The Bath Trilogy

by Amanda Scott

  “I have lodgings in Bolton Street,” he said quietly. “I do not come to town often, but I’ve an excellent couple to look after me when I do. Go and change your clothes, Sybilla, if you are determined to go out. I think you are making a mistake, because you do not look at all well, but I’ll not try to stop you.”

  She did not say any more but hurried up to her bedchamber, where a maidservant awaited her. She changed quickly into an elegant but simple dress of her favorite apple-green crepe, boasting an Egyptian border of matted gold embroidery and tiny bronze and gold beads, took her gloves and a small beaded reticule from the maid, and hurried downstairs to find Sydney awaiting her. Since the footman had returned from Symonds House with the information she had expected, that young Lady Symonds had intended to call at several houses that evening but had not bothered to inform her people of her exact whereabouts, they set out at once for Heatherington House.

  Although the entire party had adjourned to the drawing room by the time they arrived, Lady Heatherington exclaimed her pleasure at seeing them. But it was not their hostess who drew Sybilla’s eye, for seated beside her, looking as cool as ice in a scandalously low-cut sea-green gown that matched her eyes, her pale blond hair swept smoothly back from a central part and confined at the nape in a diamond-dusted net, was Frances, Lady Mandeville. And the gentleman who had been leaning solicitously over her shoulder when they entered, and who looked up in apparent shock when Sybilla’s name was announced, was none other than the Earl of Ramsbury.

  Feeling suddenly hot and dizzy in the overheated room, Sybilla clutched blindly at Sydney’s forearm.

  He responded gallantly, lowering his quizzing glass to inquire softly, “Do you suppose his view was worth the bending?”

  She nearly laughed aloud, and the bolt of fury that had shot through her subsided at once. When her gaze met Ramsbury’s, she was able to maintain at least an outward appearance of calm, and for the next few moments, she was occupied in greeting friends and renewing acquaintances. There were easily twenty other persons in the room, but she saw at once that her sister was not among them and began to wonder how quickly they might, without giving offense, effect their departure for Lady Rosecourt’s.

  She had no time to deliberate, however, for suddenly her arm was grasped none too gently and Ramsbury muttered in her ear, “I do hope you did not travel all this way in your phaeton, my dear.” He spoke calmly, and although she discerned an undertone of steel, she decided rather recklessly to ignore it.

  “Well, of course, I did,” she retorted, turning to face him and lifting her chin. “I always drive myself. You know that. And you will be glad to know also,” she added hastily when she saw his eyes narrow, “that dearest Sydney very kindly came along to protect me from the dangers of the road.”

  Ramsbury did not appear to be relieved to learn that Sydney had accompanied her, but he turned to that gentleman and said with brusque civility, “Very kind of you. My wife was no doubt grateful for your protection.”

  Sydney took snuff with the singular grace that was his alone, eyeing Ramsbury with undisguised amusement as he did so. “As to that,” he drawled, “boot was on the other foot. When a trio of footpads had the dashed impertinence to attack us, ’twas her ladyship protected me, though she tossed away a dashed fine cravat pin in the doing. M’ favorite one, in point of fact.”

  There were exclamations from a number of people at his words, and several demanded in nearly one voice to know all the details. Obligingly, Sydney said, “Oh, she didn’t blink an eye—merely engaged them in conversation to draw them off their guard, then flicked their leader in the eye with her whip, disarmed him with the same, drove gallantly over the three, and arrived in London with her spirits sufficiently composed to attend this delightful party. Nothing to it.”

  Amidst the exclamations of delight that greeted his tale, Lady Mandeville said with saccharine sweetness, “How very brave of you, Sybilla. I should have been terrified, but then I never travel without outriders. It is so much safer, I think, to have a host of big strong men to protect one—like Ned here.” Turning to Ramsbury, she smiled and put a slim, ungloved hand on his arm as she added, “You are very strong indeed, are you not, sir?”

