The Mad Earl's Bride

by Loretta Chase

  This was because Bertie was trying to think.

  “Well, Eversham do need money,” Bertie said finally. “But he ain’t the sort that gets on with other fellows so well, which if he was, he wouldn’t be stuck in Chippenham, which even Gwen said, but he got on fine with her, and Aunt Claire liked him well enough, seeing as how he was the only one knew what to make of her spells.”

  “He doesn’t need to get on with the other fellows,” Dorian said. “He only needs to tell us what to do. Dain and I agree that we need an experienced physician on the hospital planning committee.”

  He also needed someone who could talk to Gwendolyn in her own language and make her listen and face facts. And take better care of herself.

  But all that was explained in Dorian’s letter. The thick packet lay on the table between him and Bertie, who was eyeing it dubiously, still reluctant for some reason to take it up.

  “It’s hospital information,” Dorian said. This was partly true, although the bulk of the contents consisted of his copies of Borson’s materials—so that Eversham would arrive armed with facts for his intellectual joust with Gwendolyn. “I hope he finds the proposal irresistible. If he doesn’t, I am counting on you to use your unique powers of persuasion. As you did with Borson.”

  As soon as Dorian had realized he must write to Borson, he’d realized he’d need more than a letter. Physicians could be balky, and they did like to keep secrets, Gwendolyn had said. Also, they were often too busy with patients to attend to correspondence. Unwilling to risk a wait that could extend to months, Dorian had decided to send for Bertie.

  What Trent lacked in intelligence he made up for in loyalty and stubbornness. He was loyal to Dorian, and Bertie would stubbornly persist until Borson gave him what he came for. Which Borson had done, when he realized there was no other way to get rid of him.

  Dorian trusted that Bertie’s loyalty and obstinacy would serve equally well with Eversham. Gwendolyn’s hero had not sounded like the sort of man who would come running at the snap of a nobleman’s fingers.

  “Still, if it doesn’t work, we can try something else,” Dorian added, because Bertie was still frowning. “I realize this will be more difficult than dealing with Borson. We’re asking Eversham to give up his practice and pick up and leave, which is no small matter. Even if he agrees, I realize it will take some time to settle his affairs. But you will make sure he understands I’ll cover all expenses and use my influence as needed. Make sure he realizes I’m a man of my word, Bertie—that this is no madman’s whim. If he has doubts, he can write to Dain.”

  Bertie blinked very hard. “You ain’t mad, Cat. No more ’n I am—and looking well, too, better than before. She’s done you good, hasn’t she?”

  “Of course I’m not mad,” Dorian said. “And it’s all thanks to Gwendolyn. She is wonderful and I am . . . exceedingly happy,” he added with a smile. I want her to be happy, too, he added silently.

  The clouds vanished from Bertie’s expression and a light shone in his pale blue eyes. “I knew you’d like her, Cat. I knew she’d do you good.”

  Dorian understood what the light signified and had no trouble guessing what Bertie wanted to believe.

  But Bertie had not read Borson’s account or the post-mortem report, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have grasped even the fraction Dorian had comprehended. And that was far more than he’d done the first time, seven years ago, long before Gwendolyn had explained about the brain’s unique self-sufficiency, which made it so susceptible to self-destruction.

  Bertie wouldn’t understand that the destruction couldn’t be repaired or halted, even by Gwendolyn. He didn’t know that, once begun, the decay continued relentlessly . . . the way it had at Rawnsley Hall, quietly moldering under the surface until the roof caved in.

  Bertie believed that “good” equaled “cured,” and Dorian hadn’t the heart to explain the difference.

  “I like her immensely, Bertie,” he said. “And she has done me a world of good.”

  GWENDOLYN WANTED TO build the hospital in Dartmoor.

  Which meant she intended to stay here, permanently.

  She stood at the library window, looking out, and Dorian gazed at her in despair.

  He stood at the table, where he’d laid out several rough architectural sketches of the hospital, moments before pressing her for an answer to the question he’d asked every day for the past five days.

