by Merry Farmer
Mr. Throckmorton took a deep breath and went on. “I have managed to stay celibate for two months now.”
“That’s…good?”
“It is the longest I have gone without sex since the two of us paid Annie Bolton to take us up to the hayloft.”
Mr. Smith let out a laugh. “That was quite a day.”
Mr. Throckmorton found nothing funny in it. “It is driving me mad.” His voice cracked with the intensity of his emotion. “I cannot think, I cannot eat, I cannot sleep. I close my eyes and the images I see torment me beyond bearing.”
Flossie clapped a hand to her mouth to keep from sighing for him, tears stinging at the back of her eyes. She knew he was not exaggerating, not being dramatic to make a point. She had seen it in him. That fierceness, that razor’s edge of control that he clung to so desperately as they went about their business in the hotel. He snapped and thrashed and terrified his staff, but really and truly, he was on the edge of madness most days, and for the most heartbreaking of reasons. He was right. No one would understand.
“Do you feel as though you are a danger to yourself or others?” Mr. Smith asked quietly. “Do…do the women in your employ have need to fear for their safety?”
“I…I don’t know,” Mr. Throckmorton answered. “I believe I am more of a danger to myself. I came back to Brynthwaite, decided to build a hotel here, so that I could protect myself from the temptations of larger towns,” he said, “but I will have to go back there on business at some point. I will have to face the temptations.” He paused, a sad, frustrated sound catching in this throat. “But in spite of all that, temptation has followed me here.”
“And you’ve been having Marshall order medicines for you,” Mr. Smith connected another piece of the puzzle. “Do they work?”
“No. Nothing works,” Mr. Throckmorton said. “I’ve considered taking opium to dull my senses completely, but any of the narcotics I’ve tried have rendered me unable to conduct my business affairs. Without my hotels, I am nothing.”
“I see.” Mr. Throckmorton had moved enough that Flossie was able to see Mr. Smith cross his arms and rub his chin as he mulled over the problem. “What about taking a mistress?”
“What woman in her right mind would want to be my mistress?” Mr. Throckmorton snapped back, throwing his arms out. “What woman would lower herself to be at my beck and call to satisfy my lust whenever it arises, knowing how often that would be?”
An odd prickling broke out on Flossie’s skin. It raced down her back and through her blood, making her feel sick and giddy at the same time. She tightened her hands around Betsy’s letter, begging for help, staring at it through the eyes of her memories and the knowledge of what she had proved herself capable of doing for money.
“Besides, how would I ever pull off keeping a mistress?” Mr. Throckmorton went on. “They’re difficult to conceal, you know, particularly in a town as small as Brynthwaite. If it became public knowledge? If Lady Elizabeth found out that I kept a bit on the side? She would never look at me again. My heart would be ruined.”
“Jason, you know what I think about your obsession with Lady Elizabeth,” Mr. Smith said.
“That I’m a fool, that she has no need to marry, and if she did it wouldn’t be me. Yes, I know, but I have to prove you wrong. I have to.”
“I’m not going to argue with you about that now,” Mr. Smith said. “Right now, my only concern is for your health. Marshall be damned, you are ill. You do need a remedy.”
“Thank you for saying so,” Mr. Throckmorton said, letting out a breath. “You don’t know how good it feels to hear somebody say that.”
“I’m glad.” Mr. Smith nodded without smiling. “I’ll talk to Mother Grace, see if she has any suggestions.”
Mr. Throckmorton snorted. “And now I’m resorting to ancient magic and folk ways.”
“If she can help, does it matter?”
“No,” Mr. Throckmorton admitted with a sigh. “But I’m not sure that anything can help. All I want right now is to get this damned hotel open without losing my mind or having a spontaneous orgasm in public.”
Mr. Smith’s mouth twitched in a grin. “Has that actually happened before?”
“Yes,” Mr. Throckmorton answered so deadpan that Flossie blushed for him.
