Yes, the odds were looking more and more in favor of Will’s innocence. But without finding Miss Wallace there would always be that small sliver of doubt, and I would prefer not to leave that to fester.
“I don’t know,” I told Michael. “But I would rather find Miss Wallace alive and well.”
“Of course,” he replied, abashed. “I didn’t mean to imply that I wished Miss Wallace ill.”
“I know.” I offered him a reassuring smile. “You’re just looking out for your brother.”
Deep furrows of worry etched his forehead.
“Did Gage tell you, he and I are going back tomorrow while the constable is away.”
Michael’s eyes widened. “Would you like me to accompany you?”
“No. I think the fewer of us there are to draw attention the better. Besides, Mr. Paxton is liable to cause trouble when he hears of our interference, and I’d rather the man not harbor any resentment toward you.”
Michael grimaced, knowing I spoke the truth. It would be best if the constable caused as little trouble at Dalmay House as possible, particularly for William.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he told me. “And Gage.” He closed his eyes as if in prayer. “Thank goodness he sent me that letter.”
“That he was finishing a case in Edinburgh?” I prompted, having wanted to know exactly how Gage ended up at Dalmay House at such a propitious time.
“Yes, and asking if he could come for a visit.”
I sat up straighter.
“Told me some fiddle-faddle about how he was worn out from working so many investigations for his father. I didn’t believe it for a minute, of course. Gage’s work has been his life these past few years. He seems enthralled by it. But I was happy to welcome him, in any case, and badly in need of some friendly advice regarding my brother.”
I knew there was more to Gage’s presence here than mere coincidence. And when I’d asked him about it, he’d lied straight to my face, the weasel. He’d told me he’d written to Michael upon his arrival in Edinburgh, not upon the completion of his latest investigation. And then he’d implied that Michael had been the one to invite him to Dalmay House, not that he had effectively invited himself.
But why? Why had he lied to me, if not in a barefaced manner, at least by implication and omission? It was one thing for him to withhold the truth about his past from me. I understood that was his right, even if I didn’t agree with him. But to lie about the origins of his invitation to Dalmay House, that simply didn’t make any sense.
My eyes narrowed. He had to be hiding something, something he didn’t want me to know, something important, or he would never have taken the risk of being so easily caught out. Gage was smarter than that. But what could it be?
“Is everything all right?” Michael asked.
I glanced up at him, realizing I’d lapsed into silence. “Of course.” I offered him a quick smile. “Sorry. Just woolgathering.”
“About what?” His eyes shone with curious concern. “Your expression was quite intense.”
I considered sharing my doubts about Gage, but only for a moment. This was an issue between Gage and me. There was no need to bring Michael into it, especially when he already had so much on his mind.
“Just . . . wondering if Philip and Alana made it to Edinburgh without incident.”
He nodded. “You’re concerned for your sister’s health.”
“Yes,” I replied honestly.
“Once Philip has her settled in Edinburgh, she’ll be fine.”
I turned to stare at the low-riding sun where it peeked between the trees to our west, dappling us with light. “I hope so.”
* * *
When we emerged from the trees and came into sight of the manor house and stables, we could see a black gig parked in the stable yard. Michael leaned forward, narrowing his eyes to study the carriage.
“That’s Dr. Winslow.” He spurred his horse faster.
From his reaction, I deduced he must be Will’s physician and urged my mare into a gallop. The others glanced at us in confusion as we rode past, but followed without question.
When we reached the stables, Michael threw his reins to one of the hands who had run out to meet us and slid from his horse’s back. “Walk them out,” he ordered. He whirled around as if looking for something, and when he caught sight of me, he pushed aside the stable lad who was assisting me and reached up to wrap his hands around my waist and lift me out of my sidesaddle. My feet had barely touched the ground before he was pulling me toward the front door.
“I wasn’t expecting him today,” was all he murmured, and I was struggling too much to catch my breath to ask questions.
I glanced over my shoulder as Gage’s long stride caught us up, but his attention was focused on Michael, a deep furrow of concern running down the middle of his forehead.
Michael’s butler met us in the entry hall.
“Is he with his lordship?” Michael asked as we passed into the space.
“Yes, sir.”
But Michael was no longer listening. He halted at the base of the stairs, staring up at the gentleman descending toward us.
I pressed a hand to my abdomen, grateful my riding habit did not require a restrictive corset beneath it. I would have passed out by now, first from the gallop and then the mad dash across the front drive. I glanced up at the man we were in such a hurry to see to find his gaze already rested on me. His hair was shockingly white, particularly for a man I estimated to be no more than fifty. His frame was slight and thin, but straight as an arrow.
“Mr. Dalmay,” he said, interrupting whatever Michael had been asking him, “I’m not certain what the rush was, but perhaps you should allow Lady Darby to sit down. She appears a trifle winded.”
Michael glanced down at me and flushed. “Of course. Tea?”
Dr. Winslow smiled benignly as he reached the bottom of the stairs. “Mrs. MacDougall has already promised me a cup.”
