By a Lady

by Amanda Elyot

  Did he mean the tantric sex or the horseback riding? “You need not have bribed me with the promise of a green velvet riding habit,” C.J. teased. “I would freely return to learn more about the Kama Sutra.”

  “I will teach you everything I know . . . with the greatest pleasure.”

  “I promise to be a most attentive student.” C.J. ran her hands through Darlington’s soft, shiny brown curls. The gesture produced a sudden thought: “I was wondering if you might allow me a . . . a memento,” she said, twining her finger around a tendril or two. To her delight, the earl took her meaning immediately and fetched a pair of fine Toledo scissors. He handed them to C.J. and inclined his head. “Pick one.”

  The recalcitrant spiral that flopped across his brow when he bent toward her gave the earl an even more tousled appearance. “Would you mind standing up straight, your lordship? I’d prefer a more discriminate ‘rape of the lock.’ We would not want to cause speculation on the sudden loss of your barber’s sense of symmetry.”

  “What is so willingly bestowed can hardly be construed as rape,” Darlington replied as C.J. discreetly snipped one perfect curl. “And you will require a proper place to store your treasure.” He went to his escritoire and opened a small chest. “This was my mother’s,” he told C.J., placing a small silver locket into her hand. “A gift from my father for the selfsame purpose. Omnia vincit amor,” he added, reading the inscription to her. “Love conquers all.” He took the C-shaped ringlet from C.J.’s palm and placed it inside the locket, then closed their joined hands around the gift.

  Ever so softly, C.J. kissed his lips. “It’s a price beyond rubies,” she whispered. “Thank you, your lordship.”

  They dressed at leisure, desiring to prolong their parting as much as possible. Then Darlington’s barouche carried C.J. back to Lady Dalrymple’s town house, the short distance from the Circus to the Royal Crescent being all too brief a drive.

  Book the Third

  Chapter Sixteen

  This time Lady Dalrymple does not cry wolf; our heroine rids the household of parasites, and makes a desperate effort to take matters into her own hands.

  THE HOUSE ON the Royal Crescent was dark and still as C.J. approached, and she wondered if she had been missed when Folsom, who opened the door to admit her, gave her an anxious look. She slipped inside and tiptoed up the highly polished wooden staircase, removing the skeleton key from her reticule when she reached the blue room. A cursory glance in the beveled cheval mirror to ensure that there was nothing suspiciously untoward about her appearance revealed one or two stray curls; but otherwise, her thin muslin gown, though it had appeared to be a total loss at the time, had survived the soaking in Sydney Gardens.

  It was too quiet. C.J. shuddered. Something was amiss. She quickened her step as she approached Lady Dalrymple’s bedchamber and almost collided with Saunders, who was leaving the darkened room. “Miss Welles! You gave me such a fright,” she exclaimed, a panicked expression in her light gray eyes.

  “Saunders—whatever has happened?” C.J. asked. She had learned enough about the dour maid’s character to know that she would not offer any intelligence unless it was demanded of her, though Saunders’s countenance—like that of the footman, Folsom—clearly betrayed the fact that a matter of grave importance had transpired within the past few hours.

  “It is her ladyship’s heart, Miss Welles,” Saunders whispered, unable to mask her alarm and distress. “Dr. Squiffers is with her now.”

  “How . . . grave is her condition?” C.J. asked, already divining an answer from the maid’s tearstained face.

  At the entrance to Lady Dalrymple’s bedchamber, C.J. paused to steady her breath so that her entrance would not further upset her “aunt.”

  The heavy crewelwork drapes were drawn around the countess’s bed. The small, slight Dr. Squiffers, dressed in a somber wool crepe frock coat, stood beside her, illuminated by the flame from a single taper.

  Lady Dalrymple looked surprisingly diminutive and alarmingly thin propped up by numerous damask-covered bolsters and eiderdown pillows. It was horribly warm within the confines of the closed curtains, and the odor of illness was palpable. The dowager’s white lace cap was askew; a sheen of sweat plastered her gray curls to her glistening brow. She held out her arms to C.J.

  “My niece. My dear niece. Come to me.”