“I’m sorry.” Mr. Smith squeezed his arm. “Just promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“If you ever feel like you’re in imminent danger of harming yourself, or a woman, you will come straight to the forge before you do anything.”
There was a pause, then Mr. Throckmorton said, “I will.”
“Good.” Mr. Smith let go of his arm and patted Mr. Throckmorton on the back. The two of them turned to go. “At the very least, we can distract you with other things. You’ve got your hotel opening next week and….” His voice faded as they returned to the funeral gathering.
Flossie let out the breath she felt as though she had been holding through the entire conversation. Her body buzzed with awkwardness and her throat was tight with emotion. She’d never heard of such a strange or tragic affliction in her life. It had never occurred to her that such things could exist. All of the men she had known, the men at Crestmont Grange, had been in full control of their faculties and most certainly knew exactly what they were doing when it came to sexual impulses. She knew that better than anyone else.
She stared at the letter in her hands. She knew. She knew what it was to be that desperate. She was right back there again, faced with exactly the thing she had fled the Grange for in the first place. Only this time, her family’s misfortune and her own desperation might just be able to save someone else from a fate worse than her own.
Alexandra
“Dr. Dyson! Dr. Dyson!” Simon’s off-pitch shout echoed through the halls of Brynthwaite Hospital. “Oh, Dr. Dyson!”
Alex sighed and withdrew the thermometer from her patient’s mouth. The old man gave her a wary look as she read it and sighed. “What is wrong with that boy?” she muttered, shaking her head.
“Leave off, he’s just doing his job,” the patient in the next bed, a surly farmer named Jones who was there for a case of gout that wasn’t all that different from her Uncle Gerald’s, said.
“Dr. Dyson!” Simon swung into the men’s ward, catching his breath.
“What is it, Simon?” She handed the thermometer off to Nurse Callow and said, “one hundred point three. We’ll need to keep you in just a little longer, Mr. Harmon, but as long as you drink the broth Nurse Callow brings you, you should be right as rain in no time.”
“Thanks, ma’am,” the old man heaved a weary sigh.
Alex smiled, then wiped her hands on her apron and marched to face the problem of Simon. “What is it?” she repeated.
“It’s a delivery, ma’am—I mean, doctor,” he said as though the concept were a foreign one.
“A delivery?” Alex’s lips twitched and she moved past him, heading toward the door. “And is this a surprise?”
“Well, it is, doctor,” Simon said, following her. “I didn’t think we had the money for it. Hope it’s not some mistake. Dr. Pycroft would be terrible upset if it is, God help him.”
“Dr. Pycroft does not need to know any more about the delivery than that it arrived and everything is in order,” Alex said, crossing the hall to stick her head into the women’s and children’s ward. “Nurse Stephens, would you be willing to come downstairs to put away an order of medical supplies that has just come in?”
“Yes, doctor,” Nurse Stephens said, rising from the bedside of the woman she’d been talking to.
Alex nodded, then continued along the hall and down the stairs with Simon in tow.
“It’s just that we don’t usually get orders on Thursdays, Dr. Dyson,” he went on, more upset over her ease with the situation as they reached the downstairs hall. “Something must be amiss.”
“Nothing is amiss, Simon. It’s just an order of medical supplies. Badly needed medical supplies.”
&
nbsp; “But—”
“Would you rather we go on as we are, scrambling for everything?” she stopped his protest.
“No. I ’spose not.”
Alex nodded, then continued on to the waiting room. There were only a few patients waiting, and none of them looked to be in dire need. The most noteworthy thing in the room was the large pile of crates and parcels waiting on a dolly. A bored-looking tradesman stood beside them. He frowned at Simon.
“Where’s the doctor to sign for this?” the tradesman grumbled.
“I’m Dr. Dyson.” Alex strode to meet him, holding out her hand for the bill of lading.
The tradesman looked her up and down, turning up his nose. “You’re the doctor?”
“I am.”
“She is,” Simon seconded her.
“Oh, she is,” Mrs. Garforth backed both of them up, though she seemed to share the ill opinion of the tradesman.
