Sharon Sobel (6 page)

“I daresay it is one you can solve with the strength of your own abilities, my lord. Lady Larkspur surely can be made to come around to the idea.”

“Yes, of course. There is no question of it, as I already have every assurance from her father. Leicester is honorable and well respected, and his word is as good as done. Plans are already under way for the wedding.” Raeborn straightened, as if imagining the scene and his well-rehearsed place within it. “But it must be deferred.”

Ben said nothing, but walked over to the birdcage and retrieved the greenery for the tiny bird. He was rewarded with a bite to his finger.

“I see you will not ask me, my boy, and yet it directly concerns you.”

“I barely know the lady.”

“You know her well enough, and most particularly in a way of great use to me,” Raeborn said on a note of urgency. “She is very ill, perhaps dying. And you, sir, are a doctor.”

Ben straightened now, bringing himself to a height nearly a foot over his aged cousin. The man appealed to his professional talents, which were considerable, and to his pride, which might be reckoned even greater. But for all that, he had already examined Lady Larkspur more than a week ago and did not think her failing in any way but as a triumphant fiancée at her sister’s ball. Indeed, she then seemed a
good deal stronger than her disappointing circumstances would have indicated.

“What ails her?” Ben asked, readying himself to embark on a voyage of clinical discovery. “What are the symptoms of her illness?”

Raeborn sighed. “Who can say? She does not eat, nor can she leave her bed. She lies in the darkness, moaning and feverish. Her speech is garbled, though she calls for Mr. Moore and … others. You understand, I have not seen her myself but rely on reports from her concerned family. They have applied to their own physician, but the man can find nothing but a general malaise. He can do nothing for her.”

“And why do you think it might be otherwise with me?”

Raeborn looked surprised.

“Do you not think I ought to have my own representative in this affair—someone to protect my interests? I have offered for the lady and have been accepted. Her health is an investment for me, as surely as any other piece of property. As such, I believe I deserve to receive my own assessment, and from a professional. It is fortuitous you are now in town, for I know not where else to turn.”

“I am not sure I ought to concern myself with this affair, my lord,” Ben said, feeling certain of it. “The lady does not seem to enjoy my company.”

Raeborn laughed humorlessly. “I am not asking you to escort her to the races, my dear boy! I could not care even less if she thinks you an untutored oaf. I only want you to visit her, consider her condition and advise me of her state. If she is as ill as her family reports, she will not even know you stand in the same room.”

A
s soon as Ben Queensman entered the sickroom in Lord Leicester’s fashionable townhouse, he knew very well the lady was aware of his presence. Neither of them spoke a word, nor was there the slightest movement in the huge bed, but the very air they breathed seemed replete with some fiery energy. Though he could not see her face, he guessed she watched him standing, waiting, daring her to make the first move.

The air itself, while hot and full of strange currents, smelled surprisingly sweet. A large bouquet of purplish flowers—larkspur perhaps?—threatened to topple a delicate table, but they alone could not account for the scent. Indeed, it felt as if something of the outdoors entered the bedchamber with him, for Ben could sooner imagine himself in a field of barley than in the company of a dying girl. And, so imagining, he added conviction to the suspicion he had harbored since Raeborn told him of his beloved’s ailment—he believed Lady Larkspur’s illness to be nothing but artifice. The chambers of the sick and infirm were filled with all the odors of humanity and earthiness, but they never smelled like spring meadows.

And yet the family appeared utterly convinced of Lady Larkspur’s decline. When he had arrived at the house ten minutes ago, all four sisters were standing in attendance, their faces full of worry and care. Behind them, Miss Janet Tavish sat huddled in a chair, barely able to meet his eyes. And Lord and Lady Leicester hurried into the hallway almost at once, too concerned to let a polite interval pass after they heard his knock at the door. These were not the signs of a masquerade, the object of which could only be to release Lady Larkspur from her betrothal to Lord Raeborn; rather, they were signs of genuine grief.

