Saved by Scandal (13 page)

“Hell, no. I just got to him this morning and took the boy away before his uncle killed him with an excess of laudanum. He has been poisoned, hasn’t he?”

“It is hard to say without knowing if the child is in pain, but I can find no physical cause for his lethargy or gauntness. He might have been slowly, systematically poisoned. On the other hand, if someone kept dosing him with laudanum, it might have the same effect. I saw an opium eater waste away like this once. The drug depresses the appetite, you know. One way or the other, the poor little mite is starving and doesn’t know it.”

The viscount tried to remember when he was injured in the war and dosed against the pain. He could not recall being hungry, only the bad dreams. “Could the laudanum give a child nightmares?”

“Nightmares, mirages, irrational horrors, who can say what goes through a mind in such a condition?”

“His uncle said they kept Ansel drugged because he was so prone to nervous tremors, but I’d wager that dastard caused the boy’s fears.”

“Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The boy has bad dreams, so the loving uncle mixes a soporific, which causes more nightmares, so they give him more laudanum. Could that have been the way of it, my lord?”

“If there were a loving uncle. This one is as affectionate as a cobra. I think he set out to kill his nephew, whose estate he was robbing and whose title he would inherit. He just did not want it to look like murder.”

“I doubt you’ll be able to prove anything. I am sorry, my lord.” The doctor packed his bag and turned to leave.

“But where are you going? You haven’t done anything!”

“I thought you understood, there is nothing to do. Except pray, of course. Not that I have had much experience with such an advanced case, but I’d say you do not have time to wean the lad off the drug, if such a thing is possible. He’ll starve to death first. If you stop giving him the laudanum, however, his body will suffer too great a shock for this enervated condition.”

“You are saying he will die either way, that there is no hope at all?”

“There is always hope, my lord. But if I knew how to get food into a comatose body, I would be famous. If I could cure an enslavement to spirits or opiates, I’d be wealthy. Instead I am a plain country doctor who has to make the occasional poultice for a horse’s leg, just to make ends meet. You can try spooning restoratives into the boy, for what that’s worth, or try piping liquids down his throat, but he’ll likely choke to death that way. If not, you might merely be prolonging his suffering. You’ll want to think about it.”

Clegg saw the doctor out, while Galen stood by Ansel’s bedside. Think about letting Margot’s brother fade away, all hollow-eyed and in terror? The viscount had been away
from his wife for two days already, nearly as long as he’d been with her, and an emptiness dwelled deep within him. He should be by her side, seeing her established in polite society, helping her take over the reins of Woburton House, making sure she was safe at the theater. He should be building his marriage, by Jupiter, bringing her roses and rubies, not this wretched rag of a brother, not Ansel’s lifeless body. Galen pictured Margot, so alive and brave, willing to sacrifice herself for this baby baron. He knew she’d never have married him otherwise, so the boy was part of the marriage contract. He could not let him die. He would not. If his brother-in-law wanted to give up, Ansel would have to tell Galen himself. First he had to awaken.

While Galen tried spooning barley water, broth, hot tea, and lemonade past Ansel’s unresponsive lips, Clegg cut the matted hair and washed him. They took turns stroking his throat, encouraging him to swallow. Most of the stuff came out, so they left off his nightshirt, wrapping the little baron in warmed towels instead. Galen kept talking to him, telling about the marriage, about the grand London town house Ansel would be calling home till they moved to the country. He described the music room, promising Ansel could spend as much time there as he wished. He even offered the boy the use of his own hitherto private painting studio in the attic, with its skylight. Thinking that perhaps Margot had exaggerated the boy’s artistic nature, Galen starting listing other lures for a young boy: a pony of his own, a tree fort at Three Woods, a swimming pond, a dog.

“No, no dog. Forget I mentioned a dog,” he told Ansel, in case the boy should be listening somewhere in his befogged mind. Galen would be damned if that monstrosity of Margot’s would get near Ansel, after he’d ruined another pair of breeches trying to keep the halfling fed and alive.

