The Model Master

by Sorcha MacMurrough

No. Why even bother? Knowing his luck he wouldn’t rise to the occasion this time. His desire was far too unpredictable, though when the sensation had first returned he had hoped it was a sign he was truly on the mend.

  He shook his head. No, he didn’t want to depress himself in his last moments on earth if he failed. And if he succeeded? Then there would be all the trouble of getting cleaned up and respectable once more for when his friends came home to find him. He did have some dignity left, however bare a shred.

  Michael sighed. He could of course still change his mind, keep the drug for another time. But he might never get such a chance again. With the storm bearing down on the district so ferociously, and all of the parties for his friends and their servants to attend, there was no likelihood of being disturbed here as there was in his own home. Besides, he was relying upon Blake to take care of everything as per his instructions once he was dead. No, it had to be here, and now.

  With his glass and the two bottles clamped between his thighs, he wheeled over to the desk once more, just to make sure everything was there. The letter, the portfolio of instructions, his last will and testament.

  Good. He was ready.

  He drained the goblet and began to uncork the champagne. Might as well go out in style, he decided. He drank down one glass, enjoying the pleasant fizzing sensation, the excellent vintage. The second time, he filled the vessel about one-quarter full.

  He was just about to put the drug into it when he looked around. For some strange reason he wondered if he should try to snuff out all the candles the servants had left blazing for him. "Out, out, brief candle…"

  As if it mattered. They would gutter in another few hours, and all would be dark.

  The thought of being alone and dead in the dark gave him some pause. He shook his head. "The grave’s a cold and dark place. Just let it go, Michael. It’s finished. No regrets."

  Yet even as he told himself this, he could see the blood on his hands, hear the crash of guns, the whinnying of panicked horses, and someone screaming. See the blank white faces as if in a sea of fog, their eyes sightless, gaping at…

  A flash of lightning and crash of thunder set him to pouring the laudanum with trembling hands.

  He stared at the goblet. With a final sigh he moved it toward his lips. They parted.

  He took one mouthful of the bitter mixture.

  He had just swallowed the first tentative sip when he started, and screamed in terror. The glass fell onto the wooden floor, shattering into a thousand shards.

  Michael gaped. Stared again. Every hair on his body leapt to attention. He was sure he had to be hallucinating. Perhaps even already dead?

  For staring back at him was the most beautiful face he had ever seen. The flashes flickering overhead rendered her face bleached, starkly white. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, and then she was waving. Beckoning him to Heaven?

  Or to Hell?

  But no, she was waving him to the front door…

  CHAPTER TWO

  At last a sound other than the storm and those inside Michael’s head filtered through.

  "Help me! Help me, please!" she begged.

  The ethereally lovely woman was real. And in trouble.

  Thoughts of the highwaymen who had committed carnage throughout the nearby woods not too long ago raced through his head in an instant.

  Michael’s wheelchair crunched through the shattered crystal goblet as he pushed backwards from the desk, still trembling over what he had so nearly done.

  Relief at his reprieve flooded through him despite his seemingly firm resolve of the moment before. Michael had not rated himself as any more superstitious than the next man, but he simply had to take this as a sign that he was making a mistake.

  In any event, the glass was broken now, all the laudanum gone. He was sure the swig he had taken, diluted as it was with so much champagne, was not enough to do more than render him sleepy, perhaps even unconscious for a time.

  The woman needed his help. So help he would, as best he could. If only to point her in the right direction to find Blake if she needed a doctor, though the storm was so fierce he wouldn’t want his dog to be out on such a night as this, let alone the lovely young woman.

  "I’m coming! I’m coming!" he called above the din.

  The storm’s ferocity had not abated in the least. Rather, it was now lashing the house with such fury it shook it to the very foundations. Michael wheeled down the hall to the front door as fast as he could, and turned the key in the lock abruptly before flinging it wide.

  The woman fell in though the portal, landing partly on top of him in his chair. A drenched bundle very like a sack of potatoes dropped upon him heavily, knocking the wind out of him.

  He froze and stared for a moment, stunned by the sensation the woman and the parcel evoked. It was like a thousand caterpillars wriggling just under the surface of his skin on his legs.

  She groaned and wept, one hand touching his, the other brushing against his loins accidentally before she managed to drag herself to her feet once more and stood trembling before him.

  His legs continued to throb with both pain and something that could almost described as pleasure. For he was sure he could feel the rain dripping from the woman and parcel saturating his trousers. Could feel a slow but definite stirring looking at the lovely girl, he who had not felt anything for so long.

  He gaped down at his lap, wondering what sorcery she had worked upon him, to touch him so intimately and then leave this gift.

  No, not a gift. Not potatoes. A child. A young boy, about five if he had to guess, unwrapping the burlap to look more closely. His arousal at the lovely young woman's look and touch, and relief at feeling so alive was instantly replaced by alarm.

