“You said she had a…” God, he could scarcely form the words. “A fondness for footmen?”
Frances waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, she could be a little flirtatious.”
“Bah, any warm-blooded lass wed to Freddie would have been tempted to kick over a few fences here and again,” Grandmother added.
“Kick over a few fences?” James asked.
“After the fever, the doctors said that Freddy’s heart was too weak.” Frances looked down as she spoke. Her cheeks flaring with color again. “Too weak to risk being a…proper husband.” She practically whispered the last two words.
“And you say that Sunny flirted with footmen?”
“Well, at first we thought…you know how friendly Sunny always was. It seemed a natural, if highly inappropriate, progression of her cheerful, kind demeanor.”
“Perhaps it was,” he said. Yes, maybe it had all been kindness on Sunny’s part that these sour old biddies had misinterpreted.
“The lassie did a lot more than flirt, Jamie,” Grandmother said. Her tone was filled with sorrow, as though it hurt her to impart this knowledge to him.
“I’ll handle this,” Frances said.
James turned his attention back to her.
“After Freddy died, Sunny fell into a state of despondency. She certainly didn’t do any flirting then. She would not eat, she couldn’t sleep. We had to send for Dr. Meeker.”
“That’s when the opiates started?” he asked, unable to keep the accusation out of his voice.
At his tone, Frances scowled. “She must have the opiates, else she shall lose all control.”
“I think she deserves to be able to think clearly for once. Then we shall see just how out of control she really is or is not.”
“You don’t understand. You weren’t here. At first it seemed she just needed a little something to help her sleep. To bring her appetite back.”
“Then what happened?”
Aunt Frances just stared at him, looking a little lost. Quite pale, her expression strained, shoulders drooping. She didn’t look like her typical fire-breathing self, but appeared a good ten years older. She walked to the bed and sat again. More aptly put, she collapsed onto it.
“Jamie, lad, I think your aunt could use a little wine,” Grandmother Blayne said.
With a deep inhalation, he forced his overpowering impatience down and went to the sideboard and poured a glass of wine. He brought it to his aunt. She took it and grasped it between her hands for several moments. Her face had gone a bit paler. Then she quaffed half the contents. After a pause, she began again. “Time went by. She seemed to be healing, even if she was a little less cheerful than she’d been previously. But she was a widow, older. It was good that she acted more dignified. Then…” Aunt Frances’ voice trailed off. She was staring at the coverlet. A bit glassy-eyed.
“Then?” he prompted, not so gently.
She took another deep drink of wine. Then she set the empty glass on her night table. “Then one day, her maid came upon her—” She took a deep breath then let it go with a lengthy sigh. “Oh, how to say this?”
“Quickly, I hope.” The words left his lips before he could hold them back.
“Sunny was with one of the footmen.” Her voice grew more hushed. She had put peculiar emphasis on the word “with.”
But surely, no. He had not imagined that. This night had dragged on far too long. He put his hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. He just needed to focus his tired mind. He lowered his hand and returned his gaze to his aunt’s. “With one of the footmen?” he repeated, somewhat dumbly.
“Alone in her bedchamber.”
He gaped at Aunt Frances. He knew his mouth had fallen open; he simply couldn’t help it. “Perhaps you were mistaken as to the intent.”
Frances’ face flamed and she shook her head. “No, there could be no mistaking the intent.”
“Are you sure?” He prodded gently.
Frances nodded, but she still wouldn’t look at him. “We—under Dr. Meeker’s direction, that is—we took control over her. Kept better watch. And she seemed to be healing, growing stronger. We even trusted her to go out every now and then for a little shopping. To have tea with a friend. Well, as it turned out, this ‘friend’ was the footman. And that after we had been forgiving with him and had given him a reference for a new position.” Frances wrung her hands for a few moments. “She had been seeing him for months. Months! Thank the merciful heavens there were no…” She pursed her mouth. “Complications.”