“Fine,” the tradesman sighed, “Sign right here. But if this is all some sort of joke and Dr. Pycroft ends up complaining about the bill, tell him not to come crying to me.”
“I can assure you, sir,” Alex met him fierce frown for fierce frown, “this order is my responsibility.”
It was. In more ways than one. She would probably hear about it once Marshall found out—if Marshall found out—but the entirety of the order had been paid for not out of hospital funds, but out of her own personal allowance. Come to think of it, if her mother found out there would be hell to pay too. The solution was to keep the whole thing an absolute secret.
“Just one moment.” Alex stopped the tradesman as he turned to go.
She scanned through the list in her hand, checking it against the boxes that the tradesman had unloaded from the dolly. It would take longer to open each one to be sure they contained everything they should, but at least there were the correct number of boxes, and the tradesman would get the message that she was not to be trifled with.
“Everything looks in order,” she told him, nodding. “And payment has already been received, correct?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the tradesman said. “Good day, ma’am.” He nodded, then turned and stomped out.
“Already paid for?” Mrs. Garforth balked. “Supplies for the hospital?”
Alex avoided looking at her. She may have miscalculated whether she could get away with purchasing supplies on her own. She hadn’t realized receiving an order was such a noteworthy event.
“I suppose there were donations shortly after Mrs. Pycroft died.” Alex gave the excuse, then instantly felt bad doing so. It was wrong to use that poor woman’s memory to hide her own actions, especially when it was her own actions that had caused her death in the first place.
Because Alex was certain. Clara Pycroft had died because of one fateful action on her part. How could she have known? She had been standing there, talking to Marshall about the hospital’s problems, problems she had caused by hiding her employment from her mother. Clara had come along to stir up her own domestic pot. Alex hadn’t thought anything of it except to be embarrassed for Marshall’s sake. She had done the only thing she could think of under the circumstances. She had waved to little Martha.
That was what had started it. If she hadn’t raised her hand and smiled, if she hadn’t been kind and friendly to Martha Pycroft, the girl would not have broken away from her mother. She would not have run into the street, Clara would not have run after her, and the carriage-and-four would have charged on without so much as a blink. Clara would still be alive, Marshall would not be a widower, and his girls would not be motherless. It was all her fault.
“Dr. Dyson, are you feeling well?” Nurse Stephens asked her.
“Perfectly well.” Alex sucked in a breath and blinked rapidly. “Never better. We’ve work to do. Take these parcels into the dispensary and put them away.”
“Yes, doctor,” Nurse Stephens and Simon said.
Alex searched the room for something else to do, something to take her away from the press of guilt that threatened to choke the air from her lungs.
“Ah, Mr. Fletcher.” She strode across the waiting room to an aging man who sat hunched over, a grimace on his face. “You still seem to be in distress. Are you certain you won’t let me examine you?”
“No,” the man squeezed out the one word.
“You’re clearly in pain, sir,” she pushed, working to sound as approachable as possible.
“I’ll wait for Dr. Pycroft, if you please,” he croaked.
“Dr. Pycroft has just attended his wife’s funeral,” Mrs. Garforth scolded the man from halfway across the room. “He’s not like to be here any time soon. So unless you plan to expire on the floor, you’d best let Dr. Dyson see you.”
Alex raised her eyebrows at the unexpected endorsement of her skills—or at least the acknowledgement that she was, in fact, a real doctor—but Mr. Fletcher wasn’t moved.
“I’ll wait,” he said, hunkering down.
Alex let out a breath and turned to a middle-aged mother and her son. The boy looked to be about ten and a pale shade of green. “What can I do for you today, ma’am?” she asked.
“It’s Arthur,” the woman said, gesturing to her listless son. “He’s been sick all night.”
Finally. Something to focus on.
“Bring him back to the examination room and we’ll take a look.”
It was a relief to have something to focus on, even if young Arthur was sick all over the floor. At least she could pour her energies into something tangible. It was only a mild case of gastroenteritis, not something she could stitch up or operate on, but knowing that she was doing something, that in some small way she was making up for the death she had caused, eased her troubled conscience.