  C.J. obeyed immediately. She took her “aunt’s” hand in her own. The older woman’s palm felt small, somehow, and slightly clammy.

  “Tell Dr. Squiffers to pull the curtains. I want to see Portly.”

  “It is inadvisable for the patient to have so much light,” the medic soberly counseled, kneading his knotted arthritic thumbs.

  “Nonsense. Give her ladyship what she wants.” C.J. decided to take charge. She placed a kiss on Lady Dalrymple’s damp forehead. “Get her a cool, wet cloth,” she ordered the doctor, who rang the velvet bellpull; then, drawing him aside, C.J. softly asked the medical man about the countess’s condition.

  The response did little to cheer her.

  “We are doing all we can to make her comfortable, Miss Welles, but your aunt appears to have a greatly enlarged heart,” the doctor replied, steepling his fingers together to form a triangle. He found it did wonders to reduce the tremors that had been plaguing him ever since he had decided to reduce his intake of alcohol. How long had it been, now? Two weeks? Two months?

  He regarded Lady Dalrymple’s young niece and pursed his lips. Like most men of the medical profession, Dr. Squiffers was not overfond of persistent sorts who questioned his authority. Upstarts. “We do not know how long her ladyship will last. It could be a matter of months, or weeks . . . or it may be only a matter of days.” What did people expect of him? Death was a matter of course. His patients and their families always demanded miracles that no mere man, even a learned man of medicine, could provide. What would they next insist of him—that he walk on water?

  Saunders reappeared with a glass tumbler, several fine Irish linen towels, and a white enamel basin. The doctor retrieved a small metal box from his worn black leather bag and opened the hasplike closure. Then he took the drinking glass from the lady’s maid. His hands trembled as he held it over the candle flame to sterilize it, requesting that Saunders part her ladyship’s dressing gown to expose the affected area. She picked up the small delftware bowl by Lady Dalrymple’s bedstead and turned to the medic for approval.

  “Sweetened milk, sir. As you requested.” The lady’s maid took a fingertip towel from the bedside table and, dipping it into the bowl of sweetened milk—which seemed to C.J. more appropriate for a tabby cat’s midnight snack—began to apply dabs of the sticky liquid to her ladyship’s exposed poitrine. It was certainly an odd ritual. What could Saunders’s preparation be for, except perhaps to attract bugs?

  Curiosity compelled C.J. to peer into the doctor’s little strongbox. She gasped, then nearly gagged. Regrettably, her suspicions about the contents of the box were confirmed. She had never seen leeches up close and never desired to again; and if she had to tackle the doctor to prevent him from bleeding Lady Dalrymple, and then bodily evict him from the premises, by God, she was prepared to do it.

  Not only had Squiffers not washed his palsied hands before placing them on the patient, he was about to compound matters tenfold in C.J.’s view by touching the writhing brown-black oblongs beginning to desiccate in the box before him.

  “Did you bring the salt, Saunders?” the doctor inquired; and in response to C.J.’s look of questioning horror, he explained, “The leeches must be left on the skin in order to achieve maximum efficacy. Once they fall off of their own accord, one must place them in a dish or plate of salt so they can vomit up the blood.”

  C.J. was herself about to regurgitate. “And the sweetened milk?” she managed to stammer.

  “A little sweetened milk placed upon the affected area stimulates the bloodsuckers to bite. Quite the customary practice, Miss Welles. There is nothing to fear.”

&n
bsp; Maybe if you were a leech. C.J. threw her body between Dr. Squiffers and the countess, knocking his arm away from Lady Dalrymple. The medic easily lost his grip of the heated tumbler, which fell to the carpet and rolled several feet away. He scrambled to retrieve the glass as C.J. slammed the lid shut on the case of hideous, writhing leeches, closing the clasp. “Out! Out, you parasite!” she shrieked, shoving the doctor from the room while an aghast Saunders stood helplessly by.

  The maid attended her ladyship’s bedside as C.J. retrieved the doctor’s black bag and the box of leeches and followed him from the room, closing the heavy bedchamber door behind her. The physician stood by, shaking with ire.

  “Miss Welles, you must let me do everything in my power to heal your aunt. I have taken an oath!” he insisted. Wringing his hands helped stop them from trembling, but only with the greatest concentration could he control his shaking limbs when anger or anxiety got the better of him.

