This Duchess of Mine (26 page)

Villiers dropped his sword back into its sheath. “I'm taking him, of course.” Making a lightning-quick decision, he said: “I'll be taking all the other boys as well.”

“You
are
a depraved son of a—”

“It's for your own good,” Villiers said sweetly. “You said yourself that you dislike boys. They're so messy underfoot. It would do you some good to go rooting in the mud; you might lose that belly of yours. It seems that you, at least, have had plenty to eat.”

Grindel would have lunged from behind his desk, but he was afraid of the sword. Villiers saw it in his eyes, just as he saw the raw hatred trembling in his fingers.

“I might add that Templeton seems to have run off to a rat hole somewhere. If I find him, his next residence will be the Clink. For life, Mr. Grindel. For life.”

“Dear me,” he said, knocking over another basket with one swift kick. Coals rolled across the floor.

“What a mess. I apologize for my clumsiness.” In short order he upended four or five more.

The floor was littered with chunks of coal. They cracked under the feet of the boy who entered.

He was indescribably dirty. And there was a smell. But Villiers took one look at the boy's nose and his lower lip and knew. The facial details weren't even im
portant: it was in his walk, and the unyielding tilt of his chin. Juby walked straight over to the desk and cast a cold eye on Grindel.

“You'll pay for Fillibet to go to the doctor,” he said, “or I'll have the constables on you, you fat sodding excuse for—”

Definitely his son, albeit with a greater concern for humanity than he had ever managed to summon up.

Villiers just watched for a moment. Juby was so thin that he would give Ashmole a run for his money as the resident vulture. But his shoulders were held back firmly. Villiers could see the wings of them, poking through his ragged shirt.

He cleared his throat.

The boy gave him a look out of thick-lashed eyes. “Where's your sword stick?” he demanded, by way of greeting. “Toad said that a nob was here and about to cut the throat of this disgusting grubber.”

“Here you, watch who you're calling names,” Grindel said, glowering at him. His fingers were twitching as if he longed to deliver a blow across the table.

The boy laughed at that—and in his laughter was the final evidence, if Villiers needed it. Grindel actually flinched at the sound.

“You don't dare strike me again, Grindel, remember?” His face was positively alight with glee. “After what happened last week?”

“Take him,” Grindel said, spitting on the floor. “The city is full of lads who'd be more than glad of my rates and my hospitality, as any of the boys will tell you. I'm known for my fairness, I am.”

“I'm taking all of them,” Villiers said again, speaking for the first time since Juby had entered the room.

“Fetch all his boys,” he said, meeting his son's eyes.

“Who are you to say so?” the boy asked, jutting out his jaw precisely the way Grindel did.

Grindel barked with laughter. “You got more than you bargained for there!” he said, his voice suddenly buoyant.

The boy slanted another glance at Villiers from under his thick lashes. “What do you want us for?” he demanded.

“Not for that.”

“We're not good for much. And you don't look like the type to be looking for an apprentice.”

“Is that what you'd like to be?” Villiers felt as if he were operating outside his own body, watching himself speak to this boy who was a shadow of himself, a weedy, nasty, evil-tempered version of Leopold Dautry, Duke of Villiers. The only real difference being that he himself was muscled rather than skinny.

But the boy wasn't going to give an inch. “We ain't got nothing you would want.”

“Stay with me,
son,
” Grindel said, chuckling like a maniac. “I'll treat you right. I'll even pay for Fillibet's doctor if you ask me pretty-like.”

Villiers found himself in the unusual position of being unsure of what to say.

“I forgot Fillibet,” the boy exclaimed, turning around. He jerked his chin at the smaller lad, who was waiting outside the door. “Fetch all the boys.” The child ran.

Then he turned back to Villiers. “If you're one of those with a taste for the nasty, you will regret the moment you met me.” His eyes were as cold as a November rainfall. Villiers knew those eyes; he saw them reflected in his glass every morning.

“He don't want that,” Grindel said, hooting. “Ain't you gonna tell him, then, Duke?”

Villiers cast him a glance and Grindel shut his mouth.

“You're my son,” Villiers said. “I'm taking you home. I'll send the others where they'll be clean and well-cared for.”

Tobias didn't say a word. Villiers felt a creeping amusement, and, to his surprise, even a streak of pride. He couldn't have known what to expect in response to that announcement, but he would have loathed an excited shriek of “Papa!”

Instead, Tobias silently looked at Villiers's white-streaked hair, then at his rose-colored coat. His eyes lingered on the elaborate embroidery of yellow roses around the buttonholes, slid lower to his perfectly-fitted pantaloons, then to his boots, now slightly scuffed from toppling Grindel's baskets.

Tobias's glance might have shown some approval of his sword stick, but it wasn't hard to read the utter distaste in his eyes for the rest.

“Are you certain of your claim?” he said finally, as proud as if any man would be lucky to claim a filthy, odiferous boy nicknamed Juby as his offspring.

One might not wish for an exuberant display of filial excitement, but rank disappointment wasn't what Villiers would have envisioned either.

“Don't be a fool,” Grindel cut in. “You're the spitting image of the bloody-minded bastard, and it's bastard you'll be called from now on, and rightly so.”

“Better the bastard of a duke than a bastard by nature,” Villiers said. He kicked a surfeit of teeth and buttons from under his feet and strode over to the desk. The family reunion was over, and he had one final piece of business to attend to.

Grindel inched back in his greasy chair.

“My son has a bruise under his eye,” Villiers said. For the first time he heard his own voice—its measured—cold tones, and knew it to be a more mature version of that which he'd just heard. He had passed on his most useful trait.

“Could be he got in a tussle with the boys,” Grindel said, slanting an eye toward Tobias. Grindel knew as well as Villiers did that the boy would never tattle about an injury. He wasn't the type.

Villiers sighed inwardly. His gloves were immaculate, or at least they had been that morning…

Grindel went over in a crash, taking two more baskets with him to the floor. He let out a squeal like a stuck pig from behind his desk. A final basket teetered, then tipped to its side. A torrent of silver spoons poured forth, the fruit of the boys' labors in the river and sewers.

When he turned about, the door was thronged with boys. Five, maybe six of them, staring silently. They were as dirty as newly-pulled radishes and their thin legs were marked with scars.

Grindel groaned from the floor but didn't seem disposed to move.

“Someone take that basket and pick up all those spoons,” Villiers said. “There's another collection of spoons on the floor there.”

“And the silver buttons,” Tobias said, without even the slightest flicker of an eyelash to show appreciation for the blow to Grindel.

“Take them,” Villiers said. “They'll pay for apprenticeships for you lot,” he told the boys.

They didn't seem to understand, but Tobias scooped the spoons back into their basket with a few swift
movements and thrust them at a boy. “Go!” The other basket of spoons, a box of silver buttons, and a third box with a lid, were out of the room before Grindel managed to lumber to his feet. “Here you!” he roared. “What's happening to me stuff?”

To Villiers's satisfaction, Grindel's right eye was fast swelling shut. “You're thieving from me! You're nothing more than a fleagler, duke or no. I'll have the constables on you!”

“You'll do nothing of the sort,” Villiers said softly.

“You'll find some other way to make a living. I'll be watching, and if I ever hear that a boy has set foot on these premises again, I'll have it burned down. With or without you,” he added dispassionately.

“I see the resemblance,” Grindel spat.

“You do me an honor,” Villiers said. Then he said, “That last was for my son. This one is for the rest of them.” And his fist smashed into Grindel's other eye. Over he went, and this time Villiers strode out without pausing.

“Where's the injured boy?” he asked.

Tobias gestured toward a boy lying on the side of the street. Blood was running sullenly from a dirty cloth wound around his foot.

Villiers jerked his chin at the groom standing by his carriage. “Pick up this boy and carry him to the nearest surgeon. Then get a hackney and take him to Mrs. Jobber, in Whitechapel. The coachman knows the street.”

Then he turned to the five remaining boys. Tobias stood in front of them, shoulders back, chin raised. He had a defiant look in his eye.

Villiers gestured at one of his footmen. “Find a hackney and take this lot to Mrs. Jobber. Get the ad
dress from the coachman. Beg my forgiveness, but ask her to wash and clothe them, as best she can. I'll set Ashmole to finding an appropriate school for them immediately. And give these to Mrs. Jobber.” He gave him a handful of guineas.

“A school,” one of the boys muttered, his eyes bugging out.

Tobias seemed to relax a bit. “We'll do well there,” he said. Adding, rather reluctantly, “sir.”

