Loretta Chse

by The Mad Earl's Bride

  He had every reason to cooperate. He would be glad of an extra month, even an extra day. Yet her dogged search made his heart ache for her. She was not “practical and selfish,” as she’d claimed. She cared, deeply, about her patients. She had even cared about Mr. Bowes, whose dementia made Dorian’s mother’s fits seem like mere sulks.

  But at present it was not simply a matter of caring. Dorian feared Gwendolyn’s dedication was crossing the line, from a quest for intellectual enlightenment to obsession. Last night she’d muttered in her sleep about “idiopathic inconstancy” and “lesions” and “prodromal symptoms.”

  He was strongly tempted to send the books back and order her to cease and desist before she developed a brain fever. Yet he couldn’t deprive her of what he knew was the learning opportunity of a lifetime, or show a lack of respect for her maturity, intellect, and competence.

  Fortunately, he’d been able to devise something like a solution because his mind was still functioning adequately, despite two more attacks. The last, a week ago, had continued for twenty-four hours, until he’d made her dose him with ipecac, to make him vomit. After that, he’d slept like the dead for another half a day.

  Yet he’d recovered with the same sense of well-being and clarity of mind he’d experienced the two previous times. He was sure it was because she’d exorcised the demons of fear, shame, and ignorance, thus reducing emotional pressure on his damaged brain. He knew the reprieve was temporary, and he wasn’t going to waste it. He had no future, but she did, and he’d spent the last week looking into hers.

  “Is this a bad time to interrupt?” he asked.

  Her head went up and her preoccupied gloom vanished, and the sun came out in the endless smile that could still make his heart turn over in his breast.

  “There is never a bad time for you,” she said. “You are the most welcome interruption in the world.”

  Dorian came away from the door frame, crossed to her desk, and perched on the edge. His gaze settled upon the pamphlet she’d put down when he approached: “An Account of Acute Idiopathic Mania as Manifested …”

  “It is one of Mr. Eversham’s studies,” she said. “But your behavior does not fit his model.”

  He took it up and scanned the pages. “I wonder how you make anything of this gibberish.” He set down the pamphlet and took up a narrow volume. “This is still worse. I should go howling mad trying to read the first sentence—and it’s only three-quarters of a page long.”

  “They are doctors, not writers,” said Gwendolyn. “You ought to see their penmanship. It is a wonder the printers are not all in Bedlam by now.”

  “Yours is nothing to boast of,” he said with a meaningful glance at the untidy pile of foolscap covered with her even more untidy scrawl.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Yes, my handwriting is horrid. Not at all like yours. I’m sure you were the finest copyist those London solicitors ever had.”

  “I should be happy to copy your notes legibly,” he said. “In fact, I …” He trailed off, his mind snagging on a recollection. Something she’d said weeks ago. Something “misinterpreted.”

  Catching her worried look, he shrugged. “I’m all right. My mind wandered, that’s all. I had interrupted for a specific reason, and the medical jargon and your ghastly handwriting distracted me.” He ruffled her hair. “I came to ask if you’d like to visit Athcourt with me.”

  “Athcourt?” she said blankly.

  “I wrote to Dain a few days ago,” he explained. “I need advice on some business matters. He’s now a member of the family, his place is but a few miles southeast of here, and he’s an excellent manager, from all one has heard.”

  “Athcourt is reputed to be one of the most prosperous, well-run properties in the kingdom,” Gwendolyn said, nodding. “I’m sure his business judgment is sound.”

  “At any rate, he’s made me feel welcome.” Dorian withdrew a letter from his pocket and gave it to her.

  As she perused it, her mouth began to twitch. “The man is incorrigibly wicked. And what is this?” She read aloud, “ ‘If that nitwit Trent is still loitering about, you might as well bring him, too, since mayhem can only result if he’s left to his own devices. Still, you know what will be expected of you in that case.’ ” She looked up. “It would appear you are better acquainted than I had guessed.”

  Dorian laughed. “Dain was still at Eton when Bertie first came,” he explained. “About once a fortnight, Bertie would fall down the stairs or trip over something or otherwise contrive to stumble into His Lordship’s path. Fortunately, I was on the spot the first time and hustled Bertie away before Dain could dispose of him by more violent means. After that, whenever your cousin strayed into the Satanic presence, His Lordship would summon me. ‘Camoys,’ he would say, as cool as you please. ‘It’s back. Make it go away.’ And so I would make Bertie disappear.”

