The Adventures Of Dodger And His Lady
CHAPTER 2 - Burned Jodhpurs
Two weeks after the cholera outbreak
“Well done, Hetty. Had it not been for your quick thinking and skills Sneed and The Inspector would’ve kicked the bucket long before we got to them,” Jack said as he left the two injured noblemen in their ward. In the absence of Jack and Belle the morning after a cure for cholera was found, Hetty was the only one with ample medical knowledge remaining in the hospital, what with the Prof turning out to be a serial killer, Sneed being stabbed by said serial killer, and Inspector Boxer nearly losing his leg because said serial killer also decided to stomp on his bad knee. Jack almost went back to ensure the prof stayed dead after all the damage he inflicted.
“I have Belle to thank for that,” came Hetty’s reply with a satisfied and somewhat proud smile on her face.
Jack glanced at her once as if to check if she was being serious. “That’s impossible, Belle was with me all night.”
“Yes, I bet she was.” Hetty rolled her eyes, fixing him with a teasing, pointed look.
A boyish grin overtook Jack’s features as he looked away, all bashful and giddy. “That is hardly relevant.” When he faced Hetty again, he couldn’t help the red warmth creeping up his neck and face. He cleared his throat, trying to regain civility. “Are you saying Belle taught you how to treat stab wounds and a shattered knee?”
“Of sorts... During times when you and her were— let's say having disagreements— she taught me enough to stabilise the patient until further help arrives. Thankfully, you showed up a few hours after I helped Sneed and the Inspector. Next, Belle insists on training me to do more… basic surgically inclined first aid.”
Jack closed his gaping mouth quickly. “Bloody hell, I think I just fell more in love with her.”
Hetty patted Jack on the shoulder. “Perfect timing.” She lifted her gaze pointedly to the entrance of the hospital where Lady Belle had just waltzed in, then mouthed a ‘good luck’ at him before walking away to tend to other patients in the hospital.
As soon as Belle was close enough Jack pulled her in. “Belle,” he sighed, wrapping his arms round her tightly. He breathed in her scent, allowing himself to relax in her embrace.
“And hello to you too. Is everything alright?” Belle sounded confused but pleased by the open show of affection.
Jack held her at arms length, eyes boring into her. “I can’t believe you’ve been training Hetty how to handle emergencies if neither of us are available, you exceptional woman.”
A brilliant smile like the light of dawn breaking over the Thames transformed Belle’s countenance. At least that was what it felt like to Jack. “So it worked? Hetty’s initial first aid preserved them long enough for the late surgery? Are they in good condition?” She beamed when Jack nodded. “Hetty truly is one of the most knowledgeable women I have ever met. Her years of experience here at the hospital enable her to pick things up quickly! I thought it would be foolish for our nurses– especially our head nurse– to not have extensive knowledge that would be crucial in our absence. You should’ve done this sooner though.” Belle elbowed him in the side gently.
Jack took the opportunity to interlock her arm with his so that her hand held onto him as they walked side by side. “In my defence, I didn’t think I'd be spending my nights anywhere else besides at the hospital, much less in the room of the governor’s daughter.”
“Shhh!” Belle smacked his arm. “Do you want to tarnish the image of a Lady?”
“Ah, but Milady's image cannot be tarnished if it is her fiancé teasing her.”
Belle narrowed her eyes teasingly. “Fiancé? What fiancé?” And with that she briskly walked away in the direction of Sneed and Inspector Boxer’s hospital room.
Jack was immediately jogging behind her, hot on her trail. “See, now you’re just jesting.”
“I don’t remember you proposing, Jack,” Belle said playfully. “You merely have my mother’s blessing to marry me. I don’t recall you doing anything about it.”
That effectively made Jack stop in his tracks. He didn’t, did he? All this time he had been flirting around with her calling her his wife in and out of the comfort of their bed, and yet he didn’t do the single most important thing besides marriage that would make her his officially. Certainly he knew she was just bantering with him like him and her always did, but it still didn’t change the fact that he, Jack Dawkins, the most remarkable and knowledgeable doctor of his day who almost never misses the little details, forgot this one significant little thing.
“Jack, are you coming? Sneed’s awake.” Belle called, smiling at him over her shoulder. She was waiting for him outside of Sneed and Boxer’s ward. She was waiting for him. She always chose him over and over again. It was a realisation that Jack had many times and yet it still jolted his heart awake like being shocked by electric currents. Oh, he was going to have to up the ante.
