Seduced by an Irresistible Lady: A Historical Regency Romance Book

by Henrietta Harding

  Let Frank deal with it.

  Dr Frederick shook his head at his hypocrisy but still walked away.

  “Frank, please watch it till it dies. Then dispose properly of its body. Please dispose it where scavenging animals cannot get to it. It has poison in its bloodstream. Any scavenger that feeds on it dies.”

  Mister Frank nodded and folded his arms across his chest. He looked downwards, away from the dying monkey. It was not a palatable business for him either.

  Good.

  Dr Frederick walked to the sink and washed his hands. There was a greasy feel on them, he wasn’t sure from what. Dr Frederick hoped it wasn’t from the skin of the monkey although that was the most likely source. He bent under the sink and saw the small pan where the soap was. Picking up the bar of soap, he rubbed it on his wet hand till he was sure he had enough on before rising to wash his hands in the sink. The greasy feel was gone now.

  When Dr Frederick turned back, he saw that Mister Frank still had his eyes away from the monkey.

  “How are you to know when it dies if you aren’t observing it?” he asked.

  Mister Frank managed to raise his eyes to his master. That was the only response he could muster. Dr Frederick shook his head.

  “A quick reminder that you have to indicate it’s time of death so we would know how long it took it to die from when the poison was introduced. I want to know if the time span is increased by the action of adrenaline. I expect it to be and will be disappointed if it isn’t.”

  “Well, there’s no chance of disappointment then,” Mister Frank said, looking at Dr Frederick.

  Dr Frederick didn’t understand.

  “No chance?”

  “Yes sir, that amount of poison spends roughly twenty minutes before it kills the test subject,” Mister Frank said.

  Dr Frederick smiled.

  Frank still has a lot of training to do.

  He walked to his dresser and placed his hand on the back of his neck. He pressed into it and turned his dresser’s head to the dying monkey. The monkey’s chest was rising and falling more slowly than before. Dr Frederick was sure the heart rate had dropped a bit.

  “What animal is this, Frank?” Dr Frederick asked him.

  “It’s a monkey sir, a rhesus monkey.”

  “Good,” Dr Frederick said, nodding his head.

  “How many times have we tested that poison on a rhesus monkey?”

  Mister Frank looked up at the ceiling. His right hand was raised with the fingers stretched out. Slowly, he started bending the fingers as his mouth moved. He was counting. He had bent four when his brows arched; he released the fingers.

  “On a monkey, sir?”

  “Yes, Frank, on a monkey,” Dr Frederick replied.

  “Never, sir.”

  “So are the individual anatomies and physiological processes and responses of the bodies of puppies and monkeys the same?”

  Mister Frank spent a lot of time ruminating on the question. Dr Frederick wasn’t going to be surprised if he said yes. Sometimes Mister Frank was sharp enough to observe and remember things even he didn’t, other times, like now, Mister Frank was plain silly.

  “No, sir,” replied Mister Frank.

  “So do you see why we cannot compare how long it spent in a dog to how long it’s spending in a monkey?” Dr Frederick asked, arching his brows to show his annoyance at his dresser’s ignorance.

  “Yes sir, I do.”

  “Good, the only premise on which the length of time can be compared is the comparable body size but nothing more,” Dr Frederick said with a note of finality.

  The monkey was still alive and looked like it would be for a while. Dr Frederick was sure if the poison was tested in another monkey without the adrenaline added, it would be dead by then. But he wasn’t going to say that out here, just after Mister Frank’s ignorant assumption.

  That would only confuse the young man.

  “So please, keep your open eyes steadfast till it dies and record the time of death. Use the tube listener to confirm death.”

  Dr Frederick walked into his bedroom. He removed his laboratory coat and hung it on the rack beside his door. He walked into his room and to his bed. Dr Frederick sat down at first, but his back ached, and he lay down, facing the ceiling. They had been awake since the crack of dawn and had been preparing reagents, equipment, and the monkey for the experiment. The rigour had taken its toll.

  I shouldn’t be lying down. I should be writing my own report and giving my own inference.

  But his mind was just as tired as his body, and Dr Frederick knew not to make any analysis in this condition. He thought up his next steps. There were two monkeys left.

  The sample testing has to be more than just three.

  They would be.

  One of the monkeys would be poisoned and observed till death without any intervention. Dr Frederick expected a far shorter time span till death. The other would suffer almost the exact procedure that its mate endured today.

  Almost.

  Dr Frederick planned to cut it open and look at the physical reaction of its heart as he introduced the adrenaline.

  What if I try blocking one of the veins or arteries? I could create an artificial heart problem and see how an increased beat rate helps the odds of living.

  That would be something risky and couldn’t be done for the first time on the final monkey. He decided to open the second monkey after it died and see what he could do to manipulate the blood flow in its heart. He knew it would be a big assumption because one of the monkeys would be dead, the other alive. But if he could just get it right?