“Do you not wish to see her, sir?” Lady Leicester asked tentatively, presuming to give him a little push into the room. And
then, in a soft voice, “It is all right, darling. It is only Mr. Queensman to offer us his opinion.”

Ben glanced down at the worried mother and guessed she had been working out her anguish at the easel. A smudge of blue paint stained her cheek, making her look almost as young as her five daughters. During the few times they had met, he felt her aloofness from the rest of her family, but now he guessed her concern for Larkspur was serious enough to warrant her removing herself from her studio. Her place in the sickroom was certainly necessary just now; he could not presume to examine a young woman without her mother present.

“I will not hurt you, my lady,” he said as he approached the bed. “Nor will I do anything to add to your present distress.”

From the tumble of blankets a small white hand rose up and attempted to brush him away.

“At least she still lives,” Lady Leicester murmured, and reached out blindly for the nearest chair. “I fear she may not have long.”

Ben did not doubt he might allay such a fear, but he looked first to find the evidence to do so.

Slowly, noiselessly, he came closer to the large bed in the center of the room, dismissing his unbidden memories of fairy tales in which the prince dared awaken a sleeping beauty. A pity his own motives were so mercenary; he came not to rescue a maiden but to expose her. And, in any case, the princess was not his for the asking.

Ben pulled aside the gauzy white fabric arrayed around the canopy and gently pushed away the edge of a blanket obscuring Lady Larkspur’s face. With her bright hair spread upon her pillow and a lace nightdress buttoned neatly to the neck, there was nothing of the customary dishabille of the fevered patient, nor any evidence of discomfort. She looked like nothing so much as a porcelain doll.

Suddenly her eyes shot open, very wide and far too clear.

“I do not believe we need your opinion, sir,” she said. “The very fact of your presence adds greatly to my pain and distress.”

“I am sorry to hear it, for it goes against my oath to aggravate your condition. If it alleviates your concern for my
trespass, allow me to reassure you I am here on behalf of my cousin Raeborn, who fears for your well-being.”

The bright eyes closed, a little too tightly.

“Please tell dear Lord Raeborn to give up all hope and abandon me. I will not hold him. Advise him to find happiness with another.”

Ben felt grateful her eyes were shut, for he could scarcely conceal his grin.

“He will not, my lady. He tells me he loves you dearly.”

She looked at him again, her eyes full of distrust and dislike.

“How could he say so? Your cousin does not know me at all!”

“Calm yourself, my lady. Such a display of vehemence could damage your already weakened heart,” Ben said soothingly, and chose not to add how it had already damaged her cunning performance. Before she could turn from him, he reached out to touch her forehead and was surprised to find it damp and clammy. He frowned.

Lady Larkspur displayed the wit to flutter her long eyelashes and seal her traitorous lips.

Silently, he ran his fingers down her lovely face, feeling the firm, smooth skin under the layer of moisture, and her admirable bone structure. With his other hand, he pulled away the layers of blankets to examine the rest of her, and she promptly crossed her hands over the bodice of her nightdress. And there, just where her wrists met, he saw several drops of water staining the fine cloth.

Ben bit down on his lip as he looked beyond the bed to a basin of water on a nearby table. A linen cloth hung at its edge, its drippings threatening the fine veneer of the wood.

How excellent her deception! But how much more convincing she would have been if she had bothered to douse her entire body in water just before his arrival.

“She does not seem to have a great fever,” he said, turning to her mother, but Lady Larkspur had something to say about that.

“I am very warm,” she insisted.

“Perhaps you would feel a good deal better if you did not have the weight of ten blankets upon you,” he retorted, and threw half of them off the bed.

“I will surely die without them,” she insisted, and moved quickly to recover them.

But Ben was even quicker, and caught her around the waist before she could reach them. Her body pressed against his, and when she turned breathlessly to look at him, her sweetly scented hair fluttered across his face. Through her thin nightdress he could feel the beating of her heart, sure and strong, and the soft uncorseted roundness of her breasts.

In the course of his professional life, he had necessarily developed an intimate knowledge of the female anatomy, but he did not recall ever having so unprofessional a response to it. Surely, if he had believed her truly ill, he would never have had such a reaction. And since she was already promised to his cousin, his unruly desires must be suppressed.

