The Mad Earl's Bride (Scoundrels 3.50)

He bent and lightly kissed her. “That’s how I feel,” he said. He drew back and grinned. “If we must choose an ally, it makes sense to pick the biggest one we can find.”

A FEW DAYS later, they went to Athcourt, intending to stay for two days. They wound up staying for a week.

Dain turned out to be knowledgeable—and obstinately opinionated—about a vast array of topics, and the two men were soon quarreling happily, like old friends or brothers. They raced each other over Athcourt’s vast park and into the surrounding moorland. They fenced and practiced pistol shooting. One day, Dain undertook to teach Dorian some of the finer points of pugilism, and they knocked each other about in a corner of the stable yard, while their wives cheered them on.

Dain’s bastard son lived at Athcourt as well. He was a wicked piece of mischief, eight years old, whom Dain proudly referred to as the Demon Seed.

Little Dominick was wary of Dorian at first, but within two days, he was inviting the Earl of Rawnsley to visit his treehouse. This, Dorian learned, was a signal honor. Until now, only the boy’s adored papa had been privy to the refuge’s location and initiated into its mysteries.

And so, Dorian came away from Athcourt with scraped knees and elbows, Dain’s assurances that Gwendolyn’s affairs would be properly looked after . . . and a mad yearning for a child.

Dorian told himself it was ridiculous to long for a child he would never see born and ruthlessly focused his energies on realizing Gwendolyn’s hospital dream.

Dain had agreed with him that her influential title and wealth would not fully compensate for her being a female, and a young one at that. She would be contending with scores of men, few of whom held an enlightened view of feminine capabilities.

“I can deal with the men,” Dain had said, “but I should want precise instructions. I know nothing about hospitals, even the everyday variety, and it seems that your lady has something novel in mind.”

“I’m not sure she’ll be as precise as one would wish, when the time comes,” Dorian had answered. “Already I detect signs of emotional strain. I had thought that if I started the project now, it would make a healthy distraction. Moreover, if I am directly involved in its founding, others will take it more seriously. If the Earl of Rawnsley says the building must be a perfect hexagon, for instance, another fellow won’t pipe up that it must be a perfect cube and start a row with someone who says it must be an octagon, according to the best authorities. Instead, they will all murmur, ‘Yes, my lord. A hexagon. Certainly,’ and write down my every word with the greatest care, as though it came direct from the throne of Heaven.”

Dain had chuckled, but something in his dark gaze made Dorian edgy. “Am I overly optimistic?” he’d asked. “If you have doubts of my capabilities, Dain, I wish you—”

“I was only wondering why the devil you don’t cut your hair,” Dain had said. “While I doubt your coiffure would affect your credibility—you’re a Camoys, after all—I should think it was a damned nuisance to look after—as though there won’t be enough in organizing this project.”

Dorian had smiled sheepishly. “My wife likes it.”

“And you are besotted, poor fool.” Dain had given him a commiserating look, then laughed. “Well, then, I collect this is as rational as you’re ever going to be. Make the most of it, I say.”

Dorian was determined to make the most of it.

Accordingly, on the second night of their return home, he explained to Gwendolyn his idea about getting an early start on her hospital.

She told him it was an excellent idea and she seemed very enthusiastic, but Dorian could not shake off the feeling that her mind was elsewhere: on his accursed ailment and its provoking mysteries. He was strongly tempted to lecture her. He suppressed the urge and made love to her instead.

The following afternoon, they settled down in the library to discuss the matter in detail, and she was the same. She talked enthusiastically of her ideas, and obligingly sketched out a rough plan for the building itself, and described the functions of different areas. All the same, Dorian sensed that her mind was not fully engaged.

In the following days, she went on working cheerfully with him, transforming her dreams into orderly facts and specifications, but the note of abstraction remained.

Dorian bore it patiently. He had learned from her that it was often possible to combine several treatments to combat an ailment’s array of symptoms. One remedy for sick headaches, for instance, combined laudanum with ipecac—the former to dull the pain and the latter to relieve the nausea by inducing vomiting.

He had, likewise, devised a combination treatment for her. One of the “medications” arrived a week after their return from Athcourt.

Dorian slipped into her study and left the packet on her desk while she was consulting with the cook about the following day’s menu. Then he left the house, to work on the next part of the remedy.

AN HOUR LATER, Gwendolyn stood in the study doorway, gazing blankly at Hoskins.

“He’s gone to Okehampton,” the manservant said for the second time. “He had an appointment. Something to do with the hospital, he said.”

“Oh. Oh, yes. With Mr. Dobbin.” Gwendolyn turned away. “He reminded me at breakfast. So silly of me to forget. My wits must be wandering. Thank you, Hoskins.”

She stood in the doorway, staring at the thick letter on her desk while Hoskins’s footsteps faded away.

Then she shut the door and returned to her desk and took up the letter again with trembling hands.

It was from Mr. Borson, the physician in whose care Aminta Camoys had been placed. It was in response to an inquiry from Dorian. He had written to Borson a fortnight ago, it turned out, without telling her.

Dorian had attached a note to Borson’s letter: “Here it is, Doctor Gwendolyn—with all the deliriously grisly details. I shall expect to find you writhing with uncontrollable lust by the time I return.”

Gwendolyn read the note again, for the tenth time, and this time she could not control herself. She covered her face with her hands and wept, not because of Borson’s reply, but because of what it had cost her husband to obtain it, to write and seek a favor from the man he viewed as his mother’s torturer, if not her murderer.

Dorian had done it for Gwendolyn’s sake, and that was what made her heart ache, unbearably, so that she wept, like the wife she was instead of the doctor she wanted to be.

Or had thought she wanted to be.

Or imagined she was capable of being.

She was not behaving very capably now, she scolded herself.

She wiped away her tears and told herself there would be plenty of time to cry later. A lifetime, if she chose to devote it to grief, and throw away the gifts God had given her, and all that her husband was trying to give her. He knew she was trying to learn, and he was trying to help her in every way he could.

She had no business weeping about it. She knew it made Dorian happy to help her. Furthermore, Borson’s letter contained exceedingly valuable information. She had seen that in the first quick perusal. He had even enclosed a copy of the post mortem report, which would solve several nagging riddles . . . once she could get her mind to focus properly. And stay focused, which was not easy lately.

She kept forgetting things and missing things. She had spent a full week with Jessica before realizing her cousin was breeding. Gwendolyn had not been able to put the simplest symptoms together: physical evidence any medical student would have discerned, not to mention the uncharacteristic moodiness. Twice, while Gwendolyn had been there, Jessica—who never wept—had burst into tears for no apparent reason, and several times she had lost her temper over the most trivial matters.

Jessica had said nothing about it, and Gwendolyn had tactfully refrained from questioning her. After all, it was early days yet, and the first trimester was a notoriously uncertain . . . period.

Trimester . . . twelve weeks . . . symptoms . . .

Gwendolyn stared blindly at the autopsy report.

She had been wed for more than six weeks.

Her last menses had been two weeks before the wedding.

The report dropped from her nerveless fingers, and her gaze dropped to her belly.

“Oh, my goodness,” she whispered.

DORIAN SAT IN a private parlor of Okehampton’s Golden Hart Inn, not with the fictional Mr. Dobbin, but with Bertie Trent, whose square face was twisted into a painful grimace.