Chemistry of Magic

by Patricia Rice

  “You are wrong about the effectiveness of chemicals,” Dare argued. “My physician prescribes Fowler’s Solution, a chemical mixture that has cured disease, including malaria and asthma.” And syphilis, but Dare refrained from shocking the lady with his sordid research. “It’s still in the experimental stage for consumption, but otherwise, I believe its effectiveness has been proven.”

  She heaved a sigh of exasperation and picked up the next piece of glass to be cleaned. “I did not come here to argue over medicine. This is a business proposition. I have been reliably informed that your family will be thrown from their home upon your demise, a situation which you seem unwilling to rectify.”

  Dare closed his aching eyes and rubbed his pounding temple. This was the reason he’d given up his private quarters—to save money. “My funds are all invested. They will pay off eventually, but they are not liquid enough yet to buy houses. I regret that, but short of finding a cure for consumption, I don’t see how you can help. Perhaps you could shoot my heir?” he asked hopefully, with an element of sarcasm, to be sure.

  “An interesting solution,” she retorted in the same tone. “I suppose the lawyers could then consume your estate searching for a new heir. My solution might be a trifle archaic, but more apt to succeed for both of us. You see, my great-grandfather was an old-fashioned sort of gentleman. He believed women should be married. So I cannot take charge of my inheritance until I am wedded.”

  Dare pried open one eye. She seemed serious. She frowned as she polished a graduated cylinder. She wasn’t even looking at him. He ought to be insulted. Most women flattered, flirted, and fawned all over him. Instead, he was fascinated by her lack of feminine wile, reflecting the perversity of his mind, he fully acknowledged.

  A maid rapped at the door, and the lady called for her to enter. Once the tea tray was settled, the maid scampered out. Dare watched as Miss McDowell poured tea in the genteel manner instilled in all ladies of quality. She was everything society expected her to be. . . but unless the disease had eaten his brains, he was quite certain she was not at all what she seemed.

  She offered the cup to him, and Dare shook his head. He’d have to sit up to drink, and he thought his head might roll off his shoulders if he tried. Despite what the poets said, there wasn’t a damned thing romantic about this damnable disease. The body he’d taken for granted for thirty-one years was deteriorating faster with each passing day.

  “How sizable is your great-grandfather’s estate?” he asked after she’d sipped her tea, because his brain wasn’t completely gone yet, and he thought he knew where this discussion was headed.

  She almost stopped his heart when her wide lips curled upward and her lustrous-lashed eyes sparkled in approval.

  “Grandfather’s estate is large enough to purchase the townhouse your family will need when your heir evicts them. Large enough to establish the laboratory I need for my experiments. And the house and land pay for themselves,” she said in satisfaction.

  “Laboratory?” A bout of coughing prevented finishing the question.

  He didn’t realize she’d approached until he felt her hands on his chest, pushing him back down into the confounded hard settee. Coughing too hard to object, Dare tried to concentrate on a woman’s hands on him for the first time in forever. They felt good. They felt more than good. It was as if she were pushing warmth into his lungs, forcing them to open up. He almost choked taking a deeper breath than he’d been able to take in months.

  She hastily backed away and stared at her now-filthy hands as if they were as diseased as he was. Her voice was a little shaky but did not reflect distaste. “Does your physician use one of those new stethoscopes?” she asked, returning to his table to clean off the soot. “The damage seems worse on one side than the other.”

  What the devil did that mean? And since when did ladies lay hands on gentlemen to whom they were not related?

  He used a dirty rag to wipe his mouth, wadding up the bloody stain and flinging the rag under the chair. Now that he was breathing again, his coughing settled. “Yes, he uses a stethoscope, for what good it does. Consumption damages lungs. We don’t need to cut open my chest to know that.”

  Although he had to wonder how she knew without use of the equipment, but he was focused on a more important topic. “You were speaking of a laboratory?” He tentatively drew another breath. The pain was less. Perhaps having a beautiful woman caressing him drew his blood downward and relieved the pressure.