The hospital doors burst open. Tim came rushing in. “Red’s ill. She needs you or Belle there. No carriages, no officials. Not a word of this to the others. I’ll have horses waiting out back in ten minutes. Hurry!”
Jack and Belle shared a look before sprinting into action.
A while ago, Belle had brought with her a spare set of clothes that she kept in Jack’s room in case of a wardrobe emergency that had her clothes soiled or ruined. Specifically, riding trousers. Jodhpurs, her mother had called them. However, much to her dismay as she held up the cream coloured pants to eye level, she found a gaping hole right in the middle. Its edges were blackish brown like someone had burned right through it. Someone who wasn’t even in the building at that moment but still had her yelling.
Belle had seen her fidgeting with one of Tim’s latest machinery experiments two days ago; A clothes iron, he called it. It was an innovation already known among the general public but not yet implemented practically besides the old method of steaming clothes manually. She should’ve known the girl would have gotten curious and volunteered to test out the contraption… on Belle’s Jodhpur’s nonetheless. It was known now what was the outcome of that little experiment.
Belle groaned in frustration. There was no time for her to go back home and change, given how urgent Tim’s voice sounded. She even considered just ruching up her dress around her legs and riding off into the wind, but just the thought of it felt uncomfortable. Nevertheless, when has anything in the field of medicine been comfortable? Belle rummaged through the rickety old cupboard once more to see if she had misplaced any of her other riding trousers among Jack’s clothes. Nothing. Then she spotted it. A spare set of Jack’s clothes— a linen shirt, navy blue waistcoat, and brown trousers— tucked away in the corner, looking mostly new and untouched.
“Is everything alright in there, Lady Belle?” came Hetty’s voice from the other side of the door.
Belle’s lips curled in a mischievous smile. “It is now.”
“Hetty, I'm trusting you to handle the hospital in my absence. If there is any emergency while I’m gone send Fagin to look for me immediately. And Fagin…” Jack looked at him warily. “Just don’t do anything illegal. At least while I’m not around.”
Fagin shrugged. “You have so very little faith in me, Jack. You know I’m a man of me word.” He then proceeded to chug medicinal alcohol.
Jack pinched the bridge of his nose and cast an apologetic look at Hetty. “Drug him if you have to.”
“I don’t think it's advisable for you to leave the hospital unattended, Jack,” Hetty said, wiping the brow of a patient who had woken up in a cold sweat.
“Well, I won’t let Belle carry the weight of the world on her shoulders, I should be there in the event that she might need me…” then he added quietly to himself, a twinge of guilt nicking at his heart. “Unlike last time.”
Jack turned around to see Belle walking down the stairs and felt his heart almost jump out of his throat to see her for itself. She was dressed in trousers, with a faded off white linen shirt neatly tucked into it, perfectly tied together with the waistcoat over her body… his clothes. And damn her, did she look criminally good in it.
“Jack?” Belle snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Are you even listening to me?”
“What? Yes. Yes, I am listening. What were you saying?”
Hetty held a laugh back as she pressed her lips together and pretended to be busy with something else while Fagin snickered openly, making off handed comments under his breath.
Belle put her hands on her hips and smirked. Her perfectly accentuated hips... Christ, he was almost bloody hypnotised. Jack felt like he’d need her to slap him like she did when he broke out of prison if he wanted to stay sober despite the drunkenness the mere sight of her caused. Would Tim mind a few minutes of delay if he pulled Belle away to that ginormous cupboard he often hid inside with her?
“Pull yourself together you fool,” he heard Belle’s voice in his head.
What she really lectured him about was, “I was saying, Hetty’s right. You need to stay here and take care of the hospital. What if something dire happens in your absence? The people here in Port Victory need their doctors and you’re the only one left at the moment.”
Her words effectively snapped him out of his trance. “Absolutely not. I cannot, in good conscience, just let you venture out looking like… like…”
“If I knew all it took for me to shut you up was cheekybones in men’s trousers I would have done that a long time ago.”
“Shut up, Fagin,” said Jack and Belle at the same time.
Jack quickly turned her away by the elbow. “Belle, please,” he said, his voice strained and quiet as he put some distance between them and the others for much needed privacy. “You know what I mean. I am undone by the mere sight of you. Take me with you.”
“Jack…” Belle sighed, unable to keep herself from grinning. He pulled her in by the waist, hands going momentarily still when he felt the slender dip of her hips beneath the fabric of the trousers. “Now, you know I love you, but I need you to stow away your jealousy and possessiveness for another day. This is serious!”
“You are serious. Seriously maddening.” Jack knew better than anyone in the colony that fighting a firmly resolved Belle was a losing game. But he had to at least try!
