When the doctor did speak, it was again to Lord Almont. “Do be mindful of the toll chewing will take on the tooth, Your Lordship.” Without another word, he picked up his bag, turned on the heel of his boot, and exited through the room’s back door with a sweep of his black greatcoat.
“Not much bedside manner, I’m afraid,” Lord Almont whispered after Straine had left. “But I’m told he’s the best in the city. A protégé of the great Dr. Beecham himself, if you can believe it, before he died. You’ll stay for tea, of course?”
It had been two years since Hazel’s father began his post on Saint Helena—as captain of the Royal Navy assigned to oversee Napoleon’s imprisonment—and since then, Lord Almont had taken it upon himself to watch over his niece. Hazel found herself taking the carriage into Edinburgh once or even twice a week to join the Almonts for tea or supper, to sit in the morning room and read Lord Almont’s books, to accompany Bernard to whatever social events seemed to be unavoidable. At least George’s memory didn’t hover thick as smoke in Almont House the way it did in every room of Hawthornden Castle.
When she married Bernard and eventually became the new Lady Almont, the bad memories could close like the covers of a heavy book. She would get a new name and a new home. She would have a new life. She would be a new person, a person whom sadness would be unable to find.
“Ah, Bernard!” Lord Almont said as his son appeared at the top of the stairs. “Will the two of you be lunching here? I’m sure Samuel can alert the cook?”
“Actually, Uncle,” Hazel said, “I was hoping Bernard might escort me on a walk.”
Bernard hopped down the last stair and extended his elbow. By the time the pair of them exited the hall, the servants had swept away all trace of the surgery performed just minutes ago.
From The Cities of Scotland: a Traveler’s Companion （1802） by J. B. Pickrock:
They call Edinburgh “the Athens of the North” for her accomplishments in philosophy, but now it is also a testament to her architecture: white stone, broad straight avenues, columns. They began to build New Town on the flat expanse of land in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle in the 1760s, I believe （when the stench and overcrowding of the buildings along High Street on the hill became too much for anyone with any decent breeding to bear）， but only since 1810 have the buildings in the Romantic Classical style truly begun to impress. Indeed, I daresay now Edinburgh boasts a more beautiful example of the Romantic Classical style than any of the capitals of Europe.
3
“PLEASE.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Absolutely not.”
“But they won’t let me in without you. There’s not a chance. But they can’t turn me away if I’m with the Viscount Almont.”
“Future Viscount Almont. My father is very much alive, thank you very much.”
“Well, you’re at least something now, right? Surely, you’re a baronet at the very least. That counts for something, future Viscount Almont.”
“Hazel,” Bernard warned.
“You don’t even have to look. You can cover your eyes the entire time.”
“I’ll still hear it.”
Hazel clutched the broadsheet advert in her hand and gave it a shake. “Come on, Bernard. When have I ever asked you to do something for me? If I don’t go to this, I’ll never be able to think of anything else for as long as I live. I’ll be bringing it up at dinner parties when we’re both old and gray, and you’ll wish you had gone just to shut me up.”
Bernard kept walking. “No.” Bernard was wearing a new top hat in dove gray, and even as he turned away from Hazel, she could tell that he was still mindful of showing it off to the best angle, so its edges caught the light just so and set off his sharp chin. His jacket was also gray, and he wore a vest of canary yellow silk.
Though the afternoon had begun with a pleasant autumn chill in the air, over the course of their walk, it had become stiflingly hot. Hazel felt a bead of sweat roll down her back, beneath layers of fabric. “Are you worried that my mother will be cross with you because—？”
Bernard turned and interrupted her. “Yes. To be quite frank, yes. I am worried your mother will be cross with me, but more than that, Hazel, I’m worried your mother will be cross with you. Do you have any idea the sort of trouble you would get in if your mother—or father, for that matter—found out you went to an anatomy lecture? A public anatomy lecture! The type of characters who attend that sort of thing! Drunkards … and rapists! And … and … theater actors!”