He gaped at her, stunned thoughtless. Speechless.
“We trusted her. She betrayed us.” Frances’ voice rang with hurt. “Her mama and papa entrusted her care to me. What would I have told them? Welcome home to Scotland, here’s your grandchild, the footman’s only son?”
“He was a handsome devil,” Grandmother said, with a small grin and a definite sparkle in her eye.
“Stop that! Stop jesting,” Frances said. “None of this is amusing to me. I swear I aged twenty years over the matter.” She pointed to her head. “It put all this silver in my hair.”
“Sorry, lassie. I did my share of crying over Catriona’s missteps, too. You know I did,” Grandmother said.
James’ blood had frozen. He had spent the past few moments numb. Not wanting to accept any of it. Their story held that strange sort of eerie ring of what could be possible. Neither woman had ever been the bearer of tales for sheer spite. At least, not that he knew of.
Yet what they said was not possible.
Not for Sunny.
“You’re speaking of her as though she were still an eighteen-year-old bride,” he said at length.
“Well, in a way she is, Jamie,” Grandmother said. “She’d been tucked away in the country with Freddy all those years.”
“Not for the past three and half years?”
“Yes,” Frances replied defensively. “But she hasn’t been herself all this time. That’s what we’re trying to tell you.”
“You said she has some sort dependency?” he asked.
“Haven’t you heard enough?” Aunt Frances said. “Don’t you understand now that this is a very delicate matter and is best left to her doctor and us ladies?”
“I want to know what this doctor is treating her for.” He turned back to his Grandmother, as she seemed more capable of plain speaking. “Please tell me.”
Grandmother held up her hand and waved him off. “Jamie, don’t fash yourself over all of this. It was Freddy’s long illness, the shock of his death, that’s what did this to her. The doctor is caring for her. He will soon have her back to her old self.”
“There was no shock involved in Freddy’s death,” he said.
“You cannot understand what it is like to lose a husband.”
“There’s more to this than a widow’s natural grief. I want to know all. And I want to know now,” he demanded, hearing the growl enter his own voice.
Aunt Frances stared at him evenly. “James Blayne, I want you to swear on your mother’s life that you did not see Catriona this night.”
How the devil was he supposed to do that? He just stared at her.
Guiltily.
He’d certainly done nothing to feel guilty about.
Yes, but you came damned close to it.
He steeled his expression even more.
“Oh, God help you, boy.” Aunt Frances curled her lip upward. “God help you that you haven’t done something irreparable.”
His sense of guilt mounted. He tightened his jaw, continuing to meet her gaze, refusing to be cowed, even though he was starting to feel like he was about fifteen again.
After his father’s death, Aunt Frances had been the primary source of discipline for him as a boy. His own mother had been too soft, too prone to spoil him.
“James Blayne!” His grandmother exclaimed. “Catriona is Freddy’s widow. How could you?”
“How could I what?” He held his hands in front of his chest, usi
ng them to emphasize his words. “I’ve done nothing.”
Aunt Frances shook her head. “No, he’s not to blame. He’s just a man, after all. He didn’t know.”
“What didn’t I know?” His frustration boiled over. “What the bloody hell is going on in this house?!” The words exploded from him.
Aunt Frances lifted her chin, looking regal now despite her rag curlers. “We’ve told you all that you need to know. Now I ask that you kindly leave the matter to us. If you intend to stay in Edinburgh for any length of time, please find a townhouse. A bachelor’s house. Your presence clearly has upset Catriona’s balance, and you can see from her indiscreet actions tonight that for you to stay here is to court scandal and disaster.”
Her tone held a note of finality.
****
“I will have to charge a consultation fee for this meeting.” The tall, skeletal man smoothed a hand over flyaway strands of silver hair.
“Charge me then, doctor. But I will have answers,” James said, his mind still unable to wrap itself around the things his aunt and grandmother had said.
It couldn’t be true.
None of it.
