Her mother dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. “He and his family are so traditional. I had hoped. . . Your cousins found nice Ives men who understand their gifts. . .”
Emilia shook her head. “You know for yourself how disorienting and painful it is for me to be touched. Now that I’ve found a way to heal with herbs, it’s much less dangerous than using my hands. And the benefit of healing with herbs is that anyone can do it. Lydia is breathing easier now, isn’t she? She doesn’t need me?”
Lady McDowell took a deep breath that lifted her ample bosom. “You are right, of course. I do not know how you knew to mix your herbs with steam so her asthma has almost disappeared. After we almost lost her. . .” She picked up her notes and turned a page. “I will send a note to the staff in Cambridge to set the house to rights. Another to my sisters who can send the word out. We will have a celebration, if it’s the last thing I do.”
“I certainly hope it won’t come to that,” Emilia said in amusement, relieved to have the discussion over. She had known that her mother, of all people, would understand.
Daughter of an earl, wife of a viscount, Lady Daphne McDowell was the mother of six oddly-gifted children. She had to be disciplined and organized and understanding.
Emilia would do anything for her family, including die, which she had almost done once already. The pharmacopeia was a far better solution than dying.
As his betrothed had predicted, the marriage settlements hadn’t taken long, Dare acknowledged. He had spent the better part of a week learning all the parameters of the lady’s trust and dowry. He was so pleased with the result, that he was even tolerant of his new bride’s eccentric family wedding rituals.
Standing beside Miss McDowell before the vicar, he gazed with interest over the small crowd of guests on the lawns of her family’s ancestral home in Cambridge. None of them seemed concerned about the peculiar additions of cape and thorny crowns Lady McDowell had insisted he and his intended wear. He’d been a bit taken aback by the vows they’d just exchanged—where had they found a vicar willing to accept promises to love, honor, and take thee in equality? But his bride’s intense expression held Dare transfixed. He would have agreed to anything to make her smile at him. She didn’t, but under the circumstances, he couldn’t argue with her need for independence. She could be a widow within the year. He bent to kiss her icy pale cheek, and she squeezed his coat sleeve.
At the end of the service, he shook the pigeon cack off his new top hat and watched leniently as the newly-released birds flew into the park’s trees.
They’d both been caught up in the business of marriage this past week. There hadn’t been time to talk, but he’d had a lot of time to dream of his fiancée—and their marriage bed. These past months living with his mother and sisters had been frustrating beyond all patience. He wasn’t dead yet.
He supposed, though, he should have asked the lady how she’d imagined this marriage of convenience would work. Since he seldom had difficulty talking women into bed, he’d not given it much thought until now, when this one was almost within his reach.
While his own family wept with joy, his new family surged around them, shaking his hand, and hugging his bride, who didn’t seem to appreciate the embraces.
In the week leading up to their wedding, he’d done no more than kiss the new Lady Dare on her cheek. Although no one knew the cause of consumption, his reading of medical journals made him wary of contagion. Kissing seemed dangerous. His bride hadn’t complained about the lack of affection, which had him wondering about her willingness to consummate their marriage.
Dare never turned aside a good challenge.
Although he’d like to punch the one approaching now.
His cousin Peter did not look like a person one wished to punch. Slender, fashionably-dressed, an expensive beaver covering his honey-colored hair, he was a short man with an attitude behind his affable smile.
“Who invited you?” Dare asked grumpily.
“Your mother, of course.” Peter’s smile slipped as he turned his back on the crowd. “I’m your heir, if you’ll remember. She’s all that’s polite.”
Dare’s damned mother was all that and more. “You are talking of the woman you intend to put out of her home, you’ll remember.” Feeling a coughing fit coming on, he clenched his fists to hold it back.
“Your sisters will marry, and she can live with them,” Peter said with a dismissive wave of his gloved hand. “The elderly do not need the space a young family does. Rather nasty of you to marry just to make your bride a widow, though, isn’t it?”
Dare glanced at his bride, currently enveloped in the embraces of his sisters and looking uncomfortable. An unexpected surge of hope braced him sufficiently to hold back his cough and to smile malevolently at his cousin. “My wife is a paragon of female virtue. Her family is very prolific. Just look around you. This is a very small portion of her relations. My advice is not to count your hens before they’re hatched, dear cousin.”
Feeling happier than he had in months, he strode toward his bride, leaving Peter stewing in his own evil juices.
For the morning ceremony, his new wife had worn a white muslin gown and matching wide-brimmed hat adorned in white and black roses. He despised those hats that hid her face and kept him at a distance. But in the August humidity, she looked cooler than he did. Still he noticed she surreptitiously removed the silly rowan crown they’d both worn according to family tradition. He handed his to her mother, along with the ridiculous cape, now that the ceremony was over.
“Do you need more horehound?” his bride whispered, touching his coat sleeve with her gloved hand and leaning close between hugs and excited chatter.
Dare gestured at his pocket where he’d stored the honey-lemon-flavored candies she’d given him. They had a bitter aftertaste but suppressed his cough. “I have a few more. But we need to leave soon if we’re to make the first stop of our journey before dark.”
