by Cecilia Gray
For a moment, all his doubts, all his misgivings about the world, about his father, about his time in Salamanca and the lives he’d taken, about his station . . . they had all sunk beneath the tide of their music. They had spoken for hours—of art and philosophy—and he’d never imagined such a kindred soul. He’d told her he hoped to see her again when he returned from Woodbury.
How she must have felt—how awkward—to have to wait until he was out of sight to tell him his attention had been misplaced. He now knew he would been too much of himself with her. He should have held back. Should have bowed to society’s expectations.
Graham willed her to meet his eyes now, so he could see for himself whether time and distance had lessened their riddle. Her head was inclined so she could hear the man next to her. He seemed old enough to be her father. An uncharitable thought, perhaps, but could this be the baronet on the board of the London School of Physicians who she had accepted as her fiancé? This man, with his salt-and-pepper beard? Graham would have thought no, but the black physician’s bag he held in the same hand as his walking cane gave him away.
He hated her in that moment. He was a son of the Duke of Rivington, by God, wealthy and fit, her superior, and she would take this fossil over him?
Finally, finally, finally, her gaze rested on him. Her lips parted in a surprised O, but she recovered quickly and pressed her mouth shut. Was her hand shaking? He hoped so. Still, she averted her gaze. Soon they would be past him. There was no polite way to force introductions.
But surely this could not be their last sight of each other.
Graham belatedly felt a tug on his sleeve. Then a gloved hand pressed his cheek to turn his face toward a pair of concerned gray eyes—Dinah. For once, her face was a balm to the open wound he felt.
“Lady X?” she asked.
He nodded, swallowing hard. “I can’t bear her walking past me without a word, as though we are strangers.”
He didn’t see compassion in Dinah’s eyes, but there was something else—determination—and then Dinah was sneezing, over and over and over again. He was overtaken by concern as she fell to the ground.
He swept her up, one arm beneath her knees, the other at her back.
Dinah’s eyes opened in shock, and she hit him so hard against his sternum, he dropped her to her feet. He rubbed his breastbone, shocked. “I did not mean to mishandle you,” he said. “I was merely trying to see you safely—”
“You idiot,” she hissed.
Now he was truly confused.
Dinah resumed her sneezing and coughing. When he attempted to reach for her, she slapped his hand away.
“Are you mad?” he asked. He’d had enough. He wasn’t going to watch Dinah take her last breath. One, her sisters would see his head firmly on a platter, and two, the world would not be deprived of the likes of Dinah’s intelligence and wit if he had anything to say about it.
He was again attempting to scoop her into his arms, when he heard a kindly voice from behind them. “May I be of service?”
Graham glanced over his shoulder to see Lily and her companion. It was the older man who had spoken and offered his aid. He must have been Graham’s father’s age, although a touch younger in spirit, with arctic eyes and a kind expression, belying their icy, pale color.
Graham was about to decline and send them on their way, despite the ache in his throat, in his chest, at the sight of Lily. But then Dinah spoke.
“Oh, please, sir.” She coughed again, hacking in a dreadful way. “I am having an adverse reaction to the horses. Are you able to assist?”
“Of course. I’m a physician. I recommend we move as far away from the source of your discomfort as possible.”
Graham had two nearly paralyzing thoughts. The first was that, despite an earlier claim of dedication to honesty, Dinah was easily inclined to deception, enough so to fake a medical ailment to secure the attention of Lily’s fiancé. The next was that he could kiss her on top of her pert little blond head.
“Please, if you would, sir?” the physician persisted.
Graham realized that Lily and her fiancé likely found him to be the most worthless idiot who had ever let his walking companion nearly choke to death. Still, he was so delighted at the prospect of speaking to Lily that he found he didn’t care. He swept Dinah into his arms, and she winked at him. The minx.
When they were a fair distance from the rotunda on the other side of the street, the physician requested that Graham set Dinah on her feet.
“May I perform a cursory examination of your lung function?” he asked.
Dinah pressed her hand to the base of her neck. “I would be grateful. Might I have your name, sir?”
“Dr. Milton. And this is my lovely fiancée, Miss Lily Greene.”
Graham winced at the pride in his introduction. How could he not be proud? Lily was beautiful.
“It is a pleasure. I am Miss Dinah Belle, and this is my brother-in-law, Lord Graham Abernathy.”
“A pleasure, my lord. Ah, Miss Dinah, I am familiar with your father’s work.” Dr. Milton set his bag down on the ground. With a shaky frame, he leaned over to open it and pulled various contraptions of steel and rubber from within. “He is a very impressive man, your father. I attended his conference on the implications of steam power beyond travel, even in the private home. Revolutionary thinking!”
Graham stared at Lily, willing her to look at him. But she seemed only to have eyes for Dr. Milton, who, if he wasn’t mistaken, was halfway into a lecture on steam power. He was momentarily distracted from Lily as Dr. Milton pressed a palm-sized steel plate against Dinah’s chest and leaned his ear to it.
“Dr. Milton!” He moved to yank the doctor away from Dinah, but one quick glare from Lily stopped him.