At last, close to morning, Ansel started to stir. The movement was more a twitch, although soon his legs were shaking, as if he were trying to run, and his hands were flapping at his side. His mouth opened to scream, but no words came
out. Galen tried to hold him, to stop the wild thrashing, but the child tried, piteously, to throw his hands off.

“Ansel, listen to me,” Galen pleaded, trying to keep the desperation from his voice. “I know you are frightened. You do not remember me from this afternoon, do you? My name is Galen Woodrow, Lord Woodbridge, and Margot sent me for you, Ansel. Your sister Margot.”

Those soulless eyes widened, searching the dark corners of the room for his beloved sister.

“No, she is not here.” Galen felt like the lowest maw-worm in creation having to kill that faint spark of hope. “She sent me to bring you to her. To London. And I will, I swear, as soon as you are well enough to travel.”

The boy’s eyes closed, but his breath was coming faster and faster.

“No, Ansel, don’t go back to sleep. Try to pay attention. You have been ill. Trying to help you, your uncle gave you laudanum.” Galen saw no reason to frighten the child worse. Ansel had enough in his dish already without thinking someone was trying to kill him. “But the medicine gave you nightmares, so they gave you more, instead of less.”

“Tried…to get away. Caught me…tied to…bed.”

Lud, the boy knew. “That will never happen again, word of a Woodrow.”

Ansel turned his head to the wall. He’d heard sworn oaths before. The word of a Penrose had not been worth much, it seemed.

“On my mother’s grave then, Ansel, and I loved my mother as much as you must have loved yours.” Dash it, he didn’t want the child thinking about his mother, or joining her in the hereafter! “It’s a solemn vow, is all. I will not hurt you. Do you understand?”

The shorn head moved a tiny fraction, to Galen’s relief. “Good, you are starting to improve already then.” And his mind was not so damaged he could never recover. “But now you have to think even harder. I can give you another dose
of the medicine, not as much as before, but you will go back to sleep. And you might never see Margot again.”

A tear trailed down Ansel’s sunken cheek, but he nodded.

“Or I can not give you any at all. It will be hard on you—I will not lie about that, either—perhaps the hardest thing you have ever done. But then the bad dreams would be gone, Ansel, and you can go home to Margot.”

“No…nightmares?”

“No.” Galen prayed not, at any rate. He did believe the laudanum or whatever else Manfred had been feeding the boy was responsible. “You can dream about music if you want.”

“I…can stay…Margot?”

“Until you reach your majority, at least. I doubt she’d part with you any sooner, but if you wish to attend school when you are stronger, I’ll try to convince her to let you go, so long as you promise to come home for holidays.”

“Papa went…to Eton.”

“So did I. You’ll do better at it than I did, I’m sure. Margot swears you are the brightest boy in the British Empire.”

“Sister.”

“Yes, I know. Ansel, will you try to do without the laudanum, then?”

“Yes. No. It’s too cold.”

Galen tucked another blanket around him. “We’ll stoke up the fire.”

Ansel started to shake his head from side to side. “Don’t know. Don’t know. Don’t know. Too hard. Can’t do it.”

“You can! You are Baron Penrose of Rossington, and you can do anything. I’ll help.”

“Margot sent you?”

Chapter Fourteen

Whoever said out of the mouths of babes…did not intend what landed on the viscount’s shirt and boots and breeches.

Galen and Clegg kept pouring fluids into the boy, hoping something would stay down long enough to do him some good. When Ansel shivered, they added wood to the fire until they were suffocating, and when he became drenched in perspiration, they opened the windows and sponged his body. They cushioned him with more pillows when the shaking was so bad Galen feared for his bones. Finally, the viscount gathered the boy in his arms and held him, rocking, pacing, whispering to him, reminding Ansel that Margot was waiting for both of them.

Clegg just shook his head.

The doctor came after luncheon, and shook his head. He did recommend they try coffee, for themselves as well as the boy, so Galen ordered a pot, and a lot of sugar to sweeten it. Lemuel Browne brought the coffee, and shook his head.

