“Not in the least,” she assured him.
“Then, if you will just hold it right here, I will open a vein in his arm. And now, sir, you will be pleased to hold your elbow out straight.”
“No,” Trent growled.
“Alex, do not be such an uncomfortable patient,” Ellen told him severely. “If I can hold the bowl, you can stand to hold out your arm.”
“Easy for you to say—’tisn’t your blood,” he retorted peevishly, but he extended his arm.
“Very good, sir. You have most excellent veins,” the doctor murmured as he drew out a small scalpel. “Now, just close your hand and this will be over soon enough.”
Ellen’s violet eyes met Trent’s blue ones and locked. Neither was willing to watch the trickle of blood that drained into the bowl. It seemed like an eternity before the doctor pressed the vein closed and held it for several minutes, and then he ordered Trent to close his elbow tightly. Trent closed his eyes and sank back.
“Well, that should do it for today. I do not like to take too much—sometimes it weakens the patient—but it is necessary to restore the balance to the system. If you will step out into the other room, Mrs. Trent, I will leave you with some laudanum to make him more comfortable and explain the making of a poultice to break up his congestion. Beyond that, I am afraid you can only pray. But he is young and strong—perhaps he will recover.”
Ellen’s eyes widened, but she did not say anything in Trent’s presence, choosing instead to follow the doctor all the way to the kitchen before demanding a prognosis. He sat down at the table and began writing out instructions for the poultice.
“How bad is it, sir?” she asked finally.
“One never knows when the lungs are involved. I have seen some cases where the patient is gone in less than two days,” he answered quietly. “But I can tell you of a certainty that he will get considerably worse before he gets better, even if he recovers. I wish I could wrap it in clean linen, ma’am, but there it is—these things are quite serious.” He handed her the paper and told her, “Onion poultice—be sure to prepare enough to apply hot every two hours until that cough loosens and he starts bringing up phlegm. Can you do that?”
She looked over the instructions and nodded. “If Mrs. Bratcher has the onions and the bacon grease, I can. It does not seem to be terribly complicated.”
“It isn’t. The problem will be weariness, ma’am. Every two hours becomes quite tiresome, but it must be done that often. And once you have lost a night’s sleep, it gets harder to do.” He gave her an appraising look. “But you seem to be a healthy young woman, so you will manage.”
“I will.”
He rose to take his leave and then stopped at the door. “Buck up, ma’am. I can tell you are but newly wed and I know the seriousness of the situation weighs heavily on you, but God willing, he will live to stock your nursery yet.”
“I just hope he recovers,” she managed back.
“Well, it is late and dark, Mrs. Trent, but I will return on the morrow to examine him again.”
As soon as he left, Ellen hurried over to the Bratchers’ and obtained the necessary ingredients for making the poultice. Then, back in the box, she prepared the evil-smelling concoction, stopping often to wipe her streaming eyes. As she stirred it over the fire, she wondered if Trent were indeed ill enough to stand for the application of the mess. When the mixture reached the desired consistency as described on the paper, she dished it up into another bowl. After tearing a bedsheet into strips, she advanced on the marquess with the steaming, strong-smelling poultice and several strips of cloth. He appeared to be asleep on his side, his covers pulled up around his ears.
“My lord,” she called as she shook him awake. “Be pleased to turn over on your back.”
“What the devil?” He opened his eyes as he rolled over, and he wrinkled his nose in disgust. “What is it?”
“Your poultice,” she told him matter-of-factly as she rolled his bedclothes down to his waist. “Please do not cut up a dust, my lord, as this is necessary if you are to recover. And I find it as distasteful as you will, for I had to make it.”
“Ellen,” he warned, “if you do not take that nasty stuff out of here this instant, I will come out of this bed and outrage your sense of propriety. You are not putting that on me.” He started up and fell back weakly as he gave way to another fit of coughing.