“Please, Lord Graham,” Lily said. “My fiancé is well respected in his field. I have seen him perform this test many times.”
Her voice stilled him—the soft tenor of it, the way her lips formed words. Her use of his name stilled him—husky and resonant. It took a moment for the words to penetrate. “You have? Many times?”
“I treat her father,” Dr. Milton said.
“You saved my father’s life,” Lily said, looking down at him with admiration.
He knew suddenly what had transpired. She was looking at him the way one looked at a man worth loving. Not a man with no estate and a rich father. Not a man without accomplishment beyond his appreciation of beauty. Not a man who had killed men in battle, but a man who saved men. A man who had saved her father. A hero.
Their evening of music and art and philosophy seemed to pale in comparison, even to him.
“I declare you in good health,” Dr. Milton said to Dinah. “There is no permanent damage to your lungs, merely a slight wheezing that should clear up with more fresh air.”
“Thank you, sir. It so happens that I myself have an interest in medicine.” Dinah shot Graham an unsettling glance that seemed to burn into him.
Dr. Milton packed his equipment back in his bag and looked at Dinah quizzically. “Really?”
Graham wanted to punch the man in his condescending nose. “Miss Dinah is an academic beyond par.”
“Is that so?” Lily asked. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a bite to her words. Jealousy? Was it bitter of him to hope so?
“But a dabbler in medicine,” Dinah said. “Although I have every intention of devoting my full research to it. I’m particularly interested in the medical study of emotions as physical afflictions.”
Dread dripped through him. How could she bring that up now? Here? His condition? In front of Lily. What if Lily knew?
“I myself do not put much stock in the applicability of such theories,” Dr. Milton said. “However, if your interests lean in that direction, I recommend you make the acquaintance of John Haslam, the resident apothecary at Bethlem Royal Hospital. He has theories—mostly bunk—but it might set you on the right path. I shall write and make the requisite introductions, if you would find that of
help.”
Dinah nodded appreciatively. “Thank you, sir.”
“You’ll give my best to your father and tell him what I said of his lecture?”
“You may count on it,” she said, accepting his card.
Graham somehow made it through their parting words, and Lily did not look at him as she turned and left.
“So you are still in love with her,” Dinah said simply.
He expected the observation, although it felt imprecise. In such a short time, he’d come to expect Dinah to say exactly what she thought, however inappropriate. Yet he wanted to answer. He needed someone to understand how he felt.
“She is engaged. Now I know him and her feelings. Soon I will hear of a wedding. Then a child.” His voice sounded faint, even to his ears. “Every bit of news is an additional nail in the coffin.”
“How many nails until you no longer feel the impact?”
“That is the question, isn’t it?”
“It is a good scientific one.”
Graham felt the answer would be never. He was no fool. He knew the pain would dull or would lessen with time or circumstance, but one could not forget his true love. Ever. “Dr. Milton is a bit of an arse, don’t you think?”
Dinah grinned. “He seems a good man, and very devoted to her and the health of his patients.”
Graham raised a brow.
“He did seem a bit condescending,” she admitted finally. “I daresay, at the very least you should encourage me just to prove his instincts regarding emotional ailments to be incorrect.”
He watched the retreating couple. The tender slope of her neck, the dainty curve of her shoulders. The only thing that seemed worse than longing for her was not longing for her. “I do not want to be cured of love.”
Dinah stuck out her hand with a ragged breath. “That serves me well, for I believe my father does not want to be cured, either. It will give me greater assurance that whatever results we achieve can be replicated in his case.”
He stared at her hand, which hung between them, fingers outstretched, tendons flexed. He realized she meant for him to shake it. Such an agreement was unheard of, but Dinah was an exceptional woman, so he took her hand in his own and shook it twice. “I do believe we’ve agreed to disagree. Very well, Miss Dinah. I will allow you your attempt as long as you allow me to fight against it.”
“What an illuminating afternoon,” she said. “Of course, this all pales in comparison to having finally laid eyes on the infamous Viscount Savage.”
“I presume I shall read of your encounter in the circulating gossip sheet devoted entirely to first-person encounters with him?”
“You may rely upon it,” she said.
* * *
Lord G.,
Dr. Milton has proven a man of his word and made introductions for me to Bethlem’s resident apothecary. While he tolerates me for a chance to see a pretty smile and claim close acquaintance with my father, he has also given me access to the institution’s large library of research materials.
I have found several lines of inquiry we might pursue to cure you. While I would normally explain these to you via post, I fear that without me to assure you of their relative safety, you might decline. Thus, I look forward to seeing you at Woodbury this July. I believe your father, assisted by my father’s purse, is throwing a birthday party for us—excessively, of course.
D.B.
* * *
Miss D.,
If you believe closing your missive on a note about an excessive party will make me overlook your vague threats regarding the safety of the experiments, you are wrong.
I’m sure being wrong is a sensation foreign to you, so I shall give you time to accommodate yourself to the state.
G.
* * *
Lord G.,
I would never assume you would overlook a threat to your safety, no matter how vague. Rest assured I am content with continuing to be correct.