Except possibly that Sunny had become too dependent upon opiates. And if that were the case, this doctor had much to answer for. James intended to see that he did.
Dr. Meeker motioned to a chair near the desk. “Please sit, my lord.”
James crossed his arms over his chest. “I prefer to stand.”
He was too agitated to sit. He had given up on his interrogation of the two women and come here to bang on Dr. Meeker’s door and demand entrance. Only his insistence that he would return the next day in the company of his solicitor had moved the rather burly-looking servant to wake his master.
“Well, I hope you do not mind if I sit. My bones do not like me being awake this long before sunrise anymore.” A caricature of a smile bent the doctor’s thin lips. He reached into the pocket of his dressing gown and pulled out a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and put them on. His hands were slender and pale as parchment. The blue veins were prominent. The long fingers were gnarled.
The sight of those hands sent a chill through James, though he couldn’t have said why. They were simply the hands of an older man.
However the hands looked decidedly older than the man.
“Now, what can I do for you, Lord Blayne?”
“You can explain to me what is happening with Lady Blayne.”
“Lady Blayne?” Dr. Meeker stared at James over the rims of his glasses, his dark brown gaze intense. “I presume you mean young Lady Blayne?”
“Of course I do,” James said, his patience almost completely gone. “What’s all this talk about her being hysterical?”
The doctor gazed back at him mildly, a slight twist in his lips sufficing as a smile. “You needn’t take offense, my lord. It is a medical diagnosis, not a personal condemnation of her character.”
“All right, so it is a medical diagnosis and one that you have applied to the lady.”
“Yes, she is suffering from hysteria. But we must focus on the cause, not the label given to the condition.”
“What is the cause? Her husband’s death?”
Dr. Meeker made a skeptical expression. “Her husband’s death certainly did not help, but I cannot believe it was the cause of her malady.” The older man drummed his fingers on his desktop. He raised his brows. “My lord, before I go any further, may I make a request?”
“What request?”
“Well, in order to fulfill your demand for information, I must disclose secrets that I normally would not. Things that could be very unhealthy for one man to say to another man about a lady, especially to a man who is, for all intents and purposes, her guardian.” He compressed his lips briefly. “Do you understand what I am saying, my lord?”
“I understand.”
“Lady Blayne is confused in her way of thinking. She was wed to a man who was not a fit husband. He was too ill to properly fulfill his duties in the marriage bed. This caused a lack of respect on her part and an unfortunate dependence on self-pleasuring.”
“Self-pleasuring?” James gaped at the doctor. “May I remind you, doctor, you are speaking of a lady.”
Dr. Meeker offered him a mild smile. “Indeed. But ladies are women, my lord.”
James supposed that they were. But it was too much of a shock to think of Sunny and self-pleasure in the same sentence. Yet, the doctor had a point. Ladies were women. Some ladies were women, yes, of course, as James well knew from direct experience.
But surely not Sunny!
Then something else occurred to him. “Wait,” he said. ”How the devil did such a personal matter ever become known to you?”
“Why, the lady herself confessed it. She was quite troubled by her inability to stop such unnatural behavior and the thoughts that accompanied it. She is a good person at heart. She knows what is a proper and healthy way of life for a lady. And she realizes her deficiency in her inability to comport herself as befits her station. But her deficiency remains unresolved. This is the sole cause of her current mental fragility.”
James frowned. He had some difficulty putting the concept into words. He sat in the chair the doctor had offered earlier. “Mentally fragile? Because she self-pleasures?”
“Quite so.”
The doctor sounded so serious and the whole matter was so far from what James had expected to discuss with the man that he laughed. “Good God, doctor, if that were true, the whole of the Royal Navy would be stark raving mad.”
“Ah, but those are men, are they not?”
“Yes.”
“Women are different. Especially gently reared ladies such as young Lady Blayne. They need a man’s authority and guidance. In the bedchamber most of all. Young Lady Blayne is ill, very ill, and she will continue to be so and thus prey to sensual weakness with men until I can redirect her focus of carnal authority from herself to a male authority where it more properly belongs.”
