Tod bent his head and industriously rolled one of the hollyhock leaves into a narrow tube. “You wished to escape this world.”
“If only it were so simple.”
Tod was silent a long moment. “My lord, your father left the Land of the Young forever because he loved. In mortal love he lost his powers.”
“I haven’t forgotten. Why do you mention it now?”
“The Hardcastle was here.”
The peculiar tone of Tod’s words engaged Donal’s full attention. “Yes, she was.”
“My lord…mated with her?”
Donal shot up from the bench, banging his elbow against the wall of the cottage. Once he would have laughed at such a question, but not now. Not after Cordelia.
“That, my friend,” he said firmly, “is a matter between the lady and myself.”
Tod flinched, tearing the rolled leaf in two ragged pieces. He stared at Donal with wide, mournful eyes, and Donal was reminded that, after all the years Tod had been with him—through childhood scrapes and adolescent misery and the adult life of solitude he had chosen—he still didn’t know the hob as another true Fane might, didn’t fully understand the sometimes alien thoughts that lived in that red-thatched head. But he could make an educated guess.
Tod, like Inglesham, believed that Dr. Donal Fleming had fallen in love.
Donal turned his back, deeply disturbed at Tod’s assumption. It was only natural that the hob should feel concern, wrong though he might be in his suppositions. He had witnessed Donal’s near-loss of abilities before, when Donal had believed himself in love with Mrs. Stainthorpe. Donal had confided in no one else at the time, not even his parents, but the horror of that experience—of being cut off from the thoughts of the animal world—had left its mark.
“You have nothing to fear, Tod,” he said heavily. “Mortals, especially those of the half-Fane variety, can be just as trifling in their affections as any of the Fair Folk. I will not be remaining at Edgecott. But now the lady’s father is ill, and I must go to the house.”
He started into the cottage and found his way blocked by Tod’s darting form.
“Come away,” the hob said, his little body humming with anxiety. “Come away now, my lord. We will take Ivy back to the farm. We will be free again.”
“What has Ivy to do with—”
“She is not happy here, my lord. She is Fane.”
Donal stopped in mid-stride. “What?”
“She is Fane,” Tod whispered. “Like my lord. Like Tod.”
Donal sank down on the bed. “Are you certain?”
“Very certain, my lord.”
“But how is this possible? How could I not have known?”
Tod alighted on the clothes press. “My lord is half-Fane,” he said. “Perhaps—”
“Perhaps that’s why I failed to see.” Donal glanced up sharply. “How long have you known this, Tod?”
Tod averted his gaze. “At first, Tod thought it made no difference.”
“But it explains so much…why the dogs behaved as they did. Why she trusted me from the beginning. Why she finds it so difficult…” Donal closed his eyes. “She must not realize what she is. I’ve seen no evidence of other Fane talents. Perhaps the ability to survive the most abominable conditions is a gift in itself.”
“Mayhap she unknowingly summoned my lord to save her.”
“Anything is possible, and yet…” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Assuming her mother was an ordinary woman, her father…the one she never knew…must have been Fane. But it makes no sense that a half-Fane child should come to be living on the streets of London. Unless—”
“She was lost,” Tod said. “Lost even to those who would gladly take her from this earth.”
Donal studied the hob with heightened interest. “You said you didn’t believe it made any difference if Ivy was Fane. What did you mean?”
“My lord brought her here to make her happy. As long as there was a chance that she could be happy in a mortal life…” He stopped, tugging at the ends of his hair, and insight struck Donal like a stinging slap.
“Tod. You…care for Ivy, don’t you?”
The hob hunched lower on the clothes press. His mobile, expressive face gave Donal all the answer he required.
“When did this happen?” Donal asked. “How?”
“Since she came here. Since I…we—”
“Has Ivy seen you, Tod?”
Tod hung his head. “Aye, my lord.”
“And she knows what you are?”
Tod nodded.
Donal rubbed his eyes. “You haven’t told her about her Fane blood?”
“No, my lord. Only stories of the Fane, and Tir-na-Nog.”
“She doesn’t know what I am?”
“Not that. But should she not be told the truth?”
Donal groaned. “I’d thought Ivy’s situation complicated enough, but now…Good Lord, any mortal girl would find it daunting to face such enormous changes in her life. But a Fane…she must be driven by instincts and compulsions she has no way of comprehending.”
“Alone,” Tod sighed.
Donal got to his feet, his shoulders bowed with weariness. “Cordelia wants what’s best for Ivy, but she works in ignorance. If she should lose Ivy now…”
“She would keep Ivy prisoner,” Tod said fiercely.
Donal shot Tod a piercing look. “You’ve been at the house, haven’t you?”
“Tod has heard how the Hardcastle speaks to Ivy, how she makes Ivy unhappy—”
“You’re wrong, Tod. Cordelia loves the girl, and Ivy hardly knows her own mind. I won’t separate them without good reason.”
“When Ivy knows the truth, why should she stay here?”
The hob’s defiance was startling in its intensity. Tod had changed in the weeks that Donal had neglected him, and Donal had only himself to blame.
“What would you suggest, Tod?” he snapped. “Where would she find a better home? Stenwater Farm is out of the—”
“There is a place for all Fane,” Tod interrupted. “A country where she would always be among her own people.”
“Tir-na-Nog.” Donal dragged his palm across his face. “A place where everything is perfect and unchanging, love is forbidden and Ivy would grow as cold and hard as Titania herself.”
Tod hopped down from the clothes press. “Why would my lord force Ivy to become human? Should she not make her own choices?”
Donal turned away and stripped off his shirt, selecting a clean one from the clothes press. “Such decisions cannot be made in haste,” he said. “I need more time to think.”
“You would choose the Hardcastle,” Tod accused, his mouth bared to show sharp white teeth. “You think only of her.”
“Enough.” Donal splashed water on his face, combed his hair and buttoned on his second-best waistcoat, hardening his heart to Tod’s distress. “You will say nothing to Ivy. Is that clear?” He shrugged into his coat and retrieved his bag. “I’ll inform you of my decision as soon as I have made it.”
Tod buzzed past him in a black cloud of anger, spinning furiously out of sight.
THE HOUSE WAS STILL and silent when Donal reached the door. The footman who answered his knock seemed to be walking on tiptoe; even the usual creaks and groans to be heard in any settled building seemed absent.
Croome met Donal in the drawing room, where the butler informed him that Mrs. Hardcastle was awaiting him in the east gallery. If Croome gave Donal a particularly long and speculative look, Donal had no leisure to contemplate the salacious thoughts that might already be at work behind the servant’s expressionless face. His own mind was already fully occupied.
Donal took the stairs two at a time. He met Theodora on the landing as she was leaving the east wing with a tray of tea things; she nodded briefly to Donal but did not detain him.
He found Cordelia pacing back and forth in front of the long line of ancestral portraits. She had changed into an austere, dove-gray gown and her hair had
been tamed with the skill of an able maid, but to Donal’s eyes the plain and sensible clothing was no more than protective coloration. Her shoulders sagged in relief when she saw Donal.
“How is he?” Donal asked, curbing his urge to take her in his arms.
“Not well.” She twisted an already well-wrung handkerchief between her fingers and shook her head. “According to his valet, he suffered a seizure of some kind just after dawn, and then relapsed into a state of insensibility. I have sent for the local physician, of course, but I fear Sir Geoffrey’s condition is…is…”
Donal cupped his hand around her elbow and steered her to the nearest chair. “He has not had similar symptoms before?”
“Not such as Chartier describes. He said that my father reported strange visions late last night, and began to cry and strike out as if he had seen something monstrous. Malarial fevers occasionally bring on mild hallucinations, but none of such violence.” She pressed her palms to her cheeks. “I fear he has lapsed into a coma. When I visited him, he did not show any signs of regaining consciousness.”
Donal walked to the window overlooking the drive, cursing his impotence. “When is the doctor to arrive?”
“He was out on another call, but his housekeeper expected him to return within the hour.” She followed him to the window. “Sir Geoffrey asked for Inglesham before he lost consciousness. Do you think I should send for him?”
It was a measure of Cordelia’s disquiet that she asked his advice on such a subject, especially when she must know his answer beforehand.
“I don’t see how the viscount can help Sir Geoffrey,” he said, “unless you would take some comfort in his presence.”
“No.” She rubbed her arms and shivered. “Will you look in on my father?”
Donal could hardly keep from touching her, here where any passing servant of moderate intelligence could perceive their relationship. “I have some skill in healing animals,” he said, “but I have never attempted to cure a human ailment.”
“I ask only that you see him.”
Refusal was out of the question. Donal followed her to Sir Geoffrey’s suite and entered a room that smelled of sickness and desperation. The baronet’s valet, Chartier, sprang up from his seat when Cordelia entered and gave a slight bow.
“No change?” Cordelia asked him.
“No, madame.”
She went to the bed and bent over her father, gently touching his forehead. “He is so quiet,” she said, her voice breaking.
Donal set down his bag and took the chair beside the bed. “It would be best if I were left alone with him,” he said.
“Of course.” She gestured for Chartier to precede her from the room. “Only tell me if there is anything you require.”
He nodded, already considering what he might possibly do to ease Cordelia’s fears. The difference between human and animal consciousness was astronomical, and he could think of few mortal minds he would less rather share than Sir Geoffrey’s. The best he could hope to achieve was some slight sense of the severity of the baronet’s condition.
Donal closed his eyes, allowing his thoughts to dissipate like mist, and opened his mind. At first all he felt was the grayness of limbo. He ventured a little deeper, wary and poised for retreat.
The blast of sensation struck him in a blinding wave, overwhelming his ability to regulate its flow into his brain. He bore it for a few seconds and then jerked free. His head throbbed with the complexity of the scrambled thoughts and images he had caught from Sir Geoffrey’s mind, but amid the chaos he gleaned a single thread of understanding.
He got up, testing his balance as he leaned on the chair, and then began to search the suite. As expected, he found no incriminating evidence in plain view, or in the clothes press, dressing table or desk in the adjoining rooms. But when he found the locked cabinet in the dressing room, he knew he need search no further.
Chartier waited outside the door, his features aligned in a semblance of devoted concern. Cordelia was nowhere in view.
“If you would come in, Chartier,” Donal said, “I have a few questions to ask of you.”
The valet clasped his hands at his chest and entered the suite. Donal closed the door firmly behind him and held out his hand.
“The keys, if you please,” he said.
“I beg your pardon, monsieur?”
“The keys to the locked cabinet in the dressing room.”
The valet’s expression shifted from surprise to cunning in an instant. “I do not have access to that cabinet, monsieur. It is Sir Geoffrey’s private property.”
Donal seized the valet by the lapels of his coat. “I have no time for your prevarication when Mrs. Hardcastle is in distress,” he said. “I must see what is in that cabinet, and if I am compelled to bother her about it, I am afraid you will not like the consequences.”
Chartier regarded Donal with the eyes of a man who knew better than to test another man’s propensity for violence. “There is no need for this rough behavior, docteur,” he sniffed. “If you will kindly release me….”
Donal let him go with a little push. “The key.”
“Very well.” The valet smoothed his coat with long, deliberate strokes of his fine-boned hands. “Follow me.”
He led Donal directly to the clothes press and ran his fingers behind the scrollwork that concealed its upper edge. “Here it is, monsieur,” he said, handing the small bit of metal to Donal. “Now, if you will permit me to wait outside—”
“No. You stay here until I’m finished.”
“But—”
Donal clenched his fist, and the valet subsided, taking a seat at the far side of the room. Donal returned to the dressing room, fit the key in the cabinet’s lock, and opened the door.
The shelves within were stacked with countless bottles of several shapes and sizes, none of any great age, all empty, many marked with labels in both French and English. The smell that came out of the cupboard was distinctly that of alcohol mingled with other components both chemical and herbal, overwhelming in their potency.
Donal picked up the first bottle that came to hand and examined it carefully. He recognized the nature of the contents at once, and remembered what he had heard and read of the effects on those who overindulged in these particular spirits.
But that was not all he discovered. The smaller, unmarked bottles had carried an even more potent brew, for Donal recognized the brown stain at the bottom of the glass and identified the scent associated with tincture of opium.
Sir Geoffrey had not only been heavily indulging in the strong liquor known as absinthe, but he had clearly become dependent upon laudanum as well. Such substances would in no way improve his physical state; they would only exacerbate and gradually worsen his condition until such devastating symptoms as hallucinations, convulsions and even coma became the inevitable consequences.
Donal replaced the distasteful stuff, closed the cupboard door and went to confront Chartier.
“You knew of Sir Geoffrey’s hidden vices, did you not?” he asked without preamble.
The valet shrugged his shoulders. “I am but a servant, not a physician. It was not my place—”
“Mrs. Hardcastle knew nothing of this. If she had, she would never have permitted her father to consume such potentially dangerous substances.”
“Sir Geoffrey is my master,” the valet said with a show of defiance.
“And your master now lies there, perhaps near death, with a long recovery almost certainly ahead of him. Since you abetted Sir Geoffrey in reaching this condition, I would venture to guess that your position in this household has become somewhat precarious.”
Chartier’s face went blank. “What would you have me do, monsieur le docteur?”
“Sir Geoffrey was not mobile enough to acquire such a stock on his own. Who supplied it?”
“Surely I do not know, mon—”
“Oh, you know. And you will tell me.”
The valet glanced toward Sir Geoffrey’s be
d and shifted in his chair. “He will see that I never find employment again.”
“And I’ll do far worse. Who is ‘he,’ Chartier?”
But Donal already knew, though he had no obvious facts to back up his supposition. When Chartier finally provided the name, Donal laughed.
“Now I understand why Sir Geoffrey has been such an enthusiastic advocate for the viscount,” he said. “How long has this been going on?”
“Since Sir Geoffrey’s return to England,” Chartier admitted. He lowered his voice, his crafty eyes shifting from side to side. “It was always Lord Inglesham’s plan to marry Mrs. Hardcastle…”
“…and by supplying the bedridden baronet with such illicit amusements, which a man in the viscount’s position would have no difficulty in obtaining,” Donal said, “he guaranteed Sir Geoffrey’s support of his suit.”
“Sir Geoffrey developed a strong need of these gifts,” the valet said, “one might even say a fanatical dependence. He became most upset when he could not acquire them in a timely fashion. He has not had his cache restocked in several days.”
And that was hardly surprising, Donal thought, when Inglesham had become obsessed with his new plan for acquiring a fortune at the races. Satisfying Sir Geoffrey had no longer seemed quite so important. But from the baronet’s perspective, keeping Inglesham happy would seem an absolute necessity. No wonder he had demanded the viscount’s presence before he had lapsed into unconsciousness.
“Very well,” Donal said. “Listen carefully, Chartier. You are to say nothing of this to Mrs. Hardcastle, or anyone else in the household. Lord Inglesham is not to be admitted to these rooms. Nor will you accept any further ‘gifts’ from Inglesham on your master’s behalf.”
“But how can I refuse the viscount?”
“I doubt Mrs. Hardcastle or the doctor will allow visitors, but I’ll trust to your natural cleverness…and your desire to keep your position.”
Chartier weighed Donal’s words, his expression as prudently neutral as that of any practiced politician. “Considering Sir Geoffrey’s condition,” he said, “this surely cannot remain secret for long.”
“You’ve kept it quiet for months,” Donal said grimly. “You’ll continue to do so until I have dealt with the problem at its source. I will not have Mrs. Hardcastle involved in any capacity, do you understand?”
Lord of the Beasts Page 29