I’m about, sir!”
The look he bestowed on her could turn water to ice. “What right have you to misrepresent yourself?” He sliced a hand through the air. “To lead people astray dispensing medical advice?”
“My advice is not faulty.” She resisted stomping her foot in childlike pique.
“No? Who’s to say?” He shrugged. “How would I know?”
“I’m not an amateur. You consulted with me for years. Since I—”
“Was a babe in swaddling?” he finished with spiteful flourish.
“Oh!” She gasped at that gibe to her apparent youth. True, she had been an adolescent when they first began writing to each other, but she was no child. Not then. Not now. She had just turned twenty.
Papa had oft teased that she had never been a child, that she had come directly into this world wide-eyed and ready to work alongside him. An old soul, he had called her. “Did you have any issue with anything I imparted to you in my correspondence?”
He pressed his lips together in a mutinous line. “As you well know, most of my inquiries were superficial in nature.”
She gawked at him. “Are you that unwilling to give me even the smallest amount of credit?”
“Much of our letters was personal,” he flung out, his eyes snapping darkly.
She hesitated, pondering that and realizing it was indeed true. He might have reached out initially with medical questions, but their correspondence had developed into something much more casual and friendly in nature.
She considered him carefully, noting the muscle ticking angrily in his jaw. He was indeed heated over her deception, and she realized it was partly due to this. He felt betrayed.
“Are you a trained physician?” he challenged.
His very question squashed her flash of guilt. Given that females were not permitted to attend medical schools in Britain, she did not think that to be a fair question. She would have to travel abroad to France or America if she wished to become a physician, and only if she were accepted into a medical college there. She was no stranger to the difficulties such a task presented. Few women, even abroad, were admitted into medical schools.
She pursed her lips before replying, “It’s not so easy for my sex. Women are not permitted to be doctors . . . but I trained beside my father for years. I may not be a doctor, but I’m no amateur either. I have skills and—”
“How many?” He nodded once, prompting her to answer.
“How many what?” she asked with a sense of wariness.
“How many others have you written to pretending to be your father? How many others have you duped?”
Oh. She shifted the weight on her feet. “You make it sound criminal.”
“I am no legal expert, but I am fairly certain it is criminal. At the very least it’s immoral.”
She lifted her chin in defiance, refusing to let him shame her. It was easy for him to judge. The man was the heir to a dukedom. He could do anything or be anything. He would not know limitations.
If she lived in a different world, if she had been born a man, she would have applied and been admitted to medical school. As a little girl she had once wanted that. She had foolishly thought it was a future she could claim for herself . . . before Papa had explained to her that such things did not happen. He’d told her his own alma mater, Middlesex, would never admit a female. Nor would any of the other medical schools in the kingdom.
“I’m helping people. I was helping you and everyone else I corresponded with. You took my advice, superficial though it may have been. Do not deny it.”
“Fortunately none of your advice has killed anyone . . . that we are aware.”
“It has not,” she replied in outrage. “I have not killed anyone!”
“How many?” he pressed again, returning to his earlier