The Misfit Marquess

by Teresa DesJardien

  "Mr. Arbuckle. He . . . works for me," Gideon said, but he was not about to share what news Mr. Arbuckle had brought him: that the investigator had compiled a list of six young ladies who had suddenly "disappeared" from Society, one from Bath and the rest from London. It was suspected, naturally enough, that they had been sent to the country, either to avoid an unsuitable connection or else to be delivered of any infant that resulted from such an unsuitable connection. None of the six had a surname that began with B, but Arbuckle was delving deeper into their supposed and their actual whereabouts and would soon have a more complete report to make.

  "My lord," Elizabeth said. He thought she now looked bright of eye, too bright, and her face was flushed. "Have you hired that man . .. ?" She looked embarrassed, and for a moment her voice faltered, but then she rallied. "Is it possible you mean to protect me, or this household, from the return of the man who tried to steal my ring? Do you think it possible he came back and stole my jewels?"

  Gideon looked into her earnest gaze and just managed to stifle a sigh. It was sad, so very sad, that she was so deeply deluded. "My dear girl," he said, taking a chair next to hers. He reached out and took up one of her hands again, noting that she had moved the signet ring from her left hand to her right. Interesting.

  "Can you tell me how such a man would get into my home unnoticed?" he asked her. "And why would he steal nothing but your jewels? I assure you, everything else in the house is in place."

  This was not strictly the truth, for little things went missing all the time, but he would not feed Elizabeth's fancies with that information. "Missing" was not the right word, for they were simply moved to new places where they were eventually discovered. He suspected he had a servant bent on amusing him-or herself, even if Gideon was at a loss to say who among his staff was so inclined.

  "Oh." She acknowledged the reasoning in his argument with a stark look. "I suppose you must be right. Although"—her too bright gaze narrowed—"it could be a matter of revenge. Against me. That would explain why he only took my belongings."

  How to argue logic with an illogical mind? He only smiled briefly and patted her hand. That hand was very warm to the touch. ... He grimaced and reached to touch the back of his own hand to her forehead.

  "My dear woman, you are burning up!"

  "I am afraid so." She gave a weak smile. "I hate to ask, but I think we must call for the surgeon once more."

  He frowned, belatedly taking in the dark circles under her eyes. "Your heel, it does not do well?" He glanced down toward her feet, but they were lost from sight beneath the hem of her gown.

  "It has become tender and swollen. Nothing too alarming, I am sure—"

  He did not wait to hear more, but scooped her into his arms. The canes fell aside with a clatter, startling one of the footmen who had arrived to see if aught else was required for the meal— a meal that would now go uneaten.

  Chapter 12

  Oh! You could warn a body," Elizabeth said faintly as her hands spread over his shoulders in a weak-fingered grip.

  "You should never have been up and about, aggravating the wound," he said crossly as he resettled her in his arms.

  Gideon rushed up the stairs, carrying Elizabeth to her room and setting her on the bed. He rang immediately for the maid.

  Polly came promptly, bandages in hand. "Time fer a dressing change already?" she clucked with concern as she hurried in the door. There was surprise evident in her unpatched eye upon finding Gideon in the room.

  "I do not know," he answered her, "but the lady requires water to drink. And tea, not too hot, with honey."

  "Honey? I haven't a cold. Such a to-do about a little touch of infection," Elizabeth mumbled.

  "Infection and a fever," Gideon said gruffly, feeling her forehead again even though he knew quite well from carrying her that she was completely flush with fever.

  "Well, yes," Elizabeth conceded, "I do feel a bit warm." She sounded groggy, not herself.

  "Get that water, girl!" Gideon said sharply to Polly, taking the bandages from the maid's hands. "Cool water. Then tell Frick to send for the surgeon at once. And have Cook send up that tincture he makes, that black foul-smelling stuff."

  Elizabeth said nothing, an unusual circumstance that only made Gideon frown all the more. She did not even object, only gasping once in consternation when he sat gingerly on the bed and pulled her skirt above her ankle to examine the bandage on her heel.

