Laura Kinsale (43 page)

Zenia stood up from the floor and bent to give Elizabeth a hug. She ignored it except for a happy trill, never taking her eyes or stubborn fingers from her task.

In the study, Mr. Jocelyn was standing beside the fire, warming his hands. Still, his fingers were rather cold as he took hers and seated her in a chair before him.

“My dear, I have something to propose which will undoubtedly startle you. Let me say directly that you must not feel under any compulsion whatsoever—it is merely a suggestion, and if you do not like it, then there is no more to be said. You have said that you dislike the idea of a marriage—indeed, you expressed some distaste for men in general, although I know you only meant it lightly. But let me just put before you a plan to consider—merely to consider.”

Zenia looked up at him in puzzlement. He seemed rather agitated, almost embarrassed. “I’m sure whatever it is, it is an excellent plan if you thought of it, Mr. Jocelyn.”

He smiled suddenly, in a more natural way. “Well, it is not very professional, and I should not be in a position even to suggest it if I had taken any formal action in the case—but as yet I feel myself within the limits of honest truth to say that I am a family friend, and no more. My dear, would it distress you very much to contemplate a marriage to me?”

Zenia had been looking straight into his kind brown eyes. Hers widened; she looked away. “I—I had not thought—”

“Calmly, my dear. Calmly. Let me outline it a little more thoroughly. As it happens, I have been for some time pondering a marriage for myself. For professional reasons, and to add some comfort to my life—and for companionship, of course. But you see, I am not a very passionate man, nor at all in the way of making love to ladies, and so I have made small progress. Not to put too fine a point on it, out of pure indolence I fear I have made no headway at all. I had in mind that perhaps a widowed lady would be suitable— ah, I do not wish to offend you by my speech, but I do wish to be precise—I am not particularly desirous of physical intimacy with a wife.” His cheeks reddened a little. “Children I greatly enjoy, but I am a second son, and have no need to be concerned with all the usual bustle about extending the line and so forth.” He cleared his throat. “As I say, I am not of an ardent nature.”

He was still smiling, but he looked ill at ease now, rocking gently from one foot to the other. He looked as if he wished that he could have the words back.

“I understand,” Zenia said, earnestly desiring to make him comfortable again. “Oh, yes. I have lived in the East, Mr. Jocelyn, where it is perfectly conformable to prefer a boy, you may be sure. But I understand that it is not openly done here.”

His face flamed. He turned quickly away. “My dear! I said no such thing. I greatly desire that you will not put such a construction upon my words, nor mention such a thing again!”

Zenia looked at his stiff back, the high color in his cheeks and the rapid way that he blinked at the window. A strange tenderness for him stole over her. How lonely he must be! “Of course not,” she said. “Please—I should never wish to distress my friend.”

He took a deep breath, fumbling at his pocket kerchief and using it lightly. After a moment, he looked up at her with a diffident smile. “Yes, I think we could be friends, at any rate. It has been my pleasure to become acquainted with you and your daughter. If I could give you both a comfortable home and a little good company now and then, in return for the same, I should think myself honored. But this is not a fence that you should rush, my dear. While I am in Edinburgh, you must take the time to think it over. You will wish to write to your father, perhaps. I will send something to their Mr. King, a little hint, to reckon how they would take it, but no decision need be made until you have had ample time to consider. Ample time!”

Mr. Jocelyn had not been gone two hours when Zenia was called down to receive Lord Belmaine.

She saw him in her father’s study, desiring to have at her back all the solidity and dignified weight that his law books could provide. “I can tell you nothing yet,” she said as she closed the door, not even risking him to say the first word.

He made a short bow. “Good morning, ma’am. I have not come to press you on anything. I simply wish to inquire into Miss Elizabeth’s health, and ask if you know my son’s whereabouts.”

“Elizabeth has had the measles,” Zenia said briskly, relieved and disappointed at once, anxious to show neither. He frowned. “We feared that! How does she do?”

“It was
but a mild attack, with little fever. The doctor says she is safely through it. Though I am going to keep her in a dimmed room for yet awhile.”

“That is good news.” His frown turned to a smile. He nodded. “The measles are no trifling matter, as some think. Lady Belmaine mentioned that there was an outbreak in our village, and we have been much concerned. How comforting to know that all went well! Would you like Dr. Wells to see her, just to be sure? He is our physician in town, and there is no one of a higher reputation.”

“I don’t think it necessary, thank you. She is doing excellently well.”

He stood looking at her a moment, but she did not invite him to sit down. “I would be honored to pay my respects to your father, if he is at home.”

