Dukes Prefer Blondes

by Loretta Chase

  “How dare you imply that her ladyship suffers from that vile disease?” Marler raged. “Millar wrote of an epidemic in Glasgow. It is a disease of the lower orders. Jail fever. The Irish.”

  “It’s a contagion, which may float in the atmosphere or adhere to clothing and other articles,” Radford said. “One who visits, for charitable purposes, for example, a schoolroom or crowded and poorly ventilated living quarters may be exposed. If you have not had this disease, sir, I urge you—­for your patients’ sakes—­to turn this case over to a colleague who has survived it. In the meantime, as one who has survived it, I’m in no danger.”

  The doctor argued on, but the possibility of contracting a low disease—­one common among the Irish, no less—­was working in his mind, Radford could tell, and by degrees the medical man began to climb down from his high ropes.

  Very well, Marler said. He would seek out a colleague, one of the gentlemen who attended at a hospital. In the meantime, he would leave his orders for her ladyship’s maid. He would expect them to be followed to the letter.

  He left in a state of spleen very likely to overset the crucial balance of humors in which he put his faith. It would not have consoled him to know that those who found themselves in disagreement with Raven Radford tended to experience similar symptoms.

  “Now who is it you’re provoking?” came Lady Clara’s voice from the bed. If he hadn’t known she was in the bed, he’d have had trouble recognizing her voice, so weak and slurred it was. “Are we in court? Have I killed anybody? But it isn’t you, is it? Don’t let him cut me, please.”

  He went to the bed. Her face was white and drawn.

  “Don’t let him cut me, please,” she said.

  He swallowed. “Don’t be silly. Of course I won’t let anybody cut you. No leeches, either, unless you annoy me.”

  This won him a wan smile. But her voice was weary, and he could see her vitality ebbing.

  He turned away from the bed, to Davis, whose face, thankfully, was ruddy with emotion, not pale. If the maid took sick, he wasn’t sure what he’d do.

  “The other night, when she said she didn’t feel well, I worried what it might be,” the maid said. “I sponged her with cool water and vinegar. I know some say not to, but she was hot.”

  “You were right,” he said. “We’ll have recourse to the method again, you may be sure.”

  “I tried to keep her safe,” Davis said. “For fear of vermin I scrubbed her when she came back from your . . . adventure. Sir, she called it an adventure.” Tears filled the maid’s eyes. “And when I scolded her, and said it was a miracle she wasn’t a hostelry for insects, she laughed. She said something about a poem about a louse.”

  Robert Burns, he thought. Only Clara would laugh and think of that poem.

  He remembered her laugh as she was leaving Westcott’s office, when she’d called Radford “Professor.” He remembered the way her smile had brightened the room, as though she brought her own sunlight with her.

  “I read where one ought to shave their heads,” the maid was saying, “but I couldn’t bring myself to it, sir. My beautiful girl.” Her face worked.

  “There was no need,” he said. “I’ve no doubt you scrubbed away every last foreign article. Whatever made her ill got into her before you could eradicate it.”

  “I’ve looked after her since she was nine years old,” the maid said. “A rare handful she ever was. You’d better make her well again.”

  “I will,” he said. I hope. “First thing let’s do, let’s strip the room. Let’s start with everything fresh and clean. I want the windows opened. That means we’ll need a blazing fire to keep the room warm while we freshen the air.”

  When the fire was built up, he tossed the doctor’s instructions into it.

  Radford wasn’t sure what he’d have done without the loyal maid. He was perfectly capable of intimidating others and controlling situations. Manipulating a jury was a skill he’d honed. But any battle took time and mental energy, which he couldn’t spare at present. The task ahead of him would demand all his resources. He needed to focus on Lady Clara. Only with Davis as his ally was this possible.

  The rest of the household staff were afraid of the lady’s maid. When she gave an order, no one dared to say “I’m not allowed” or “Mistress wouldn’t like it” or seek permission from senior staff members. She quickly enlisted a pair of strong housemaids to open windows, strip the room, and make all as clean as could be.