  He had not wanted to press her.

  Two weeks had passed since his clandestine meeting with Bertie, and Dorian had received no word from him. Meanwhile Gwendolyn was becoming ill. Her countenance alternated between weary pallor and a hectic flush, and she was becoming short-tempered, doubtless because she was sleeping poorly. Last night she’d bolted up from the pillows babbling about “extravavasation” of something or other.

  “Gwendolyn, you can’t live here,” he said, his voice calm, his mind churning with troubling images of her future.

  “I like it here,” she said. “From the moment I came, it felt like homecoming.”

  “This is not a healthy climate,” he said. “Even in the valleys, the damp settles in and—”

  “Poor people cannot afford to transport sick relatives to coastal resorts or travel back and forth to visit them.” She turned around. “The moor folk need a modern hospital. And damp is scarcely an issue. Bath is damp and cold, and people in all stages of illness and decrepitude live there while taking the waters.”

  “This is not a healthy place for you,” he said tightly. “You’ve been here only two months and—” He thrust his hand through his hair. Say it, he commanded himself. It was time to stop pretending. She was ill, and he was making her so, and it was time to confront that, with or without Eversham.

  The fellow should have been here by now, curse him, Dorian thought. Eversham would know what to do, what to say. He was an experienced, allegedly brilliant physician. He would solve the exasperating riddle for her, and make her face facts.

  “You are not well,” Dorian said. “You don’t eat properly or sleep properly and you are tired and—and unreasonable. You sulked for two hours last night because dinner was ‘boring,’ you said.”

  “She was supposed to use the spices,” Gwendolyn said stiffly. Her hands fisted at her sides. “I sent to London for them, and explained to Cook—about phlegm and congestion and reducing the pressure from excess fluid—and she went ahead and made . . . pap.”

  Dorian sighed. He had talked to Hoskins, who’d talked to Cook, who’d said the pungent spices would give Her Ladyship indigestion, which was what kept her awake nights. Everyone knew they “raised the blood,” Cook had said.

  “Cook is worried about you,” he said. “We are all worried about you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, this is lovely. I am on my way to a medical breakthrough, and no one will cooperate—because they have taken it into their heads to worry.” She marched to the table. “If I were a man—accepted as a scientist—I would merely be ‘preoccupied’ with my work. But because I am a woman, I am taking a fit of the vapors, and my blood must be lowered. Lowered.” She struck the table with her fist. “Of all the antiquated, medieval notions. It’s a wonder I can think at all, with so much nonsense and anxiety clouding the atmosphere about me. As though it were not enough trouble concentrating, in this cond—” She broke off, scowled at the drawings, and moved away from the table toward the door.

  “I need some fresh air,” she said.

  But Dorian got there before she did, and blocked the way. “Gwen, It’s raining,” he said. “And you . . .” The rest of the sentence faded as he took in her appearance. Her face was flushed and her bosom was rising and falling rapidly, as though she’d been running for miles, and . . . He frowned. “Your frock has shrunk.”

  She looked down at herself.

  “It’s a wonder you can breathe,” he said. “It’s a wond
er the seams of your bodice haven’t split.”

  She retreated a pace. “It is not a wonder,” she said, her gaze averted. “This happens to all the women in my family. We are so obvious.” She drew a long, shaky breath. “I’m . . . breeding.”

  “Oh.” He sagged back against the door. “I see. Yes. Of course.”

  The room was dark, reeling about him, while within, another darkness settled like a vast weight. His eyes ached, and his throat, too, and his heart was a wedge of solid pain in his chest.

  “Don’t!” she cried. “Don’t you dare give way, Dorian. Don’t even think about sickening now.” She flung herself against him and his arms closed, reflexively, round her.

  Her head pressed against his aching chest. “I am happy,” she said shakily. “I want our baby. And I want you to be there.”

  “Oh, Gwen.”