  Suddenly looking brittle enough to break, she focused her attention on polishing glass. “Yes, if I am to help the ill, I need a laboratory to test and perfect my medicines, understand how and why they work,” she said in a voice that sounded as if she tried to convince herself.

  “Now that my pharmacopeia is almost finished,” she continued, gaining momentum, “my need for a true laboratory is the reason I’m eager to finally claim my inheritance. A distant cousin of mine has just married. Her new husband owns an old abbey near Harrogate where she means to establish a school for midwives. There are buildings on the grounds suitable for an infirmary, and she wants to establish her own clinic for dispensing her potions.” Her tone mocked his earlier scorn. “She said there is enough room for me to establish a laboratory if I’m willing to aid her in preparing and dispensing medicines.”

  Dare pushed himself into a sitting position. Had she been a snake oil dispenser, he would have scorned her herbal quackery. But playing with botany had once been an acceptable lady’s pastime. She didn’t seem intent on poisoning him with it. Yet. “Harrogate?” he asked warily.

  “Yes,” she said, setting the expensive glass down with care. “I know nothing of mineral waters, but your mother indicated they were of interest to you. That is one of the reasons I am here.”

  “I’ve been attempting to separate the various minerals in spa water, looking for the curative properties,” he admitted. “Harrogate’s waters are particularly potent.”

  He hadn’t forgotten the earlier part of her speech, and he continued with caution. “Once you marry, you will inherit an estate near Harrogate and this abbey?”

  She nodded. Her velvet-lashed, purple eyes got wider, if that was at all possible.

  Despite all her exterior composure, she was nervous, Dare realized. He was a huge brute, lying here like a bull in a field. She was a delicate lady, with a very odd mind, but that didn’t change the fact that she was a gently bred female and should not be here at all.

  Which was when his lust-weakened brain comprehended the whole—she knew he was dying. She had come to him with a proposition. She needed a husband. He needed funds. But her courage had failed at the sticking point. He almost fell off the chaise in his haste to show he wasn’t a complete dunderhead.

  Dare regained his feet, set aside the glass she was cleaning, and took her ungloved hand. Her bones were little more than twigs.

  She hastily snatched her hand back, which made his next gesture awkward. Cautiously leaning on the table, because his strength frequently failed him these days, he got down on one knee.

  “Miss McDowell, would you do me the delight and pleasure of becoming my wife?”

  She burst into tears and sobbed, “Yes, of course, please.”

  And then she grabbed her gloves and began pulling them back on.

  Chapter 2

  Emilia hated crying. But she’d been so overwrought, and Lord Dare had seemed so unreasonable, and she’d feared all was lost, and now. . . He was on his knees! She’d not expected that at all. She had only thought of this as a business proposition! She did not need romance. Really, she’d be happy to simply sign papers and be done.

  Hands shaking, she felt foolish struggling with her gloves after his romantic gesture. But she was still weak from laying her hands on him earlier. She had hoped she’d overcome her fatal compulsion to touch the ill, but not touching was how she came to be unmarried all these years.

  And now that he’d actually proposed. . . How could she tell him to keep his h
ands off her when he was trying so hard to do the right thing?

  But when he did not immediately stand after her barely whispered Yes, she could do no less than hold out her newly gloved hand and help him up. Raising all that great height was apparently a difficult procedure. She reluctantly lent him what strength she had.

  Even through the gloves she felt prickles of warning traveling up her arm, and oddly, to her midsection as well as her lungs. She resisted her instinctive need to heal his pain. There was no point suffering with him. Consumption could not be cured.

  She wanted to cry again that such an imposing gentleman should be doomed by such a hideously debilitating disease. As soon as he lurched to his feet again, she pulled her hand away.

  “You honor me,” Lord Dare said, pressing a dry kiss to her cheek.

  The brief touch of his lips did not hurt, she realized with relief, but his proximity was frightening in its. . . She didn’t have a word for what she felt.

