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It did not take long for Lewis to realise that suggesting Anthony's departure had been precisely the wrong thing to do. The words were scarcely out of his mouth before Lady Bridgerton flung her gaze pleadingly in her husband's direction; Lewis was far from an expert in body language, but it did not take a genius to guess that she was wordlessly imploring him to stay. The viscount, of course, complied, rather rudely rejecting Lewis' proposition as he moved to Lady Bridgerton's side. Perfect. Not only was he intent on staying, he was determined to put himself in the way. 

To most onlookers, it might have been a touching sign of devotion. Clearly, the viscount cared a great deal for his wife, more than most nobleman might — that much, Lewis did not doubt. It was precisely because of that love that Lewis had suggested he ought to leave in the first place: it was always traumatising to witness a loved one in pain, and Lewis had thought that the viscount might as well save himself the unpleasantness of that. Evidently, Lord Bridgerton was more stubborn than Lewis had anticipated. 

There was little sense in arguing further. The sooner they reset the bone, the sooner they could get Lady Bridgerton comfortable again. Biting his tongue to hold back the urge to sigh, he turned to his fellow surgeons, shrugged, and circled around the bed to take a better position to stabilise the leg. Abernethy, being the most senior of the three surgeons, took the lead, directing Lewis and Bell with small gestures until he was satisfied. At last, he gave the nod, and with a loud click, the men snapped the bone back into place. 

For a man so inclined towards anger and frustration under normal circumstances, it was perhaps a little odd that Lewis belonged to the class of men made more agreeable by a drink or two. He was not the sort to become giddy, as some were, but a bit of alcohol generally served to at least put him in a calmer mood. Given his current state, a bit of mellowing was precisely what he needed. Even if a drink would not take away the source of his indignation, it would make him less disposed to lapse into another outburst. 

With an impatient wave of his hand, Lewis replied, "Anyplace will do. You know this part of London better than I do." He was hardly picky when it came to pubs or alehouses; as long as the place served something with a decent alcohol content, that was more than enough for him. Thinking abruptly of the man he was with, however, he hastily added, "As long as it is not one of those clubs, I pray you." He could stomach those sorts of places when he was in a better humour, but today, he was not at all pleased at the thought of having to sit around stuffy rich men and rakes for the rest of the day.

If Lewis had been the sort of man who delighted in irony, he might have found it rather amusing to receive the urgent summons of another Bridgerton brother. Being, however, decidedly not the sort to find amusement in anything, Lewis' chief thought was that Anthony had better have summoned him for more than a few scratches. He was not necessarily annoyed at the summons themselves — men like Anthony always payed handsomely, after all, which made up for the inconvenience — but he did not relish the thought of having to race across London for the sake of some bruises and scrapes. 

In that, at least, he was not disappointed. The servants wasted no time in ushering him into the room, scarcely granting him the chance to hastily hand his hat and coat off to a waiting maid; once he was shown the patient, it was not difficult to see that this was far more than a case of a few bruises. Anthony, unlike Benedict, had been quite right to send for a surgeon. 

He had not quite been right to send for three. 

Lewis halted just past the threshold, thoroughly nonplussed to see three men already standing at Lady Bridgerton's bedside. The others, two of whom Lewis recognised instantly, looked just as confused as he felt: Bell was looking faintly amused, Abernethy looked annoyed, and a man that Lewis did not know (but took for a physician) looked positively bored. If it would not have damaged his standing with both his colleagues and the viscount, Lewis would have been inclined to turn right back around and leave. Calling for a second opinion was one thing, but summoning four medical men at the same time was absolutely ridiculous. Evidently, Anthony shared his younger brother's penchant for overreacting. 

He met Bell's gaze briefly; the man simply shrugged, as if to say, What can one do? Lewis, resisting the urge to sigh in open displeasure, finally moved to join his colleagues at her bedside. The viscount's impatience, however, earned him a sharp glance from Lewis. No one seemed quite sure who should address the man — and so the Welshman, taking it upon himself, turned aside to say coldly, "You may wish to leave the room, my lord. The setting of a bone will be a painful process." 

Lewis kept his teeth clenched together and drew in a sequence of long, slow breaths through his nose. He had never exactly been good at regulating his emotions — anger, particularly — but careful breathing, he found, generally helped. It was a trick that Dr. Barthélemy had taught him, after a near-outburst some years ago. Inhale, hold the breath for several seconds, exhale, and repeat. 

It was not a perfect remedy, but the further they walked on and the more that Lewis concentrated resolutely on his breathing, the more he began to compose himself. The sense of embarrassment, too, helped matters; as much as he was inclined to stay angry, the mortification brought on by his earlier scene had put enough good sense into him that he managed to keep himself in check. He could find an outlet for that anger later, perhaps in the form of a strongly-worded and long-winded letter to some MP or another (who would, more than likely, put it right into the fire without reading it). 

In spite of his waning anger, he was very tempted to answer Anthony's question by remarking that what the Viscount ought to know was that this country was run by empty-headed, useless idiots who would not know sense if it danced naked in front of them. He had even gone so far as to take a sharp breath in to say just that before he caught himself. Grinding his teeth together hard, he grated out, "No, my lord. I have said nothing today that has not been said before by a dozen surgeons and anatomists for decades. I rather think parliament has a duty to listen to the people of London, but evidently, they do not agree. As they have told me in no uncertain terms that they will not be bringing the matter up for debate, I have nothing more to say." 