“I'm not a sir,” Villiers said. “You may address me as Your Grace.” He sounded like a pompous fool. “And you're not going to Mrs. Jobber's house, Tobias. You're coming with me.”

Tobias's face didn't change even a whit. “No. And my name is Juby.”

“Your name is Tobias. You are my son, and you're coming home with me.”

“I will live with Mrs. Jobber. I will not live with you.” His lip curled. The boys were watching, slackjawed.

Villiers thought for a moment about the advisability of designating Tobias to his remaining footman. It pained him to think of all that mud—to give it a charitable label—in his coach. But a hackney and a footman didn't seem right. It would put Tobias in the wrong footing in the household, though he'd be damned if he knew what that footing should be.

“You will enter the carriage now,” he stated.

“No.”

There was nothing for it. His gloves were already a dead loss, and now the rose-colored coat was going the same way. With one economical movement Villiers picked up the boy and slung him over his shoulder.

The footman whipped open the carriage door, and
Villiers tossed him in. Then he followed, slamming the door behind him.

The boy pulled himself upright instantly and sat there, uncompromising eyes fixed on Villiers's face.

Villiers saw no reason to continue the conversation. He sat down opposite and peeled off his ruined gloves.

There were two things going through his mind. One was the wretched realization that he had five children left to find. And the second was that he needed a wife.

Now.

Perhaps a woman would know how to talk to a younger version of himself. He certainly didn't.

He needed a wife today, or tomorrow at the latest.

D
r. William Withering had a terrible cough. Elijah and Jemma entered his anteroom only to hear, from the inner chamber, the truly distressing sounds of someone gasping and coughing at the same time.

“The doctor is dying,” Jemma cried with some alarm.

Elijah had jumped to the conclusion that a patient was in his last throes, but he thought it wouldn't be a good idea to mention it. Jemma had that still, terrified look about her eyes that only really left her when they were making love.

He himself felt strangely happy. Ever since they'd made love in Apollo's garden, he was at peace with his future, no matter how short. He escorted Jemma to a chair and then sat down himself.

She picked up a published article lying on the table and began to read. “He's experimenting with Jamaica pepper as a cure for lung problems,” she said a few moments later.

Dr. Withering appeared before Elijah could reply. He was a tall man with vivid bushy eyebrows that contrasted sharply with the tight curls of his powdered wig. His eyes glittered under the eyebrows, as if he were thinking fiercely, or suffering from a fever. “Your Grace,” he said, bowing. And then, seeing Jemma, he bowed again, even more deeply. “And Your Grace.”

“I came to consult with you about your work with
Digitalis purpurea,
” Elijah said.

The man's eyes brightened even more, if that were possible. “A fascinating subject! I have cause for reasonable optimism in my research.”

“I have a heart ailment,” Elijah said. “I should like a consultation with you, sir, if you can spare the time.”

“It would be best if you came to my inner chamber so I can examine you thoroughly. The heart is a complicated organ, and I'm afraid that
Digitalis purpurea—
or foxglove, as it's commonly called—has a narrow range of applications. Though I have a colleague who is…”

His voice trailed away as he led Elijah through a door. He had not given Jemma a second glance after establishing that he had a patient who required his attention.

Jemma removed her pelisse and bonnet and sat down again. She was quite alone, for the first time since she had learned of Elijah's illness.

Her mind skittered over the fact that should he die, she would be alone a great deal of the time, and she forced herself to stop thinking of it.

She had never been in a doctor's chambers before. (If medical attention were needed, the doctor always came to her, as was proper.) One entire wall of Withering's antechamber was taken up by a massive walnut
cabinet, comprised of hundreds of small drawers. Some were pulled open and others closed, so the whole presented a chaotic appearance, as if it were a messy pile of blocks stacked by a child.

She got up and walked over, thinking an upright posture might make it easier to breathe. Each drawer was labeled in a quick hand, as if the writer hadn't taken time to shape the letters. Some of the contents had straightforward medicinal uses. A drawer marked
LAUDANUM
was filled with little vials, as she discovered by pulling it open and peeping inside.
TOAD STONE
read another. She gingerly opened it to find a small pile of pebbles.

BLACKB FEATH
turned out to contain two dusty blackbird feathers, and
RIVER WATER
had a number of little vials. Some had only a drop or two inside, and others had dried up altogether.