“They have gone to Zurich.”

The earl looked surprised. “So you are here alone?”

“Mr. Jocelyn, my father’s particular friend, has been looking after us. He only lives a few doors down, and I may call on him for anything.”

“I see,” he said.

“He is an advocate in Doctors’ Commons,” she said.
 

Lord Belmaine’s expression of fixed pleasantry vanished. “Indeed,” he said.

“He has been very kind.”

“Well,” the earl said, turning his hat over in his hands. “You must call upon me if I can be of any service. You have only to send to Berkeley Square.”

“Thank you,” Zenia said, without warmth.

“I will not keep you, ma’am.” Lord Belmaine made another small bow, matching her in coolness. “I presume you have not seen Lord Winter?”

“I have not seen him since before Elizabeth’s illness,” she said stiffly. “Perhaps you may discover him at his club, or the Clarendon Hotel.

“Thank you. I must not linger. Good day to you, ma’am.”

She hardly knew what to make of Lord Belmaine’s call. When she had heard who it was, she had been certain that he would begin a full assault on her to sign whatever papers they wished, but she was determined to do nothing while Mr. Jocelyn was gone. She was really angry that he had come on such flimsy pretenses—he had not even asked to see Elizabeth, and he must know perfectly well where his son was. He meant only to upset her, she thought, to put her off her balance, and when a boy arrived just after her noon meal with a note written on the letterhead of the Clarendon, she felt certain of it.

She stood in the hallway, breaking the seal with hands that were not quite steady.

It was not Lord Winter’s handwriting, but his father’s.

Please come instantly. Belmaine.

The boy had a cab waiting, and the porter at the Clarendon led her directly up to Lord Winter’s suite. She knew by then that he was very ill, but still she was shocked by the look on his father’s face when he met her at the door.

“Have you had the measles?” he demanded, before he said anything else.

“Yes,” she said, “when I was ten.”

He held open the door, and Zenia turned her head as she entered, hearing Lord Winter’s voice raised. For an instant she thought he was shouting at a servant, but she realized that the words were a violent string of Arabic curses, falling away to muttering as she hurried into the bedroom.

“Dr. Wells, ma’am,” said a gray-haired man with a cruelly hooked nose, his aspect of ferocity intensified by the heavy frown on his face as he tried to hold Lord Winter still with an arm across his chest. “Open that lamp and bring it here.” He nodded toward the commode, where there was a strange small light with a tiny door. “My lord, if you will endeavor to hold him down on the other side. I shall have to tie him in a moment if we cannot do better than this.”

Lord Winter’s labored breathing seemed to fill the room; he tried to turn from side to side, straining against his father’s hands. Beneath a growth of beard his face was gaunt and flushed, and low on his throat and his arms she could see the spots, much fewer and darker than Elizabeth had had, but some already turning to white dust.

“Hold the light up close to his face, please ma’am,” Dr. Wells said. “Very close—shine it directly into his eyes.”

Zenia lifted the lamp. Lord Winter recoiled from the light, pulling back with a sound of anguish. When the doctor took his face between his hands and attempted to turn his head, Lord Winter tried to pull away from that too, nearly dragging Dr. Wells over top of him.

“A strong fellow,” the doctor murmured, sitting back, his large hands still pushing down on Lord Winter’s shoulder to curb his restless turning from side to side. “Let us hope very strong. The morbid principle has entered the brain. This is a more common sequel of the mumps than the measles, but his violent aversion to light, the stiffness in the neck, the maid’s story of nausea and vomiting, the disorientation— together these suggest an inflammation of the tissues of the brain. Our task will be to prevent him lapsing into coma, and relieve the oppression of the lungs as best we may.”

Lord Winter was still a moment, his eyes half-closed, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He spoke clearly, a long sentence, broken only by frequent deep gasps for air.

Dr. Wells frowned. “I am not pleased by this incomprehensible babbling. If it were accompanied by any limb weakness, I should not hope to see the day out.”

“It is Arabic,” Zenia said. “It is not—entirely incoherent.”

“Is it?” The doctor’s fierce face took on something near brightness. “That relieves my mind, ma’am, that greatly relieves my mind. As there is clearly no one-sided weakness in the limbs, I think we may put the fear of a rapidly fatal encephalitis from our minds, for the moment at least.”

He bent his head, arranging his stethoscope, and then with practiced moves pulled Lord Winter’s shirt up to uncover his chest. “Good God,” he said, “here is an ugly wound! How old is this?”

“Almost two years,” Zenia said. “It was a bullet he received in the desert.”

“These are burn marks,” the doctor protested.