  Imagine how many lives affected by hearts with congenital or developed problems could be saved?

  The Duke of Beaufort was first on his list. Dr Frederick was sure there was a hole or fissure somewhere in the Duke’s heart. He couldn’t do anything about it if he didn’t understand it. If their testing worked out, he could try it on the Duke if the situation was dire enough. Something is always better than nothing. Dr Frederick pushed away the thought of Lord Jeffrey as it threatened to rise up.

  The father is my patient not the son.

  Anchored to thoughts of Lord Jeffrey came Miss Helena’s image. He had almost taken her at the party if not for Lord Jeffrey’s timely interruption.

  I should move away from her completely. She isn’t mine to take.

  There was a pushing tension in his breeches. His member had arisen in response to his sensual thoughts.

  The body is willing, but the mind is not, not anymore.

  Miss Helena had caused him enough hurt. Dr Frederick steered his thoughts back to his work. If he could manage to make further progress in his work, he would take it to the English Council of Physicians and the Centre for Medical Research. If his work was deemed groundbreaking enough, he would be given an audience with the King on whom the prerogative lay to provide funding for further research.

  Dr Frederick smiled. There was a tingle in his belly. His work might be about to be properly rewarded. He could even be knighted.

  “Arrgh, the allure of a grand future,” Dr Frederick exclaimed, exasperated by his unnecessarily forward mind.

  He was already thinking too far ahead. He had to get the project ratified by the English Council of Physicians first if he was going to get permission to use on humans. Without their permission, using it on anyone could cost him his medical licence.

  Would, would cost me my medical licence.

  But why would he do that? He wasn’t so stupid.

  Chapter 23

  Why Did I Look Out That Window?

  Aren’t I just being stupid?

  Dr Frederick shook his head. He could still stop this madness. He was about to test research that was not ratified.

  How stupid could you be to test something that had never been tried on anyone else on the Duke of Beaufort? As stupid as I am, obviously.

  Dr Frederick didn’t see any other option, though. If he didn’t do this, the man would die, sure
ly. He was only a few breaths from doing so.

  “Is there any problem, Dr Frederick? Please do it, he seems to have stopped breathing. Do not let him die,” Duchess Mona cried.

  Dr Frederick picked up the syringe and unsheathed the needle. The Duchess was distraught, and it was getting to him. But he could understand. She also saw that her husband was dying. Another thing that could also die was his research and profession. If he did this and the results prove to be unexpected, in a wrong way, the woman and her son might come for his head.

  Lord Jeffrey would have more than enough motivation to do that.

  Dr Frederick remembered the morning. He could never have imagined that he would find himself in this situation.

  When Dr Frederick had woken up that morning, he thought about the set out plan for the day, and he couldn’t stop smiling. It was more than a week now since they had run the first test on the rhesus monkey. Now they had used all the monkeys and had gotten sterling results.

  Dr Frederick had gotten up from his bed and walked to the window. The sun was just rising and formed a yellow semicircle in the background of a landscape that one would struggle to define as breathtaking. The land had no major topography as it was flat in some portions and others had small ditches and short hills. What would have been an expansive portion of land with grass and a sprinkling of trees was now excessively punctuated with houses and shanties. Dr Frederick shook his head.

  It’s better to think about my research than the beauty in this view. There isn’t any.

  He had managed to reconstruct the heart of the second monkey after it died of poisoning. Yesterday, he copied that to the third one, although to a less extent, to ensure its survival, and observed the effects. Blood flow in the heart of the monkey reduced drastically and arrhythmia set in. Dr Frederick waited till it was about dying.

  “You can do it any second now, sir,” Mister Frank had said with his eyes telling his boss to do it immediately.

  After a short while during which Dr Frederick only stared at the monkey, Mister Frank spoke again, his voice strained with naked angst.

  “You might want to do this right away. The animal will take its last breath about this time.”

  Dr Frederick didn’t respond. He waited some more. He waited till there was no observable rise in the animal’s chest, till it had just taken its last breath before he quickly pierced its naked heart with his injection needle and infused the hormone into it. The reaction was instant. The heart beat again, faster and harder than it had since he had opened it. And the force of the beat almost forced a normal beat, although Dr Frederick could see that the shunt he placed in its aorta still held. The animal still died, but it had fulfilled a purpose.

  That was yesterday. This morning after his reflections on the poor view of his bedroom window, he had his bath and ate quickly.

  “Frank,” Dr Frederick called.

  Mister Frank answered quickly, immediately pushing the door open as if he had been behind the door all the while waiting for Dr Frederick’s call.

  “Is the carriage ready for us? London is quite the distance, Frank. We need to leave early.”

  “Yes sir, it’s ready. I have taken all my notes and tools. All your tools are also in your tool box which is also in the carriage. Except for your notes, which are with you, we are all set,” Mister Frank said.

