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His head came up. “Ran? From whom?”

She shook her head, the ache in her chest surging at once. “I ran but…not from anybody. Although I have lost him, I’m afraid.”

He sat back a little then, as if stepping away from the paper and closer to the person. “There was a man on the beach who saw you run away?”

“Yes,” she said. The memory of bare feet in sand, of his laugh, slid over her. “Fast. Faster than I remember ever running. The sand gave way but…it also cushioned. It helped the angle of my steps.” She caught herself. “But that is not what I came to ask about.”

He folded his hands on the desk. “Lady Barbara,” he said quietly, “whether you become my patient or not, everything we speak of in this room is private. I shall never repeat your words to anyone—not your mother; not your aunt; not Mrs. Hart. You have my oath.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“So,” he said, voice gentler now. “Do not be afraid to ask. If it concerns the human physique, I will answer as plainly as I can.”

She drew a breath that felt like it scraped her ribs on the way in. “How would I know,” Pepper asked, “if I am barren?”

He did not answer at once. “That is a harsh word,” he said at last. “One I hear more often in drawing rooms than in medical texts.” His mouth pressed into a thoughtful line. After a moment, he rose and went to the bookcase behind him. His fingers moved along the spines, then closed on a thick, well-thumbed volume. He opened it, flipped past several pages, and turned the book so she could see.

“This,” he said, tapping a careful engraving, “is a drawing of the female organs. And this”—he turned the page— “the male.”

She stared at the inked curves and loops, the Latin labels marching dutifully around them. “Am I…missing any?” she asked, before she could stop herself.

A sound almost like a laugh escaped him and was quickly swallowed. “Probably not,” he said dryly. “There is no need to check. In our limited understanding, if your courses arrive regularly, if you are not in constant pain, there is no immediate reason to suspect you cannot conceive.”

“But the other things,” Pepper insisted. “Since the apoplexy. I was very ill. The fever. The limp. My ankle.” The words came out in a rush. “The doctor then said something about…childbed. About ‘uncertainties.’ Mama heard. So did I. It has been…ringing in my head ever since.”

“Yes,” he said. “Your mother told me about the fever and the apoplexy that followed the mumps. There are old notes on the case.” His gaze went briefly, thoughtfully, to her right leg. “The weakness in the limb is a sign the illness once troubled the nerves. That injury, in itself, does not touch the womb.” He arched his brow as if suppressing another thought. “Where my colleagues grow anxious is this: a sickness violent enough to disturb the brain and the leg might in theory have touched other organs also. Might, mind you. Many ladies who suffered the same childhood fever go on to conceive without difficulty. We cannot tell, from your step alone, what your body will decide about children.”

“And my ankle?” she asked, the words catching on the way out. “The mumps. The…fit afterward. Everyone always talks around it as if I might shatter. Does that mean I cannot—” She broke off, color burning in her cheeks. “Have children,” she finished, very low. “Will I ever be able to?”

He closed the book with a soft thud and sat down again. “That,” he said gently, “is the one thing no honest physician will promise to any woman, Lady Barbara—limp or no limp.” He folded his hands. “There could be issues with the way you bear weight, with balance, with fatigue,” he went on more gently. “Childbearing is always a strain on a woman’s body—on every joint and bone, not only the obvious ones. In your case we must be prudent and honest about that strain. But that is risk, Lady Barbara. Not certainty.”

“Risk,” she repeated. The word tasted like metal.

He reached for another, slimmer volume, opened it to a plate of bones and sinew. “The ankle,” he said, tracing the illustration with a blunt finger, “is a busy joint. It carries the body, adjusts for every uneven stone, every step. In your case, the nerves were injured and the muscles learned a different habit. They pull more here, less there.” He tapped the tendons. “But none of this,” he looked up at her again, “is located where a babe might someday grow.”

Pepper felt heat creep up her throat. “The organs I would need,” she said carefully, “to become pregnant. They are…unharmed?”

“There is nothing in your history to say otherwise,” he said. “Nothing certain. There is, I repeat, risk. There is risk for every woman. Our science is not nearly as sure as society pretends to be. Some over-earnest physician may have muttered to your mother out of an abundance of caution. But absent injury there, nobody could swear you barren. Not without proof.”

“Proof,” she echoed faintly.

“Conception,” he said. He colored a little, but he did not look away. “Or difficulty in achieving it. Which we cannot know until you have been some time about—” he cleared his throat “—trying to conceive.”

Her hands knotted in her lap. “Mrs. Hart told me enough,” Pepper said. “About that. Not very poetically,” she added, because if she didn’t say something foolish, she might cry instead.

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Good,” he said. “Better honest than ornamental.”

“But,” she went on, staring hard at the grain in the walnut, “what if I do that. With a husband. As one does. And nothing grows. No child. Then what?”

“Then,” he said slowly, “you and your husband would have hard choices to make, as many do. Adoption. Charities. Niece or nephew taken in. Faith, if you are inclined that way. But you would at least be making those decisions together, from truth, not from fear spun in speculation before anything has been attempted.”

She looked up sharply. “You sound,” she said, “as if you think the fear is…worse than the risk.”

“I think,” Dr. Fernando said, “that a young woman who has survived what you have survived deserves better than to be called ‘unsuitable stock’ by people who never spent a day in her body.”

The words hit her with almost physical force. Mother had indeed told him more than she’d imagined.

Pepper swallowed hard. “You know,” she said. “What they say about me.”