“I think you’ll pull through, Arthur,” she told the boy as she walked him and his mother back to the waiting room. “And don’t you mind at all about the examination room floor. We’ll clean up.”
“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” Arthur’s mother said, near weeping with embarrassment.
Alex supposed it would be mean at that point to remind the woman that she should be addressed as ‘doctor.’
That thought was pushed straight from her mind at the sight of her mother standing tall and regal in the waiting room. Dressed in dark purple for the funeral, she looked more like a wicked queen than a mother, just like Arthur’s.
“Mother,” Alex greeted her, suspicion keeping her from smiling.
“Ugh, what is that vile smell?”
Yes, her mother truly did know how to make the weak and ailing feel even worse. Arthur’s mother ushered him out of the hospital, looking as though it wasn’t right for them to be in the same room as Lady Charlotte.
“Mother, unless you’re ill or injured, I don’t have time to speak to you,” Alex said, but she knew she couldn’t get out of speaking to her. Slight though she was, her mother was a wall.
“I’ve come to make sure that you aren’t over-exerting yourself, my dear,” her mother said.
Alex blinked at her. “Over-exerting myself? Mother, I’m a doctor. That is what we are conditioned to do. Now if you will excuse me.”
She attempted to step around her mother, but with all of the grace of a spider, her mother blocked her path. “I’ve had the most jolly idea, my dear,” she said.
Alex pursed her lips and crossed her arms. “Have you?”
“Yes. Cumbria is so dull, of course,” her mother said with a long-suffering sigh, “But I have had just the idea to liven it up a little.”
Enough of the Cumbrian residents waiting to see a doctor gave Lady Charlotte indignant looks that Alex decided to take things into her own hands. “Tell me about it in the office,” she said.
“Yes, I think that would be best,” her mother replied.
Alex turned and headed down the hall, trusting that her mother would follow.
“Simon,” she called into the dispensary as they passed. “A patient has been sick in examination room one. Could you clean it up?”
“Yes, doctor,” Simon answered, looking sick himself.
Alex continued on, turning at the door to Marshall’s office and gesturing for her mother to go in.
“Oh,” her mother said once they were inside and the door was closed. “It’s much larger and cleaner than I expected.”
“That’s because it’s an office, not a ward or a surgery or an examination room,” Alex said, then went straight to, “What do you want?”
“I’m going to host a house-party,” Lady Charlotte said, her smile suddenly bright.
Alex crossed her arms and leaned her backside against Marshall’s desk. “A house party.”
“Yes. And I’ll invite some of the noblest names along with a few of our old friends. It will be a jolly time.”
“Mother, you don’t have a house,” Alex reminded her.
“Of course I do, dear. Huntington Hall.”
“Which is Elizabeth and Uncle Gerald’s house, not yours. Or have you forgotten?”
Her mother laughed. “I haven’t forgotten, but I’m certain Elizabeth will fully support my idea. She’s young and vibrant and carefree, so of course she would welcome such a stirring social event.”
Alex frowned. “Mother, Elizabeth may be young, and, I’ll grant you, she’s vibrant. But ‘carefree’ is not an adjective I would attach to her. She serves as squire for this whole area in her father’s place. She has enough on her plate without entertaining some grand cadre of strangers in her house.”
“You are determined to vex me at every turn, aren’t you?” Her mother’s mood turned in a flash.
Alex was in no mood for this fight. She shook her head and pushed away from the desk, letting her arms drop.
“Fine. I will not vex you. I will, however, insist that you tell your idea to Elizabeth, not to me, and that if you truly wish to go through with this, you will ask her permission instead of elbowing in.”
Her mother flushed deep red. “I have never had to ask the permission of a woman who is barely more than a girl to do anything.”
“Mother, Elizabeth is thirty, and she is an heiress.”
Lady Charlotte drew in a long breath, fixing her posture and tilting up her chin. “She may be, but I am her aunt. She will do as I say.”
