few in that enormous tribe of Sephardic Jews known as the Aguilars truly engaged his heart.
He sometimes wondered if he even had a heart. The only proof to the contrary was his daughter. If anything showed he could still bleed it was Rebecca.
His fingers gripped the quill tightly until it broke. He would give anything to make her well.
He set down the mutilated pen and observed its ninety-degree bend. The question was, had he done right in agreeing to hire Miss Breton for a trial period? His glance strayed to the chair recently vacated by the lady in question. For indeed she was a lady, for all her Quakerish gown and renouncement of the honorific. Every well-modulated word, her very demeanor and bearing, spoke of good breeding. The kind of breeding his family had paid dearly for him to obtain.
Simon sighed, shoving aside the pen. He’d already been through three nurses—a fact he’d deliberately kept from Miss Breton.
At least she presented a more pleasing countenance than the other three, he admitted, recalling the slack-jawed, blank-eyed first nurse; the puckered mouth evidencing a lack of teeth and the greasy gray hair of the second; and the shifty-eyed, lipless third. Miss Breton, by contrast, struck him as neat and self-possessed, in her gray woolen frock with its starched white collar.
Simon picked up a new pen from the inkstand and pulled out a fresh sheet of paper from a drawer. He dipped the pen in ink and wrote Assets on one side and Liabilities on the other, then drew a neat line between the two.
Underneath the column Assets, he wrote in lowercase the word attractive. He’d definitely list that as an asset, thinking it would be beneficial to Rebecca’s well-being that she have a nice-looking nurse instead of an ill-looking one.
Simon went over Miss Breton’s features in his mind’s eye, from the head of frizzy, honey-hued curls that peeked through her plain gray bonnet to her small hands with their tapering fingertips, which she gripped whenever she seemed to refrain from speaking out.
He’d liked her eyes. They were that indeterminate shade between gray, pale blue and sea green. But there was something very forthright in her gaze, giving him a sense that her yea would be yea and her nay, nay.
Not like the last nurse, who’d tried to make him feel better by lying about Rebecca’s condition. Simon rubbed the back of his neck, still feeling the fury of discovering Rebecca with a fever he had not been told about.
He jotted down honesty under the Assets column, then blotted it carefully. After a few seconds, he added a question mark. He must still verify this quality. He would not be fooled a second time.
Yes, Miss Breton’s countenance had been fair—good patrician features, which he’d expected of the sister of Tertius Pembroke, the fourth Earl of Skylar. His mind cataloged them: a straight, well-shaped nose, nice rosy lips, a firm chin and a high, pale forehead. She didn’t look anything like Sky, however. She reminded him more of a country lass, the sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose and the clear gaze evidence of sunshine and fresh air. It was ironic considering she lived in one of the dirtiest parts of London.
He frowned again over the irregularity of her name. Breton? She had explained she was Sky’s half sister. What did she mean by that? The old marquess had remarried? Simon wrote Breton? under Liabilities. He would question Sky about it the next time his friend was in town.
The main drawback to Miss Breton, he concluded, was her religion. A Methodist, she had called herself. He was familiar with the origins of Methodism in the last century under the Wesleys and Whitefield at Oxford. His lip curled in disdain; such a phenomenon would not have occurred at the Newtonian Cambridge, his own alma mater, the home of rationalism and mathematics.
The only trouble with religion, as Simon saw it, was that it was a way for the State to get its hands on hardworking people’s money and place it in the hands of a few of its own class. One of the greatest fights he anticipated taking on someday in Parliament was attacking the entire body of law giving the Church the right to confiscate a tenth of every landowner’s crop and cattle, in an ancient system of tithing.
The far more insidious evil of religion was the havoc it wreaked by the few who actually took it seriously. With them it was all or nothing, the result of which could be seen in the bloody wars and massacres over the continent in the last millennium, the brunt of which so often was felt by his own people.
Miss Breton, Simon could see clearly, fell into this latter category. He added to the Liabilities column: religious fervor. He underscored the word.
Lastly was the question of her nursing skills. They remained to be seen. He had only the word of Skylar—one of the few men he trusted—but still, Simon remained skeptical. He wrote nursing skills at the end of the columns, between the two, and added a question mark.
Althea awoke. She had been dreaming. She had been in the presence of Jesus! She knew it, recalled it vividly, still felt His presence all about her. She had no idea what time it was. Glancing toward the dormer window of her attic room, she saw no sign of light, but sensed it was earlier than her usual predawn time of rising.
She lay back against her pillow, trying to recapture the dream. Jesus had been talking to her; she remembered she’d been un-burdening her heart to Him. He’d been revealing Scriptures to her. Her eyes had been opened, just as had those of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. The Scriptures became so clear and simple when Jesus showed her. What else had He said? She closed her eyes, burying herself deeper in the pillow, not wanting to leave that place where she’d been, wanting to hear more from her Lord.
He’d told her to go to Mayfair, not to be afraid to leave her present life and enter the Aguilar household. He’d said very clearly that it would be her wilderness, but that in obedience she would yield much fruit, for that family belonged to Him.
The last thing she remembered was awaking with a Scripture verse impressed upon her mind. She felt wrapped in the Lord’s love, confident that she could do all things in His strength.
Althea reached toward her bedside table and turned up the lamp. She saw it was just half-past three. In another hour, she would arise at her normal time. There was no sense in trying to get back to sleep. She had been waiting to hear from the Lord ever since she’d left Mr. Aguilar’s residence. She’d spent the intervening days in fasting and prayer, seeking the Lord’s direction. And now He had answered her. She had a keen sense of anticipation as she reached for her Bible. She wrapped herself in her shawl and sat against the pillow and bolster, the Bible against her knees.
She opened to the Book of Ephesians and rustled the pages to get to the second chapter. Her finger traveled down the page until it reached the fourteenth verse. That was the verse the Lord had given her.
“…who hath made us both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.”
Althea continued reading until she completed the chapter, then went back to the beginning and read the entire chapter through. Finally she sat back, her head lying against the pillow. There could be no doubt. The Lord was showing her that Jew and Gentile were considered one in His eyes, and that by His death and resurrection, He had created one new man out of both. She looked back down at the Scriptures, tracing the words with her fingertip as she reread them, feeling as if she were discovering them for the first time—and in a sense, she was:
“…to make in himself of twain one new man…that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby…through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father…ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens
