Jonathon followed Michelle through the maze of underground passages, she holding a taper aloft to cast light on the dank walls and cobbled flooring, but when they arrived at the door to the icehouse the maid stepped away to allow Jonathon to enter first.
The door was unbolted.
Inside, the room was pitch black, the air arctic and dank, not unexpected given the room’s purpose. A cast of candlelight and Jonathon found the wall sconces near the door. More candles lit and the width and depth of the room became apparent. Given the size of the icehouse there were surprisingly few blocks of ice and what there was had been stacked along the furthest wall, linen sheeting between the blocks to allow ease of separation. A block could be shifted to the great blue stone anvil off center to the room where with hammer and chisel applied to precise points slivers of ice could be chiseled off and put into buckets and taken up to the kitchens for use. If an entire block was required above stairs then it was wrapped in the linen and carted up by two men wearing padded cotton gloves for protection against burns.
High up along one wall was a walkway—a viewing platform—accessed via a spiral staircase from below. A door cut into the brickwork suggested to Jonathon that it opened out into the garden and that this door was used by the noble residents and their guests, to come inside out of the summer heat and for the novelty of having fresh ice for their lemon water and Ratafia.
Summer heat! Jonathon shook his head recalling the blistering sunshine in Hyderabad. The English had no idea what heat was! Gaze returned to floor level and his smile died.
The floor was bricked, like the walls, and sloped toward a central grate where melted ice drained as icy water into an open well. The well’s grated cover had been removed to allow access to the water via rope and pulley and bucket. Several empty buckets were stacked beside the well.
What was incongruous to the icehouse was the tall wooden step-ladder beside the anvil, and placed in front of the step-ladder a heavy oak chair, its back up against the ladder’s A frame to keep the ladder steady should a man ascend the rungs.
Jonathon took the taper from Michelle to better inspect the arrangement of ladder and chair. He did not need the maid to describe to him what she had witnessed in this room, but she told him anyway, making the discovery of the leather straps with fastening buckles affixed to each ball and claw foot front leg and to the lion-headed arms of the chair, that much more horrific.
“Mme la duchesse had her ankles and wrists bound to the chair with these leather straps so she could not move. Then one man he would be up the ladder and the other would pass him the bucket of water from the well, and when the fat physician he gave the nod and stepped away from the chair where Mme la duchesse she was strapped the man up the ladder he would pour the entire contents of the bucket over Mme la duchesse’s head. And then another bucket would be passed up to him and another until the physician he would put up his hand for the pouring to stop, and the men they would swap places on the ladder and the buckets and wait for the physician’s signal to begin the treatment all over again. And not once did Mme la duchesse say a word... How could she, gasping for breath? It is icy in here and the water so cold...”
Jonathon put a comforting arm about the sobbing maid’s shivering shoulders and led her out of the freezing room, shut the door and bolted it. It was not until they were standing in the passage outside the kitchen that Jonathon was able to speak.
“How often... How often was this-this treatment given?”
“I do not know precisely, M’sieur, but Pierre he says the physician he and the attendants went down to the cellars with Mme la duchesse twice in the day each day.”
“Twice a day for a week? Mon Dieu.” Jonathon wiped a hand over his mouth and looked down at Michelle. “And no one has seen her since when?”
“This morning.”
Jonathon’s jaw set hard and his eyes went dull. “Right! Time to have a little chat with M’sieur the fat physician!”
Michelle stayed him with a hand on his forearm. She looked up into Jonathon’s hard-set features and swallowed. Her voice was very low. “I must tell you something, M’sieur... Something Pierre and the others they do not know and which I do not want them to know, ever, but which you should know because I want so very badly for you to punish that monster.”
“Be assured, he will be punished and very badly.”
“Please, M’sieur, you must listen and promise me that you will not tell Mme la duchesse that I know, or that you know what I am to tell you now.”
Jonathon gave her his full attention.
“I give you my word, Michelle.”
Michelle was reassured, particularly as the handsome bronzed stranger remembered her name, which, for some unfathomable reason gave her the confidence that he would indeed keep his promise. She took a deep breath and bravely met his unblinking gaze.
“M’sieur, the physician, he does not look on Mme la duchesse as a doctor looks on his patient. He looks at her as a man looks at a woman. You understand me, yes?” When Jonathon slowly nodded she continued, fingers tightening about his sleeve. “That is despicable in itself, yes, because he is supposed to be a respected physician. A man bound by the rules of his profession. But he is not, M’sieur. He is very far from being what he ought to be and says he is. It is worse, he is worse, M’sieur. If it was only the way he looked at her... But he—but he has—has touched her in a way that is not right; in a way only a husband has a right to touch his wife. It is incredible, is it not? I was as astonished as you, M’sieur, and would not have believed he would dare take such an outrageous liberty with Mme la duchesse. But I tell you I saw it with these eyes. The night she was brought home from the regatta and we, the servants had not been sent away to the Gatehouse yet, I went up to her bedchamber to help her undress for the night as I always do and he was there! The physician was in her bedchamber. And the two attendants they too were there! Can you believe such outrageous trespass? It is worse than that, M’sieur. For the two attendants they were holding Mme la duchesse by an arm each, so she could not struggle. They were holding her like this,” she explained, linking her arm through Jonathon’s so that she faced north and he south. She let go and stepped back in front of him. “So you see the attendants with their backs to the physician they could not see what I saw. And I am very sure the physician he meant it that way so they would be as one blind to his real intentions.”
“Yes, I believe you are right,” agreed Jonathon, not wanting to hear the rest but compelled to do so.
“Mme la duchesse she tried to break free but it was impossible,” Michelle continued, fingers gripping Jonathon’s forearm. “And the attendants they did not care that she was a duchess and never to be touched! They listened only to their master. And she struggled hard, M’sieur, very hard because he-he, the physician he took liberties. He undressed her with his own hands! Imagine! He said he needed to take her pulse to see if her heart it was beating as it should. He unhooked and removed her stomacher, but it is not necessary to remove a stomacher if a physician he wants to take a pulse, is it, M’sieur?”
Jonathon swallowed. “Quite unnecessary.”
She held up her wrist. “This is where the pulse it is taken, yes? Or here,” she added, two fingers up to her throat.
“Yes.”
“But he did not do that. He untied the bows of her stays, saying as he did so that she must not struggle but to let him do his job. But I ask you whose job is it to undress a great lady? It is not the place of a physician, is it, M’sieur? It is the place of her lady’s maid. It is my place, is it not, M’sieur?”
“You are quite right, Michelle.”
The maid nodded, wide-eyed. “He said what he was doing was for her own good and that was why M’sieur le Duc he had summonsed him: To take care of her. Pshaw! That is a great piece of nonsense! For I do not believe for a moment M’sieur le Duc’s idea of care meant for the physician to take such liberties, he would not want that man—that monster—near her at all!”
“But, M’sieur, I must tell you the rest!” Michelle insisted, oblivious to the suppressed emotional plea in Jonathon’s voice. “I saw the look on his face, the way he stared, and it was truly disgusting. Mme la duchesse she prefers to wear jumps and so the row of little bows they are at the front—”
“Yes, yes, I know that! There is no need to—”
“—here,” she continued as if he had not spoken, drawing an imaginary line between her own breasts, oblivious to the flood of heated embarrassment that not only colored Jonathon’s face and neck but invaded his voice. “And he took his time to untie each little bow, I can tell you, M’sieur, that me I wanted to run in there and climb on his back and beat him away! And when he had the bows undone and the jumps gaping open he—”
“I don’t need to hear the rest!”
“—made a big show of holding up his pocket watch, and counting the beats out loud as if they were the beats of her heart when all the while he had his hand inside the jumps and was fondling her br—”
“Enough,” Jonathon growled through his teeth and when the maid cowered quickly regained his composure, saying in a controlled voice that belied an inner turmoil of anger and anguish, “Thank you. It’s time I dealt with this-this quack.”
The maid blinked up at him. “It is true, all of it, M’sieur. I assure you.”
“I don’t doubt you.”
“Thank you, M’sieur. Now you know why I think this physician he is a monster. Why you must do him harm for his treatment of Mme la duchesse. And Pierre, he makes vegetable pie! It is unbelievable.”
The thought of food, of putting his legs under a table with such a man as Sir Titus Foley who was a disgusting specimen of humanity made Jonathon feel physically ill, yet, to reassure the maid, who looked as ill as he felt, as to the chef’s good intentions he smiled crookedly, recalling how Pierre had splashed a dark liquid from a green glass bottle over the pie filling. “Do not worry about the estimable Pierre. He is exacting his own unique form of revenge on behalf of his mistress and if I am not very much mistaken his weapon of choice is Daffy’s elixir.”
Rain lashed at the glass and wind rattled the mutins of the large mullioned windows in the dining room. The heavy velvet curtains had been drawn across the entire wall of windows with their view of a large internal courtyard, shutting out the noise of the violent storm that raged outside, except for the occasional bright burst of lightning that flashed white where curtains met. Wind whistling high-pitched through fine cracks in the window frames and the intermittent booming of thunder made the three men sitting at one end of the heavy oak table closest the fireplace involuntarily lift in their chairs. But the storm did not quell their appetites.
When Jonathon entered the room unannounced Sir Titus and his attendants were hunched over blue and white patterned porcelain bowls of steaming creamy soup, slurping up the last mouthfuls with heavy silver spoons and licking their lips with satisfaction. A crusty loaf of bread was passed around and torn apart to soak up and savor the last drops. The chef was complimented and fine wine glasses lifted up to toast his culinary skills.
He sized up the two men sitting opposite each other—the physician’s henchmen – wondering how best to be rid of them should they prove uncooperative in leaving the room of their own accord. They were big, beefy lads with broad chests and meaty fists, the better to restrain recalcitrant patients. He was confident of being able to go one on one with either of them, but he was not so full of hubris as to be unrealistic. If both decided to tackle him, he would be left bloodied and he wanted to save his strength to punish the physician. First, he had to find out what he had done with Antonia.
“Sit! Sit!” Jonathon demanded casually with an insolent wave of a hand when the two attendants were instantly on their feet, Sir Titus remaining seated and acknowledging him with a curt nod. “Ah! Here is the pie! Please, take your fill. I’m not here to interrupt your splendid dinner.” He pulled out a chair, propped his buttocks on the table, put a booted foot on the padded seat and took out the silver case holding his cheroots, an eye on the two cooks as they placed the vegetable pie, garlic-soaked fowls, and an assortment of side-dishes before the three diners. “His Grace charged me with seeing how fares the Dowager Duchess.” He looked about the table, as if expecting to see her. “Is Her Grace not joining you?”
Sir Titus spread his fat hands and greedily eyed the dishes on offer. “It is not my practice to allow patient and doctor to dine together. One must keep one’s professional distance, Mr...?”
“Distance?” Jonathon pulled a face then grinned. “It’s Lord Leven. But a courtesy title I’ve never used. I’m waiting the bigger prize when great uncle Harold finally drops off the mortal coil. But the dear old fellow lingers on and on.” He frowned, thinking a moment, and stuck a cheroot in the side of his mouth, pocketing the silver case. “I don’t know why I told you that. Possibly I’m suffering from some sort of delayed shock after what I’ve just seen and been told, so blathering on about inconsequentialities is perhaps the mind’s way of coping with horror.” He leaned in to the branch of candles on the table and lit the cheroot, drawing back until the tip glowed red and then sat up again. “You tell me. You’re the medical man. That’s your expertise, isn’t it? Fragile minds. Or is it only female fragile minds that you attend upon? Indulge me.”