  She’d never met a man who held her interest for more than the ten minutes it took to speak with him. But this insanely impetuous man had understood everything she hadn’t said and instead of scorning her—he’d acquiesced! In a few minutes, he’d analyzed all the pluses and minuses that she’d spent countless restless nights debating and made his decision without hesitation. Perhaps astonishment was the word she looked for.

  “No more so than you honor me,” she muttered. “I cannot believe you haven’t called me mad or simple-minded or simply shocking.”

  “Oh, well, we are both a little of all that,” Dare said cheerfully, attempting to tuck in his shirt and button his waistcoat. “But let us say we are pragmatic. I’m not at all certain I want to hear what romantic delusion caused you to turn your back on all the gentlemen who would gladly take you up on your offer.”

  “I am twenty-six years of age. I’ve had quite enough time to inspect all the available bachelors, and they’ve all come up short, sometimes literally,” she admitted with a deprecating laugh, stepping away from him so he did not loom quite so much over her.

  “We have only met once and briefly,” he reminded her. “You cannot have met all of society.”

  She grimaced. “I think I have a better notion of who is available than you. You are much like my Ives cousins-in-law. You spend your time in male circles, intent on your own interests, which means you are seldom available in ballrooms and parlors for me to study, as most other gentlemen are. And you can scarcely say you know me or my family or you would understand why my choices are limited.”

  He glanced around, locating his frock coat over a bust of some ancient Greek. She watched in fascination as he pulled on the coat. She’d never really seen a gentleman dress before. Which made her wonder—would he expect to live with her? Would she have to become used to this familiarity? Her throat clenched at the possibility. Surely not. He was a man of a wide variety of interests, all of them city related. She should be safe enough in the Yorkshire countryside.

  This would be a marriage in name only, mere names upon a license and the legal settlements.

  “You are saying there is something about you and your family that makes gentlemen decline a fortune? That must be a very large something.” Buttoning his coat, he glanced down at her, looking quite ridiculous with his smudged face and white eyes.

  Despite being of a very fine cloth and tailoring, the coat fit loosely on him—one more sign of his illness. Sadness enveloped her as Emilia recognized how sharp the viscount’s mind was. Had she only met the gentleman sooner. . . They would have despised each other. From all reports, he was very much a masculine sort with little interest in society ladies. He even treated the females of his family with appalling disregard.

  “I am a Malcolm.” She waited for recognition of this flaw. He looked at her blankly. He really did not go about in society much. A little more of her confidence returned now that she held his interest. “My family is said to be descended from the witches you scorned earlier. We have eccentric beliefs—one of which is that what belongs to the females of the line, stays with them. Trusts were established long ago to lock up our fortunes so our husbands cannot spend or gamble them away.”

  He stopped fastening his coat and stared at her from beneath singed eyebrows. Honestly, the man looked little better than a chimney sweep. Well, maybe three or four chimney sweeps all packed together.

  “I cannot touch your inheritance once we marry?” he asked warily.

  “Smart man.” She opened the study door, knowing his mother was waiting anxiously not far away. “If you do not hesitate at my obvious flaw of being unfeminine and unladylike, you may argue the settlements with my great-grandfather’s executor and my father’s solicitor. They are both eager to have me off their hands, and they will approve of you. I’m sure the arrangements for the funds you need will be satisfactory.”

  He looked relieved to know that funds would be forthcoming, establishing the basis of this marriage as one of convenience, thank goodness. She had no romantic notions. This bargain would achieve what she wanted more than anything else in the world—and that wasn’t a husband.

  Lord Dare’s brilliant brain evidently kicked in, and he bowed gallantly. “Unfeminine? Never. In my eyes, you are Venus. Never say you are less.” He kissed the back of her glove, apparently recognizing the need for gentlemanly flattery at a moment like this.

  She waited for the shudder or the prickles, but as with his earlier kiss, her gift didn’t react. It wasn’t as if she had much experience at kissing of any sort.