  He sucked in his breath at the sight of the limp and sodden bandage. "It's as well you removed the sticking plaster," he said, only just remembering to try to sound unruffled, calm, un-alarmed.

  "It fell off this morning. We had to switch to the plain cotton bandages," Elizabeth muttered.

  The wound was weeping. Some doctors called it purifying infection and others the laudable pus, because such weeping of the wound was to be expected and preceded the forming of new scar tissue. All Gideon knew was that the infection could spread, could turn into a poisoning of the blood. Tinctures, drawing poultices, hot and cold water dips, lancing—there were things that could be done, and it was best to do them sooner rather than later.

  He removed the old linen, the simple movements causing Elizabeth to bite her lip, presumably to keep from crying out. The wound was not any prettier than its bandage had been, and Gideon did not like its puffy appearance. Nor did he like the way Elizabeth gritted her teeth as he gently probed around the wound's edges. Her breathing became ragged.

  She was visibly relieved when he ceased his examination. He wrapped new cloth around her foot in a twisting figure eight, being as gentle as he could.

  'Tell me about the letter you wrote for Jeannie," he said, wanting to distract her attention.

  "Jeannie?" She sounded a little vague, but then she rallied. "Oh, yes. She told me I could tell you anything you'd like. I wrote a letter to her mama. Jeannie wanted her to know that a midwife has agreed to deliver the child." She fell silent as he tucked the end of the bandage under a fold, securing it. He carefully moved her foot from his lap to rest atop the covers of the bed, noting that the skin around her mouth had grown white.

  "Jeannie tells me her mama lives with someone who can read," Elizabeth said, the kind of comment one makes when one is attempting to disguise pain.

  Gideon made an encouraging noise.

  Elizabeth lifted her head, and he could feel the full weight of her gaze upon him. Whereas a moment earlier all her energy had been focused on her foot, now it was focused on him, a scowling gaze that could have started timber on fire. He turned his head, mouth parted in surprise, to face the fullness of this sudden wrath.

  "She is going to work here still, she told her mama," Elizabeth said. "The child will be with a woman whom Jeannie lives with at night, who has six of her own, but Jeannie says she will be allowed to go twice a day to nurse her own child."

  Why was Elizabeth so upset by this news? Surely since Jeannie was too far from her mama to reside there, this was the best arrangement? And why was he the recipient of Elizabeth's upset? He closed his mouth, only to open his lips again to inquire as much, but she went on. "She is very happy not to be losing her position."

  That sounded like an accusation, but Gideon was used to those, and often as nonsensical as was this one. "Hush," he said, not gently. "You are flush with fever. You need to rest until the surgeon arrives."

  Elizabeth narrowed her gaze at him, then settled back against the pillows. "I daresay maintaining Jeannie's employment is the least you could do for the poor girl."

  Gideon reached with one hand to rub his chin, perplexed by her comment. "Most people would say I was being far too tolerant in having a, er, propagating female about the house at all," he explained.

  "Most people do not know what it is to be alone, friendless and female," Elizabeth snapped back at him.

  Since this was hardly the first time a woman had been unreasonably aggravated at him, Gideon shrugged inwardly. Instead of attempting to maintain conversation, he smiled a
nd patted her hand, which she withdrew at once with a disgusted sigh.

  Either her affliction or her fever had put some twisted notion in her head, which would no doubt be erased by a night's sleep or the surgeon's draughts.

  As to doctoring, what was taking the dratted surgeon so long? He lived not five minutes away, directly off the High Street of Severn's Well. Gideon hoped the man was not making rounds, or miles away at some confinement or sickroom.

  "Close your eyes," Gideon said to the still scowling Elizabeth, who stared hard at him for another two seconds before giving in to his command.

  Gideon continued to sit on the edge of the bed, not wanting to move and disturb either her foot or her rest. In short order, Elizabeth slipped into a fitful doze, and then Gideon was even more loathe to disturb her.

  He had nothing to do but sit and wonder why he did not just leave this strange woman to the care of a maid . .. but finding no answer that satisfied him, he remained where he was.