  “It isn’t impossible,” she said. “Another seven months or so, that’s all we need.” She drew back and gave him a smile as wobbly as her voice. “If I were an elephant, it would be different. The gestation period is twenty and a half months.”

  He managed a shaky laugh. “Yes, let’s look on the bright side. At least you are not an elephant.”

  “I shall look like one at the end,” she said. “You wouldn’t want to miss that, would you?”

  He wove his fingers through her wild hair. “No, I wouldn’t, sweet. You present me with an irresistible temptation.”

  “I hope so.” She patted his chest. “The patient’s motivation can have a pronounced effect on treatment, Mr. Eversham says.” Her voice was nearly returned to its normal cool efficiency. “I should have told you about the baby sooner, but this is an uncertain period, and I did not want to get your hopes up for nothing. Still, perhaps I was overcautious. It is rare for the women of my family to miscarry.”

  Seven more months, Dorian thought. He’d been given less than that before she came, and she’d been here for two months now.

  Yet he was doing better than his mother had at this stage. The visual chimera had not worsened, blossomed into demons. His temper remained relatively even. No sudden black melancholy or inexplicable fits of gaiety or rage.

  Instead, there was the fierce rapture of their love-making, and the moments of quiet contentment, and the joy of working with her, planning something worthwhile.

  According to Borson’s account, Mother had continued articulate to the last. Mad, and living in a perverse world of her own, but articulate . . . and cunning, even devious at times. Perhaps she would not have sunk into a demon-plagued world of her own if the real world had offered understanding and joy and a sense of being useful and valued and worthy of affection. Perhaps she might have lived a little longer and died more peacefully.

  It was not impossible.

  A few extra months, he told himself. Long enough to see their baby. That would be wonderful. And if it did turn out to be impossible, at least he would have given Gwendolyn a child, which would surely gladden her heart and banish any sentimental inclination to mourn for him.

  Nevertheless, her wishing to remain here was not a good sign. She needed to start a new life, in a new place, away from sad memories. But Eversham would arrive eventually, Dorian assured himself. Her mentor would set her right.

  Dorian drew his wife tightly against him. “I shall try to maintain a positive attitude,” he promised softly.

  “And you must speak to Cook,” Gwendolyn muttered into his shirt front. “Remind her who is the doctor in this house. I ordered a curry for dinner—and it must be hot.”

  He chuckled. “Yes, crosspatch.” He kissed the top of her head. “But first, let us see what Doctor Dorian can do to sweeten your temper.”

  Chapter 7

  TEN DAYS LATER, Gwendolyn was recalling that conversation and the methods Dorian had employed to sweeten her temper. He had used the same techniques every day since, kissing and caressing the irritation away, drawing her out of her annoying moods and into his strong arms, to take her to heaven and back, and leave her dazed with bliss.

  Now, sitting in Mr. Kneebones’s surgery, she focused on those blissful sensations in order to keep her temper from taking over and leading her to do the physician a severe, possibly fatal, bodily injury.

  It was hardly the first time she’d humbled herself with doctors, she told herself, and Dorian was far more important than her pride.

  She treated Kneebones to an apologetic smile. “I only want to know whether those materials prove absolutely what made Mrs. Camoys’s brain start breaking down.”

  Kneebones scowled at her, then at the autopsy report in his hand. “One cannot prove anything absolutely in such cases. One makes logical inferences based on observable facts and the patient’s history. Mrs. Camoys did not drink to excess or indulge in opium eating, which rules out toxic insanity. She had not sustained a high fever prior to or during the decline. And if she had suffered a blow to the head, as you surmise, do you not think Mr. Budge, the family physician, would have mentioned that little detail in his account of her medical history?”

  “What if he didn’t know?” Gwendolyn persisted.

  “Budge is a competent man. I reckon he knows a concussion when he sees one.”

  “But one can’t, precisely, see them,” Gwendolyn said. “She had lovers. What if one of her lovers did it? If he did as great an injury as we’re talking about, she might not have even remembered.” She tipped her head to one side. “Did you question her maid, by any chance? Servants often know more family secrets than the family does.”

