The jangling ring of the telephone shouted a shrill demand for attention as
Nathan escorted his mother and sister into the house. The Hopkins’ house was brightly lit as they road past; the very first time he’d ever seen a house on that street glowing with full electric illumination. It was harsh, garish … and frightening. His goal was to settle his mother and Miranda then go down immediately to check on Alicia. She was, after all his neighbor and patient, correct? There would be nothing inappropriate about it. And, she’d obviously been served upsetting news; it was the buzz of the picnic after that idiot lawyer of hers had whisked her off. No, no one would think ill of him paying the Widow Hopkins a visit this night.

Miranda, overexcited and running along the hall, gripped the phone receiver and squealed. “Hello? Hello? Who’s talking?”

By the time Nathan took the receiver from her, the ladies at central were debating another way to reach Doctor Booker.

“I’m here, what is it, Sadie?”

“Ah, Doctor, thank heavens. Mrs. Stedler has called and is in immediate need of your services. Mrs. Hopkins has taken a terrible fall down …”

Nathan heard no more, he had grabbed his bag, rushed out the door and down the street, the receiver dangling from its tweed covered cord and Sadie’s voice still pouring from it.

He took the porch steps two at a time and did not even knock. Standing in the entry hall he found Missy, a bloodied wet cloth in her hands and tears in her eyes.

“Where is she?”

“Mr. Stedler carried her upstairs.”

“That idiot moved her? Damn! Where is the blood from?” Nathan was already nearly at the top.

“A small cut on her head.”

Nathan charged into the large bedroom and glared at the man. “Christ, Willie! Why would you move her?” Nathan tugged Mrs. Stedler away from the bed and pushed back a thick wave of Alicia’s hair to view the small cut. The widow was unconscious and he had no idea the extent of damage. Again he raised his scowl the man. “What made you move her?”

William Stedler shrugged, eyed his wife sideways and shrugged again.

“Did I do wrong?” Mrs. Stedler whimpered. “I was so worried for her, doctor. She was so terribly upset.”

As Nathan worked to free Alicia of her clothing Willie Stedler quickly made an exit. “What upset her?” A hundred black satin covered buttons finally loosened and the bodice opened, he tugged at the corset laces and glanced up at the worried woman.

“I don’t know, doctor. After Mr. Meyers left, there was no consoling her! I tried everything, then when I said I would call for you, she … she … she, fell. It was so frightening!” she gasped. “And when it was over, she was unconscious. Hasn’t opened an eye since.”

Finally compassion for the housekeeper washed over him. The Stedler’s were good, caring people and truly not responsible for whatever had distressed Alicia, nor the accident that followed. The older woman was shaking, pale, her rough hands wringing relentlessly. Nathan drew in a breath, stood and spoke far more calmly than his mind wished.

“You’re all upset. Go on, feed your husband and Missy. I won’t need you just now and I will call if you can assist.” The woman was so grateful he thought she’d embrace him, but instead he was offered what looked like an awkward curtsy before she sniffled and left, closing the door behind her.

***

His patient unconscious and Mrs. Stedler gone, Nathan shrugged off all formalities regarding Alicia’s modesty. He feared the worst but sought the best. Her restricting corset loosened and discarded, she could now breathe easily. He moved to the foot of the bed and began a thorough examination. Carefully removing one high button shoe then another, he gently handled the feet and ankles. Determining no injuries there, his hands pushed her voluminous skirts and petticoats high. The pantaloons blocked his visual examination and he quickly tugged them off. One knee was seriously bruised, swollen and hot to the touch. He tenderly manipulated it and watched Alicia’s face. She was awakening, her brow twisted with misery and eyes fluttered. Soon her face had calmed and her breathing was steady. He gently moved his hands to her hips. The drag of a few laces and the skirts and petticoats were quickly slid away and swept to the floor. Nathan covered her with the sheets and proceeded to examine her higher. Fingers trailed along her ribs beneath her chemise.

Alicia groaned and he pressed a palm to her brow. “Hush. You’ve taken a fall. Can you hear me, Alicia?”

She nodded, a good sign as it indicated no neck damage. She blinked and finally focused tear filled eyes on Nathan.

“Hush. Can you roll your shoulders, Alicia?”

Carefully, achingly she did as instructed.

“Now can you raise your right shoulder from the mattress?”

She cried out.

“Alright, easy. Just lie still.” His hands returned to her ribs, skimming along her flesh beneath thin cotton lace, around to the sides, pressing gently and only until she gasped or groaned. So far, he suspected nothing severe. Muscle pulls and aches perhaps, bruises and embarrassment but no permanent spinal damage, no thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Stedler’s good intentions.

