The Marquess and the Midwife (*On Hold*)

7 Norah

"We have to hurry," I was telling my friend, pulling her down the street by her hand, both of our cloaks pulled up to hide our faces as we made our way to where we knew the carriage driver would be waiting for us, thinking we were just popping into town to visit a friend and have a cup of tea. "We're late as it is and if I give my mother any reason at all to forbid me from coming to Greenwich every Tuesday."

"Hold on, Norah. Please," Silvia gasped out before stopping in the middle of the street, bending over double, and hurling the contents of her stomach onto the uneven stones.

I patted her back, smiling and making our excuses to a couple that passed, arm in arm. I wasn't surprised. Doctor Bray had conducted a surgery this afternoon and Silvia had been looking rather green ever since. Despite the late hour and how we were almost certain to get a good scolding if we waited any longer to leave, I stood by her side, patting her back until the nausea subsided. It was the least I could do for my oldest friend who had agreed to come along with me on my trips to Greenwich to serve as my chaperone while I worked with the doctor. Silvia didn't like it and she complained about the arrangement nearly every chance she got but she came all the same. Every week, she came. And this was our third visit already.

"Okay," she said, taking a deep, heaving breath and wiping her mouth with a corner of her cloak. "I think I'm okay."

I nodded, giving her a final, firm pat, and pulling her down the street to the carriage. Once we climbed inside and thumped the top in signal to take us home, I noticed just how pale my friend was.

"Silvia–" I started, sympathetically.

"That was horrible," she groaned, leaning her head against the carriage wall with a sigh. "This is truly what you want to do, Norah? What you want to see? It doesn't... bother you?"

"It's necessary. It's a part of the healing process. We should be thankful that people exist in our world who are not so bothered by blood and viscera."

Her cheeks puffed out at my description and I grimaced.

"Sorry," I apologized as Silvia doubled over with another wave of nausea. This one subsided quicker and without the appearance of vomit on my mother's soft, velvet carriage.

"Not to change the subject though I am desperate to change the subject," Silvia said then and I smiled as she looked up at me, "but are you coming to the ball tonight?"

"I suppose I am," I nodded. "It's highly unlikely that my mother would let me out of it ever since KyrieRayfield made that ill-advised trip to see me while we were out two weeks ago. It's the first ball that's been held since and I doubt she would let me go another day without cornering the poor man and demanding to know why he never returned."

Silvia snorted.

"We should get ready together then," she said, excitement brimming in her eyes as she sat up straighter on the seat. "I could have my dress brought over."

And even though I had no desire to dress and prepare for a ball of any sort, I smiled back at my best friend and nodded. It was the least I could do after she had given me three weeks worth of chaperoning, regardless of how green she was every time we left Doctor Bray's practice. It seemed to please her and so she fell back against the seat and prattled on for the rest of the way home about who she thought would attend and what matches already seemed to have been made this season. I listened, nodding when necessary and adding my own gossip into the mix, which I had heard from my mother, when required. But mostly I sat and thought about the surgery I had witnessed, about all of Doctor Bray's precise incisions and the pain relieving tonic he had taught me to brew for the patient to consume during the operation. I was trying to remember the steps, to map it out clearly in my mind, when the carriage came to a stop and Silvia and I emerged on my front lawn.