  “I can see Dain doing it. And you, too.” She patted his arm. “It is your protective streak.”

  “It was my instinct for self-preservation,” Dorian indignantly informed her. “I was scarcely twelve, and Dain, even at sixteen, was as big as a house. He had but to set one huge hand on my head to squash me like a bug.” He grinned. “Still, I admired him tremendously. I should have given anything to get away with what he did.”

  She laughed, a delicious sound. “So should I,” she said. “It was not hard to understand why Jessica was captivated with him. Or why she was so vexed about it.”

  “I thought you’d enjoy visiting with her while Dain and I talk business,” he said.

  “I should, very much.” She gave the letter back. “I am glad you thought of Dain as a business advisor. A better choice than Abonville. The duc is a foreigner and of another generation.”

  “I knew you had reservations about him.”

  “He’s a wonderful man, but he can be too paternal.”

  Dorian hesitated. He did not want to upset her; on the other hand, they could not spend the remaining time avoiding all mention of what lay ahead. “I trust you won’t mind, then, if I end by making Dain my guardian instead,” he said quietly.

  There was only the briefest pause before she spoke. “If I encountered difficulties, and you were unable to assist me, there’s no one I’d rather have on my side,” she said. She met his gaze, her own clear and steady.

  He could guess what the composure and steadiness cost her, and it distressed him. Nevertheless, they couldn’t pretend they would have forever when they didn’t.

  He bent and lightly kissed her. “That’s how I feel,” he said. He drew back and grinned. “If we must choose an ally, it makes sense to pick the biggest one we can find.”

  A FEW DAYS later, they went to Athcourt, intending to stay for two days. They wound up staying for a week.

  Dain turned out to be knowledgeable—and obstinately opinionated—about a vast array of topics, and the two men were soon quarreling happily, like old friends or brothers. They raced each other over Athcourt’s vast park and into the surrounding moorland. They fenced and practiced pistol shooting. One day, Dain undertook to teach Dorian some of the finer points of pugilism, and they knocked each other about in a corner of the stable yard, while their wives cheered them on.

  Dain’s bastard son lived at Athcourt as well. He was a wicked piece of mischief, eight years old, whom Dain proudly referred to as the Demon Seed.

  Little Dominick was wary of Dorian at first, but within two days, he was inviting the Earl of Rawnsley to visit his treehouse. This, Dorian learned, was a signal honor. Until now, only the boy’s adored papa had been privy to the refuge’s location and initiated into its mysteries.

  And so, Dorian came away from Athcourt with scraped knees and elbows, Dain’s assurances that Gwendolyn’s affairs would be properly looked after … and a mad yearning for a child.

  Dorian told himself it was ridiculous to long for a child he would never see born and ruthlessly focused his energies on realizing Gwendolyn’s hospital dream.

  Dain
had agreed with him that her influential title and wealth would not fully compensate for her being a female, and a young one at that. She would be contending with scores of men, few of whom held an enlightened view of feminine capabilities.

  “I can deal with the men,” Dain had said, “but I should want precise instructions. I know nothing about hospitals, even the everyday variety, and it seems that your lady has something novel in mind.”

  “I’m not sure she’ll be as precise as one would wish, when the time comes,” Dorian had answered. “Already I detect signs of emotional strain. I had thought that if I started the project now, it would make a healthy distraction. Moreover, if I am directly involved in its founding, others will take it more seriously. If the Earl of Rawnsley says the building must be a perfect hexagon, for instance, another fellow won’t pipe up that it must be a perfect cube and start a row with someone who says it must be an octagon, according to the best authorities. Instead, they will all murmur, ‘Yes, my lord. A hexagon. Certainly,’ and write down my every word with the greatest care, as though it came direct from the throne of Heaven.”

  Dain had chuckled, but something in his dark gaze made Dorian edgy. “Am I overly optimistic?” he’d asked. “If you have doubts of my capabilities, Dain, I wish you—”

  “I was only wondering why the devil you don’t cut your hair,” Dain had said. “While I doubt your coiffure would affect your credibility—you’re a Camoys, after all—I should think it was a damned nuisance to look after—as though there won’t be enough in organizing this project.”

  Dorian had smiled sheepishly. “My wife likes it.”

  “And you are besotted, poor fool.” Dain had given him a commiserating look, then laughed. “Well, then, I collect this is as rational as you’re ever going to be. Make the most of it, I say.”