His hands moved to press lightly against her clavicle then slid to the center and pushed a light pressure against her sternum … and Nathan’s heart suddenly skipped and stopped, stuttered and surged. Had he felt what he thought he felt? Was that the warm slide of metal against his wrist?

As calmly as he could, he slid the chemise up higher and higher until it exposed her breasts.

Yes.

He’d felt exactly what he thought he felt.

Not looking into his patient’s eyes, not responding to her aching sob, he replaced the lacy cotton and dragged at the sheets, pulling them up from her ankles he slid a palm along the inside of her thigh. Slowly, hoping he was wrong and nearly aborting his intention more than once, he inched his way higher until his fingertips did in fact encounter the ring of gold attached to the lip of her sex.

With clinical efficiency, he dragged the sheet to cover Alicia’s legs and ran a hand down his jaw. He turned to the window, blinked in hope of control. Leaning his hands to the sill, his head dropped and he gulped air. Nathan’s brain was afire, enflamed with so many emotions and images he could hardly breathe. But he had seen and felt and touched the facts.

The woman was pinned. The woman he had hopelessly fallen in love with, had achingly held himself to decorum for, had wished to take as wife … was pinned … a whore of the highest … and most desperate standing. Alicia Hopkins was a slave. The property of the Magnolia Men’s Club, and as he digested the realities of her life, how she must have escaped from it all and the ramifications of her existence there in Farmington … he came to wonder at his growing feelings of distaste and repulsion.

What sin was this of hers? Her only failure was to have been born beautiful and most likely poor. His thoughts slid over how she must have gained her intellect, what variety of affluent men had spoken in her presence, unknowingly teaching her things beyond the service of her body or the walls of the Club. She spoke well, held herself with grace and dignity and she had also held her secret deeper than Nathan could have imagined. How else would he have ever known of her … sin?

Her sin. The tiny word seared and clawed at his sensibilities, at his soul, at his very heart for … her sin was unavoidable and he could not even imagine the courage it had taken to escape her enslavement. No, it was not Alicia’s sin that was sickening him … for was it not a bigger sin and his alone that Nathan Booker knew and understood the meaning of the metal rings that bound her to the Magnolia Men’s Club?

Clearing his throat, he blinked. Outside the window he had seen nothing, responded to nothing of the night songs of crickets or barn cats or the stars mocking him with winking eyes. What Nathan was seeing and struggling to accept was all he knew of what Alicia had endured … everything he understood now of the curtained darkness that had closed to him off from the secrets behind her eyes. The secrets. What was he to do with her secrets?

***

A steamy hot, August Saturday in New York City found Doctor Morgan Bower seeking escape from the oppression of his workload and the teaming city. That very morning he had performed one successful operation and assisted in another; the first would unfortunately prevent a young man from siring children, but the patient would survive a while longer, the growing malignancy within a testicle removed. The second operation was folly, performed along side a surgeon well known for his experimental strategies, Doctor Jonas McKenna. Many sought McKenna as a last resort in the most dire of cases. Only the wealthiest could afford to place their precarious lives in the man’s hands. Many times he was successful, most times not, but it was the way of the research.

Morgan met Dr. McKenna years earlier when his dear friend since the days of university medical studies, Nathan Booker had tracked down the eminent risk taker to discuss his sister’s damaged brain. Morgan never thought he would associate with a man the likes of McKenna. The Hippocratic Oath demands that they ‘do no harm’ and even as he washed his hands of the surgery in which he had assisted McKenna that very day, he again wondered how much harm the man actually did. The balance was precarious. The lessons learned in the sacrifice of one woman’s life under McKenna’s knife was likely to save several women’s lives down the road. Would Morgan ever venture his own talents and skills to make such strides? Was he as dedicated to the future of medicine? He did not suspect so.

Morgan Bower enjoyed being what one might call a ‘safe’ physician. He cared deeply for his patients; had built a large and profitable practice among the affluent of New York and had done so by referring his patients to the expertise and experiments of other, riskier doctors to protect himself. He was a ‘safe’ doctor … except for once and only once … he was always a physician committed to doing no harm.

He walked the shadiest paths of Central Park, hoping for a breeze, respite from the weighty summer heat. He thought to take to his house in Cape May for a time. He had several patients scheduled for various operations over the coming weeks, but none were extremely pressing and the patients would experience faster, more effective recovery in cooler weather.

A grin spread across his face as his eye caught the sway of an attractive, pale yellow bustled hip. Lowering to a bench Morgan drew in a deep breath and permitted his eyes to savor the vision, his mind to slip and slide to the dark places of his manhood, of his mind, of his senses. As the lovely creature turned the bend and disappeared from sight, he wondered if the cool breezes of the sea or the passionate heat of the Magnolia Men’s Club would serve him best at this time. Or … perhaps both?