  “I absolve you of your Hippocratic responsibilities,” C.J. said, her voice tensing.

  “Without my expertise, Lady Dalrymple will very likely die,” the doctor urged under his breath, lest their voices carry through the closed door. He knew the odds of survival were slim in any event. Softening his tone, and taking C.J.’s hand, he consoled, “I understand that you are reluctant to accept that it is nigh your aunt’s time, but if you wish to prolong her . . . departure . . . you must not prevent her ladyship from receiving the best possible medical care. I shall endeavor to ease her pain and make the inevitable more comfortable for her. Surely you can derive your own comfort from that knowledge, Miss Welles.”

  C.J. withdrew her hand. “No, sir, I cannot. And I do not. Nor do I accept that it is Lady Dalrymple’s ‘time,’ as you aver with such ridiculous certainty. Time can be altered, I have learned . . .” She trailed off, realizing that she was failing in her attempt to sway his opinion. Perhaps leeching, or bleeding, was the standard course of treatment at the time for everything from bunions to dog bites to bubonic plague.

  What effect cupping and leeching could possibly have on the countess’s enlarged heart—short of burning her skin and thinning her blood, owing to the leeches’ scarlet extraction—would have to be thoroughly proven to C.J. in order to convince her of the efficacy of the procedure. Although, when she paused to think for a moment, she acknowledged that blood thinners such as aspirin were prescribed for heart patients in her own era.

  She looked deep into Squiffers’s eyes—pale blue orbs now red rimmed and slightly bloodshot—and then leveled a challenge. “I will offer you a bargain, Doctor. I absolve you of all responsibility—medical, ethical, or legal—with regard to the future health of Lady Euphoria Dalrymple. From this moment on, my aunt’s life is in my hands, and I shall accept whatever consequences there may be . . . should she recover”—C.J.’s voice dropped below a whisper— “or not.” She took a deep breath and shook the doctor’s hand. “If we have further need of your services, I shall have the footman, Willis, summon you.” Dr. Squiffers’s gaze was indecipherable. She placed a hand on the medic’s back and guided him toward the staircase. “Good night, Doctor. And thank you.”

  C.J. waited at the top of the stairs until she could no longer hear the physician’s receding footsteps. Then she reentered her “aunt’s” chamber. “Mary. Mary Sykes would probably know what to do,” C.J. muttered half to herself, wishing now more than ever that Lady Wickham’s little scullery maid were there to see her through this crisis. Mary was resourceful and pragmatic and understood how to get along in this world. She would undoubtedly know about efficacious and less barbaric home remedies and how one might concoct them. More important, because Mary had an infirm employer, she might know where a better physician than Dr. Squiffers could be located.

  C.J. realized that her own brow was damp with sweat. Perhaps she had overreacted. After all, she was comparing her awareness of modern medicine and technology with the state of medical science in 1801—something she admittedly knew nothing about.

  She mopped her brow, then wiped her perspiring hands on her hips. The white gown had been through so much today, its condition could not get much worse. Now, what to do about Lady Dalrymple? It was not the time to second-guess her ill treatment of Dr. Squiffers. She did fear that her refusal to allow the medic—who appeared to have a permanent case of delirium tremens—to bleed and cup the countess might actually hasten her demise rather than prolong it. She had acted upon impulse just now, and although she was not ordinarily the praying sort, she hoped that there was an all-knowing divine force somewhere in the universe that had guided her to make the right decision.

  Lady Dalrymple’s eyes were half closed, her forearm draped over the moist compress that Saunders had made from another delicate fingertip towel. C.J. pulled open the embroidered drapes and secured them to the bedposts, affording the countess a full view of the portrait of her late husband hanging on the opposite wall, then drew up a chair to sit by her side. She readjusted the linen compress and stroked Lady Dalrymple’s brow.

  “Well . . . it would seem that you were right, Cassandra. It appears as though my fondness for ratafia cakes has gotten the better of me after all. And thank you, my dear,” the countess whispered weakly, “for evicting Dr. Squiffers just now. I have a horror of leeches.”

  “I would never have let the doctor apply them; have no fear, Aunt.”

