by Julia Bennet
Helen sighed. “That beast of yours is so large he must surely need more exercise than this.”
Will knew he was being managed, but it was a fine day despite the cold, and Helen didn’t seem tired.
Just ahead, a stone arch, almost lost amid a riot of winter-blooming clematis, provided the quickest route out of the rose garden and into the main park. A portentous arch if ever there was one. Two roads had opened up before him, and he knew which one he ought to take.
“There used to be a gazebo on the western wall of the park,” he said.
“Can we go so far?”
He tried not to smile. “I’ve always considered exercise extremely beneficial in cases such as yours.”
The glow his answer brought to her eyes was his reward.
“Come on, dog,” she said again. Hector trotted after her, thrilled to be near her. Why the dog had taken such a fancy to Helen when she barely tolerated him, Will couldn’t imagine.
Beyond the arch, nature had taken back the grounds. The current outdoor staff kept the gardens closest to the house neat and tidy, but they didn’t have the time or manpower to subdue the wilderness further afield. To get to the west wall, they needed to cross the big meadow and find the path, no doubt covered in snow, which led through the woods.
“Cases such as mine,” she said, heading for a stile half hidden by holly. “You know, no one has ever told me what’s meant to be wrong with me. I don’t suppose you’ll enlighten me?”
He climbed over, careful not to catch his coat on the thorns. “I could tell you what Dr. Sterling thinks is wrong with you, but our opinions don’t always coincide.” Or indeed ever, he added silently.
“Tell me,” she said, taking the hand he offered to help her over.
As soon as her feet met the ground, Hector followed, somehow squeezing himself under the fence. No mean achievement for an animal his size.
“Hysteria, melancholy, and…” Somehow Will couldn’t bring himself to say “nymphomania.” So far, he’d seen little evidence of that particular condition, and he no longer trusted Sterling’s diagnoses.
“Erotomania?”
He stopped walking.
Helen stopped several steps ahead of him, turned, and regarded him calmly.
“Not precisely.” Erotomania was when a patient developed the delusion that a man—usually of higher status—was in love with them. Like nymphomania, erotomania often manifested through wanton sexual behavior. “No, I wouldn’t say that.”
“Others have, though not to my face. What would you say? What do you think is wrong with me?”
She really was the most astonishing woman. As she’d spoken that most shocking of words, she’d betrayed no emotion whatsoever. Not a hint of embarrassment or coyness. Under her steady gaze, answering her with the simple truth, rather than professional evasion, seemed the most natural thing in the world.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“How refreshing,” she said, a peculiar smile curving her lips. “But you’ve had time to observe me. Do you note any signs of hysteria?”
They started walking again, slower this time. “As to that,” he said, “who wouldn’t exhibit hysterical symptoms with Mrs. Fletcher as their constant companion?” Perhaps he shouldn’t say so, but he’d be buggered if he’d extend that monster his professional courtesy.
Helen laughed. “That’s what I’ve been saying for years. What else?”
“Sometimes you seem melancholy—”
“So do you.”
That stopped him again. “I?”
“Yes, you. But I’m here against my will, so I have an excuse for that, too.”
Hector chose that moment to dodge in front of her. If she hadn’t had good reflexes, she’d have gone flying and landed headfirst in the snow.
“Oh, really. You’re a necessary evil, but don’t push your luck, you horrible canine.” But, for the first time, she reached out and patted the dog’s head. “Yuck. My hand will probably smell like you now.”
As Will followed them across the meadow, he realized he was grinning like a fool.
The distant cries of crows reminded him of their first meeting. This day was as bleak as that, and yet his heart felt light. Even the sight of the trees, their gnarled, wind-twisted limbs reaching out like grasping, arthritic fingers, couldn’t subdue the bubble of nameless hope that swelled in his chest.
“Anyway, who wouldn’t be melancholy at Blackwell?” she asked, once they’d reached the line of the trees. “Surely, one would be mad to feel contentment. I mean, consider Mrs. Cox.”