  All personal care of her mistress, however, was hers exclusively, and Radford found himself elbowed aside when she sponged Lady Clara’s face and neck or tried to spoon a little nourishment into her. She’d given her a few drops of laudanum at intervals, cautiously. She must have judged her doses to a nicety, because Clara remained somewhat alert and seemed to digest the little she ate.

  Well aware that their watch would be a long one, he left Davis to her work, and went downstairs to make peace with Lady Exton.

  Radford found the countess pacing what had once been her husband’s study. The decor told him she’d eradicated all traces of the late earl.

  “It is the typhus, isn’t it?” she said when Radford entered. “Dr. Marler tells me it’s nonsense, but he went away in a great hurry. He said he’d send a colleague, since he was not to your liking, and Clara was rude to him the first time he came.”

  “What good sense she has,” he said.

  “He wanted to bleed her, but she said it was a doctor bleeding Lord Byron who killed him, not fever. And she would not consent to his touching her with his filthy scalpel. She didn’t know where it had been, she said.” Lady Exton’s mouth trembled. “She was so like her grandmother—­haughty and despotic even from her ­sickbed—­I had all I could do to keep in countenance, for all I was so worried.”

  She was anxious, and chattering in the way women often did when confronting one ugliness or another. Radford foresaw at least an hour of time wasted with her talking. His usual caustic remedy, he understood, would do nothing to effect a truce. The opposite, rather.

  For Clara’s sake, he made a furious mental struggle for a tactful approach. He was a barrister, he reminded himself. He could argue a case from any of a hundred different angles. Dealing with this lady would require the gentler language he’d use with judges of tremulous disposition and slow understanding.

  When Lady Exton paused for breath, he said, “Refusing to be bled may well have saved her life, and I applaud your ladyship for so wisely taking her side. I know this has been a worrisome time for you. My bursting in, in all my dirt and incivility, was not likely to soothe. I do beg your pardon. But I must counsel your ladyship to be seated. There’s no need to wear yourself out.”

  The ruffled feathers began to smooth, and the lady sat, inviting him to take a chair as well. She sat ramrod straight, her hands folded in her lap. Only a slight tremor of her fingers betrayed her agitation.

  “I can’t say absolutely that Lady Clara suffers from typhus,” he said. “Experienced physicians can’t always be certain. But I see all the signs, and I’d rather not risk her health by assuming it’s a more benign ailment.”

  She inhaled sharply.

  “However, Davis has done all that I would have done had I been on the spot when her ladyship first fell ill,” he said. “Lady Clara is a strong young woman, mentally and physically. We’ve reason to be optimistic. But we’ve three weeks or more ahead of us—­”

  “Three weeks!”

  “Three weeks until we’re certain she’s safe.”

  He watched her take this in, and control herself, as some ladies could do as well or better than men. “In other words,” she said after a moment, “she might die at any time in three weeks.”

  “I won’t let her,” he said.

  She looked away, toward the writing desk. “I must inform her parents. I’ve avoided it, not wanting Lady Warford to fa
ll among us in hysteria.”

  “Lady Clara needs quiet,” he said. “She needs rest. She needs constant attention. What she doesn’t need is her whole blasted family descending on her at once, which you know will happen. And then what? While we’ve done all we can to minimize the risk of contagion, I can’t assure you unequivocally that another, weaker, person won’t contract the ailment.”

  He reminded her ladyship that Lady Clara’s sister-­in-­law, Lady Longmore, might well be in a family way. Furthermore, Lady Longmore’s sister carried the Duke of Clevedon’s child. Would she endanger these women and their unborn children?

  Lady Exton was not a stupid woman. Presented with evidence, various examples he produced from personal experience in Yorkshire, and himself and his father as Exhibits A and B, the one-­woman jury reached the intelligent verdict.