  He glanced up and discerned what she was clutching to her ample bosom. It was another child of about three. He could feel the heat rolling off the boys in waves. Could see the splotches of red on their faces, behind their ears, their necks.

  Michael was no doctor, but he could recognize measles when he saw them.

  The child in his lap began to cough now, great gouts of green sputum gushing into his lap and down Michael’s trouser legs.

  At the same time, the lad in the girl’s arms began to whimper feebly. "Mummy, my eyes, can’t see, can’t see! Hurt! Hurt!"

  He gazed at the woman for a moment, wondering how the children could have come to such a terrible pass. Was she some sort of simpleton? Or careless of their well-being?

  But no, she was terrified for them, her dark blue eyes wide with fear and confusion. She was very young, no more than twenty if he had to guess. Her gown was torn and covered with the most unspeakable mire.

  The children too were in ragged clothes already far too small for them, their only outerwear the burlap ticking evidently taken from some old sacks. All their clothes bespoke better days once long ago. She wasn’t careless of them, she was poverty-stricken.

  "Please, please help them," she begged. "I’ll do anything. Work in the fields, the kitchen." She fixed him with a hard stare. "I’ll even work on my back if I have to. They’re all I have left in the world. I’m not going to let them die!"

  "Please, it’s all right, Madam," he soothed, his heart lurching into his chest at her offer. She was so lovely, an image of her naked and spread for him appeared in his mind’s eye.

  He scolded himself for even thinking of her in such a manner given her plight, and dragged his pale blue eyes up to meet hers.

  "I’m sorry, Madam. I’m not the doctor, but I will help you, I swear it. It’s measles. And a chest infection in his case, and an eye infection in the boy you’re holding. We need to get their fever down and some food into them. When’s the last time you had anything to eat?

  "Were even warm, for heaven’s sake?" he asked, his temper boiling over when she stared at him blankly for a moment as if she had no understanding of the concept of food and heat.

  She shook her head, her eyes glazed. "I don’t know. I can’t remember. W
e find what we can when we can."

  He listened to the musical lilt in her voice, and detected some Welsh intonation. Her dirty gown was an expensive one, sober jet black, about a year out of fashion, and well worn. Impoverished heiress was his best guess, until she said, "Only please, you mustn’t mention to a soul that you’ve seen me or the boys. If they find out, they’ll force us to go back. They’ll take them away from me. I couldn’t bear it."

  At the increasingly frantic tone of her voice, he grasped her bony hand covered in grime and squeezed.

  "It’s all right. No one is going to hurt you. Or take the boys. Do you hear? My only interest is in getting the children well, and assisting you, Madam. In a decent respectable way," he hastened to add when she looked at him mistrustfully.

  "Aye, how many times have I heard that with every single post I’ve tried to secure for myself," she said, her tone bitter.

  "Well, in my position, I’m hardly going to run after you and overpower you, now am I?" He gave the usual twist of the lips which passed for his smile nowadays. "Now shut the door, lass, before we all catch our deaths, and follow me." He began to wheel himself backwards.

  She did as he requested regarding the portal, but made no move to step further into the foyer.

  Instead she studied carefully the man before her. He was a handsome man in his early thirties with jet black hair and the most unusual pair of eyes she had ever seen. They were so pale blue as to be almost silver in color, and piercing, as if he could look right though people.

  He was scarred in a number of places, with a sabre cut on his left brow which bisected it in two, giving him a look of perpetual inquiry, while the one on his jaw gave him a permanent scowl of disapproval. Or was it pain? For he was confined to a Bath chair, and looked so thin and drawn as to be almost skeletal.

  She stared at him with unabashed curiosity, and yes, some desire too, he could have sworn. He knew how handsome he had once been. But no one had looked at him like that for a long time...

  He had been quite a ladies’ man in his day. It had only made his condition that much harder to bear. He loathed the pity, the avoidance of him by the kind of woman who once would have been more than happy to spread her legs and give him her all. Now they wouldn’t even exchange a civil word to him in Bath.

  Not that Michael blamed them, for he was grim company, with little to say for himself, and a perpetual scowl which had scared off all but the most stalwart of people long ago. But still, the women might have at least tried to be civil, make small talk. It wasn’t as if he was going to harm them.

  "The war, was it?" she asked bluntly.

  He scowled, eyes blazing. "My, you're direct."

  "I’m sorry. It’s just—" She shrugged.

  He was already turning the chair around to head into Blake’s examination rooms. "It was. And it’s all right. I would rather you be direct than tiptoe around the subject. Not even look me in the eye, as if the loss of the use of my legs has somehow rendered me invisible."

  "No, of course not," she said with obvious indignation.

  He felt his heart lift a little, then told himself to stop being so foolish. She was a vagabond, for Heaven's sake. What matter what she thought of him, when she would no doubt run away as soon as the boys were well.