With a spring in his step he walked to his offices on Forth Avenue. He took the elevator and strolled the dim, marble hall toward the door boasting his name in gold leaf lettering. It was his intention to rearrange all of his appointments to allow for a month long holiday. Well earned and desperately needed, he mentally justified. But as he reached for the door he heard voices inside. Men were speaking to his stoic, elderly secretary and she was adamantly refusing to cooperate.

“Mrs. Coleman,” said one man patiently, “this is a murder investigation. The police will soon arrive to look at Dr. Bower’s records anyway. It will only expedite things if you open the files for us now.”

“I most certainly will do nothing of the kind! And I will thank you to leave this office. This is a doctor’s place of business, gentlemen … and you are disturbing the patients!”

“Mrs. Coleman,” groaned another male grumble and the old woman’s voice became shrill.

“I will however tell Dr. Bower that you called and have him contact you … at his convenience! Now, good day, gentlemen!”

Morgan had barely slid around the bend and into an empty office before the frustrated men left his office. His heart was racing and his mind churned. A murder investigation? Police? The men were quite possibly attorneys for the prosecution. There was only one murder Morgan knew, and knew intimately about. Leaving New York was no longer a frivolous luxury … leaving New York was now a dire necessity.

He remained silent in the empty office for several hours, until he heard the last of his disappointed and untreated patients leave the building and the final clunk of the lock as good Mrs. Coleman too had chosen to make her way home. Many times he was held long at the hospitals and no one would question his absence that afternoon.

In the growing darkness, he immediately slipped into his own office and moved like the wind through his files. It was nearly dawn before he had finished manufacturing everything needed to keep him clear of Thornton Gallows’ death … on paper. Manipulated documentation now showed that Morgan Bower was not in Pittsburgh, nowhere near Allegheny City and far from Thornton Gallows when he died. But he knew that paper was only part of his protection. Morgan needed more.

Oh yes, he would be leaving town … but not for Pittsburgh or Cape May. Morgan Bower was catching the earliest train to Farmington, Pennsylvania.

***

Breath came to Nathan like a sudden wind. Finally, he had purged his mind of every image that had so abruptly stolen his senses. Images of soft, fair, bruising flesh, screams of pain and ecstasy, seeping sex and the scents of sweat and musk, fine cigars and finer whisky. Images of intentional and unintentional injuries he had witnessed and been pressed upon to treat … and all within the walls of the Magnolia Men’s Club. Shame blazed his face red and again he ran a hand down the stubble of his jaw. He could not … would not … absolutely refused to condemn or criticize Alicia. And if it was his intention to help her, he must also set aside his sickening disapproval of himself. He finally sighed and turned to his patient.

Nathan pulled a chair close to the bed and sat. Tears covered her face and her eyes were lowered in terror and indignity. Again Nathan sighed and spoke as gently as he could.

“Alicia, if you wish, I will remove your pins.”

Her heart raced, had she heard correctly? Her worse fears had been confirmed; Nathan clearly understood what the rings meant, already knew of her disgrace and there was nothing to be done for it. She had lost his amorous attention, would never regain it. Ever.

But, his voice was so kind; his offer, astounding. Nathan would never love her, but should he do as he offered … someday … perhaps someone would love her. She slowly raised her eyes to look into his.

Within the sweet blue he saw so many things. All she had held hidden poured into his heart through her eyes. Did she know what he was offering? Did she understand the risk to her and himself? And was she aware that life after that moment would never again be the same genteel, pretentious existence? Not for her and not for him.

Listening to the sadness of her soul, hearing it spoken directly into his already aching chest, Nathan understood that even if she did not understand the risks … Alicia would accept it all for her true freedom. He drew in a deep breath and released it slowly, commanded his fingers to cease trembling, his heart to steady and his mind to clear. He repeated his question. “Alicia … if you wish …I will remove your pins.”

“Yes, Nathan. I wish for you to remove my pins.” It was so soft, almost less than a whisper, the sound of a desperate hummingbird’s wings and Nathan nodded.

He opened his bag and removed the tools he would need. Narrow sharp cutters, tweezers, pure alcohol, gauze. He went to the washroom and lathered his hands, rubbing them together under hot water mindlessly, thinking of nothing, treating the coming procedure as he would any other; necessary and important for the comfort and safety of his patient … his patient … his patient. His eyes rose to the mirror and he felt his knees weaken.