  “Very well,” she said. “One must write to them or they’ll wonder at the silence. I shall simply write in the ordinary way, though telling lies.” She rose and he rose with her. “As to you, sir, I’ll have one of the guest rooms made up for you. Then I must contrive more lies to explain your presence here.”

  “I’m a lawyer,” he said. “Why else would I be here but on legal business?”

  Chapter Nine

  Typhus, after it has reached a certain stage, will proceed onwards in its course (a few rare in­stances excepted), in spite of every obstacle medicine has yet devised to check its career.

  —­Richard Millar, Clinical Lectures on the Contagious Typhus, Epidemic in Glasgow, and the Vicinity, 1833

  After sending a message to Westcott for fresh clothes and other items, Radford returned to Lady Clara’s room. Davis sat by the bed, knitting.

  The bed was a modern one in the Grecian style, with bare-­breasted females supporting the bedposts. Apt enough. Lady Clara ought to have a pair of caryatids at the foot of the bed, guarding the goddess’s temple. Other Grecian-­style articles looked on from the mantelpiece. An elaborate urn clock dominated the center. Cupid stood on its pedestal, pointing to the time on the revolving band encircling the urn. More usual Grecian urns stood on either side of the clock and a row of familiar figures from classical myth posed next to the urns.

  Having had the maids draw back the blue curtains to let air circulate, he saw the disordered bedclothes as soon as he entered. In one of her more feverish states, the patient must have flung them away . . . to offer an unobstructed view of her nightgown from the waist up. A plain, virginal affair, with no lace and only a few ruffles, the garment left nothing to distract from her beauty. Even pale and ill, she put the goddesses and nymphs in the room to shame.

  Nothing concealed one fact, either: Her undergarments had not created her figure. All they’d done was support it.

  Radford did nothing so nonsensical as tell himself he oughtn’t to think about her figure at a time like this. Firstly, he was a man of acute powers of observation. Secondly, he was a man.

  Not to mention, she wasn’t in any danger from him at present. All the danger was the contagion inside her.

  Though the evidence pointed to her having been restless earlier, she seemed to sleep peacefully enough now.

  He moved to the bed and gently took her wrist. Her eyes fluttered open.

  “It isn’t you,” she said.

  “Of course it is,” he said. “Your pulse is strong.”

  “You’re holding my hand,” she said. And smiled.

  He brought her hand down to the bedclothes and released it. This wasn’t what he wanted to do. He wanted to hold on and keep her alive through sheer force of will. He was, in truth, afraid to let go, lest she slip away from him forever.

  But that was illogical, superstitious thinking. He had to remain detached. Emotion led to panic, which led to mistakes in judgment.

  “Tell me how you feel,” he said.

  “I’m dreaming,” she said.

  “That’s the laudanum.” It wasn’t the ideal medicine at this stage of the illness, but it was the only relatively safe way Davis had of relieving the pain.

  “Do you really think so?” Clara said. “I don’t feel so sick now. Was I disgusting?”

  “Entirely repellent,” he said. “I couldn’t bear it. I ran out of the room, and vowed to find another, less revolting girl to look after.”

  “Are you looking after me?”

  “No one else wanted the job,” he said. “Especially the doctor.”

  He heard a shadow of a laugh.

  “Are you hungry?” he said.

  She started to shake her head, then winced and stopped. “No.”

  “I’m going to send for more broth,” he said. Typhus caused severe dyspepsia, among other symptoms. He knew she wouldn’t want to eat or drink anything, but he needed to get something into her, or the disease would weaken her fatally.

  “I’ll see to it,” Davis said. She set aside her knitting, rose, and went out of the room.

  After a moment’s hesitation, he took the maid’s chair. “You must try to take nourishment,” he told his patient. “You must do exactly as I say, and get well, because I’ve promised you would and if you don’t, I shall be disgraced, and then—­”

  “I know. Your career will be ruined. You’re so charming.”

  “Everybody says that,” he said.

  “No, they don’t. Never. No one has ever said that about you in all your life, I’ll wager anything.”