An incredulous laugh left her lips as Belle pulled him down by the back of his neck to kiss him briefly. Her fingers ran through his hair and Jack almost lost all concept of the world around him until she pulled away, still smiling.
Jack sighed. “Good luck, doctor.” The title rolled off his lips with ease like it belonged to her as much as her name did. And most importantly, it made her smile all proud and bashful at the same time.
“I’ll see you soon,” Belle replied, resting her head on his for a second before pulling away.
Jack followed her to the back door of the hospital, leaning against its frame as he watched Tim saddle two horses, one for himself and one for Belle. “Take care of her,” he called out to Tim. “I’ll hunt you down if you’re not back at the hospital after sundown. I mean it. Just please… don’t let her get hurt.”
“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of my own safety, Jack,” Belle huffed fondly as she mounted her horse. “But thank you.”
“And you’re sure you have everything you need? Supplies? Saline mixture in case it's cholera?” Jack hesitated. He checked her supplies as he spoke. “Me?”
Belle rolled her eyes. “One thing, actually.” When Jack met her gaze, she pulled him closer by the knotted cravat round his neck as she leaned down as far as she could from her horse, to kiss him slowly and deeply. Jack returned the kiss fervently, pouring his feelings into every time his lips touched hers until he was breathless. He looked back at her with eyes that shone with wonder and adoration. It wasn’t until Belle shook a piece of cloth in front of him that he noticed that she had nicked his cravat as she was kissing him. She gave him a smug look as she tied it round her head.
“Don’t let Fagin know you’re getting good at stuff only the dodger would do,” Jack said, hand still holding hers as his thumb traced little circles on her wrist.
“It’s not stealing if I’m taking it from my fiancé,” Belle retorted, repeating his words from earlier that day. Jack’s face grew warm at the name she addressed him as. Fiance. Soon, he resolved to make it much more than just a name they teased each other with. “Besides,” Belle continued, “Can’t have people suspecting that the governor’s daughter is cross dressing as a man.”
“Any minute now, ladies and dodger,” came Tim’s exasperated voice already some feet away.
“What, am I not enough of a gentleman to be addressed as such?” Jack called back to Tim, trying to be witty until he looked back at the love of his life and sighed. He still hadn’t let go of her hand. “Come home to me soon… for my sake. Please.”
“I’ll miss you too, Jack.” Belle replied instead, detangling their interlocked fingers. She blew him one last kiss before she was gone, riding off into the Australian heat behind Tim.
“And she said she’d return to me soon but the sun has already set and those hospital doors remain undisturbed,” Jack said, swirling the barely touched brandy in his bottle. He had taken a sip or two of the liquid, but kept getting distracted thinking Belle had returned from her journey.
“And pray tell, why the devil are you telling me that, Dawkins?” Sneed groused, throwing his arm over his eyes. “And put the alcohol down, you cannot treat patients like that.”
“What patients?” Jack replied rather forlornly. “The only day I decide to be a proper gentleman and follow the orders of my lady because as always, she is wise beyond her years and was right about abrupt emergencies at the hospital needing me— One day, Rainsford! And that ends up being the only day the hospital stays clear of any new incidents. Can you believe it?”
“Why must you torment me so when Inspector Boxer is only two beds away and more than capable of listening to you griping about—”
“Belle was taken,” Tim’s voice came rushing into the room like a sudden breeze. Jack instantly sprang to his feet. “Her mother had guards waiting to take her home as soon as we entered town. Frightening woman she is, Belle’s mother.”
A small part of irrational fear was put to rest knowing it was only her mother and not anyone worse. Once upon a time, even her mother taking her away like that would send him in a flustered panic. “Now why the bloody hell would she do that?”
“Have you considered the possibility that she’s still cautious because her daughter’s fiance is an ex-convict?”
“Sod off, Rainsford!” Jack paced. “I’ll just have to go to her then.”
“Good luck with that.” Sneed scoffed, closing his eyes to attempt summoning a semblance of sleep again. “Lady Jane governs the estate with strict propriety.”
“That has never stopped him before.” Inspector Boxer murmured from his side of the hospital room.
Jack let the troublesome curl of his lips respond for him and soon he was out the door in haste.
Belle didn’t change out of Jack’s clothes despite the disapproving look her mother gave her when she arrived back home. Instead, she paced the floor of her bedroom wondering what she should do next. She had promised Jack that she’d see him as soon as she was done with whatever was happening with Red. It turned out that it wasn’t even Redfordshire who needed medical attention but a younger frail looking woman who was wailing with tremendous discomfort in her stomach. Belle still couldn’t believe what had transpired after she had examined the woman.
