women.
Eli could not save his mother—he was too late for that—but if he could save other children’s mothers, then any sacrifice would be worth it.
The problem was that experts did not work for free.
He needed the best chemists on the project, and he had no money at his disposal to tempt them. His web of brilliant apothecaries and chemists had disappeared one by one into projects that paid and no longer returned his letters.
All except for one. In November, Eli and his last remaining colleague had achieved a breakthrough. They had analyzed countless midwives’ poultices, teas, and folk remedies, and isolated three ingredients that appeared to induce labor. Could the same plants aid in the expulsion of detached placentae? It was very promising. For the first time, Eli had concrete reason to hope.
What he didn’t have was time to waste… or money to fund the necessary experiments and trials.
“Well?” said his father. “Does twice the funding meet your approval?”
Twice the funding was a miracle.
Eli and his partner were perhaps mere months away from discovering a compound that could save women’s lives, and give more children a chance to know their mother’s love… if Eli could produce the blunt to finance the project by the end of the month.
His chemist already had an invitation to a different, more lucrative study. He needed Eli’s final offer within the next fortnight or he, too, would vanish.
The opportunity would have been lost.
Eli’s allowance was paltry by design. He had to beg his father’s approval for every expenditure. “Playing with flowers” was not an approved expense. Eli wouldn’t have been able to afford a week of the chemist’s time, much less months or a year.
Until Mr. Harper’s letter arrived.
“Two years,” Eli repeated. “Any studies I wish, at any cost?”
“You couldn’t beggar me if you tried,” the marquess said with a laugh. “Yes, yes, I’ll fund an entire team of chemists. Behold, my witnesses.” He waved a careless hand in the general direction of his hovering servants. “You can build the laboratory. It will be worth it to know I beat Harper at his most vulnerable.”
With two years of unlimited finances, a no-expense-spared laboratory, and an entire team of brilliant chemists at his disposal, Eli could achieve many more good works than his original small dream. Once this form of childbed fever was cured, they could move on to the next project, and the next.
Eli would help countless more people than he would harm.
There were just two.
Olive and her father.
Eli rubbed his temples. He wished his father’s stipulations felt more like a grand opportunity for medicine and less like blackmail.
Ever since that day behind the stables when Eli had first kissed Olive, he’d sworn never again to harm another. To do everything in his power to do as much good as humanly possible.
Saving lives was very, very good.
But hurting Olive, again...
The kisses meant nothing, she said. She didn’t want to marry him, she said.
Perhaps their fathers were right, and she would agree to the match anyway, as an obedient daughter was meant to do, despite her resentment.
Maybe she would even be relieved when Eli did not go through with it, leaving her in full possession of her precious farm... but with her reputation—and confidence—in tatters.
“What if she doesn’t get over it?” he asked quietly.
His father smirked in satisfaction. “All the better.”
All the worse.
Eli’s hands clenched into fists, but it was impossible to say who he was angriest with—his father, or himself.
The marquess did bad things to harm others and felt good about it.
Eli was doing a bad thing to help others and it was eating him up inside.
Even if the result helped hundreds of thousands more people than he harmed, he couldn’t bear to hurt Olive again.
“No.”
The servants flinched.
Only a fool used that word to Lord Milbotham.
His eyes glittered. “What did you say?”
“No,” Eli repeated. “‘First do no harm.’ The Hippocratic oath—”
“You don’t obey dead scholars,” the marquess spat in disgust. “You obey me.”
Eli took a deep breath. “She deserves kindness and the truth.”
“She doesn’t even deserve to negotiate terms. She’s just a girl, Elijah. She’s nothing. She doesn’t even have to like you. She’s to do as her father commands and agree to the betrothal. Then you’re to do as your father commands, and jilt her. Make up something funny. Tell her you got confused between her and one of her horses. It’s supposed to wound. Humiliation is the entire point.”
“I’m not part of your feud.” He wished he never had been.
“Of course you’re in