  Smiling back at her in a way that made Sybilla long to smack him, Ramsbury said, “In my opinion, a woman with her wits about her and her whip hand disengaged is a match for three men any day in the year.” Then, gently removing her hand from his arm, he turned back to Sybilla, who was regarding him now with astonishment. “May I have a word with you, my dear?”

  He had not released her, and since she was still feeling hot and dizzy, and had been caught off her guard by his response to Lady Mandeville, having expected him either to agree with the woman or otherwise to have made a fool of himself, Sybilla found herself being drawn away from the others and into a small, unoccupied anteroom before she had collected her wits. The door snapped shut, and he twisted her sharply about.

  “What the devil do you mean by driving all that way with only that pusillanimous puppy to protect you?” he demanded harshly, giving her a rough shake. “And footpads! Are you daft? What can you have been thinking about to have defied them as you did? You might have been killed!”

  Her head pounded harder than ever, and she closed her eyes, shrinking away from his anger. “Well, I wasn’t,” she muttered, “and you may go away, Ned. I don’t wish to talk to you.”

  “Oh, no, you won’t get off that easily, my pet. I have reason to know that Sir Mortimer left orders forbidding you to drive that damned phaeton in this weather. Leaving aside the footpads, what do you suppose would have happened if it had come on to snow? And what do you suppose they will be saying about the fact that that fribble Saint-Denis was perched up beside you for all the world to see, not to mention sharing an inn, if not a bedchamber, with you somewhere along the way?”

  “Don’t be absurd!” She yanked her arm free and turned away from him, grating the next words out between clenched teeth. “It didn’t snow, and as for Sydney, all Papa said was that I wasn’t to travel alone, so I didn’t, and I don’t care a fig what people say. What could have happened? We shared no bedchamber, no inn. Indeed, we made the journey in a single day. We didn’t—”

  “You what?”

  She faced him, drawing a long breath in hopes that it would steady her, would make the walls stop spinning around her. Her voice, though she strove to make it forceful, sounded weak to her own ears, but she made herself go on, gathering strength as her anger increased. “You heard me, Ned. Do stop shouting at me. We did not spend a night on the road, together or otherwise. And how you can dare to say such things to me when I find you here fawning over that frostbitten stick of a woman—”

  “I wasn’t fawning! She asked me a question just before you entered and I don’t hear properly with the others all talking. Not that it matters. You know perfectly well that your father—”

  “Never mind pretending those orders came from Papa, Ned,” she cut in. “I know perfectly well the order was yours, but you have no right, or at least perhaps you do have the right, only I don’t wish you to tell … Oh, what is the matter with me?” she cried, clutching at her forehead as another wave of dizziness hit her. “I cannot think, and I know I am speaking nonsense. I have to find Mally, and I do wish you would go away!”

  “Your wishes do not concern me, Sybilla,” he said, still in that harsh tone. “Nor am I interested in finding your sister, or in allowing you to distract me with this other drivel. You have been allowed to have your head for far too long, and it is time someone tightened your rein. If your father cannot or will not do it, then—Good God! What’s wrong? Sybilla!”

  She heard him calling her, but it was as though he were a thousand miles away, and although he had been standing there, solid and angry before her, he seemed now, to be no more than a dark shadow floating above her. Then every thing went black.

  The next thing she heard was the murmur of masculine voices, a sort of distant hum a
t first, but then, slowly, she began to notice individual words and to recognize one of the voices as Ramsbury’s. For a moment just before that, she had experienced a disoriented feeling and a brief surge of fear—or perhaps it was only embarrassment—when she realized she was lying down, but the sound of his voice soothed her.

  She stirred, thinking she must have fainted and expecting to feel carpeting or the hard floor beneath her, but the surface was soft, and she realized that she was covered, that she was, in fact, in bed. The voices had stopped briefly when she moved.

  “I think she’s coming out of it now, my lord.”

  She didn’t recognize that one, and when she tried to respond to it, the blackness closed in around her again. The next time she was awakened by voices, she recognized them both.

  Ramsbury said gruffly, “I’m not leaving.”

  “As you say, m’lord,” Medlicott replied in a low tone, as though she feared waking her mistress, “but you ought to sleep, sir. If you would just let me have a truckle bed set up in here, you could at least—”

  “I don’t want to sleep.”