He had to concede that the challenge ahead wasn’t just his new wife, but his own damned weakness. His head pounded, and he had the strength of a limp noodle, but he wasn’t about to mention weakness to his stunning bride.
He regretted that he wasn’t the man he’d once been, but he was still a man. And Emilia was all woman, smelling of lavender, looking like a virginal Venus, and causing what was left of his blood to race. He wanted strength for his husbandly duties tonight—if only they could escape soon.
Lord Theo Ives emerged from the crowd of well-wishers to pound Dare on the back. “Welcome to the exotic world of Malcolm marriage, old boy. You’ll never be bored again.”
Lady Aster, Lord Theo’s wife, released her husband’s arm to take Emilia’s. “Come along, I need to speak with the dowager Lady Dare about the details of your husband’s birth so I may draw his astrological chart.”
Emilia sent him a pleading look, but Dare figured it would be a very short conversation and a very short chart given his fate, so he let her go. Besides, he needed to discuss investments with Theo.
“Did you talk with the rest of the railroad committee?” Dare asked, leading Theo toward a grove of trees, away from the wedding party. “Has the Crown agreed to sell that final stretch of land that we need to finish the tracks?”
Theo rubbed his nose, and Dare experienced a sinking feeling. Theo wasn’t much of a talker, but his rubbing his nose meant he didn’t want to talk.
“You won’t like this.” Theo finally found his words. “In an amazing piece of bad luck, my uncle and his new wife now own the entire property. Rather than sell the single strip we need, the Crown bestowed all of Alder Abbey on Pascoe. We’ve missed our opportunity.”
“How is that bad luck?” Dare asked. “We’ve not been able to pry the plot out of the Crown’s hands, but your uncle has somehow managed to put it back in circulation. We just need to pay him instead of the king. Or we could make him an investor. He should be happy to be rid of that worthless stretch.”
Theo shoved his hand in
his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “One would think that would be the easiest solution, but you haven’t had time to grasp the intricacies of being married to a Malcolm. They look so fragile and lovely, don’t they?” He glanced at the sea of frilly hats and delicate fabrics blowing gracefully in a breeze as the women gathered around the bride.
Women were supposed to be fragile and lovely. Dare noticed his bride stood taller than all the rest, but that didn’t make her any stronger. She was already sending him another pleading look. He swelled with pride that she turned to him. He nodded to her, then regarded Theo without understanding. “What do our wives have to do with anything?”
Theo held up his fingers and began counting them off. “One, Malcolms probably own half of England. Two, the women are all married to some of the most powerful men in the kingdom. Three, they control as much of the wealth as their husbands. Four, they are the most intransigent, whimsical, irrational flight of moon-touched pigeons as you can imagine. You have no notion of what you’ve let yourself in for.”
Whimsical women, he understood. Powerful ones—that was a rather quelling notion, but even if such a creature existed, Dare didn’t see how it applied. “What does this have to do with your uncle and his land?”
“Pascoe is married to another Malcolm, the same cousin who has invited Emilia to build her laboratory and clinic in Alder Abbey. It is the reason your bride is finally eager to marry and take over her grandfather’s estate. Do you really think they will give up that land for a railroad?”
Dare refused to believe two reasonable men couldn’t sit down and negotiate a contract. “If we don’t connect the properties on either side of the abbey land, the railroad can’t go through. We’ll lose everything. I’ll talk with him.”
Theo nodded, not looking optimistic. “I don’t have much invested, but the rest of you. . .” He made a helpless gesture. “You may be our only hope.”
“I’ll talk to your uncle,” was all Dare said, saving his breath to fight the urge to cough. “Men are rational, and the land is his.”
“Probably not now,” Theo said with a sigh. “He would have put part of it up as a dower for his bride and offspring. Looks like my brother’s berlin has arrived to haul you to your fate. Sorry to set you off on your wedding journey on a sour note. Maybe once you’re there, you can find alternatives.”
Dare hoped so. His marriage settlement provided the wherewithal to see his family properly housed, but his investments must pay for their future. He didn’t want to leave his mother in penury, as his father had. He’d worked hard and long to be better than that.
Recently tailored, Lord Dare’s wedding clothes fit his manly shoulders and narrow hips to perfection. Emilia had scarcely been able to pry her gaze from her new husband all morning. Now that she clutched his coat sleeve in preparation for departing, she was relieved to confirm that the layers of fabric prevented her from sensing whatever pain he suffered. Or her nervousness did.
She was about to leave behind her family and embark on a journey to her new future. She had a right to be nervous.
Dare led her toward the grandiose coach the marquess of Ashford had generously sent down for their use. Here was their first test of disorder at the way things ought to be. Men were supposed to hand ladies in, but she stepped aside. “You will have to climb in first,” she nervously informed him.
He shot her a look of surprise, then intelligently, peered inside. His eyebrows rose. “Where are our legs supposed to go?”
“It’s a mattress, so you may rest,” she said, clasping and unclasping her gloved hands. “But it needed to go on the far side so we can climb in and out. The plank can be removed and the mattress rolled up, if you prefer, but we’ve stored your valise and a box beneath it. I have rather a lot of. . . books. I was trying to think of what you might need,” she whispered. “I am not very good at it.”