  Dr Frederick nodded.

  “I won’t take more than a minute now. Go to the carriage and wait for me,” Dr Frederick replied.

  Mister Frank gave a short bow before going out of the room. Dr Frederick went to his bed and picked up the stack of laboratory notes he had arranged. He placed them into the black bag he was taking along with him to London.

  “Let the day favour me,” he said prayerfully.

  Dr Frederick walked out of his house and shut the door. He locked it with his keys. Then he turned around and walked to the waiting carriage. Mister Frank was already in front, just waiting for Dr Frederick to get into the cabin. Dr Frederick did.

  “Let’s go, Frank. We have a long journey ahead of us,” Dr Frederick said.

  The carriage took off immediately. Dr Frederick was too excited at the prospect of what he could have achieved by the time he returned home that he didn’t even feel any sleepy air.

  Maybe it would have been better if I had just slept. If I had slept, I wouldn’t have looked outside my window to see a rider on a horse coming from a distance, running opposite our direction at a furious pace.

  “This looks like Roman, the Duke of Beaufort’s personal steward,” he said to himself.

  And when the rider was almost riding past their carriage, Dr Frederick confirmed it was Roman.

  “Roman,” he shouted, causing the rider to stop in his tracks.

  “Dr Frederick,” Roman replied, “thank goodness, I found you. The Duke, he’s dying. He’s been holding his chest and writhing in pain. He’s gotten weaker and weaker, Doctor. I fear I might be too late.”

  “Why have you not come since?” Dr Frederick shouted. He grabbed his tool box and moved towards the door.

  “We felt it was one of his throes; that it’d pass. But he had gotten incredibly weak by the time I left, sir. His breath was coming in uneven gasps and he’s continued holding his chest. Sir, we need to hurry. The Duchess is in tears.”

  Dr Frederick was already out of the carriage’s cabin before Roman finished speaking. Mister Frank had stopped the carriage when he noticed his master speaking to Roman.

  “I need your horse, Roman. I’ll get to the house faster. You can come with Mister Frank,” Dr Frederick said, walking to Roman.

  Roman alighted, and Dr Frederick jumped on immediately. He kicked into the horse and let it go. He held onto the reins tightly while his second hand held the toolbox’s handle. He had known this day would come.

  Well, it had come, and he was here now. He met the Duke in a dire condition. The man was very weak and was almost unconscious. Dr Frederick had used his tube listener on the man’s chest. The heartbeat was hardly functional, barely hearable. Dr Frederick had quickly poured two vials of adrenaline into his syringe chamber and fixed in the needle. Now, he was injecting the Duke.

  “Are you sure you want me to do this, Your Grace?” Dr Frederick asked her again.

  The Duchess nodded her head rapidly. She wasn’t bothering to clean the tears off her eyes anymore.

  “Please I need you to confirm audibly. I have not tested this on a man before now. I know nothing of its possible effects or side effects. Are you willing to take the risk?”

  “And if – if you don’t?” the Duchess asked in a small voice.

  “The Duke will die, Your Grace.”

  Dr Frederick looked at the Duke. The hand on his chest didn’t wiggle anymore. Dr Frederick used his tube listener again. The heartbeats were weak and far between now.

  “He is only moments away from doing that,” Dr Frederick said.

  “Do it,” the Duchess said.

  Dr Frederick looked behind her at her tall son. Lord Jeffrey had said nothing since Dr Frederick arrived. He had looked a bit angered when he saw Dr Frederick. Dr Frederick couldn’t tell why.

  Is it because your father is almost dead, and I’m late, or because your father is almost dead, and I might just save him?

  “Well, here goes nothing,” Dr Frederick said under his breath.

  He pushed the syringe gently into the Duke’s chest and injected in the adrenaline. He had used two vials because the Duke surely had more mass and required more of it than the monkeys. But he had been scared of the effects.

  Three might be an overdose, a lethal one.

  He easily removed the syringe. There was no effect, at first. The Duke’s chest didn’t spasm or shake.

  “It didn’t work,” Dr Frederick had been about to say.

  Then the Duke started gasping. His chest heaved up and down violently, and Dr Frederick had to hold him down. He heard the Duchess gasp. He saw her shaking her fingers rapidly out of the edge of his
eyes. Moments later, the Duke stopped shaking, but his breath still came in hoarse gasps. Dr Frederick placed his tube listener on the Duke’s chest. The heartbeats were rapid and strong.

  It worked.

  Dr Frederick pursed his lips for fear of releasing an unmanly, excited shout. He placed his thumb on the Duke’s wrist to check his pulse again. It was strong and steady. Dr Frederick placed his ear to the Duke’s nose and heard his breath. It wasn’t the best, but it was better, clearer. Dr Frederick raised the Duke’s eyelids up and noted that his eyes were dilated.