“I am sorry,” she told him calmly, “but not even that would induce me to leave. If you do not care for your own life, you ought to consider me. I am stuck in this abandoned place with you—and you are my only ticket to York, sir. I cannot let you be carried off ‘in your prime,’ as the good doctor said. So if you have any wish to resume a life of raking about and chasing after the muslin company, you will be still and let me follow the doctor’s orders.”
“And what is that?”
“Laudanum. Perhaps after you have had some of this, you will not be so fractious about the other.”
“I should have abandoned you to your fate when you jumped out that window,” he muttered sourly.
“But you did not, my lord, and I will not abandon you either. Now, open your mouth, please.”
Reluctantly, he did as she asked, and choked on the second spoon of it. When she was about to pour a third, he pushed her hand away. “Enough! Would you have me dead from the opium, Ellen? And if I am not mistaken, you are supposed to stir the stuff into water to make it more palatable. Ugh!”
“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully, “for he did not say precisely how to administer it or in what amount. He was much more interested in seeing that you were covered with this, if you must know.” With that, she began to pour the hot onion mixture onto his bare skin, spreading it around with a large spoon. It plastered the dark hair on his chest with a thick slime that reeked with the odor of the onions. Once she decided she had put enough on, she applied a layer of sheeting strips over it and tucked them beneath his back. “There,” she told him as she straightened up, “that will do it for a couple of hours. Now you should try to sleep.”
“With this smell? I doubt I can.”
But when she returned in half an hour’s time, she found him sound asleep. And when it became time to clean off the slimy mess and replace it with fresh poultice, he did not even rouse. She touched his forehead then and worried—it was as hot as the mixture she had just heated over the fire.
All through the night and day and next night, Ellen scrupulously changed the dressings on his chest and gave him laudanum to ease his restless tossing. But instead of showing improvement, he seemed to be slipping. His fever seemed to climb even higher, and sometimes he cried out in feverish nightmares while other times he muttered incoherently.
By the dawn of the second day after she began treating him, he did not even appear to recognize her when she ministered to him. Yet, nearly dropping from weariness, she carefully spooned some broth into him, lifting him as best she could to keep him from choking. And she painstakingly dipped a cloth into water and dribbled it into his mouth in an effort to bring the terrible fever down.
At nine o’clock, Mrs. Bratcher came again and insisted that she watch while Ellen slept. Reluctantly, Ellen had to concede that she could not go on without rest, and she allowed the older woman to shepherd her to her bed. She lay down in her clothes and slept soundly for several hours, awaking finally to the sound of voices in the other room. Guiltily, she got up and went to check on Lord Trent. She found the Dr. Cookson and Mrs. Bratcher in earnest conversation, and by the sound of it, things were not good for the marquess.
The doctor looked up and shook his head discouragingly. “He does not seem to be responding, Mrs. Trent, and I am afraid we are approaching the crisis. By tomorrow, we should know if he will make it.”
“But he has to make it,” Ellen cried desperately as her eyes filled with tears. “You do not know the half—he has to make it through this!”
“There, ma’am,” the doctor soothed, “you just take some of t
he laudanum yourself and go back to bed. I cannot see that the poultices are doing any good, anyway, and Maggie can watch him through the night.”
“No!” She turned to Mrs. Bratcher determinedly. “If you can but stay the rest of the afternoon and keep trying the poultices—I’ll pay you—I can take care of him in the night.”
“Not to worrit, mum.” Maggie Bratcher nodded. “I’ll stay.”
Ellen dragged herself back to her chamber and lay back down to endure nightmares of Trent abandoning her and Sir Basil chasing her. But when she awoke again, it was nightfall and the older woman was shaking her.
“Yer’d best eat summat, mum, before yer down yersel’.”
“I am not hungry.”
“Aye, yer are, if yer think on it.”
Ellen forced herself to get up and follow Mrs. Bratcher into the kitchen, where a cold collation had been laid. Slowly filling a plate and pouring herself a cup of tea, she could not adequately express her gratitude.
“I can never repay you for what you have done for us, Maggie.”
“As ter that, yer can remember sometime when th’ rents comes due and we don’t ‘ave it.”