  Two hours later, Gideon sat in his library, having been banished from the sickroom by the surgeon.

  The sun was high in the sky, flooding the room with light, but there was no warmth at Gideon's core. He stared at his account books, not even pretending to work at them.

  Elizabeth was ill. Gideon had not needed the surgeon's concerned expression to tell him that. He had felt her fever for himself and seen the wound.

  Forcing his mind away from the grim realities of physical illness, Gideon tried instead to concentrate on whether or not this infection would mean Elizabeth would have to stay longer. The last of the male asylum patients, Thompson, had gone today. The man's brother had belatedly heard about the asylum fire and had made his way from Salisbury to retrieve Thompson. That matter was cleanly settled . . . but Elizabeth's exit would almost certainly be delayed now.

  Of course, what was the hurry? Even when she was gone, he had other concerns yet to be settled. Gideon's dream of leaving this place, perhaps making some manner of a Grand Tour, of seeing the world, to follow in his brothers' retreating footsteps, it would all have to wait.

  Just as it had always waited. Just as he had long since begun to fear it always would wait.

  Gideon wanted escape, he longed for it, he chafed under the burdens that kept him from it.

  Run away—forget duty and obligation. But this was an old chorus, begun in childhood. He knew better. He knew himself. Without duty, what was there? That which choked him was also the very thing that shaped him. If he ran, left, abandoned—what would he be then?

  He was no hero, because heroes made choices. There was no choice for Gideon. He was the eldest. He had siblings to support; two households—this meandering pile in Severn's Well and the home farm in Kent—both with servants to employ and feed; and there were horses and dogs and beef cattle to be maintained. Yet these obligations were small compared with the number of farmworkers he employed—those who worked his land in Kent, raised his crops and his cattle, and who made his profit for him. How could Gideon cease to watch over their needs, when his laborers were the very glue that held all else together?

  He could flee it all, he sometimes thought... only to ask himself to do what? Watch from afar as it all fell apart? Watch as people lost their holdings, as they went hungry and homeless?

  He could hire a steward, then. A steward could oversee everything, could be sure that the estate made a profit, that the cogs of its machinery moved forward.

  But a steward could not be generous, not with his master's money. He could be prudent, he could be thoughtful, he could even be kindhearted—but he could not use his own initiative to go beyond the norm. He would have to consult with his master, and that would mean Gideon was not really free of his obligations anyway, just further removed—a step away. Gideon knew taking that one step away was what would kill the very center, the exact heart of him.

  The day his papa had expired, the brand-new Lord Greyleigh had raised a prayer of thanks that the old lord could no longer threaten or bully anyone, especially Mama, who had become exceedingly fragile in her health and her mind. Gideon's second thought had been that now, at long last, this faded bloodred pile of stones they must call home would now be made to harbor only good will, soft voices, and compassion. Storms and alarms had ruled too long; during Gideon's reign as the marquess, his house would become a haven to all who resided here. It was his vow. And, God save him, it was also his entrapment.

  A knock startled Gideon from his morose thoughts. Frick entered the library with a short but courteous bow and announced, "Mr. Clifton."

  The grey-haired surgeon entered, not smiling. "My lord," he said.

  Gideon murmured a greeting as he came from behind his desk. The two men moved by silent consent to an arrangement of chairs before the fireplace, and Gideon asked the surgeon to sit. "May I offer you refreshments?"

  'Tea would not go amiss," Mr. Clifton said on a nod and a wearied sigh.

  Gideon rang for a servant and ordered both tea and a light repast, in case the surgeon's duties had not given the man an opportunity to consume a meal recently. He sat back in his chair and looked the man directly in the eyes. "I collect that the wound is infected."

  The doctor inclined his head once more. "It is, my lord. There are two ways to treat it. One is to bleed the patient. However, I am a student of the experiments carried out by the well-known physician John Hunter, and others who have expanded on his work with the vessels for the blood, and am of the belief that bleeding is not always of benefit, particularly in cases of inflammation. I do not, therefore, recommend it in this case."