  Kneebones took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. “I do wonder how it is that Lord Rawnsley is not in a straitwaistcoat by now,” he muttered.

  “That is what I am wondering, too,” she said. “Otherwise I should not have come to pester you. I know there must be a logical explanation, but I cannot find it.”

  Kneebones set his spectacles back on his nose. “That may be due to an overactive—and highly melodramatic—imagination and underactive attention to observable facts.”

  “Tell me where I’m wrong,” she said.

  He pushed the autopsy report toward her. “Let us suppose your little theory is correct, Lady Rawnsley. Let us suppose Mrs. Camoys’s condition arose from a blow to the head, sustained many months before the early symptoms of traumatic insanity appeared, as often happens. What difference does it make? Her son’s history easily allows for physical violence, fever, alcoholism, not to mention a host of morbid conditions of the system, all of which produce similar consequences. Perhaps this has not occurred to you. Nor do you seem aware that a man may inherit character, and with it a predisposition toward an irrational, self-destructive mode of life. You fail to take into account the patient’s degenerate morals, irrational behavior, and savage appearance. No matter how the initial damage began, these symptoms clearly indicate progressive deterioration.”

  At this, Gwendolyn’s fraying patience snapped. She stood up. “My husband is not and never has been degenerate, irrational, or self-destructive,” she said stiffly. “He has a powerful instinct for self-preservation—else he would never have survived a month in the London slums, let alone years.” She took up the autopsy report and stuffed it into her purse. “I cannot believe you overlooked that,” she said, “and I cannot believe that you, a man of science, would diagnose him as insane, simply on account of his hair.”

  She stalked out.

  LORD RAWNSLEY DID not know that his wife had been quarreling with Mr. Kneebones in Okehampton. She was supposed to be making a tour of possible hospital sites with Hoskins and quarreling with him, because his orders were to (a) find fault with all sites and (b) keep her busy until teatime.

  Unaware that she was racing home at this very minute, obstinately immune to all Hoskins’s delaying tactics, Dorian stood by the library fireplace. His hands were clasped tightly at his back and his gaze was fixed on a disconcertingly y
oung and gentlemanly physician.

  Eversham stood at the library table. Having finished perusing Gwendolyn’s latest notes, he was now thoughtfully perusing Dorian.

  “She’s very near the mark with your mother’s case,” Eversham said. “The same theory occurred to me when I read your letter and your copies of Borson’s materials.” He smiled faintly. “Very handsomely written they were, my lord.”

  “Never mind my penmanship,” Dorian said. “You were about to tell me what you learned in Gloucestershire.”

  Eversham’s arrival had been delayed, it turned out, on account of a detour to the Rawnsley Hall estate in pursuit of information about Aminta Camoys. He had made the detour partly because Dorian’s letter had aroused his medical curiosity and partly because of Bertie Trent’s tear-filled litany of Dorian’s noble and heroic qualities. It had taken them several days to locate Mother’s former maid.

  “Shall I be delicate or brutally direct?” Eversham asked.

  Dorian’s heart pounded. “Brutal, if you please.”

  “Your mother had been having an affair with your Uncle Hugo,” Eversham said dispassionately. “They were meeting secretly, in the estate’s laundry house, when her maid came to warn them that your grandfather had returned unexpectedly. Your mother panicked, tripped, and hit her head on a stone sink. Since she seemed to recover almost instantly, there seemed no reason to summon the doctor—and risk discovery of the accident’s circumstances.”

  Eversham went on to explain concussions, which could be insidiously deceptive: internal injury with no external evidence, sometimes no discernible symptoms for weeks, months, even years—by which time it would be difficult to connect the symptoms with an apparently minor accident of long before. Thus she had been misdiagnosed initially as suffering a “decline,” or constitutional breakdown.

  “As you may not be aware,” Eversham said, “the brain functions—”

  “I know how it works,” Dorian cut in. “Gwendolyn explained that—and how it breaks down as well.”