Numbly, she made herself look in more drawers. Many were full of powdery leaves.
MUSTARD PLANT
made her sneeze just by opening the drawer, and eventually she wandered back to her seat.

It was as if the clock had stopped moving. She sat in the dusty silence, watching the sun move across a harpsichord which occupied one part of the room. One had to suppose that the doctor was a musician.

Ordinarily, she was never bored. During idle moments, she would simply replay a chess game in her head, correcting herself or her opponent. But now she couldn't keep the board's construction in mind, and lost track of the play between the seventh and eighth moves.

She tried to read the doctor's treatise on the uses of Jamaica pepper, but found it hopelessly obtuse. The minutes ticked by. Finally she borrowed peppercorns
and white allspice from their respective drawers in the specimen cabinet and set up her own makeshift chessboard.

She had just realized that she had completely missed a move by a White Knight that would win the Black Queen when Elijah and Dr. Withering came back into the room. She leapt to her feet. “Are you able to help him?” she demanded, without bothering with courtesies.

The doctor abruptly fell into a series of racking coughs, so deep that he bent from the waist.

“There is a possible treatment,” Elijah said, taking her hands. But the look in his eyes made her smile die.

“'Possible'?”

“Foxglove might help,” the doctor said, having recovered himself. “But the consequences for failure are grave, and unfortunately, as I have explained to him, I must decline to treat His Grace.”

Jemma paled and her hands tightened. “Because it's poison?”

“Dr. Withering has experienced some remarkable results,” Elijah said. “But he is at the initial stages of his research.”

“The possibility of giving someone an overly powerful dose is likely. I have advised His Grace not to attempt this remedy.” The doctor bowed, obviously expecting them to leave his chambers immediately.

Jemma looked up into Elijah's face. “What do you want to do?”

“Go home with you,” he said. “There's no easy way to say this, Jemma. The doctor has seen many heart patients, and he is not sanguine about the time I may have left.”

“His heart is thready and irregular,” Withering put in. “But I must emphasize that no one can tell the span of a person's life. I've had heart patients whom I considered to be at death's door linger for months, even years.”

But she could read the truth in his eyes…He didn't think Elijah would be one who lingered.

Jemma dropped Elijah's hands and said to the doctor, “Your medicine has worked for some people, hasn't it?”

“It has. But I have—” He hesitated. “I have had a number of failures.”

“Do you mean that patients have died as a result of the foxglove?” Jemma was not in a mood for euphemisms.

“They would have died in any case, from either dropsy or an irregular heartbeat,” Dr. Withering said somewhat defensively.

Elijah moved behind Jemma and put his hands on her shoulders. “The duchess does not mean to imply any negligence on your part, Dr. Withering.”

“It is hard for a layman to understand the mysteries of science,” the doctor said. “I am drawing closer to understanding correct dosages. I recently discovered that the leaves, once powdered, are twice as potent as the flowers. And the other day I made the serendipitous discovery that boiling that powder renders the effect fourfold as powerful.”

Jemma could interpret that comment. Some unlucky patient's death proved the potency of his boiled medicine. “How did you discover the properties of foxglove?” she asked.

“I advised a patient of mine that there was nothing more I could do for him,” the doctor replied. “He was
as swollen as a ripe plum, and I'd tried everything I knew to cure his dropsy. He didn't agree with my assessment, and made his way to an old Gypsy woman known for her healing arts.”

“A Gypsy!”

Withering nodded. “She gave him a potion, and the symptoms of dropsy went away. Even more interestingly, his heart steadied. The moment I heard about it, I went around to find her, of course.”

“And the drink was made from foxglove?”

“There were some twenty herbs in the potion,” Withering said with a trace of pride in his voice. “It took me nearly a year to narrow my study to foxglove, and then to begin to understand the remarkable qualities of this plant. It seems to have the ability to cure tumultuous action on the part of the heart.”

“Tumultuous action?” Jemma asked, confused.

“Irregularities,” Withering explained. “Skipped beats. Just as it soothes an overly rapid heartbeat, it also speeds up an overly slow one.”

“We must find the Gypsy,” Jemma said, picking up her bonnet.

Elijah laughed—he actually laughed. “If we find the Gypsy and I drink the potion, I would need to keep taking it. Do I spend the rest of my life chasing a Gypsy down country lanes? She's a traveler.”

“You would have a life in which to chase her, Elijah!”