There was no knock, no creaking door. Just Jack crossing the threshold of her balcony and into her room as quiet and nimble as a cat. Belle was seldom startled by the regularity of his actions. “Are you aware that bets are being freely laid by your mothers guards as to whether I shall dare to intrude upon your chamber every night?”
“Jack!” Belle crossed her room in three long strides, throwing her arms around his neck.
Jack’s arms tightened round her waist as he rocked her slowly in his embrace. One of his hands went to the back of her head. “I missed you today.” His voice was muffled against her neck, but she could tell he wasn’t exaggerating a single word. “Missed you harping on about scientific medicinal terms and procedures from your books and mumbling to yourself in Latin. I seemed to miss everything about you, even the faint chamomile fragrance that sometimes lingers when you enter a room. Belle, what have you done to me?”
Belle laughed softly, pulling back so she could look in his eyes. “My apologies for grieving you as greatly as this.”
Finally, Jack’s smile matched hers. “I see you didn’t change out of my clothes.” He let his eyes trail down her figure, taking his time to admire how she looked in his trousers and shirt, now half untucked. “You know, I’m starting to think you took them with no intention of returning them back.”
“They’re comfortable, and I look better in them anyway,” Belle teased.
“Damn right about that.” Jack said, pulling her closer by the waistband of her trousers. “You almost drove me to insanity dressed like that. Did you intend to kill me?”
“If I did, then I wouldn’t be able to kiss you like this.” Belle cupped his jaw to bring him down to her waiting lips. Her heart did the strangest of flips when she heard him sigh into the kiss. “I’m beginning to think you should wear my clothes more often,” Jack rasped, making her grin against his lips. She had the greatest thing she had ever wanted, holding her in his arms, kissing her like she was the only woman in the world. That kind of feeling was addicting, and she had to force herself to pull away for air.
“I need to tell you about Red,” Belle said breathlessly. She pulled him to sit on her bed beside her. “You’ll be nothing short of astounded.”
“Is she alright? No fatalities?”
“Oh, she is more than alright. In fact, it was one of the women in her community that needed medical assistance— she’s fine too, don’t worry.”
Jack looked at her confused. This only spurred on Belle’s excitement, her eyes wide and still in shock at what she experienced as she recounted all that she saw.
“The woman was pregnant?” Jack gaped at her. “And she didn’t know at all?”
Belle shook her head. “She told me she was having her regular menstrual cycle so it did not even occur to me that she was with child. Her stomach had not swollen all that much either. None of the mid-wives knew what to make of it.”
“What? That is highly impossible.”
“And yet I saw it happen with my own eyes.” Belle started pacing again as she got to the main part of her encounter. “Jack, I was exceedingly startled and for one terrifying moment I thought she might die with how much she was wailing in pain. But then her water broke.”
“I cannot believe you witnessed such a— such a miracle! It’s nothing short of that. There’s no science to explain it… for now,” Jack said enthusiastically, beaming in pride at how well Belle handled such a great ordeal by herself. “I take it the mother and the baby are fairing well?”
“Babies, Jack. She had twins. Beautiful, healthy, darling baby girls.” Belle remembered how she felt her eyes fill to the brim until tears rolled down her cheeks at what she had seen. Those emotions still lingered in her chest hours later. Jack lifted their intertwined fingers to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of her hand, a silent gesture of support and adoration. “The woman asked— well more like, Red threatened me to keep it a secret between me and her and with additional permission, you. So we cannot tell anyone about this.”
“Understandably so… if this gets out, a church run by Darius would probably classify it as either witchcraft or another virgin birth,” Jack rolled his eyes in disgust as he leaned back on one of the pillows till he was lying down. Belle threw herself on the bed beside him. The silence that followed was welcome, encouraging the two to get closer to each other, till Belle rested her head on Jack’s chest. The steady thumping of his heart soothed her own.
“I’m so proud of you,” Jack said, kissing the top of her head. “You must’ve been brilliant to witness in person.”
“Hmm,” Belle sighed in agreement. “Though it would have been wonderful to have you by my side just… anchoring me.” She leaned her arms on his chest, lifting her head to look at him. His eyes were drowsy with the onset of sleep. She had been noticing that he always slept quicker and deeper when he had her in his arms. “I’ll always need you, Jack.”
Jack kissed her forehead, tracing the light dusting of freckles on her cheeks.
“And I you, my beloved. Always.”
vaporwave
germansingergirl
ellievsbear