It was a very odd thing — and a very embarrassing thing — to find himself so affected by such a simple reassurance as Benedict had given. At its heart, it was no more than basic politeness: if a man were to put himself down, it was only natural for a friend to raise him back up with a kind word or two. That was all Benedict had done. It was thoughtful, but it was not particularly remarkable. 

The exact subject of those kind words, however, had struck a little too close to Lewis' heart. He had never felt himself quite at home in London, as much as he wished that he could; he bore, at all times, of a sense of tension that he could not shake, and while he was not always conscious of that tension itself when he was in London, he was conscious of the absence of it whenever he left the city. If he had paused to examine that feeling, he would likely have found it difficult to explain a precise source of it. In a word, perhaps what it came down to was pressure. Every part of London, from the balls and the dinner parties to the coffee houses and the libraries, carried the pressure of constant performance. Whether he realised it or not, Lewis had begun to believe that belonging in London meant submitting to that pressure and measuring his performance against others, and in that, he always came up short.

What Benedict had said was simple enough, but it had served, in some small way, to remove that pressure. It was not complete freedom from performance, certainly, but at least Lewis no longer felt quite so much like he needed to prove his worth. It was a strange feeling, that. When Lewis finally met Benedict's gaze again, he offered the same almost-smile that he had bestowed on the man at the tail end of their first conversation together. "You are a very good man, Mr. Bridgerton," he said, quite simply. "There are not many of those in London." 

Lewis was grateful that Benedict finally spoke up to save him from his desperate stammering, but he was rather taken aback that the man's interruption came in such a flat-out denial. He did not seem defensive — on the contrary, he sounded perfectly matter-of-fact — but he certainly did not beat around the bush in confronting what Lewis had implied. The surgeon flushed; he was inclined, by instinct, to respond with a denial of his own, insisting that he had not meant to call Genevieve his mistress. To do so, however, would have been an outright lie. 

In any case, the matter of whether he had or had not implied the thing was rather beside the point. Implications or no implications, the point was that Lewis believed it. Benedict's denial, well-stated though it was, did little to change that. He would not have liked to accuse the man openly of being untruthful, but really, there were few other ways to explain what Lewis had seen that night. A modiste was not likely to simply turn up on the doorstep of a wealthy young gentleman; and, if she did so, she was not likely to find him willing to clothe her in his own shirt and lay her down in his own bed; and, even if all that were to occur, said young gentleman was certainly not likely to grow so agitated over a few cuts and bruises that he sent in the middle of the night for a surgeon. No, that was the sort of thing that a man did for either a wife or a mistress, and Genevieve Delacroix was not the former. 

Nevertheless, he held his tongue. He had already embarrassed himself quite thoroughly enough; he had no wish, in consequence, to embarrass himself further. If Benedict wished to deny that she was his mistress, Lewis could pretend to believe it. He had no interest in the affairs of the ton, in any case. If he found anything distasteful, it was the fact that Benedict had involved him in the matter in the first place. 

He downed the rest of his brandy in one swallow, nearly coughed, and set aside his empty glass. He was rather inclined to refill it himself, but he was not quite such an intimate friend of Benedict's to justify helping himself to the man's liquor. "Forgive my presumptions, Mr. Bridgerton. It was not my place. Of course she is not your— well. Not my place." He cleared his throat hard and tried weakly for a little self-deprecating humour. "I tell you, sir, London society really is no place for a lowborn Welshman!"  

Now it was Lewis' turn to go very still and very quiet. Benedict's remark had been a charitable one, on the whole; it was flattering, on some level, to hear that the man trusted him so fully. But that was not the part that had caught Lewis off guard — it was, instead, the comment that followed, expressing Benedict's innocent hope that Lewis would trust him to the same extent, if he ever found himself in need.

Lewis did not. 

Oh, that was not Benedict's fault, certainly. He was a charming, earnest fellow, one with which anyone could surely find few faults, and he was, as Lewis had already decided, a man that would make a thoroughly good friend. Indeed, Lewis liked him quite a lot better than he liked most men in London. If Lewis were to trust anyone, Benedict might have been a sensible enough choice. 

And yet, the thought of admitting even a tenth part of his secrets to Benedict horrified him, and that very horror, in turn, saddened him a little. He would have liked to be the sort of man who shared secrets — or perhaps, to put things more accurately, he would have liked to be the sort of man who did not have secrets to share that could ruin him. It had never been his intention to have those sorts of secrets, but life had a dreadful way of deciding that for a man. The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley, and all that. It was not a pleasant thing, to feel as though one misstep or one bit of misplaced trust could cost a whole life. 

To save himself from having to force a smile, Lewis took a long sip of his brandy. Once he had swallowed and set the glass back down, he had composed his thoughts enough to reply mildly, "I am happy to be of service to you. She is a fine woman, Ms. Delacroix. Was she able to make a report on the men who attacked her?" There — a change of subject.