In fact, she was very bad at thinking of others. She’d never really needed to do so—unless they were ill.
“I am not an invalid yet,” he growled, glaring down at her.
Oh, dear, she had so hoped. . . She raised her chin as she had learned to do when arguing with gentlemen. “You will be an invalid much sooner if you do not take care of yourself.”
“I will take care of me,” he insisted. “I do not want posies or soup or mattresses. Men take care of women, not the other way around.”
She thought her eyebrows might fly off her head. “That is the most absurd notion I’ve ever had the displeasure of hearing. Women take care of men from birth. You’d be incapable of feeding yourselves otherwise. You may remove the mattress, if that is your desire, but I will refrain from carrying you out of the carriage if you pass out before we reach our destination.”
She was shivering with temper—on her wedding day! She had tried so hard to think of a way to please him. . .
He turned his glower back to the unusual arrangement across the seats. “I detest being reminded that I am ill.”
“I detest being told I am female and thus weak,” she retorted.
“Women are weak,” he insisted. “I should know, I’ve lived with them all my life.” Rather than argue or posture more, her groom climbed in to test the strength of the plank. Apparently satisfied, he reached down for her hand and lifted her in. “But I appreciate that you thought of my comfort.”
He did not say it in a tone of mollification, but at least he’d accepted the arrangement.
“If. . . if we are to learn to live together. . .” Taking a seat, Emilia twisted her gloved hands as she nervously sought words. The footman shut the door, enclosing her in the dim interior with the imposing gentleman attempting to situate himself on a mattress far too short for his length. She took a breath and tried again. “We need to learn more about each other’s likes and dislikes. I had thought this might be similar to the settee in your study.”
She pushed a pillow behind his back to give him more support.
Dare flung his tall hat over the toe of his shoe and loosened his cravat. Without warning, he found her hat pin, removed it, and flung her hat on the far seat as well. “If you really wish to learn my preferences, I prefer to see your face.”
She ducked her head to look at her hands. “As I prefer to conceal it,” she countered, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks. She despised that blush with all her heart and soul.
She really had not thought it through when he’d insisted that he journey with her to Yorkshire. But how could she have denied him? He was ill. For better or worse, he was her husband now.
Dare coughed, fought with a reply, then leaned back against the pillows in disgust while he fumbled for his handkerchief. Emilia opened her reticule and removed a paper of horehound drops.
“I wish these did more than suppress the cough,” she murmured.
“Safer than opium,” he gasped between bouts. “Can you reach the valise?”
Normally, she would have questioned. But this transition from being herself into being part of a couple was awkward. If they were to share the same house for a while, she would like him to be comfortable with her. He was helping her achieve her dream, after all, and even in her self-absorption, she recognized that a dying man ought to be given what made him happy. But she heartily disapproved of patent medicine, which is what she feared he had in his valise.
She tugged the bag out anyway and set it in the small space between them, opening the latch so he needn’t struggle to sit up more.
He rummaged with one hand until he pulled out a clear bottle that appeared to be no more than water. “Mineral water,” he said, as if understanding her curiosity. “It can’t hurt to try.”
She smiled in relief and returned the valise to the floorboards. “People have been drinking it for centuries. I don’t think it’s killed anyone yet, although I doubt that it has cured them either.”
He swallowed the water, then took one of her lozenges. “We have no way of knowing what it does. We need more scientific means of experimenting, which re
quires comparison between groups using the waters and those who don’t. And even then, every person and every disease is different, so it would take very large groups for the experiment to be effective.”
This was the kind of conversation she understood, and she was delighted that he didn’t think her too feeble-witted to comprehend. “If we only understood the source of the disease, it might be easier to experiment with than with people. It is one of the reasons I’ve wished for a microscope, but the university will not allow me to use theirs, and they’re too expensive for my budget.”
With the coughing halted, he folded up his handkerchief, set aside his bottle, and angled himself so he could see her. “I’m surprised you know anything about microscopes and experimentation. Most women simply nod knowingly and talk about their modiste when I mention them.”
Emilia tried very hard not to shoot him a look of icy disgust. He seemed teachable. She would be patient. “Most women aren’t given the education I have.” Or the incentive to learn what she needed. Unfortunately, she thought telling him of her healing ability would push his credulity if he didn’t even believe she had a brain.
He nodded, looked doubtful, and apparently tested her by saying, “I have the most recent Dolland instrument, but lighting is still a problem. Chemical methods are more successful in separating the elements of water.”
“I was fortunate enough to be allowed to look into a Dolland at the university. It could be most useful in my research, but I am not interested in chemicals and elements,” she replied, proving she knew as much as he. “I am interested in living organisms. Microscopes are revealing that plants and animals have a cellular structure. What causes those structures to become diseased?”
He frowned, then closed his eyes. “An interesting approach. Let me think on it. The rocking of the coach is a better soporific than laudanum.”
“It’s been a rather long day, and it’s only half over,” she agreed, castigating herself for exhausting him with her need to defend her research. She’d spent this past week reading all she could on consumption. Rest was essential, which was why she’d had the mattress installed.
Chemistry of Magic Page 3