  "Very kind, I'm sure, but I do have many limitations. I’m going to need your help with fetching and carrying, Madam. But first you need to get out of those wet things. Go to my room at the end of the hall and take a shirt and towel from my press. You’re too filthy to avail yourself of anything else at the minute."

  She gave him a cool glance, appraising him candidly once more. "Now who’s being direct?"

  "Well, you have to admit you look as though you’ve been sleeping rough for the past, er, six months?" he guessed, judging from her faded tan and the fact that the weather, after a wonderful Indian summer, had only recently begun to turn cold.

  "Aye, give or take," she admitted.

  "When you’ve got out of those wet things, come back down the hall, go to the right, and get all the brandy you can find. It'll be in Blake's drinks cabinet over in the corner behind the door. Put the lad down here. I promise he’ll be fine. It looks bad, but we can treat him. He’s not going to die, I swear. Not if we intervene now and assist him properly."

  "But you said you aren’t even the doctor," she pointed out, her voice at last beginning to crack under the strain of her ordeal. "My poor baby is blind."

  "Blake is a close friend and I learned a bit in the Army. Trust me. It'll be all right."

  She looked at him for a long time, and began to relax. "All right. I will, I do trust you. I was just about to give up and go away when I saw your light and tried the window. I was banging on the door for ages. Didn't you hear me?"

  She peered at him more closely, suspecting he might be drunk. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she smelt wine on his breath, and something more cloying. Medicine for his pain, she guessed.

  "What?" he said, staring. At length he shook his head. "Er, no, I never heard you knocking. I’m sorry. The storm was so fierce."

  "And what about the servants? All in bed?" she asked, looking around warily at her surroundings.

  "All taking their holiday for All Hallow’s Eve and the church festival tomorrow. But then I don’t suppose you have any idea what date it is, do you," he added, when he saw her brows draw together as she did some quick calculations mentally.

  She shook her head. "None. We left home in April, as soon as the weather improved. October. Well, nearly November already. It seems like such a short time in some respects, and longer in others." She sighed. "It would be good to go to church again."

  "God is said to hear our prayers no matter where we are," he said sententiously. He’s certainly never heard mine, he thought to himself with a stab of resentment.

  Then he stared at the woman who had appeared so suddenly. Perhaps the Lord had heard him after all?

  For she was everything he admired in a woman, with dark sable hair and the most remarkable eyes, so blue as to be almost black. She had a lovely heart-shaped face, with a delicate chin and porcelain brow. She was not clean, and had been darkened by the sun, though starvation made her look very pale.

  The unrelieved black of her gown rendered her slender body and bedraggled appearance even more stark. The shocking contrast of ebony with ivory made him feel overwhelmingly protective towards her. And the boys, he added to himself quickly.

  He said in a more gentle tone than heretofore, "Go on, before you catch pneumonia. Take some of my clothes, anything you like, and fetch the brandy."

  She nodded. "Thank you. But where can I put Gavin?"

  "On the examination table in the doctor’s study, just through here."

  She followed Michael and laid the toddler down quickly. She wiped the soaking hair out of her son’s eyes. She kissed his fevered brow, and looked at Michael.

  He nodded and tried to manage a tentative smile for the fraught woman. "He’ll be all right. I promise you. Here, help me get this little chap up there as well before you go."

  He raised the child, and she gathered him up into his arms tenderly. "He’s Darren. Thank you for holding him. I hope he didn’t hurt your legs."

  "Not at all. I don’t feel them, don’t feel anything below the waist," he said, though strictly speaking that was no longer true. Not now that she had arrived…

  Bryony moved closer to Michael. He helped to lift the child, brushing the side of her breast with his hand as he did so. She almost dropped her son in shock at the warm contact. Michael had to lean into her body even further to stop the child from falling.

  She looked at the handsome man for an instant, reassuring herself that it had only been an accident. He met her gaze head on, and she relaxed.

  She told herself she had nothing to fear from him. He couldn’t chase after her, and despite his enormous bulk and huge hands, she had never seen anyone cradle her child so gently.

  At last they got Darren up
onto the examination table. She was panting and staring at Michael as though seeing him again for the first time.

  "I’m sorry," she said at length, uncertain in the face of the peculiar feelings her companion’s brooding nearness evoked. "I’m so tired. I must have walked miles with them. I knew there was a doctor’s nearby, but I think I got turned around in the woods."

  "Sit down before you fall down," he said, the white hot desire singeing him rendering his tone harsh once more.

  Her eyes widened and she plucked at the skirt of her frock. "Oh, no, I’m so dirty. I’ll just go get those things, as you suggested. I promise not to touch or steal anything."

  "That’s the last thing I’m worried about," he growled. "If it helps the three of you, take anything you jolly well like. I can’t bear to think how a genteel family like yourself has been brought to such a pass."