“Helen, I can’t discuss other patients.” True, but he hated how pompous he sounded.
“They brought her to Blackwell when her husband died,” she said as if he hadn’t spoken. “Forty years, they’d been married. Forty! Can you imagine? Her son lives in Canada or somewhere. She was all alone and grieving, and she ended up here. They keep saying she isn’t improving, but what do they expect? Stuck here with no company or affection, no opportunity to find another reason to live—of course she’s getting worse.”
“But if they let her go and she hurt herself, what then?”
She exhaled, her breath misting the air with exasperation. “So she must be locked up in case of something she might do? I’m not certain, Dr. Carter, but to me that doesn’t sound entirely civilized.”
The thought that Helen might regard him as some sort of jailer silenced him, and they walked without talking until a break in the trees showed the wall looming ahead. Though it might resemble a medieval battlement complete with crenels and merlons, in reality Sir Clifford’s grandfather had commissioned it less than a century ago. Stone steps led up to the top, where Blackwell’s guests used to be able to walk the entire perimeter of the park if they chose. The gazebo stood in the corner, ramshackle even in Will’s youth and capped by snow.
Hector showed no inclination to follow them onto the wall, so they progressed without him. The gazebo, the highest point on the estate, afforded clear views in all directions.
“How small the house looks from up here,” Helen said, her voice quiet. “Like a doll’s house.”
She made a tragic picture, framed by the gazebo’s spindly pillars. Her fiery hair, for some reason not confined in its usual plait, cascaded loose down her back. Every so often, the breeze caught it, whipping tendrils out behind her. Three-quarters turned away from him, she gazed down on the view, eyelashes lowered on softly curving cheeks. Desolate. Alone.
Like that first day…
Something about that scene had struck him as theatrical even then, despite what he believed had been her genuine anguish. Today was the same. An artist could paint it: Woman Alone in a Field of White and Gray.
He didn’t doubt she truly felt alone and afraid. Neither did he doubt she tried to manipulate him by playing on his sympathies.
Instead of anger, or the professional curiosity he probably ought to feel, he wanted to cross the four feet separating them and kiss the scheming, mercurial woman lurking beneath the tragic exterior. He wasn’t sure what sort of man that made him, but he knew he couldn’t allow himself to keep thinking this way.
“If I am to form my own opinion about your state of mind,” he said, “I must find out more about you.”
No answer, unless the slight turn of her shoulder, so that her entire back showed, constituted one.
“Did you have a happy childhood?”
“Did you?” she countered, spinning to face him with such a wild expression that he expected a scolding. But when their eyes met, the anger in hers faded.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That wasn’t subtle of me.”
“No. But if you still wish, I’ll answer.”
The sudden change made him suspicious. You’ll answer, but why? Why did you change your mind? What would the truth gain her?
“No doubt Dr. Sterling told you my mother was an actress.”
Actually, he told me you were.
He kept the words back. If she omit
ted the information or lied, she revealed as much as if she told the truth. Usually the best course was to let the patient talk.
What if Sterling hadn’t told the whole truth? Will was used to relying on the word of his fellow doctors, but Sterling viewed the world differently, each image skewed as if he gazed through a pane of cheap glass. Was Miss Grey a sexual deviant or merely a young woman who’d matured without the benefit of conventional moral wisdom? Will suspected the latter, but Sterling would never let go of his own interpretation.
“I was about to explain that her lowly profession didn’t mean my childhood was unhappy, but growing up as you did, perhaps you already understand that.”
Yes, neither one of them had been born into great wealth or exalted rank. Will knew those things didn’t ensure happiness, though they could smooth the way. His mam had always loved him. Sir Clifford had cared deeply for his welfare. Their dual influence had made Will the man he was today.
“But we aren’t supposed to be talking about me.”