  Sybilla took a deep breath and said clearly, “I told you to go away, Ned.”

  She was aware of a surge of motion beside her as he said, “She’s still delirious. Get me cloths and send for more ice!”

  A cool hand touched Sybilla’s brow, and she opened her eyes when Medlicott said, “She’s not so warm now, sir. The fever’s broken. Good afternoon, my lady.”

  “She’s awake?” Medlicott was suddenly pushed aside, and Ramsbury loomed over Sybilla. The minute he saw her, the elated expression on his face vanished, to be replaced by one much more familiar to her. “What the devil do you mean by frightening us all to death?” he demanded angrily. “Have you got any idea what we have all been going through here, Sybilla? Have you?”

  “Don’t bellow at me, Ned. I’m sorry you were frightened. What happened?” She struggled to sit up, only to experience another wave of dizziness and to find herself pushed firmly back against me pillows.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” he said grimly. “You stay right where you are. Medlicott, send at once for Dr. Hardy.”

  “Of course, m’lord, but perhaps you might just give her ladyship a sip of that barley water there on the nightstand, now that she can take it without choking on it.”

  “I don’t want barley water,” Sybilla said. “I want—”

  “You’ll drink,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

  He lifted her, and she drank, savoring the sweetness of the water. She had not realized she was so thirsty. But when he laid back against the pillows again, she said, “Tell me what happened. I promise I won’t try to get up. Indeed, I fear I cannot, for I’m as weak as a kitten.”

  “You fainted at Heatherington House,” he said. “You had a high fever, and you have been either unconscious or delirious ever since. I told you it was foolhardy to visit those sick children! Dr. Hardy says you had completely worn yourself out instead of going to bed as any sensible person with an illness would have done, and that you are lucky not to have succumbed to an inflammation of the lungs.”

  “Goodness, you make it sound like I’ve been ill for weeks! It cannot have been so long as all that.”

  “A day and a half is quite long enough,” he retorted.

  “That long?” She was horror-stricken.

  “Be still, Sybilla,” he commanded, but his tone was gentler than before. “You will do yourself no good by getting excited.”

  “But you don’t understand! Mally will have—”

  “Mally is at Symonds House,” he said firmly.

  “Are you sure? I did not tell you before, for I really had no chance to do so, but she had intended to—”

  “To run away with Brentford,” he said with a grimace. “I know. Indeed, I ought to have known at the outset that your precipitous arrival in town was on Mally’s account, rather th—”

  “Then Sydney stopped her! Oh, how I underestimated him. How good of him! I must get up, Ned.”

  His hand on her shoulder was enough to keep her where she was. “Saint-Denis did not stop her,” he said grimly.

  “Then you did. Oh, but how did you discover that—”

  “I didn’t,” he retorted. “If you can manage to hold your tongue for a full minute, I’ll tell you.” He paused, glaring at her, daring her to speak. When she remained silent, he said, “That’s better. Symonds stopped her, the more fool he.”

  Ignoring the rider, Sybilla exclaimed, “Symonds! But how? I thought he was in Leicestershire, shooting things.”

  “And so he was until some well-meaning tabby sent to warn him of his wife’s latest infatuation. Not that his arrival in London Wednesday night did anything to deter your sister from her chosen course. According to what I’ve been told, she waited only until he retired and then would have been well away had she not foolishly forgotten to take her vanity case and more foolishly gone back for it. Symonds’s valet—clearly an interfering chap—seems to have discovered her flight and awakened Symonds. Husband and wife met on the stairs, which encounter can only have been an awkward one.”

  “Oh, my good gracious, poor Mally!”

  “Poor Symonds, to my way of thinking. Had he kept his wits about him, he’d have thrown a boot at the confounded valet’s head and gone straight back to sleep. Then, since Brentford is exceedingly warm of pocket, Symonds might have collected a handsome amount in damages for alienation. Now Brentford will merely begin beating the bushes for new game, I suppose.”

