Aether Spirit

Chapter 1-1

1

Fort Daniels, Tennessee, 22 February 1871

Am I seeing a ghost?

Doctor Chadwick Radcliffe couldn’t take his eyes off the young woman who had just pushed through Distillery Hospital’s pitted wooden doors. She looked and moved so much like Claire—his Claire—down to how she shook the water out of her umbrella with three open-shut pulses. The watery light dulled her copper penny hair, but she still had the one wisp that wouldn’t stay contained in her simple hairstyle, and she wore the same rectangle-rimmed spectacles that gave her blue-gray eyes and oval face an air of perpetual curiosity.

He shook his head. It was just fatigue and the fact he had been back in the Union States for a month and hadn’t heard anything of Claire’s whereabouts in spite of repeated letters and telegrams to his contacts in Boston. Six years had passed since the accident. What were the chances her appearance hadn’t changed? He looked back at the young woman, expecting her to have transformed into someone unfamiliar, but she glanced around, her bottom lip between her teeth in her habitual thinking expression.

An accidental resemblance, then. His Claire would never have ventured so close to an active front, one of the few left in this stalemate between the Union States and Confederate States. Her family would never have allowed their precious daughter and niece so close to danger. He motioned to one of the nurses, who approached with swishing skirts.

“Yes, Doctor Radcliffe?”

“Find out who that young woman is and what she wants. She doesn’t belong here, must have made a wrong turn in town and gotten lost.”

The nurse’s huff caught his attention. Ah, right, Nanette. The dark-haired beauty had paid extra attention to him since he arrived, but he’d ignored her. His heart was spoken for, although it would kill his beloved to claim it.

Nanette returned with an amused expression. “She says her name is Doctor Claire McPhee. She’s the neuroticist sent by the University of Pennsylvania to help the soldiers recover from their mental wounds.” Her mouth twisted around the word, “neuroticist”.

Chad forced his hands to unclench, but not because of his hatred for neuroticists, who had been instrumental in keeping her away from him so her injured psyche could repair itself. It was her. She had arrived to find him completely unprepared.

“She asked for the chief of medicine. I told her it’s you.”

“I guess I am.”

Dammit.

The former chief had accidentally crossed the border too close to a Fort Temperance sniper. That was how things went these days—few battles, but they picked each other off whenever they had the chance. As Chad was the only other physician there at the time—Perkins having been on a much-delayed leave—Chad had assumed the chief position. For some reason, the powers that be decided to keep him there in spite of Perkins’s objections when he’d returned two weeks later.

Chad approached Claire with what he hoped was a professional air, but his heart beat a charged tattoo in his ribs. Would she recognize him? Would it injure her to do so? What did he hope would happen?

Above all, he didn’t want to hurt her.

Claire studied him with her intense gaze under a slight frown, although without a flicker of recognition.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He swallowed the lump in his throat and resisted the urge to tuck that stray strand behind her ear.

“I’m Doctor Chadwick Radcliffe, the chief of medicine. How can I help you?”

Again, nothing except an odd, measuring gaze. “I’m Doctor Claire McPhee,” she finally said. Instead of holding out her hand for him to take it, she rubbed at her right temple with two fingers. She wore tan kid gloves that screamed “city girl”.

“What brings you to Fort Daniels and Distillery Hospital? Were you looking for Danielsville? It’s just over the ridge.”

“I just came from Danielsville. Is that what you call this place—Distillery Hospital?” She grinned, and her careless amusement—the same that had attracted him to her in the first place—nearly doubled him over with grief.

Instead he straightened his spine. “Beggars can’t be choosers when you’re on a war front.” His statement came out as a growl, but he had to get away from her before he accidentally damaged her. Or shredded his heart further.

“True.” She took a deep breath, and he knew she was about to try to convince him of something. “I suppose you got my telegram? Well, not mine. The one about me. To you, the medical director.”

“No. It’s possible one arrived, but we’ve had some personnel changes.”

“I see.” Another breath—even under her prim jacket he could see the movements of her chest—and she launched into her spiel. “I’m here on a grant through the University of Pennsylvania to work with soldiers who show signs of nervous disease like nightmares, feeling like they’re back in the situation, being easily startled, memory problems…” She rattled off a list of symptoms, and Chadwick had to remind himself to pay attention to her words, not her full lips. Plus, she described most of the young men who were there, their minds as broken as their bodies after years of tense anticipation punctuated with brief skirmishes.

“Did your superiors realize they were sending you into a war zone?” he asked and gestured around him. “It’s dangerous—one well-aimed shell from just over the border, and we’re toast. Plus, we don’t have private consulting rooms here, just a surgery suite, and it’s not someplace that will speak of comfort to a soldier.”

“Oh, I recognize that, and they knew. Sometimes you don’t have much to lose, you know?”

Her question, more than anything, tore his heart. What did she mean? He knew her father had died, but wasn’t her mother still alive? And her evil aunt, Eliza, who adored Claire to the point of wanting to make her life perfect, at least according to Eliza’s desires?

“Not really,” he said, hoping she’d elaborate.

Instead, she pressed on. “The grant is to find out if we can make a difference with sympathetic conversation rather than procedures, which is the European model, and you probably know better than I how mental healing can promote physical healing.”

More than you know. The elbow he’d landed on when he was thrown from the steamcart had refused to heal completely. It still ached on rainy days like this one, as did his heart.

She waved a hand in front of his face. He’d drifted again, dammit. Perhaps he had some of the symptoms she’d come here to help the soldiers with, but he’d never admit to them.

“I’m sorry, Doctor Radcliffe, but does my being here bother you? I know neuroticists still have a poor reputation in the medical world, but this work is important. This war is too close to finally being over to lose soldiers to their worst fears.”

And I can’t sacrifice these boys to my fears. Or the mistakes they made with her. “Fine, Doctor McPhee. I can find you a spot for your work, but every soldier you treat has to be medically cleared. By me personally. I won’t let you damage them physically by digging around in their psyches.”

“That’s fine.” Her eyebrows curved above the rims of her glasses. “Well, then, I promise I won’t get in your way. If you’ll have one of the nurses show me to the women’s quarters so I can settle my things? I can manage my own trunk.”

Nanette hovered nearby, as always. Chadwick jerked his head at Claire. “Nanette, show her around.”

After the nurse took Claire out, Chadwick had to breathe slowly and evenly for a count of ten. What have I done to deserve this? And how can I get her to agree to her own treatment?