Helen’s gaze swept him from head to toe, heavy-lidded and assessing. He’d seen men look at low women that way, a covetous examination of wares for sale, as if their eyes could penetrate fabric. Ladies didn’t look at men that way or, if they did, not at men like Will. Blood surged downward to his cock, and Helen smiled as if she knew.
“Dr. Carter,” she said, “why would I tell you all my secrets if you’re not willing to share any of your own?”
“So that I may h—” But he mustn’t say “help” to her.
You medical men, she’d said once. Always ready to help, always eager to strap me down and manhandle me. Given the illicit thoughts he’d struggled with recently with regard to her, the remembrance acted like a bucket of cold water.
She smiled again. “So? Did you have a happy childhood, Dr. Carter?”
“Yes.”
“Even growing up here?”
“Blackwell was different then. As you know, my mother had the running of the house. I had the freedom of the grounds.”
“Wasn’t it hard when Sir what’s-his-face came home?”
“Sir Clifford was kind, especially after my father died.”
Her expression softened ever so slightly. “How old were you?”
“Six.” His father had been stern and sober-minded, but he’d ruffled Will’s hair every morning before he left the house. A thoughtless gesture of affection that Will still treasured almost thirty years later.
“And is that how you come to talk the way you do?” she asked. “Through Sir Clifford?”
“In a roundabout way. It took a lot of hard work and practice.”
“I like it when you go all northern.”
That was flirting; she was flirting with him. Even more blood deserted his brain in response. “I’ve answered plenty of questions. Surely it’s your turn to tell me something.”
“Very well. Here goes. I’ve always been rather good at accents myself. I learnt how to speak well in the theatre.”
“Did you act?” He couldn’t hold back the question.
She laughed as though he’d fallen into a trap. Perhaps he had. “Yes, but small parts. I wasn’t this century’s Nell Gwynn, as Sterling would probably have you believe. I never played Ophelia, for instance, but I think we both know I could do the role justice.”
He almost laughed out loud. Be professional, man.
“What parts did you play?” he asked.
“I was a pallbearer in Hamlet once, a fairy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, miscellaneous nymphs and spirits in The Tempest, always in the background. Is it your turn yet?”
Why not? He’d learnt more in the last five minutes of quid pro quo than he had reading her entire file. “What would you like to know?”
“Were you really married?”
Now, that, that he hadn’t seen coming. As he’d suspected, he’d fallen arse-first into a trap.
“Yes.” He wouldn’t ask how she knew. In a country parish like this, the marital status of even the meanest visitor constituted news of the highest import. The nurses gossiped. Actually, so did the doctors.
“Where’s your wife?”
If she intended to make a point about intrusive inquiries regarding painful subjects, she couldn’t have chosen a better question, not because he was still mourning for Esther, but because he’d never yet spoken of her death or the long, lonely years of their marriage.
He took a deep breath. “She died.” In childbirth. To lose wife and child in a single day… Such high hopes, then devastation. If there was worse pain in the world, he prayed he’d never experience it.
“Oh.”
What to make of that look on her face. Was it sympathy? Pity? Whichever it had been, she schooled her features.
When she opened her mouth to speak, he fully expected an interrogation. “Would you like to hear my cockney?” she said instead.
What an offer. His jolt of unexpected laughter drained away the tension.
“By all means,” he replied.
…
The light had already begun to fade as Helen, still exhilarated from her long walk, climbed the attic stairs. She barely noticed the dog at her heels, her head too full of plans and possibilities.
Dr. Carter appeared to be that rare thing, a man of principle. But part of him wanted her anyway. His eyes gave him away every time, the expression in them too honest and open. He truly wanted to help. If she could convince him that she’d be better off away from Blackwell…
If he helped her escape, he’d risk his entire career. A man would only do that for a woman he loved to distraction—or perhaps one who drove him mad with lust.
She didn’t have much experience with love, but lust…
Lust she knew.