He attempted to mask his confusion before she could even guess at it. Still holding her, he reached with his free hand to his leather bag and withdrew his most useful of instruments. Affixing one end to his ear—an awkward business, since he still held the lady upright—he pressed the other against her back. She wiggled, an act for which she surely was not aware of the consequences on his state of mind. And body.

Her heart, somewhat accelerated in pace, showed no signs of quitting her anytime soon.

“I can hardly breathe,” she gasped, and tried to pull away.

Here might have been the one symptom of truth, for his own tight grasp of her put pressure on her diaphragm, and their awkward proximity might very well leave her breathless. Gently, and regretfully, he pressed her back down against, the pillows and covered her with the undermost, thinnest, blanket.

“Is that better?” he asked as he put back his instrument.

“No,” she insisted. “I do not feel better at all.”

He deliberately fussed with the clasp on his case and glanced towards her mother before he spoke. Lady Leicester, apparently unconcerned with the proprieties in the case, dozed in her cushioned chair.

“I am surprised to hear it, my lady. For I cannot find anything at all wrong with you,” he said softly.

Lark glowered at him from her nest of pillows and narrowed her eyes.

“Then you must be a very poor physician, if you cannot discover the cause of my malaise!” she cried out.

He raised his brows.

“And you, my lady, must be a very poor patient if you cannot invent symptoms convincing enough to prove me wrong!”

“I invent nothing! I have been ill since the evening of my sister’s ball, barely able to leave my bed. My … my limbs are quite weak and my thinking in complete disarray …”

“And yet you appear very clear and lucid just now.”

She paused and glanced towards her mother. Ben admired her tenacity, for he guessed her scheme was entirely of her own working and would have little support if he chose to challenge her in front of the others. It would be easy to defeat her, and thus bless her marriage to Raeborn.

But for reasons he did not care to examine too closely, he preferred not to do so. Not yet.

Lady Larkspur cleared her throat. “It comes and goes, I am told. I doubt I will remember anything of this interview an hour from now,” she said with a deep sigh.

“A pity,” Ben answered, “for I believe it will remain fixed in my memory for many years to come.”

“And why might it be so? What interest do you retain in this affair?”

“Why, none at all, except for a professional one, and a sense of some obligation to a relation.”

“We are scarcely related at all, sir.”

“So you have told me at least as many times as we have met. I am often admired for my keen intellect, and therefore I assure you your words have been completely understood. But you misunderstand me. I did not refer to our own tenuous connection, but rather to the stronger one I share with Raeborn. He and I have not enjoyed many occasions on which to meet, but my present business in London—and his concerns—have brought us together for a common purpose.” Ben’s own convictions strengthened as he spoke, and he added, “He is not a bad person, my lady.”

Lady Larkspur looked at him with patent distrust.

“I am sure he is a perfect gentleman. I hope he will not be shattered when you tell him I am not the woman for him, for I am incapable of becoming a wife.”

“You seemed perfectly competent a week or so ago when you expected to marry Mr. Floor,” Ben said and lifted her hand from the blanket. It felt warm and dry.

She tried to pull away. “You have pained me all the more to remind me of his perfidy! Please do not do so again!” Since he would not release her hand, she chose to turn her face away. “And his name is Mr. Moore.”

“Forgive my error. Perhaps it is due to the low estimation in which I now hold the man for the damage he has done to you.”

A muffled sound came from the pillows, and Ben realized she was trying to stifle a laugh. It was the first time she had exhibited anything other than scorn in his company, and he marveled at his unexpected ability to produce such a response.

“But he is best forgotten, even if forgiveness will not come easily,” Ben continued quickly. “Your present state of grief will pass, and your recovery will be complete. Raeborn assures me he will wait.”

Ben knew he tested her, purposely inciting her to reveal the true state of affairs. He realized he wanted nothing so much as her admission of playacting her illness, and gambled that his consoling, conciliatory tone would achieve it.