He nodded and laced my hand through the crook of his arm and led us toward the drawing room. Hearing their quick steps, I turned to look over my shoulder as Lord Damien and Miss Remmington entered the house. Gage paused to have a few words with them, likely discouraging them from joining us, before following us alone to the drawing room.
“Have we met?” I asked the physician as Michael handed me onto the pale blue and white damask settee before the tea table.
He tilted his head quizzically.
“How did you know my name?”
“Ah.” Dr. Winslow sank into the chair opposite. “Lord Dalmay has been telling me of you. But, of course, he didn’t speak of you as Lady Darby,” he added, glancing at Michael. “He was as informal as always, and he seemed to have trouble remembering you by your recent title, though he was aware of your marriage.”
“William has preferred first names since his release,” Michael explained. “Especially for those he knew before. And he has trouble retaining new information, such as your and my sister’s new title.”
“Then how . . . ?” I started to ask Dr. Winslow, and then stopped when I realized he was probably aware of my reputation. I dropped my gaze to the tea and began pouring.
When I looked up to hand him his cup, his eyes were kind. “Yes, I know who you are. But you’ll hear no condemnation from me.” He frowned into his tea. “I’ve seen too much of the world to pass judgment.”
I watched the man take a sip of the hot brew. “War?” I guessed.
He nodded.
I finished pouring Gage’s tea and was just adding his cream when he spoke up as if he’d been contemplating the matter.
“Isn’t it rather odd for a physician to take part in battle? I thought the army and the navy employed mostly surgeons.”
Dr. Winslow bobbed his head in acknowledgment as he leaned forward to set his cup down. “That they do. B
ut I wasn’t there in the capacity of a physician, though my fellow officers often came to me with their problems rather than visit the sawbones.” He glanced at Michael. “In fact, I served alongside Lord Dalmay for a time.”
I sat up straighter at this admission.
“At Salamanca and such. Lord Dalmay’s regiment took part in some of the heaviest fighting of the war. And I could tell, long before he and his remaining men were shipped home, that he was suffering from what I call battle fatigue.”
“What do you mean?” Gage asked.
Dr. Winslow tapped the fingers of his right hand against the chair arm, as if deciding how much to tell us. “It starts with exhaustion, from too much marching and too many restless nights, and then the exertion of battle, some that last days on end. But it goes far beyond that.” He spoke slowly, as if choosing his words with care. “The sights and sounds and smells begin to prey on the mind. In the short term, extreme cases can lead to disconnection with one’s surroundings, indecisiveness, slow reaction times, and an inability to think straight—all of which can be deadly during combat.” He sighed heavily. “I saw soldiers who had charged across many a battlefield, bravely and without hesitation, suddenly stumble to a halt and glance around them in confusion, unable to accept where they were or what they should be doing.”
He frowned. “But it’s the long-term effects that can be so worrying, and those are the symptoms I witnessed in Lord Dalmay. Difficulty sleeping, nightmares when he did, startled responses to lights and sounds, loss of concentration or, alternatively, a sort of extreme vigilance, especially when it came to his men. But mostly I noticed he had trouble forgetting. It was like he couldn’t stop reliving the horrible things that had happened to him and those around him.” He nodded to indicate Michael. “From talking to Lord Dalmay himself, and his brother, I now know that’s the case.”
I turned to stare out the windows at the lengthening shadows, seeing William as he had been ten years before when he first took over as my drawing instructor. The perpetual dark circles under his eyes, the sometimes restless pacing. His refusal to receive me if there was even a hint of a thunderstorm threatening, as if I wasn’t already aware that the thunder and lightning bothered him. The despair he dragged behind him like a ball and chain.
I never pointed out the things I observed, but he knew I saw them anyway. It was a polite illusion we played, even if both of us recognized it for the fiction it was. To speak of it now felt wrong, even if it was necessary. We’d danced around the edges the previous night, hinting and insinuating, but now thoughts and suppositions were laid bare.
“What about his time spent in the Larkspur Retreat?” Gage was asking. “Are the effects of his being locked up there similar to this battle fatigue?”
“Yes and no.” Dr. Winslow settled back to consider his answer. He rubbed his thumb and index finger over his temple and forehead. “He certainly encountered some upsetting circumstances, as evidenced by his sketches, but some of his other symptoms are far more extreme than I’ve ever seen in conjunction with battle fatigue. He absolutely abhors the dark, and I’ve witnessed for myself the absolute panic it evokes when the window in his chamber is not left open at least a crack, even on the coldest of winter days. I can only speculate he was kept in some room where he was denied light and fresh air, and the thought of being without either is no longer tolerable.”
I set my tea down on the table, unable to stomach any more of it. Poor William. I had contemplated such a thing briefly, but the idea of being locked in that sort of room, for possibly years on end, was too horrible to imagine.
I could feel Gage’s eyes on me, his concern, but he continued to ask Dr. Winslow the questions I seemed incapable of phrasing. “And these episodes, like the one last evening? Do you know what is happening then? Or what is causing them?”
Dr. Winslow looked to Michael, as if asking permission to divulge something, and Michael nodded.