Taking Dr. Carter to bed would be a pleasure, but an unexpected twinge of guilt assaulted her when she thought of the consequences he might face if he helped her. These thoughts chased themselves in circles as she entered her room, so much so that she didn’t immediately notice Fletch waiting like a spider. The sight of her sitting in the rocking chair Dr. Carter had sent, knitting a blanket instead of spinning a web, made Helen queasy.
Fletch set her needles and wool aside and smiled. “Well, well. And where have you been this long while?”
“Walking.”
Fletch’s eyebrows met her hairline, but she didn’t comment.
“I see you’re feeling better.” Helen couldn’t bring herself to lie and say she felt glad.
Fletch looked past her at the dog peeping out from behind Helen’s skirts. “What’s that thing doing in here?”
“Hm? Oh, you mean the dog. I’m to look after him for Dr. Carter. Part of my treatment.”
The dog, perhaps sensing that this might drag on a while, slumped onto Helen’s feet again and gazed mournfully into the middle distance. So much for her ferocious guardian.
“What a sorry specimen,” Fletch said, echoing Helen’s thoughts. “I’ll take this up with Dr. Sterling, you see if I don’t. I’ve enough trouble on my hands with you. I don’t want to look after a dirty great dog as well.”
“As you like. But Dr. Carter did say—”
“Oh, Dr. Carter says,” Fletch mimicked. “I suppose you think you’re safe now you’re Dr. Carter’s pet? You remember who put you here. I don’t work for that housekeeper’s whelp any more than I work for you, you nasty slut. And mark my words I’ll do what I’m paid for. I’ll purge the trollop out of you even if—”
“Even if you have to kill me to do it?”
The dog’s ears pricked up.
Helen gentled her tone as she continued. “They still hang women for murder as far as I’m aware. Careful you don’t trespass beyond your remit.”
Fletch’s complexion took on a bilious tone. “Don’t you dare try your actress’s cant on me. I doubt you know what half them hoity-toity words mean. You probably read them in a play somewhere.”
And if I did, that’s still more book learning than you’ve ever had. Helen m
anaged to keep the words in. For once, she would not let her temper get the better of her.
“Believe that if it comforts you,” she said instead. “I don’t want to argue with you—”
“Argue with me? You’re not here to argue with anybody, you cheeky baggage. You’re here to listen and do as you’re told.”
No use quarreling with Fletch. Helen had known that for a long time, but all at once the truth overwhelmed her. Unless she could convince Dr. Carter to get her out, she’d spend the rest of her life having this same argument, bracing herself for pinches and clouts, never knowing when the next ice bath would come, until the inevitable day when Fletch finally went too far and Helen ended up dead.
She shuffled her feet out from under the dog and retreated to the bed, perching on the edge. “All right,” she said on a sigh.
And yet, for some reason, this easy capitulation only incensed Fletch further. “Oh ho,” she said. “So now I’m not worth talking to. Why, you little—”
It happened so quickly. Fletch lunged forward, hand open and raised to administer a slap.
The dog leapt between them, snarling, his massive body rigid.
“Here, Hector!” Helen shouted, mimicking Dr. Carter’s stern command.
At the same time, Fletch screeched and stumbled backward into the rocker.
As for the dog, only the pricking back of his ears told Helen he’d heard her. He kept his eyes fixed on his prey, growling low in his throat.
She stepped forward and grabbed him firmly by the collar. “Easy,” she soothed. To Fletch, she added, “I think you’d better go. He doesn’t seem to like you.”
“You won’t…” Fletch swallowed. “You won’t let him go, will you?”
For years, Helen had imagined how it would feel to have Fletch address her with fear and respect in her voice. The circumstances differed wildly from her dreams, but the little thrill of triumph felt even better. “Of course not. I could never be so cruel. Go slowly, though, or you might upset him again.”
As Fletch skirted the room, obviously desperate to keep a wide distance between herself and the dog, Helen wished Dr. Carter would come so that she might kiss him. Never had she felt such gratitude to another living soul. But in his absence, the dog would have to do.