James’ blood turned to ice. “And just how are you intending to do that?”
“Opiates to calm her. A basic diet without too many spices or herbs that might prove too stimulating to her natural desires. But much of it involves her being answerable to me for her behavior. And she must be watched. Her former maids had a fond attachment to her, and they were too sympathetic and thus too lenient with her. Not watchful enough. I have employed Mrs. Tibbs. She has instructed the new maids on how to better observe Catri…Lady Blayne for the…uh, the signs.”
“What signs?”
“Signs of inappropriate behavior.”
“So, she has been drugged, imprisoned in Blayne House, and is being watched at every moment—in short, she has been robbed of every possible dignity left to her. And I have been paying for this service.” He ground the words out, feeling a heaviness weighing on his chest.
Guilt.
He should not have delayed coming home to Blayne House. He ought to have come to Edinburgh directly upon landing on British soil again. But he had stayed in London, keeping occupied with business, enjoying all the pleasures available to him as a titled gentleman in his prime with money to spend. Wasting time, attending fox hunts and the races. Escorting certain ladies to the opera and exhausting himself between fine, white English thighs whilst Sunny, a woman under his protection, had needed him.
Maybe he hadn’t returned because he knew, deep inside, that he’d never fallen out of love with her? After he’d lost Sunny to Freddy, he’d spent a long time disciplining his mind to remain disconnected from his emotions. Had he not wanted to test that discipline?
He scowled. Did it matter why he had delayed? The point was that he had trusted Aunt Frances’ judgment. He had thought Sunny was just exhibiting the reclusive ways that she had proved herself so capable of during her marriage to Freddy Blayne.
The doctor watched him calmly. The man’s calmness shattered the last of James’ tolerance. How could Meeker just sit there and explain how he ha
d stripped every last scrap of Sunny’s dignity and autonomy in the name of “helping” her?
James stood.
Dr. Meeker stood. He took a few steps forward and opened his mouth to speak, but James threw a forestalling hand between them. “I have heard enough.”
The doctor fixed him with an intent look. “Those scratches.”
He reached out with his gnarled fingers toward James’ face.
James jerked his head back.
The doctor’s gaze sharpened. “She came to you, didn’t she?”
James said nothing.
“She is a highly persuasive young woman. Dangerously seductive. Such women are sirens. She is not to blame, of course; she cannot help her sickness of mind and spirit. But it would be a mistake, my lord, for you to allow her any sway over your mind.” The doctor raised his brows. “Or your emotions. Especially your emotions.”
“Careful, doctor, in what you say about Lady Blayne. In fact, from this moment on, I revoke your liberty to speak of her any further—I forbid you to go near her again. Your services are no longer required.”
Chapter Six
Sunny awoke with a start. The feel of her skin brushing the linen sheet gave her another start. She glanced up at the unfamiliar dark green velvet bed curtains that were drawn back to let the early morning light spill across the bed.
Yes, she was in James Blayne’s bed. Naked.
Alone.
Shame burned into her. No, it was deeper than shame. Utter humiliation.
He had rejected her advances. Resisted her seduction.
Oh, she had to get back to her own bedchamber. Now.
With a soft cry, she jolted into a sitting position.
Blue eyes met hers. Blue eyes that immediately lowered to her breasts.
She grasped the coverlet and jerked it to her collarbone.
James’ attention returned to her face and he stared at her intently.
Not just intently, determinedly. As though by the power of his stare, he could impel her to do his will.
She remembered that about him and how it had frightened her as a younger woman.
All right, it still frightened her. What woman wouldn’t feel a bit dismayed to be the object of those piercing ice-blue eyes? Her heart pounded in her ears, and inwardly, she began to tremble.
The Delicate Matter of Lady Blayne (Intimate Secrets Book 1) Page 7