  Gideon digested the information, not as alarmed as he might have been were it not for his own experience with medical men and the guesswork they were forced to, particularly when it came to the human mind. "But is there not a danger of the blood being poisoned?"

  "There is a true danger of that, my lord. And Erysipelas, a febrile disease that moves very rapidly, is a very real possibility as well. You would probably know it better as St. Anthony's Fire. Short of God's bounty, it is fatal."

  Gideon felt the blood recede from his face. "Then what is to be done?"

  "I am inclined to believe the wound has not degraded to gangrene," the surgeon said, just as the maid returned with a tray of tea and fruit with cheese. Mr. Clifton took up a small plate from the tray and placed a few items on it as he spoke. "I have ordered fresh bandages four times a day, or more as needed, to encourage the drainage, with a pulling poultice applied prior to the bandaging," he said around a mouthful of grapes. "Food should be light. Broth, sops, that sort of thing only."

  "She is still conscious?"

  "Barely, my lord."

  Gideon frowned, then signaled for the doctor to go on.

  "For relief of swelling, it is sometimes advantageous to soak the wound in first very warm salted water, almost untouchably warm, and then do the same in chilled water. I have instructed the maid in attendance to do that daily if the patient is sensible and not consumed by fever."

  "I will order ice delivered from Bristol," Gideon stated.

  "Excellent." The surgeon popped a hunk of cheese in his mouth. When he had swallowed, he said, "Is it true what she told me? That her family has not yet been reached?"

  "More than that, they have yet to be identified."

  "Too bad. I could wish someone she knew were here. It can be soothing to the fever patient to have a family member at the bedside, especially with a woman who is prone to hysteria or dementia."

  Gideon parted his lips to protest the term "hysteria"—he had never seen so much as a hint of hysteria in Elizabeth, not even when she had been searching for her "jewels" under her bed. She had been angry and upset, but not hysterical. "Dementia," however .. . now, that was not a term he could so lightly dismiss.

  Mr Clifton put aside his plate and stood. "I will return tomorrow. Good day, my lord."

  Gideon stood also, wanting to ask if there was not more to be done, but knowing there was not. For all that Mr. Clifton was a s
urgeon and not a university-trained physician, his practical experience held more sway with Gideon than all the potions a physician could dispense.

  Thank God there was not yet any sign of gangrene! That was a slow and painful death, but the surgeon's words left reason yet to hope for a recovery. Although why should he care one whit about a deliberately mysterious woman's future or health? He scowled at his own turn of thought, and knew the answer without even having to think it through. He had been caring for people all his life. It was in his blood. The care of others was what defined him, what made him the opposite of his boorish father.

  But did it? he thought. Once that had been true. But Gideon's growing need to leave this place, to thrust off dependability and all the constraints of his position, had begun to consume him of late.

  He had often thought about riding away late in the night, never looking back. He thought about joining the Coast Guard, as his brother Benjamin had done. He read books about foreign lands where being an English lord would mean little or nothing to the natives. When his blood was up, as all men's was at times, he dreamed of sultry, dark-skinned women who whispered in his ear in tongues that he could not understand, that could not make demands of him.

  He pondered these fantasies . . . but duty's call had a stronger hold on him than even did longing and desire. Like Mama, he must be mad. Either he had been insane for a long time, to live within this narrow cage that both he and fate had built, or else he had once been sane and the pressures of his yearnings now drove him into this feeling of madness.

  He did not know. He did not remember anymore. Had he once been relatively content? If so, it had been a long, long time ago, long before Mama breathed her last.

  He only knew that now each dawn was a trial, and each sunset a sentence. He was locked in a prison, and it was a dark, lonely, solitary place despite being surrounded by dozens of people: servants, underlings, and dependents. That was all he had surrounding him. No family. No brothers to relieve the tedium of this place, the tedium of Gideon's position. No peer, no equal. Not even sycophants. His reputation as a madman had taken care of any toad-eaters, even if his own inclination for avoiding fools had not proved sufficient in that regard.