Daniel was preparing to visit Nicholas at King’s Cliff when his housekeeper came to see him. She entered the clean, white-washed room where he kept his medicines, and she smoothed her hands nervously on her starched apron.
“Yes, Mrs. Thompson? What is it?”
She said nothing at first and he turned to look at her. Her plump, country face, usually so ruddy, was a little on the pale side, and he noticed how her tongue passed swiftly over her lips. “Mrs. Thompson?”
“Sir, I don’t know how to begin….”
He smiled, closing his leather bag and crossing to gently take her arm and usher her into the room’s only chair. He leaned on the edge of a table, his arms folded. “Now then, what’s all this about?”
“Dr. Tregarron, you know that I’ve served you well for some time now.”
“Exceedingly well.”
“And I’ve no wish to cause trouble, but I reckon as how someone’s got to tell you what’s being said.”
“Being said? About what?”
“About you and Lady Grenville.”
His smile faded and he unfolded his arms. “And what exactly is being said?”
A swift flush stained her cheeks then. “Please, I don’t like to say it outright—”
“Then how am I to know?”
She clasped and unclasped her hands, and then the words came out in a rush. “It’s all over Langford that you are Lady Grenville’s lover.”
“Is it, be damned?” He straightened then. “And how did this wondrous tale come about?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Doctor, how does any rumor start? It just seems to appear from nowhere. Anyway, I thought I had to tell you, for everyone’s talking about it. I’ve not known a rumor so strong for a goodly time now.”
“Thank you for telling me, Mrs. Thompson.”
Slowly she stood. “I didn’t want to say anything, Dr. Tregarron.” She searched his face for a moment, wondering how much truth there was in the tale, for he had not denied it.
He smiled then, knowing what she was thinking. “My dear Mrs. Thompson, I only wish the tale was true, but unfortunately it is not. I am not Lady Grenville’s lover.”
She smiled with relief. “I’m sorry, Doctor, I didn’t mean—”
“I know, Mrs. Thompson. I know.”
When she had gone, he thoughtfully drew on his gloves. Rumors like this could only damage Laura’s fragile marriage if they should reach Nicholas’s ears, but it was not consideration of this that had prompted Daniel to be honest with his housekeeper. The only reason he had denied anything was a fear that at some time in the future Laura might discover that he had been guilty of aiding the rumors to gain strength. That, and only that, swayed him now.
* * *
As Daniel was preparing to leave his house, Laura heard for the first time that there was beginning to be concern over Nicholas’s condition, that as before when he had had malaria, he was complaining of feeling cold when it was obvious that if anything he had a temperature. In some alarm, and still totally unaware of the rumors that had mushroomed all around her, she hurried to Nicholas’s room.
Augustine was already there. She had been patiently waiting for the first confrontation between Nicholas and Laura since he had been apprised of his wife’s alleged affaire de coeur, and now at last the moment had come. A little gloating smile of anticipation lightened Augustine’s face as she sat neatly by the bedside.
Laura went to him. “Nicholas, is it true that you are less well?” It was a foolish question, for she could see for herself that there had been a deterioration since earlier in the day. Thank goodness Daniel would soon be here…. Instinctively she reached out to touch Nicholas’s hand, but he pointedly moved it away.
“I am only fractionally less well,” he said coldly, “and it is certainly nothing which warrants your presence.”
She stared at him. “Is something wrong?” she asked slowly.
“Nothing of importance.”
Augustine slipped her hand into his and this time he did not move away. “Nicholas,” she murmured, “I think it long overdue that Laura should meet the ladies of consequence in the neighborhood. It does not look well that she apparently snubs them.”
“I snub them!” gasped Laura, staggered that such a complete reversal of the facts should be presented as the truth.
Augustine ignored the outburst. “She should take tea with them here at King’s Cliff, as propriety and custom demand. The Countess of Bawton in particular—”
“No,” said Laura. “No, I will not meet them.”
“You will do as I tell you,” snapped Nicholas, holding her face.
“Nicholas, why are you like this? What has happened?”
“Is the onus always to be on me to be pleasant, madam? Augustine is right; you have a duty to receive the ladies here and that is exactly what you will do.”
Numb with dismay, she met his cold gaze. For Augustine it was the sweetest of moments, but for Laura it was humiliating and painful. He was a stranger suddenly, changed and remote, and she did not know him at all. And the change, she sensed, had not solely to do with the setback in his health. There was more to it than that. Far more.
Nicholas was relentless. “You may go,” he said.
She was trembling as she turned to go, and the tears were very close. She hurried blindly along the passage and down the staircase to the hall, ignoring Hawkins’s startled gaze as she passed him without a word. Thankfully she emerged from the front door and breathed deeply of the fresh air.