Despairingly, Ellen realized that she would in truth probably never be in a position to help the Bratchers— her entire story to them had been a sham, and if Lord Trent died, he could not purchase Little Islip’s hunting box and they would learn the truth. And Maggie would despise her when she found out.
Sensing Ellen’s dejection, Maggie Bratcher laid a hand on Ellen’s shoulder. “I ‘ave t’ be goin’ now, mum, but yer can call if yer need me.”
“No. I am all right, but I am so frightened, Maggie. Oh, he has to get well—he has to!”
“He will, mum. I can feel it.”
As soon as she was alone, Ellen again began heating the onion mixture as the only hope of breaking up the tightness in his lungs. Then faithfully she began making the applications. In preparation for a long and lonely night’s vigil, she filled the lantern and carried it to a bedside table.
About midnight, Trent became restless and knocked the mess off into the bed. Patiently, Ellen cleaned it up and reapplied some more. As she wrestled him to put clean sheets beneath him, she wiped her brow and allowed to herself that she had even ceased to be repelled by the odor of onions. At two o’clock, his breathing became more labored and she almost panicked and ran for Mrs. Bratcher, but then she calmed herself and tried to ease his breathing by pulling him up on more pillows. It was not an easy task, given that he was a tall man and almost all deadweight.
At four o’clock, there was no change, and she debated on whether to continue the poultices or not. He mumbled incoherently from time to time and was unable to drink the laudanum when she mixed it. She abandoned the attempt out of fear that he would strangle on it. Once more, she thought, I will try once more, and then I do not know what I will do.
As she unwrapped the dressings and prepared to sponge him off for the last application of poultice, it did not seem that he was quite so hot to the touch, but she was uncertain as to whether it was really so, or whether she wanted it to be so much that she imagined an improvement. She went ahead and smeared the mess over his chest and rewrapped him.
At seven o’clock he moved a little and it was not the restless tossing of before. She leaned over him and noticed that small beads of perspiration were forming on his forehead. She wiped him dry and murmured a hopeful prayer. In another fifteen minutes, he was drenched with a sweat of such magnitude that even his sheets were wet. Throwing maidenly reserve to the wind, she rolled him to the edge of the bed and uncovered him completely, pulling the sheet from beneath him as she rolled. Putting a dry sheet down, she rolled him back and then wrung out a cloth in a washbasin and began washing him down. She pulled his top blanket from the heap and covered him again to prevent a chill. Exhausted, she sank back into her chair and tried to stay awake.
“Ellen,” he croaked as she was about to doze off, “I was wrong—you are quite beautiful.”
Coming awake with a jolt, she thought at first that she had imagined he spoke, and then she saw that his eyes were open. “W-what?”
“You are beautiful,” he croaked again.
To cover the overwhelming emotion she felt, she reached for the laudanum bottle as though checking its level.
“My lord,” she told him severely, “I fear I have given you too much.”
“Ellie, I am thirsty.”
“That can be remedied, Alex. Let me get you some water. Wait right here.” She brought back a cup of water and braced him while he swallowed it.
Weak from the effort, he leaned back and closed his eyes, smiling faintly. “And just where did you think I’d go, Ellie? I feel as helpless as a baby.”
“I wasn’t thinking, my lord.”
“I know. I have been a sad trial to you, haven’t I?”
“No, but you frightened me nearly to death, my lord. You were so sick and the doctor tried to discourage me.” Her eyes began to fill with tears and she had to look away.
“I owe you a huge debt for this, Ellie. Nothing I could ever do would be enough to repay you.”
“Just get better and take me to York and I am paid, my lord.” Her voice was strained as she fought against the urge to cry in relief. He was alive and his fever had broken and she felt she had won an intense battle.
“You called me Alex earlier, Ellie. I much prefer that to Trent or my lord, my dear.”
“I think your brain has been affected,” she retorted, but she was smiling.