Alicia. His Alicia. He was about to save her from ever facing such a perilous life again. He rinsed his hands and lathered again, mechanical movements unnecessary under the circumstances as this was not an operation. But the activity would hopefully calm his fevered mind. His Alicia. Practicality was important but appropriateness must be respected. He would have her remove her black mourning that very next day and marry her within weeks. It could be acceptable. It would have to be. Her name would become Booker, her house would be sold and she would live safely in his house, with his mother and sister, within his world.

Rinsing and again lathering his hands, Nathan sighed, finally finding peace in his being. It may be a very abrupt change for Alicia, but it was fully necessary.

When he returned to her bedside she was again blushing with shame. Her face was turned away and he moved efficiently, raising the lace chemise to expose the pierced nipple. He sat and leaned close, examined the thickness of the metal, the exact place of the impaled ring. “You will not be able to nurse a child at this breast, Alicia,” he said calmly, tugging the metal gently to place the blades safely before bracing for the first cut.

The gold snapped and jerked at her flesh, it hurt and stimulated and Alicia gasped quietly.

“One more cut and it is finished here.” The next snap caused her to cry out softly as he pulled the ring free and quickly pressed alcohol soaked gauze to the now opened lesion. His finger and thumb pressed at the nipple and again she sobbed. When he finally checked beneath the gauze, he sighed.

“Good, this is good.” He covered the small wound and did something he did not expect to do. His palm slowly reached for her averted face and turned her to him. His lips gently brushed hers. “Almost finished, my dear. Hush now.”

Shocked at his own actions, he cleared his throat and stood, almost shaking like a soaked dog to brush off the unbelievable mixture of emotion and professional intensity. He did not apologize. He could not, Nathan was not sorry; he was only seeking control to complete the task.

“Now, Alicia. This will require you to move and I know you are uncomfortable after the fall.” He gripped her hips, careful of the damaged knee, and shifted her body, sliding her to the bottom edge of the mattress. There he set her knees high, braced by her feet and he looked up into her face. “I know this knee is painful and we will care for it as soon as this is done.” Without looking at him, her head nodded. He heard her sniffle and felt badly for her. Before raising the sheets, Nathan took a moment to reach up and grip her hand. “Hush, my dear. Hush.”

Her heart was breaking. No matter the reprimands she bestowed in her head, the fact that she was a twenty-first century woman; comfortable with her sexuality, well experienced with gynecological examinations and had never been ashamed to expose her body to doctor or lover … she was still shaking with fear and disappointment. Was there another way to have had the pins eliminated? She could not think of it. Her decadent and sinful past now fully exposed to the man she respected most and loved completely was overwhelming, all encompassing. His tender kiss, most likely offered to calm her shuddering flesh and nothing more, had only served to emphasize not only what she will soon have, real freedom from the Club … but what she will not have, Nathan Booker.

And as she held her breath, she felt his fingers move to her sex, wished it was for another reason, a reason that would fulfill her and make her whole. The gentle tug of the ring, the sudden snap of the metal … the soothing sound of his encouraging voice. This time she had to listen, to focus to permit his comfort, for this ring was terribly painful, the flesh tender, raw and delicate.

“Hush, Alicia.”

And the final crack of metal before the sharp pain of the ring releasing her forever. Again he pressed stinging alcohol soaked gauze, again he held it firm and again he sighed relief before sealing the second opened wound. “It’s done,” he announced and carefully slid her back up to the pillow.

Without fanfare he jingled the rings in his palm. “Where is the chain, Alicia?” He spoke softly, as though the question might cause her more pain. She silently pointed to the small trunk in the corner of the room. Nathan rummaged through the items, retrieving the chain with a hissing jangle and adding it to his palm. He then stoked the fire in her hearth, poked the wood and added another log before unceremoniously dropping the ring and chain to melt into oblivion. He turned, his face pale but eyes intense and focused.

“And now, let me tend to your knee.”

***

The train derailed in the mountainous regions of northern Pennsylvania. The shocking upheaval and shrieking sound of metal wheels escaping iron rails tossed cars toward the precarious cliffs; rolling passengers and baggage, fine china and silk brocade chairs. Rich and poor alike rolled in a whirlwind of terror and screams. When the universe came to an abrupt stop amidst cries and groans and sobs, it took several long moments for anyone to gather their wits and take a serious perusal of the damage.

It was nearly dark and far from any town. Morgan Bower found himself still alive and forced to change his focus from personal legal protection … to a doctor bound by oath and heart to care for the many broken and bleeding passengers until help could be reached and brought. At least for the time being, no police or attorneys were likely to find him. But, even in such a dire situation, it was always best to be prudent. He stood, tested his limbs and assured of no injury, moved to seek someone in charge.

“I’m Doctor Wesley Harper of New York. How may I assist?” Morgan said to the railroad attendant holding a bloodied bandana to his brow and gasping at the disaster all around.