He just looked at her, and there was something in his eyes…She turned to Withering. Not many people could withstand Jemma at her most formidable, and the doctor wasn't one of them. He actually flinched. “In your opinion, does my husband have insufficient time to find this Gypsy?”

“I would not advise travel.”

“I asked you a question,” she said steadily.

The doctor fidgeted and then said: “In my opinion, your husband does not have much time.”

Elijah intervened. “My heart lost its rhythm repeatedly in the time that Dr. Withering was listening to my chest, Jemma. Of course, I was lying flat, and that's the worst possible position.”

She nodded. It seemed that Elijah had only a few days to live. She turned to the doctor again. “Have any of
your
patients survived, or only the Gypsy's patient?”

He bridled a little. “I would not keep working with foxglove had I not had successes. There are a number of people, a significant number, who are thriving.” He saw the look in her eye. “But I cannot give it to the duke. It's far too dangerous. You don't understand.”

“I thoroughly understand. You have been experimenting with the poor,” Jemma said, stepping closer to him. “You have been choosing your patients in Spitalfields, and who's to argue when they die in your chambers?”

“It's for the benefit of science,” he said with a sort of gasp. “They come to me desperate. No one else can help them. I have done considerable service with the poor. I don't merely treat heart ailments: I have done my best with everything from dropsy to scrofula.”

“But a duke of the realm is a different proposition,” she said.

“You must see that I am simply not at a stage in my research at which I can sufficiently—”

“You will give the medicine to my husband in the morning,” Jemma stated. “I will not allow him to die when there is a possible remedy.”

“My last patient expired,” Withering gibbered.

“Within an hour of trying the remedy. It's too strong, you see. Boiling the powder gave it the power that I needed, but it went too far.”

“Make sure you don't go too far tomorrow morning,” Jemma said grimly. “Perhaps you can spend the night calibrating the proper amount by reconsidering the case of your lost patient. We shall be here at eight of the clock.”

“I cannot!” Withering cried. “I cannot! You do not understand, Your Grace! If the duke were to die here, in my chambers, I would be hanged. They wouldn't listen to me. And my work—my
work
!”

“He's right,” Elijah said. “He's right, Jemma.”

“He is not right!” she cried.

“His work is important. He has lost some patients, but his discoveries seem to me critically important. If we were to force him to give me the medicine, and I were to die, he would be hanged, merely because I am a duke.” He said it flatly. “I cannot allow a man to be hanged on my behalf, Jemma, nor stop research that has the potential to help so many people.”

“Don't
be like that
!” she half screamed at him.

His face was like stone. “I cannot be other than I am.”

“Stop being so bloody good! Think of yourself for once, Elijah! Don't you want to live? Don't you want to stay here? What if I am carrying a child? What if—” Her voice cracked and she half turned from him.

“I would give anything to stay with you.” He took her shoulders in his hands, gripping her so hard that it hurt. “I would give my dukedom, every penny I ever had, my right arm, to stay with you. To stay with our child if we have one. How could you even ask?”

She looked into his beautiful dark eyes. “Then—”

He shook his head. “
My
money,
my
dukedom,
my
right arm, Jemma. But not another man's life and his work. Even if I were to somehow arrange it so Withering were exonerated, he couldn't continue his work. I would give anything that is
mine
to stay in the world. Anything!”

His face twisted, and she knew—knew with her deepest heart—that he meant it. “I cannot risk another man's life to save my own,” he said, and in his eyes, despair warred with honor.

She could love Elijah for who he was, or she could wish that she'd married another man altogether. “Oh God,” she whispered, falling into his arms.

“I am sorry,” Withering said helplessly. “In another six months I believe I will have a much better understanding of the properties of the drug.”

Jemma's mind reeled like that of a drunkard. “I can't let you die,” she said into Elijah's coat.

His arms tightened around her but he said nothing. She could feel his lips on her hair. It was over. They would go home, and tonight, or tomorrow morning, soon, too soon, Elijah would leave her.

She straightened, and pulled away from his arms, turning back to Withering. “What are the symptoms of a patient dying of an overly potent dose of your medicine?”

“He becomes nauseated and vomits,” Withering said. “He sees auras, lights around ordinary objects. The end comes very quickly thereafter.”

She nodded. “I will thank you to write down in detail the amount of boiled powder that you gave the man who recently died. We shall take the details with us along with the medicine.”

“I couldn't allow—”