“Probably.” He opened his eyes again and tried to turn his head to look at her. “But since we are to be friends, you might as well learn to use my name. Besides, I like the sound of it.” He tried to pull himself up and found the effort too great. “You look hagged,” he whispered. “Get some rest.”
“Hagged? You have come to your senses, after all.”
“Hagged—but beautiful.”
“And you are too tired to. talk so much. Close your eyes and rest, my . . . Alex.”
“I will rest if you will,” he promised. He watched as she rose to leave and then sank back again. “I’ll never forget this, Ellie—word of a Deveraux.”
8
“AUGUSTA! I KNEW YOU’D come.”
“Of course, my dear. Where is he?” Augusta Sandbridge mounted the steps of the leased town house purposefully, her petite figure and her softly curling brown hair belying a woman of incredibly strong will. “And tell him it is nothing to the purpose to avoid me, Eleanor, for I mean to read him a rare peal over this.” She drew off her fine red kid gloves and tiptoed to brush her sister-in-law’s cheek with an impatient kiss. “Really, I cannot believe you allowed him to do such a shabby thing.”
“You know him as well as I do,” Eleanor Marling retorted. “So you know there is no reasoning with him where money is concerned.”
“Bah! I shall reason with him soon enough.”
“I doubt it, Augusta, because he is not here just now.”
Lady Sandbridge gave the other woman a knowing look. “I see. Got wind I was coming, did he? You always were a peagoose, Nora. You ought to have let me surprise him with the music. Come to think of it, you should have warned me before he sold the girl. I’ll warrant I could have stopped that soon enough.”
“But, Gussie, there wasn’t time! Brockhaven was so impatient that we did not have above two weeks to collect the brideclothes.”
“Well, done is done, I suppose. Still, I could not credit your last letter about Ellen. Has no one heard from her since? I cannot like the story with a girl alone in a city like this.” She stopped abruptly and nodded disgustedly at the tall, thin woman that had followed her in. “You remember Sandbridge’s sister, Lavinia Leffingwell, I believe? She insisted on coming in spite of everything.” She bent closer and murmured low, “Drives me to distraction— should never have told her she could live with me after Leffingwell died.”
The object of her irritation did not seem to notice Augusta’s
remarks as she put forth her hand in the most affected manner. “Dear Mrs. Marling,” she gushed, “of course you remember me. You and I were used to be girlhood companions, were we not, Nora? But I could not credit your letter to dear Gussie. What an ungrateful child your Ellen has proven to be. La! I remember Sir Basil from my Season—a fine figure of a man!”
“Cut line, Vinnie!” Augusta Sandbridge brought her up short. “That was a good twenty years ago, and you obviously have not seen the old roue since. Well, I have, and I daresay he weighs twenty stone or more and he is old enough to be the girl’s father, if I may remind you. Not to mention that he’s buried two poor wives already.”
Lavinia Leffingwell lapsed into uncustomary silence, stung by her sister-in-law’s sharpness. Eleanor looked uncomfortably from one to the other. She had heard that the living arrangement whereby Lady Leffingwell made her home at Greenfield was not an entirely cosy situation. Knowing that the two of them had never been particularly fond of each other, Eleanor had been surprised when the two widows had decided to share the commodious Sandbridge estate. That they were as different as night and day did not seem to occur to them until after the circumstance was effected. And then the sprightly, energetic, take-charge Augusta found the flighty, sour, and highly opinionated Lavinia a trial much of the time.
“As I pointed out to Gussie,” Lady Leffingwell found her voice at last, “I could not but come to support you in this dreadful scandal. But how you are. to fire off two more daughters after this, I am sure I cannot imagine.”
That was too much for Eleanor. “Really, Lady Leffingwell,” she retorted stiffly, “there is no scandal as yet. No one knows besides us and Brockhaven, and I am sure he is not telling. After all, it is scarcely a story to his credit, either.”
“Not to mention that Amy is but seventeen,” Augusta added comfortingly, “and has plenty of time on the Marriage Mart yet. As for dear Lucinda—or is it Lorinda?—she has years in the schoolroom before you have to give that a thought.”
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