The sun had faded behind a cloud and the breeze had risen a little in that way that presages a shower, but she went down the steps, holding her shawl tightly around her shoulders. She had to escape from the house for a while, escape from the pain Nicholas had so deliberately inflicted.
She halted at the foot of the steps, for Daniel Tregarron was riding toward her. He reined in by her, his capricious horse dancing impatiently around as he dismounted. His cloak flapped wildly in the wind, and his dark hair was ruffled as he removed his hat. “Laura?”
“Daniel.”
His smile faded. “What is it?”
“I don’t know, and that is the truth.”
“Tell me.”
She gave him a wan smile. “Burden you with my problems again?”
“If that is the way you wish to put it.” He handed the reins to a groom who hurried out, and then he drew Laura’s hand through his arm. “Come, we will walk together for a little while, and you shall tell me all about it.”
At first she couldn’t bring herself to say what had happened, and they strolled slowly across the grass where the thick-leaved laurels rustled as they swayed.
Suddenly Daniel halted. “Well? Did something go wrong? Was it the confrontation with the cats and the rat?”
“No. No, it was the confrontation with Nicholas.” Her voice almost broke and she was forced to look away.
“With Nicholas?” His mind was racing then, coming as he did so fresh from Mrs. Thompson’s revelations. “What about?”
“I don’t know. He was just completely changed, almost as if he despised me. He had been kind, he showed concern and even a little tenderness, but that is all gone now. He looks at me as if he dislikes me.” Her voice shook. “And it is not only his changed attitude toward me which worries me so. I fear that the ague has begun to return, for he complains of the cold and yet his temperature I am sure has risen.”
Daniel took a long breath, convinced now that Nicholas had indeed somehow heard the rumors, for a devastating shock such as that could indeed work to cause the malaria to flare up once more. “I will go to him,” he said, although he wondered what sort of a reception he would receive.
“Yes,” she whispered. Her voice was so small and lost, and Daniel could not help but pull her into his arms, his cheek resting against her hair.
“Don’t cry,” he murmured.
His cloak flapped around them both and the dampness of rain was in the air now.
“I’m sorry, Daniel, I do not mean to lean so heavily on you all the time. It isn’t fair of me.”
He put his gloved hand on her cheek and raised her face toward his. “Laura,” he said softly, “I welcome each time you come to me, for I swear that I curse the fact that you are Nicholas Grenville’s wife and not mine.”
She stared at him. “Daniel—”
“No, don’t say anything, for I rather fancy that I have said more than enough for both of us.” He released her. “And now I think it time I performed the professional duty which brought me here in the first place.
He walked away toward the house, and there was only the wind in the laurels and the touch of cold rain upon her face. Slowly she followed him.
* * *
Augustine watched from Nicholas’s window. She had seen everything that had passed between Laura and Daniel and could hardly believe that they played so easily into her hands.
She turned to the bed. “Their meeting is over and they come toward the house now.”
“I do not think you need be present, Augustine.”
She inclined her head and left, and a few moments later Daniel entered.
The moment their eyes met, Daniel knew that the rumors had indeed reached Nicholas—and that he believed them. Slowly Daniel put his case down. “How are you, Nicholas?”
“You are no longer welcome in this house, Daniel.”
“If that is what you wish.”
“Stay away.”
“Very well.”
“From this house and from my wife.”
“That last I will not promise.”
The years of friendship slipped away in those few seconds, and Daniel sacrificed them willingly. He admitted nothing to Nicholas, and he denied nothing. He had not uttered a single lie. Let Nicholas believe the rumors, let him believe them and then cast off his wife— Daniel inclined his head briefly and then picked up his case. He had been there barely one minute.
Laura saw him leaving and hurried out into the rain after him, catching the reins of his horse, her face wet as she looked anxiously up at him. “Daniel, why are you leaving so soon?”
“Because Nicholas declines to have me here.”
She stared. “But how can that be? Why?”
“He did not say.” That much was the truth.
“He cannot have meant it!”
“I don’t know or care if he did, his manner was such that I am content for it to be this way. My friendship with him is at an end, and I shall not come to this house again.”
Slowly her hands slipped from the reins. “And your friendship with me?”
“Is constant.” He reached down to put his hand to her cheek, and then he was gone, spurring his impatient horse away along the drive.
* * *
Laura lay awake in the bed. The candle trembled in the draught from the slightly open window and she could hear the rain falling heavily. Her spirits were as low and damp as the weather. Sleep was far away. She stared up at the shadowy canopy of the bed, her eyes wandering over the embroidered suns she had hardly noticed before. An emptiness filled her. The change in Nicholas was too much to bear, for he spurned her now, and it was this that had brought her to a sad and difficult decision before she had retired for what she intended to be her last night at King’s Cliff. A letter to Lady Mountfort lay upon a table, and the future that had stretched so unenviably before her at the beginning of the year now stretched before her again. It was as if nothing had happened in between.