  Even in his illness, Montague Dare was a dashingly handsome gentleman. Had she been any other female, she might have swooned at his attentions. Unfortunately, she had more sense than that. She removed her hand to avert any potential pain, delicately laid her glove on his filthy coat sleeve, and allowed him to lead her to the drawing room, where Lady Dare and two girls barely out of the schoolroom studied them with worlds of hope in their eyes. Emilia had sisters of that age, excitedly anticipating their coming-outs in a few years, full of the expectation of youth. She almost wept at their optimism that all would be well.

  No matter how terrified she was of what she’d just agreed to do, she must remember that her purpose was to help others. Nervously, she clung to Lord Dare’s sleeve as he made his announcement of their betrothal.

  The girls cried out in excitement and flung themselves at their brother, despite his dirt. To Emilia’s dismay, the demonstrative Lady Dare hugged her. She stiffened against the onslaught of prickles, but if the older lady harbored any real pain, it was swept away on the tide of her joy and relief.

  “You will never regret this, my dear,” the viscountess declared happily. “God has sent you our way, and we will take care of you as our own precious treasure.”

  Seeing Emilia’s discomfort, Lord Dare lifted his mother and handed her back to his sisters. They all wiped tears, and then Lady Dare flung her short arms around his broad chest, smearing herself with soot. “You have no idea how happy you’ve made me!” she cried.

  Apparently, Emilia’s dreams weren’t the only ones achieved today.

  Over his mother’s head, her betrothed crooked an eyebrow as if to ask Are you sure this is what you want?

  Well, no, she wasn’t sure at all. She simply had no other choice.

  “You’ve done what?” Lady McDowell asked in horror that evening, as Emilia presented her betrothal as a fait accompli. Her broad face paled against the dusky gloom of the family parlor.

  “You are the one who told me about Lord Dare.” Emilia did not generally fritter her time in the parlor, but even as independent as she was, she knew she needed the help of her family to forge this next step in her life. “He was a perfect gentleman, and his family is thrilled.”

  “I should imagine they are,” her mother said grimly. “But you might have consulted me and your father first. I swear, Emilia, there isn’t a feminine instinct in your entire body. You actually went to his house?”

  “Of course. I needed to spe
ak with him alone. We have agreed that it should only take a week to arrange the marriage settlements and obtain a special license.”

  The obstinate man had also insisted that he could not continue living in his mother’s house once they were wedded. They’d had their first argument when Lord Dare had declared that he was perfectly capable of journeying all the way to her inherited estate in Yorkshire.

  That had not been her plan at all, and the argument had left her more than a little uncomfortable. She was apprehensive about his expectations of married life, but she had not anticipated the argument and had not prepared a speech about a proper marriage of convenience. Surely he understood the terms of their arrangement.

  Even she had been forced to agree that he could not stay with his weeping mother and sisters. Her grandfather’s cottage was large enough to house both of them in their own suites. She didn’t think Dare would like rural life much, but Harrogate was nearby. He could probably rent an inexpensive flat there once he grew bored in the village. He had a manservant to look after him, after all.

  “I would like the ceremony to be held at our home in Cambridge, if possible,” Emilia told her mother. “That will nicely break Lord Dare’s journey so he has time to rest before we depart for Alder.” At least this way, if they left together after the ceremony, it would look like a true marriage. Not being under the eye of all society would be an immense relief.

  Lady McDowell hastily wiped at her eye. “My eldest daughter, the first to be married. I have dreamed of this moment for years, and I cannot even prepare a sumptuous celebration? It’s August. There is no one about anywhere!”

  Emilia had only seen her mother cry once, long, long ago. She had no wish ever to see her weep again. That was half the reason she was doing this. Awkwardly, she leaned over to pat her mother’s hand. “Please, Mama, for Lydia and all the other children who can be saved, I must do this. You know I must. I was never meant for a real marriage. And Lord Dare understands as I cannot expect any other man to do.”