  “Perhaps they did not exactly say charming,” he said. “Perhaps . . . Yes, now I recollect, the phrase was ‘tolerable in very small doses.’ ”

  “And yet I missed you,” she said. “Fancy that.”

  She made it so difficult to stay detached. At this moment, it was impossible. He couldn’t stop his other self from getting a word in. “I missed you, too,” he said gruffly.

  “Of course you did,” she said. “Because I’m so lovable.”

  “You are not lovable,” he said. “You are excessively annoying. And managing. But I’m accustomed to hardened criminals and half-­witted judges, and being with you reminds me of home at the Old Bailey.”

  Such a smile, then, more like her usual one.

  He hadn’t realized how leaden his heart had become until now, when the weight lifted, though not fully. Now he knew the weight would be with him until she was well and going her own obstinate way, challenging him and driving him more than a little mad.

  “Only you would say that,” she said. “I read about ravens. They’re so clever. Even when we don’t see them, they see us. The best way to watch a raven is to lie flat on your back.”

  “Well done,” he said. “Though you could be a little flatter.”

  “He never comes straight on, but by maneuvers, and he’s nearly impossible to catch.” Her eyelids drooped. “I’m tired, Raven.”

  “You’re talking too much,” he said. “You won’t have the strength to take your pitiful spoonful of broth.”

  She closed her eyes. “Yes. So clever of me.”

  He sat by her while she slept, until Davis returned.

  Then he moved away, to a far corner of the room, and looked out into the garden while he listened to the maid coaxing her charge to sip: “A small taste, my lady. Come. Another drop. Yes. A little more. You can. You’ll feel better, I promise.”

  It washed over him all at once, an ocean of weariness. The worry and missed meals and missed sleep took hold of him, and he sank under the weight. He dropped into the nearest chair and was asleep in an instant.

  Davis woke him.

  He didn’t know how long he’d slept. Hours, it must have been. The windows were dark. Only one candle burned, light being painful to the patient.

  “She was better for a time, sir,” Davis said softly. “But then she had a bad pain in her stomach. I fear to give her more laudanum. It quiets the pain and helps her sleep, but I know it cramps the bowels.�
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  Radford went to the bed.

  He laid his hand over Clara’s forehead. It was hot. Clara lifted her hand and laid it over his and pressed. Her hand was hot as well. The fever was climbing.

  She said something he couldn’t understand.

  “Your head?” he said. He bent his head, to bring his ear close to her mouth. Her voice was so weak and listless.

  “Cut if off, please,” she said.

  “Does your back ache?” he said.

  “Take that, too.”

  “Legs?”

  “Those as well.”

  He had only a confused recollection of his own miseries during his bout with typhus. His father’s sufferings, however, were sharp in his memory. Impossible to find a comfortable position. Every motion so painful.

  Though George Radford never complained, he hadn’t been able to conceal the evidence of his distress. Radford retained a powerful memory of the aged face, so taut and white, the tightly compressed mouth, and the deep lines radiating from his eyes. Radford remembered as well what he’d felt as he watched: his insides so cold and hollow with the fear of losing him.

  “She needs to sleep,” he told Davis. “So do you. You’ve been up with her, I don’t doubt, since the minute she fell ill, and if you’ve had a wink of sleep that’s all you’ve had.”

  “I can’t rest while my lady lies so ill,” she said.

  “Tell me what good you’ll be to her if you’re too weary to think or even see properly,” he said. “I’ve had rest. I can do what needs to be done. I’ve nursed before, and I’m not squeamish. Has Westcott sent my things?”

  They were close by, she told him, much to his surprise. He’d expected to be exiled to one of the cell-­like rooms on the upper floors, where hostesses customarily crammed low-­ranking bachelors. Instead Lady Exton had given him the next room but one. Doubtless she’d bestowed the privilege because George Radford had won her difficult theft case. He’d called it “quite a pretty puzzle,” which meant the average barrister would have deemed it unwinnable.