In the distance she heard Augustine calling, and at first she took no notice, but then the note of fear in those far-off cries made her sit up. Augustine was with Nicholas! In a moment she was out of the bed, drawing on her wrap as she ran from the room and along the passages and galleries that separated her from Nicholas’s room.
Augustine’s frightened calls grew louder, and Laura’s heart began to pound in dread. Let him not be dead, oh, please let him not— But as she reached the room, she saw that although he was alive, all was certainly not well with him. The malaria had returned with as much force as before, and he was as feverish as he had been on board the Cygnet, although not quite delirious, for he recognized her as she approached the bed. His face was flushed with unnatural heat and his eyes burned, but shivers racked him. She heard him say her name though. Just once.
Mrs. Townsend was trying to calm her almost hysterical daughter. “Hush now, you will not help at all, Augustine.”
“I f-fell asleep,” gasped her daughter, her face ashen with shock. “And when I awoke he was like this!”
Laura poured some of the prepared bark and held it to his lips, and he drank most of it. His skin felt as if it was aflame. “Nicholas,” she said urgently, “we must send for Daniel.”
“No!”
“But he must see you. This is the height of folly—”
“Never. Never again!” he cried, his eyes darkening.
“But you must see a doctor, Nicholas,” she pleaded, “for you are very ill again.”
“N-not Tregarron.” His breathing was heavy and his forehead damp.
“Please—”
“No!”
She saw again the rejection in his eyes, and resignedly she turned away to Mrs. Townsend. “Is there another doctor nearby?”
“No one is closer than Dr. Brown in Ilminster.”
Ilminster was hours away, Daniel merely a few minutes, but she knew that nothing would prevail upon Nicholas to allow Daniel to examine him. She glanced at the door where some of the servants had gathered, brought by Augustine’s cries. She beckoned to Hawkins. “See that a man is sent to Dr. Brown immediately, and make certain that the urgency of the situation is made known to him.”
“Very well, my lady.”
She returned slowly to her own room, going to the window and opening it fully. The wind and rain swept in and extinguished the candle. Her hair whipped across her face as she removed her night-bonnet, and the rain was cool against her skin. She felt so very tired. So very hollow.
* * *
Dr. Brown of Ilminster was a stooping man, much given to the wearing of unrelieved black, which gave little comfort to his patients. He favored a white wig, so liberally dusted that it powdered his angular shoulders. He drank a large glass of Nicholas’s finest cognac before turning to Laura, who stood waiting patiently by the fireplace in the red saloon. The pale, clear light of a fine dawn lightened the room.
“Lady Grenville, I confirm that Sir Nicholas is indeed suffering from a recurrence of the ague. As my colleague, Tregarron, informed you, this malady unhappily progresses in this manner, it being difficult for the body to rid itself of the ill humor which causes the condition. Were it not that he has already lost a great deal of blood due to the wound and the surgery he has undergone, I would recommend that he be bled. But his weakness, aid the presence of the ague together, make circumstances exceptional, and so I cannot apply such treatment.” He gave a thin smile. “It is not often that a West Country doctor is faced with a patient suffering from both a bullet wound and malaria at the same time. Nevertheless, I am acquainted with malaria, for it is common in parts of this country—I speak now of London and the Essex marshes—and it is my practice to administer syrup of poppies.”
“Dr. Tregarron prescribed Jesuits’ bark.”
He cleared his throat. “Maybe so, but I prefer poppy. Oh, I am well aware that the cinchona tree for some reason produces a substance which combats the ill humors of malaria, but I still find syrup more of a remedy.”
She glanced at him. She detected the scathing tone of his voice at the mention of Jesuits, and she knew that it was religious intolerance that made him condemn the bark, not medical wisdom. “I will continue with the bark, Dr. Brown, because it proved efficacious when administered before.”
“Very well,” he said stiffly.
“How serious is this relapse, Doctor?”
“Considerable in a man as weakened as Sir Nicholas. It is absolutely essential that nothing worrying is mentioned in front of him. He must be kept calm at all costs. Has anything upsetting occurred recently?”
She thought of his strange and dramatic change toward her, and toward Daniel. “Yes, Doctor, but I am afraid that I do not know exactly what it is, for he will not tell me.”
He nodded. “Well, we must pray then that the crisis passes soon. I will return in a day or so, and in the meantime continue with the bark. I must leave now, as I have an important patient to attend to in the morning.” He glanced at his fob watch, “Or should I say in several hours time?”
“You will not take some refreshment?”
“Alas no, I have little enough time as it is. I will see you in a day or so then, when I trust there will be a substantial improvement in your husband’s condition.”
She nodded. “Good day, Dr. Brown.”
“Good day, Lady Grenville.”
She stood there when he had gone. Yes, she would see him in a day or so, for how could she leave now? She would stay until she knew that Nicholas was out of danger again.