Galen was not giving up. Neither was he getting back to London this day or the next, it appeared. He could not tend to the child in a moving carriage or control the temperature or keep coffee hot enough or lemonade cool enough. Tomorrow was Sunday anyway, so Margot would not be performing. He need not worry about the rowdy patrons or fire at the theater or Margot forgetting the words to her songs.

She must be worried, though, expecting him back the previous day, or this one at the latest. He thought about sending for her, contract at the theater or not, but that would be admitting that Ansel was dying, that she needed to come share her brother’s last moments. He was no worse, Galen told himself. If the boy was fighting off the stranglehold of the drug, he did not need his sister watching, a sister who was so tenderhearted she’d likely give in to Ansel’s begging for another dose. Then he’d be bonded to the laudanum bottle for the rest of his short, unhealthy life.

Galen decided to send his wife a message saying that he had Ansel, but they needed to travel slowly, due to some complications. He did not give the name of the inn or the town, fearing that she would rush to Ansel’s bedside anyway. Better she stay in London, a goal for the boy.

He took a brief nap before dinner, when Clegg returned from the posting house and other errands. The valet had purchased additional nightshirts for Ansel, and whatever he could find of a suitable quality to replace his master’s irretrievably damaged wardrobe. Clegg was more horrified to be dressing his master in ready-made goods than he was to be emptying slops and heating soup.

When Galen woke up, Ansel was screaming so loudly the inn patrons in the next rooms were pounding on the walls. The viscount rushed to his brother-in-law’s bedside, where Clegg was frantically trying to keep the boy from throwing himself off the mattress.

“Ansel,” Galen shouted over the boy’s cries, “I am here, do not be afraid.”

Ansel sobbed, holding onto Galen’s hand so tightly his fingernails drew blood. “Papa?”

“No, lad, I am Galen, Margot’s husband. Margot sent me to bring you to her, remember?”

Ansel did not remember, but the mention of his sister’s name calmed him for a time while Galen dabbed at the bloodstains on his wrist. Lud, if the child’s memory did not return, if he could not keep a fact in his head for more than an hour, there was no hope of keeping the barony from Manfred Penrose. He’d have Ansel declared incompetent faster than the judge could bang his gavel, and he’d be right.

Galen spooned some thin gruel into him, reminding Ansel of his name.

“Papa? Papa? No!” He started shrieking again, trying to get off the bed.

The landlord came to complain that he was losing business; patrons were leaving, even if they had to drive through the dark to the next inn. Galen tossed him enough blunt to leave the rooms vacant.

“What happened to your father, Ansel?” Galen asked, figuring that if he could get the boy to speak rationally, perhaps the nightmare would let go of Ansel’s mind. “Were you trying to warn him he was too close to the cliff edge?”

“It was the gunshot that frightened his horse. I couldn’t turn my pony in time. I couldn’t stop him from falling, and rolling and rolling and…”

Galen shook him. “But you tried, Ansel. I’m sure he knew how you tried, and was proud to have such a brave son, just as any father would be proud to know how hard you fought when they tried to feed you the poisons.”

“I tried to run away. I did try.”

“I know you did. There were just too many of them, and they were too big, or you’d have done it. Now you have to keep being brave, when grown men would have given up. Swallow now.”

The gruel went flying across the room. “I can’t do this! I can’t. It hurts!”

“You can! You are Baron Penrose of Rossington. The blood of generations of soldiers and statesmen runs in your veins, fighting the poisons. Your father was brave enough to wed against his family’s wishes and go live in a foreign country. Your sister is brave enough to face huge crowds of cloth-heads every night, even though it terrifies her. She was trying to make enough money to buy a cottage where you two could live. Did you know that?”

“Uncle wouldn’t let her stay with me. He knew that if he told her to marry Lord Grinsted or leave, she’d have to go. I heard them talking.”

“He wanted her where she could not interfere. Think, Ansel—Margot went all the way to London by herself and found a position and a place to stay, and she’s only a girl. If she could be that strong-willed, you can do this. Now eat. Clegg made the cook put in extra molasses.”