A Royal Affair

Published by

D
REAMSPINNER
P
RESS

5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886  USA

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

A Royal Affair

© 2014 John Wiltshire.

Cover Art

© 2014 L.C. Chase.

www.lcchase.com

Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/.

ISBN: 978-1-62798-904-6

Digital ISBN: 978-1-62798-905-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014943892

First Edition September 2014

Printed in the United States of America

This paper meets the requirements of

ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

To Molly, my number one fan.

A
HINT
of snow chilled the air this morning—still air that brought the smell of woodsmoke. Worrying about the horses, I woke early from the cold. Leaves crunched under my feet as I walked to the barn. That simple thought about the cold and the approach of winter brought it all back. I remembered it all.

I had come a long way to forget, a long way for a new beginning. You cannot have one of those, I suppose, without an ending, and there had been no real ending. I had the horror inside still, carried all the way from that accursed country to this new one.

Like slow poison, it ate away at me, always there when I woke, a tendril of fear from yet another dream. It was there when I rode through the sweet-smelling pine: terror at what I would find on my return—an empty house with empty rooms where I might search endlessly for the one I would never find.

As I stood in the crisp autumn air, I realized the time had come to rid my body of these poisonous memories. I would write it down and then it would be gone, and I could take this new life and make something of it. Something good.

P
OISON
TOOK
me to Hesse-Davia. At that time, I was considered something of an expert on the detection and alleviation of various poisons. Whilst in reality only a country doctor, I had received unusual training that stood me apart from my contemporaries in the medical world. Consequently, I had the good fortune to be summoned to the house and estate of Lord Salisbury, who had been ill for some considerable time. He had tried all the various remedies suggested by doctors in London: visits to Bath to take the waters, a stay at the coast to benefit from the sea air. But for all this, his health continued to decline.

His sister, Lady Caroline, who resided with him and his new young wife, listened to gossip. Her maid indulged her love of this harmless eccentricity and had told her about a doctor who was said to have knowledge of things he should not, who had studied his profession amongst heathens and had taken from them strange beliefs and even stranger ways. She was referring to me, of course, and to the years I had spent in the New World as a boy living with the Powponi. In England in those days, it was strange for a doctor to listen to his patient and consider how the world around him affected his health. But that is what I did. And so I was summoned by Lady Caroline to attend her brother.

Lord Salisbury was a man with a very young wife. That I saw within my first few moments in the sick room. If Lady Salisbury were a man, she would be accused of having a roving eye. Her eyes roved to me immediately upon my being ushered into the bedroom by the anxious sister. They stayed upon me, and not in the way the eyes of a worried young wife should. She was sizing me up, slicing me open, and weighing me in the balance for consumption. I clearly found favor. I was treated to a dazzling display of tearful concern for her dear Arthur.

Mindful of my place and the job I was there to do, I asked politely to be left alone with my patient. Reluctantly, she agreed and imperiously commanded her sister-in-law to accompany her to the chapel to pray for her darling husband. Before she left, she placed a tiny hand on my arm and through lowered, tear-dampened eyelashes begged me to make him better. She would have moved the heart of the stoniest of men. She was incredibly lovely, with the delicate pink and white beauty of the most fragile of shells washed up on a distant shore. I had my own reasons for being entirely immune to her power. She was not to know this, of course. I nodded and watched as her hand lifted from my arm.

Lord Salisbury was a man who should have been in the prime of his later years. Past the most vigorous age for a man, he still had a good number of years stretching ahead of him to enjoy the bloom of his lovely wife, his wealth, and his extremely fortunate life. But that day I beheld a sad shell of a man. He looked hollowed out. Only his eyes had vigor. With a look of something like hope, they followed me as I approached his bed.

I asked permission to sit alongside him, and it was granted. He glanced at my bag, expecting, no doubt, to see a potion or a purge or a jar of leeches. He was paying well for this consultation and was a man who from all appearances benefited greatly from all his money could buy him. I asked if I could examine him. He nodded and closed his eyes, resigned to yet another failure from yet another doctor. Instead of touching him, I began to talk to him. I asked him simple questions, which he answered readily enough: what he feared, things he enjoyed doing. When I deemed him ready, I moved our conversation on to his more recent history.

His wife, Sophie, was an orphan. Her parents had opposed her match to him, he being nearly forty years older than their only child, but they had died within a few days of each other, leaving her bereft and in need of his protection. They had married within the month. They had been blissfully happy (his words), despite his increasing ill health. I did not ask him directly what symptoms he suffered but learned of them indirectly as he told me of his honeymoon period with his beautiful wife. For the first time, he had become fastidious with his diet. Even favorite dishes upset his constitution. He had become easily tired, something which only received a wink and a ribald comment from friends if he mentioned it. I noticed bruising upon his skin and a telling pigmentation around his eyes as he spoke. I was by now fairly certain of what I was seeing, but in cases such as this, the patient is his own worst enemy. Lord Salisbury adored his wife. To be told she was systematically poisoning him would not be well received. I would save my theory that she had probably murdered her parents to tell him later.

He was well enough to leave his bed and sit for a while in the window. He always felt better, he said, away from the damn bed, but all his previous doctors had told him complete bed rest was his only hope. He was short of breath as I helped him to the chair. I sat alongside him, both of us apparently looking at the view. After a while, I felt his eyes upon me.

“So, what’s your opinion, Doctor? Am I long for this world? I’m not ready to go, you know. Got lots to do yet.”

I took the plunge and lied to my patient. “It’s not your life I am worried about, sir. It is Lady Salisbury I fear for. I believe her life is in grave danger.”

“What, man! What are you talking about?”

I laid a hand reassuringly on his arm. “She must be got away from here as soon as possible. Is there another house she can go to?”

“She’s the best damn nurse I could have! Devoted! Barely left my side since this blessed illness started. She’ll be—”

“She must be brave, sir. As must you. She must leave this day. This very minute.”

“I’m contagious? No one’s said it’s bloody well contagious before!”

“And you have not got better before. I do not believe you have been given good advice.”

“What about my sister? The damn servants? Must they leave as well?”

This was tricky. I shook my head. “Your wife’s
beauty
is my real concern. She is a delicate, fragile flower that could….” I waved my hand at the pallor and yellow tinge of his skin, at the bruise marks and discoloration of his hands. He paled and nodded. I tapped his arm gently. “Do not let her come and see you before she leaves. You must be very strong—for her sake. Can you do that?”

He nodded.

She was gone within a few hours. I heard later from a servant that she had put up something of a fight. True colors, perhaps. I wasn’t overly concerned. I had my patient to myself, and now the real work could begin. By the end of the day, I had Lord Salisbury in a new bedroom, a room formally a nursery, now bare and stripped of all decoration. New bedsheets, new mattress, and new bedclothes were all the room contained. He wasn’t staying there long, but I needed a day to prepare his next treatment. The new room had caused the servants considerable confusion; my next orders almost caused a mutiny. It was only when I enlisted the support of Lady Caroline that I saw my orders obeyed. The servants built a straw hut—so they called it—in the formal garden outside Lord Salisbury’s room. I thought of it as a healing lodge, a sweat lodge, but they grumbled about heathen ways and dark arts. In their presence, therefore, I called it a straw hut too. I didn’t care what it was called, as long as it worked. When it was ready, I took Lord Salisbury into his new home. He stayed there many days, sweating, drinking pure water, and eating as much seafood and raw liver as I could persuade him to consume.