  “Besides,” the patient continued pragmatically, “there is no need to bleed me when I shan’t be here for very long anyway.” Lady Dalrymple reached for C.J.’s hands and pulled her “niece” toward her. “I am dreadfully sorry, child, that our time together turned out to be so brief. I had wanted to do so much more for you.”

  C.J.’s anguish tumbled out in a series of sobs that wracked her body. No matter that the stoic Saunders stood by the door like a sentinel. Maybe a show of emotion would encourage the servant to plumb the humanity in her own soul. “I’m sorry, Aunt. I should not let you see me like this,” she said, trying to restrain the flood of tears. She looked up from the bedside and gazed through the window. The sky was unusually bright—a deep French blue illuminated by a full moon and so dotted with stars, it seemed as though the heavens had been sprinkled with glitter in a sort of celestial arts-and-crafts project.

  And then, as they both regarded the pale disk suspended in the sky like a silver medallion right outside their window, C.J. experienced an epiphany. If she could return to the twenty-first century as soon as possible, she might be able to obtain a remedy for Lady Dalrymple’s condition. She tried to curb her anxiety so as not to alarm the countess.

  “I am going to say good night to you now, your ladyship, but I refuse to say good-bye,” C.J. murmured as she smoothed the invalid’s lace cap and rearranged her pillows so that she could rest more comfortably. Then she blew out the candle.

  As she tiptoed out of the room, dismissing Saunders, C.J. heard Lady Dalrymple’s faint voice calling to the portrait opposite the bed: “I’ll be with you shortly, Portly.” C.J. left the door slightly ajar and waited just outside the bedchamber until she heard Lady Dalrymple’s irregular breathing, a sign that the dowager was asleep.

  She watched while Saunders retreated downstairs to the servants’ quarters, then slipped into her bedroom and bolted the door behind her. Intuition told her the eagle-eyed lady’s maid was not to be trusted. C.J. changed into her costume from By a Lady, grabbed her bonnet, and descended the staircase holding her breath every step of the way.

  Saunders hung back in the shadows and watched Miss Welles leave. Surely the girl was up to no good. Her wardrobe was proof enough. Gently bred ladies, especially titled ones, no matter what names they went by, changed clothes several times a day. There were morning frocks and walking frocks and afternoon frocks, tea gowns, dinner dresses, and ball gowns. Yet for all her new finery, the “niece” had a love affair with that dreadful yellow muslin frock and the equally shabby shawl and straw bonnet. The lady’s maid was unsure if such odd behavior was worthy of report to Lad
y Oliver, but she duly noted the time of night that Miss Welles departed the residence and slipped the note back into the deep pocket of her apron. Perhaps she might merit an even more substantial reward if she could find out for certain what the young miss was up to.

  IT WAS C.J.’S INITIAL NOTION to try the front door of the Theatre Royal in Orchard Street before sneaking into the alleyway. After all, she reasoned, as she tugged at the long elaborate handles to no avail, it would be rather ludicrous to go to all the bother of sneaking about when it might be quite possible to just walk right into the building the way everyone else did: through the front door.

  I have just obeyed my first instincts, C.J. thought to herself, admitting defeat. Now she would assay a more familiar route. She glanced about to see if any garrulous stagehands were lurking in her favorite byway in Bath, but there was no one in the alley alongside the theatre. C.J. approached the stage door and gripped the handle. Nothing happened. She pulled it toward her with greater force. The door would not budge. Time for a little modern urban ingenuity. C.J. slid her bonnet off her head and allowed it to hang down behind her while she pulled a hairpin from her coiffure. When all else fails . . .

  She tried to work the heavy iron lock with the slim tortoiseshell ornament. For some reason, the configuration made her think of the carnal union between an underendowed old man and an ancient madam. Momentarily distracted by her bawdy thought, she urged the delicate accessory too far. It snapped in half, both ends now rendered useless for their intended purposes.

  C.J. stifled an agonized cry of helplessness. She had no more ammunition at the moment and no further thoughts on how to get into the theatre. Her grand plan would have to be put off ’til the morning. She could only pray to anyone willing to listen that Lady Dalrymple could hold out that long.