D.B.
Chapter Three
Inaugural Belle birthday crush
July 2, 1817
Woodbury, England
Dinah raised her flute in a toast—the twelfth, maybe thirteenth, of the night. Had she known there would be so many toasts at the inaugural Belle birthday celebration, she would have taken smaller sips. As it was, she was on her third glass of champagne—directly imported from France, as His Grace had spared none of her father’s expense—and was merely tilting the stem so the bubbly drink sloshed against her top lip.
Another round of polite applause echoed off the walls and yet another gentleman, likely with his eye on her father’s fortune, one of her single sisters, or the good opinion of His Grace, cleared his throat and insisted on adding his own personal words as to the health, beauty, sublimeness—blah, blah, she didn’t care anymore—of herself and her four sisters.
The ballroom at Woodbury Hall was packed in a crush, as half of England had converged upon the estate from either London or Bristol. Many were first-time visitors. They wore bright plumes of gaudy finery, as though they imagined the Belles comported themselves that way on a daily basis. Dinah would have felt underdressed in her pale-yellow gown with its simple neckline and sleeves, but the guests were too absurd to be taken seriously. Rather than actually listening to the toasts, their headdresses tilted from the sky to the walls as they gaped at the multicolored chandeliers that winked sunlight through the room or the marble statuary or the green vines that crept up the tapestries. Even the musicians, hands cramped under the weight of their violas and cellos, had taken to admiring the interior.
“It is as if God himself blessed this day, the second of July,” the current toast maker was saying.
What nonsense. He was referencing what he considered the divine coincidence that each Belle sister had been born on the same day—July second—one year apart. Alice had come first. Bridget thereafter. Followed by Charlotte. Then Dinah herself. She was to be the last, but Sera had been a welcome surprise.
It was touted as coincidence by some, providence by others.
Dinah knew it was neither.
Humans were creatures of habit, her parents included. Whatever amorous seasonal activities they had engaged in that resulted in conception were destined to occur in a routine manner, thus producing children routinely born around the same time of year. It was simple. Unlike these toasts, which seemed as though they would carry on until the Rapture.
A sharp pain ran down her shoulder at having held a glass up for what must have been an hour. With a surreptitious glance around the room, she lowered her glass and set it in a nearby potted fern.
“I saw that.”
Dinah looked over her shoulder at Graham Abernathy, who drained his glass in one long swallow. He plucked her flute from the soil and spilled its contents into his own glass.
“I need it more than you do,” he said before draining the liquid.
She smiled, though judging by the roguish grin he gave her in return she was only encouraging his incorrigible nature, which he seemed to share with her exclusively. “I don’t see why an hour of extolling my virtues and those of my sisters could drive you to drink.”
“Ah, but you see, these toasts are not what drive me to drink.”
“What then?”
“Can you not guess?”
She raised a brow at the challenge and then cocked her head to study him. He wore a green coat and finely starched shirt, neat and pressed and in contrast to the disarray of his dark hair, which swept over his friendly brown eyes. She felt an unsettling response to his disheveled hair. Surely a woman’s natural reaction? No, the drink. Of course. She’d indulged in more champagne than average. But she couldn’t become too distracted by yet another question when there was already one before her: what had driven Graham to drink?
There was a simple answer—that Lady X had driven him to drink—but his gaze did not contain the distress she’d seen on his face when she’d found him in the cottage, nor when they’d chanced to encounter Lady X an
d her fiancé on the street. Dinah was certain he was jesting with her.
“The clock is ticking,” Graham said. “You have until the end of this toast. Which, granted, may be an interminably long time.”
The corner of her lip curved up. “Was that an unkind statement? From you? I thought you and Sera only thought of butterflies and rainbows. Yet, I daresay, in our recent acquaintance I’ve uncovered nothing but discontent.”
He chuckled. He did always seem to find her declarations humorous. “You bring out the worst in me, it seems.”
Another unkind statement, but Dinah did not feel it was an insult. She felt warmed by it, as if he’d paid her a great compliment. Which he had not.
“Ah, but the toast ends and you’ve lost,” Graham said. “Fortunately for you, another has raised his glass, but I believe we agreed you had until the end of one toast and not all of them.”
“I don’t believe anything has driven you to drink,” she said. “I believe you’re jesting with me.”
Laughter crinkled the corner of his eyes. “True, but I have had more drink than usual today—my poor behavior at Sera and Tom’s wedding aside. The reason why, I thought clear even to a simpleton, not someone of your intellect.”
“Perhaps my inability to grasp it speaks more to the ludicrousness of your reason for drinking than my intelligence.”
He laughed at that. Loudly enough that a few heads turned in their direction. This, she realized, was his real laugh and not the polite tittering he doled out so easily with others.
A flush of satisfaction warmed her cheeks. “Tell me, then,” she said. “What possible ludicrosity has led you to this?”
“I don’t believe ludicrosity is a word.”
“If Shakespeare may mold the English language, why may I not?”
“You’re familiar with Shakespeare’s work?” He leaned in closer. “I love the poetry of it. His sonnets are my favorites.”