  “And I suppose that if someone were trying to make off with your wife, you would not attempt to stop him,” Sybilla said sarcastically and without thinking.

  Surprisingly, he grinned at her. “Thinking of running off with the perfumed puppy?”

  “Don’t talk nonsense, Ned. I’ve no intention of running off with anyone. I merely wondered what you would do. I doubt you would care very much, if the truth were known.”

  “Then you would be painfully wrong, my dear. As Aunt Lucretia said, I hold what is mine. I might hold it loosely, but I hold it, and you would do well to remember that. I don’t choose to figure as the cuckold in a farce of your composing.”

  His tone was grim again, and she found suddenly that she had no wish to pursue the conversation. Stirring uncomfortably, she realized that the bedclothes had become damp and wrinkled beneath her, and a hand raised to her head told her that her hair was likewise damp, and very tangled.

  “I must look awful,” she said. “When Meddy returns, I shall ask her to ring for a bath.”

  “You will not. You’ll wait until the doctor has seen you before you stir from that bed. And don’t argue with me. I don’t have enough strength left to exert my usual excellent control over my temper.” His expression challenged her to comment.

  “She smiled, but looking at him more closely, she could see that he was very tired, and she realized that he must have stayed the entire night at her bedside. She said gently, “Ned, if I promise to obey you—just this once, mind you—will you go back to Axbridge House and go to bed?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve had some of my things brought here. And before you begin carping at me, let me explain that I haven’t noised it about that I’ve moved, so my friends all think I’m still fixed at Axbridge House. I left only because my father has taken it into his head to come to town, and I’ve neither the patience nor the stomach to listen to his lectures just now.”

  “Did the marchioness come with him?” she asked eagerly.

  “No, of course not. She is no doubt enjoying the peace of his absence from the park. And, Syb, before you ask, I’ll stay only until he leaves. Indeed, if you insist, once you are on your feet again, I’ll remove to Brooks’s.”

  She was silenced, as much by his words as by the fact that Medlicott chose that moment to enter the room, accompanied by Dr. Hardy, a tall and stately man with bristling salt-and-pepper eyebrows and hair.

  “Doctor were just comin’ in the door w
hen I went downstairs, m’lord,” Medlicott said, “so I brought him up straightaway.”

  Dr. Hardy greeted Sybilla politely, telling her that she had given them all a fright. “But you look to be doing well enough now, my lady.” He turned to Ramsbury. “If you wish to take yourself off for a well-deserved rest, my lord, you may certainly do so. Miss Medlicott can assist me.”

  “I’ll stay,” Ramsbury told him, moving to stand by the window in order that the doctor might step to the bedside.

  Sybilla, wishing Ramsbury would leave but knowing better than to try to make him do so with the doctor and Medlicott in the room, watched Dr. Hardy dubiously when, having taken her pulse, he leaned nearer and asked her to breathe deeply for him.

  “I can breathe,” she said tersely.

  He glanced at her, “I know that, or you’d no longer be with us. But be calm and do as I say. I agree with the late Doctor John Brown that excitement is not good for the sick, but I’ll depend upon you to calm yourself, rather than order up a dose of opium or alcohol for you to take. I don’t follow Brown so far as that, and didn’t, even before the poor man died of an overdose of his favorite remedies. So breathe, my lady, and don’t talk.”

  He listened and then asked her to open the bodice of her nightdress enough so that he might thump her heart. Again, he leaned close and listened. She did not wish to look at him, so near, but when she looked away only to find Ned glaring at the poor man, she giggled. Dr. Hardy looked at her reproachfully.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “What are you listening for?”

  “Different sounds,” he replied, thumping a few more times before he straightened and added, “The lungs give off different sounds where there is infection, you see. And I listen to your breathing to be certain you are getting enough air. Did you know doctors used to believe that air was necessary to cool the blood? Now, of course, we know that just as air is required for a candle to burn, it is likewise necessary for the combustion of food within the human body. I still detect pockets of infection, and your air passages are not as clear as I would like them to be, so we will restrict the amount of food you eat for the next day or so. But I don’t imagine that you are very hungry.”