His brow lowered as he thought back. “When I first examined Lord Dalmay after his release from the asylum, I was worried there was nothing that could be done for him. Beyond his troubling physical condition, his mind seemed incapable of grappling with anything he saw or heard. And worse, he would lapse into these half-conscious states, like you witnessed last night. Frankly, I was convinced he wouldn’t survive for more than a week. There was little that could be done for him except to take care of his physical needs and try to reassure him that he was now safe.” He shook his head as if in amazement. “But when I returned a fortnight later, Lord Dalmay was still living, even if barely.
“We deduced that part of the problem was that he wasn’t sleeping. He paced the floor of his room night after night, as if trying to outrace slumber. We tried several medications, even some home remedies, like valerian root tea and warm milk. It took some doing, but we were finally able to convince him to take a mild sedative that would help him sleep so deeply there would be no dreams, for it seemed that was what he was afraid of.”
“They drugged him,” Gage guessed. “At the asylum. That’s why he didn’t want to take the medicine you offered him.”
Dr. Winslow nodded. “Unfortunately, it’s quite common in those types of establishments. The patients are dosed with laudanum, or some other tincture of opium, to keep them quiet and complacent.”
I frowned at the delicate white china tea set on the table. The question had to be asked. “Can’t people grow to rely on those medications?”
“Yes. And I believe Lord Dalmay may have been forced to take it so often that he did so in some capacity. But he also feared it as much as he craved it, and that helped him to overcome his need for it. He still takes small doses of laudanum from time to time, particularly after having one of these episodes, but they’ve grown less frequent in the last few months. His last one was—what? Over five weeks ago?” He looked to Michael for confirmation.
“Yes. Almost six.”
“When I received your note this morning, I was quite saddened. I thought perhaps your brother had finally beaten them.” He sighed. “Ah, but I suppose we should be happy with whatever progress can be made.”
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Michael told him.
He waved it aside. “I was on the way out the door to visit your neighbor Lady Gaston anyway.”
“Do you know what’s causing these lapses?” I asked, determined to find an answer.
Dr. Winslow offered me a grim smile of apology. “I do not, Lady Darby. But the symptoms, when they come over him, present themselves suspiciously like that of a case of extreme, short-term battle fatigue—confusion, detachment, failure to recognize his surroundings and relate to those around him. This makes me wonder if he’s not responding by instinct to some stimulus.”
He shifted forward in his seat, leaning toward us. “He says he feels as if he’s trapped inside the asylum again, that it becomes his world. I can’t get him to tell me anything else. But if that is the case, then something must be taking him back there. A sight, a sound, a smell, a circumstance—something that connects to a memory. Like when you hear a song that reminds you of your childhood. Or smell a flower that reminds you of your wife’s perfume.”
“Whatever it is,” Gage remarked, “it must be a very powerful memory.”
Dr. Winslow nodded. “I agree.”
“Could they be brought on by a display of force?” Michael asked, glancing up from his contemplation of the rug. The dread tightening his features made the breath stutter in my lungs. “Early on you warned me against using force to make Michael do anything. You said that physically compelling his compliance might remind him of the asylum.”
Dr. Winslow tapped his chin, considering the matter. “Yes. It’s possible. You said in the beginning that something as simple as urging his lordship to remove his clothes so that he might bathe could drive him to either fight you or sink into one of his melancholic stupors.” He stopped to look at Micha
el, who was clenching and unclenching the spindly arms of his chair. “Do you think one of your servants is using unnecessary force with your brother?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded agonized by the thought. “I don’t . . . want to believe Mac or Donovan would do such a thing, but . . . what else can it be?”
Gage, Dr. Winslow, and I shared a look of mutual uncertainty, none of us having an easy answer for him. The idea that either of these men, who had been hired specifically to care for William, might be abusing his power over him and driving him into these episodes made me sick to my stomach.
Dr. Winslow shifted forward in his seat. “Well, I’m sure you all have much to discuss. If you have no further questions for me, I should be on my way home.”
A glance at the west-facing windows told us the sun had already set, casting red light over the long streams of clouds left in its wake.
“You know how to reach me should you have need of me,” he told Michael as he bent to gather up his black satchel. “The only advice I can leave you with is to try and discover what’s causing these melancholic incidents, if, in fact, anything external is causing them at all. Then we can progress from there.”
“But do you think that’s what’s halting his recovery?” I asked, stopping the doctor before he could rise to his feet. “I mean, if we can stop these episodes, do you think he can truly begin to heal? To lead a normal life again?”
He sank back into the cushions of his chair, and the look he fastened on me was one dreaded by every person who has ever been given grave news about a loved one. It was the look that, peering through the stair banisters as a child, I had seen the physician give my father when he explained my mother would not recover from her illness. And the look the doctor who examined Sir Anthony after his apoplexy had given me when he explained my husband was dead.
“Stopping these episodes will help, yes. But I’m afraid Lord Dalmay has been too damaged by his confinement and treatment at Larkspur Retreat. His mind was already fragile from his efforts to overcome his memories of the war, and I have long suspected they exploited that. So, no, Lady Darby, I do not think he will ever lead a ‘normal’ life again.”
Mortal Arts (A Lady Darby Mystery) Page 19