  Dorian was determined to make the most of it.

  Accordingly, on the second night of their return home, he explained to Gwendolyn his idea about getting an early start on her hospital.

  She told him it was an excellent idea and she seemed very enthusiastic, but Dorian could not shake off the feeling that her mind was elsewhere: on his accursed ailment and its provoking mysteries. He was strongly tempted to lecture her. He suppressed the urge and made love to her instead.

  The following afternoon, they settled down in the library to discuss the matter in detail, and she was the same. She talked enthusiastically of her ideas, and obligingly sketched out a rough plan for the building itself, and described the functions of different areas. All the same, Dorian sensed that her mind was not fully engaged.

  In the following days, she went on working cheerfully with him, transforming her dreams into orderly facts and specifications, but the note of abstraction remained.

  Dorian bore it patiently. He had learned from her that it was often possible to combine several treatments to combat an ailment’s array of symptoms. One remedy for sick headaches, for instance, combined laudanum with ipecac—the former to dull the pain and the latter to relieve the nausea by inducing vomiting.

  He had, likewise, devised a combination treatment for her. One of the “medications” arrived a week after their return from Athcourt.

  Dorian slipped into her study and left the packet on her desk while she was consulting with the cook about the following day’s menu. Then he left the house, to work on the next part of the remedy.

  AN HOUR LATER, Gwendolyn stood in the study doorway, gazing blankly at Hoskins.

  “He’s gone to Okehampton,” the manservant said for the second time. “He had an appointment. Something to do with the hospital, he said.”

  “Oh. Oh, yes. With Mr. Dobbin.” Gwendolyn turned away. “He reminded me at breakfast. So silly of me to forget. My wits must be wandering. Thank you, Hoskins.”

  She stood in the doorway, staring at the thick letter on her desk while Hoskins’s footsteps faded away.

  Then she shut the door and returned to her desk and took up the letter again with trembling hands.

  It was from Mr. Borson, the physician in whose care Aminta Camoys had been placed. It was in response to an inquiry from Dorian. He had written to Borson a fortnight ago, it turned out, without telling her.

  Dorian had attached a note to Borson’s letter: “Here it is, Doctor Gwendolyn—with all the deliriously grisly details. I shall expect to find you writhing with uncontrollable lust by the time I return.”

  Gwendolyn read the note again, for the tenth time, and this time she could not control herself. She covered her face with her hands and wept, not because of Borson’s reply, but because of what it had cost her husband to obtain it, to write and seek a favor from the man he viewed as his mother’s torturer, if not her murderer.

  Dorian had done it for Gwendolyn’s sake, and that was what made her heart ache, unbearably, so that she wept, like the wife she was instead of the doctor she wanted to be.

  Or had thought she wanted to be.

  Or imagined she was capable of being.

  She was not behaving very capably now, she scolded herself.

  She wiped away her tears and told herself there would be plenty of time to cry later. A lifetime, if she chose to devote it to grief, and throw away the gifts God had given her, and all that her husband was trying to give her. He knew she was trying to learn, and he was trying to help her in every way he could.

  She had no business weeping about it. She knew it made Dorian happy to help her. Furthermore, Borson’s letter contained exceedingly valuable information. She had seen that in the first quick perusal. He had even enclosed a copy of the post mortem report, which would solve several nagging riddles … once she could get her mind to focus properly. And stay focused, which was not easy lately.

  She kept forgetting things and missing things. She had spent a full week with Jessica before realizing her cousin was breeding. Gwendolyn had not been able to put the simplest symptoms together: physical evidence any medical student would have discerned, not to mention the uncharacteristic moodiness. Twice, while Gwendolyn had been there, Jessica—who never wept—had burst into tears for no apparent reason, and several times she had lost her temper over the most trivial matters.

  Jessica had said nothing about it, and Gwendolyn had tactfully refrained from questioning her. After all, it was early days yet, and the first trimester was a notoriously uncertain … period.

  Trimester … twelve weeks … symptoms …

  Gwendolyn stared blindly at the autopsy report.

  She had been wed for more than six weeks.

  Her last menses had been two weeks before the wedding.

  The report dropped from her nerveless fingers, and her gaze dropped to her belly.

  “Oh, my goodness,” she whispered.

  DORIAN SAT IN a private parlor of Okehampton’s Golden Hart Inn, not with the fictional Mr. Dobbin, but with Bertie Trent, whose square face was twisted into a painful grimace.

  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.