The physician’s mouth worked but he really did not know how to reply to such casual and open confidences from a giant of a man seated upon the dining table and puffing on a cheroot as if he was in his club. He was no fool for although the stranger was cavalier in his speech and manner, there was a hard glint to the brown eyes and a tightness in the lean face that set the hairs up on the back of his neck. Before he could put a sentence together, he was waved at.
“Eat up, man! Eat up! The pie’ll go cold and you don’t want your associates to finish it all. They’re onto second helpings and you’ve not touched a morsel.” He smiled at the two men, exhaling a stream of smoke into the air, adding with a laugh, “Restraining a pretty little whirlwind weighing less than a half-drowned cat must be cause for working up a sweat, hey lads?” He stared hard at Sir Titus, but there was no warmth in his eyes or in the accompanying smile. “What say you to that, healer?”
The attendants, who had cleared their plates once and were diving in for seconds paused mid-helping at Jonathon’s cryptic comment and looked to Sir Titus for guidance for they had no idea as to the stranger’s intent or meaning and wondered what there was to laugh about. Sir Titus was more acute and although he smiled, which was signal enough for his assistants to keep on eating their fill, an uneasy sensation settled in the pit of his stomach and it had nothing to do with the food. Yet, ever the conceit about his medical expertise, he was confident that a reminder as to his pre-eminence in his field of expertise and the fact he had the confidence of the Duke of Roxton would be enough to extinguish this stranger’s insolent enquiry.
“My dear sir, you must trust that as a learned physician I know what is best for my patient. His Grace has put his faith in me, not once but twice, to treat the Dowager Duchess in the manner I see fit as her attending physician.”
“It’s the manner that bothers me, but I’ll deal with that in a moment. First, tell me how this water treatment of yours works.”
“I cannot take credit for its invention, sir,” Sir Titus confessed haughtily. “That goes to my colleague and good friend Dr. Patrick Blair who has used it to good effect on several occasions treating females suffering nervous distraction and thus unable or unwilling to fulfill their duties as wife and mother. However, I have—”
“Christ, another sadistic misogynist,” Jonathon muttered under his breath.
Sir Titus baulked. “I beg your pardon?”
Jonathon was fast losing whatever patience he had brought into the room and he waved a hand at the physician thinking it could not be many minutes before Daffy’s elixir took its reveng
e on the two brutes who had scoffed all but a slice of the vegetable pie which they had charitably left for their master. That Sir Titus had yet to fill his plate pleased Jonathon no end—it meant the physician would be in control of his bowels long enough for him to divulge the whereabouts of the Duchess and receive just punishment.
“However, I have modified the procedure to serve my particular clientele who are more gently bred than the patients attended on by Blair. I for one do not insist on a blindfold, nor do I employ continuous water flow from a pipe, preferring the use of buckets, which are poured upon the patient at intervals and thus is a far gentler approach. So you see my procedure,” Sir Titus concluded with smug satisfaction, spooning buttery sauce over the chicken breast on his plate, “is not so much a treatment as a therapy.”
Jonathon hopped down off the table and strolled to the window and lifted a corner of the velvet curtain. Rain was still hitting the window but perhaps a little gentler than before. He spoke to the windowpane; it kept him calm.
“Treatment? Therapy? A splitting of hairs, surely?”
Sir Titus had to turn his body in the chair to address Jonathon because he was standing almost directly behind him. Movement made him wince. Although he did not see the grimace, Jonathon heard the man’s sharp intake of breath, as if he was in some pain. It caused Jonathon to look over his shoulder at him and in time to witness the two brutes exchanging silent laughter at their master’s expense.
“Treatment implies cure,” the physician responded, momentarily distracted by something in his lap. “Therapy is a means of controlling the illness not necessarily curing it.”
“I see,” stated Jonathon, not seeing at all, hard-gripping the carved high back of the physician’s chair. “Treatment does not give you the option to return, whereas therapy allows you multiple visits to your patient, cure not being your intention. Clever.”
Autumn Duchess: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series) Page 22