Midnight Pleasures

  Patrick looked up, surprised, from the peach he was delicately peeling. He had been lost in a daydream in which Sophie smiled at him the way she used to do.

  “Monsieur Foucault? No, he isn’t a terribly likable sort,” he agreed.

  “It isn’t a question of likableness,” Sophie said. She really was tired to death. “I understand some Turkish, and his companion was not speaking properly. Monsieur Foucault spoke Turkish, but twice Mr. Mustafa responded in gibberish.”

  “Gibberish?” All the uneasy feelings Patrick had had about Monsieur Foucault on their first meeting returned in force—so much so that he didn’t mark the fact that Sophie’s comment revealed a knowledge of Turkish. “I knew there was something odd about that fellow,” Patrick said. “Damme, but I should have been in touch with Lord Breksby from the start!”

  Sophie wasn’t certain what he was referring to, but she was too tired to care. After lunch, she slowly plodded upstairs, not realizing that Patrick was standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking after her with a worried expression.

  She took a nap, but by dinner she felt even more sluggish. Finally, she decided to have a tray in her room. It was exhausting enough just being out of bed, without facing Patrick as well. Patrick ate alone (pheasant again—he must have a word with Floret), wondering whether Sophie was avoiding him or truly not feeling well.

  All evening he fought the impulse to go upstairs and see how she was. When he finally gave in, she was lying in bed fast asleep. Patrick looked at her for a moment. Sophie looked exhausted, her face papery white with dark circles beneath her eyes.

  Patrick gently laid a hand on her stomach as it rose into the air. Sophie didn’t stir.

  “Hello,” he whispered. Then he snatched his hand away, feeling more embarrassed than he had in years. He left the house, his feet leading him on the now-familiar streets nearby.

  The next morning Sophie didn’t feel any better. In fact, the sluggish feeling had spread throughout her body. She managed to get out of bed, but only as far as a chair. Perhaps she would feel like this for the next two months. The very idea gave her a headache.

  Slowly, slowly, a niggling worry was growing in her mind. She felt lethargic, hot, and headachy. But why was the baby so listless? Anxiously she clutched her stomach but she couldn’t feel any fluttering movements.

  A minute later Sophie snapped out of her hazy languor and yanked on the bell cord. When Simone appeared, she said, “Send a message to Dr. Lambeth, please. I need to see him immediately. The messenger can wait and bring him back in our carriage.”

  Simone curtsied. Sophie heard her running down the corridor toward the stairs. Then she sat, hand on her stomach, willing a movement, a ripple, something … There was nothing. Her stomach arched before her, heavy, inert. The baby is sleeping, Sophie told herself. I am becoming ill, and so he feels tired.

  When Dr. Lambeth entered her room, half an hour later, she looked up at him with terrified eyes.

  “I apologize for insisting that you come immediately, Doctor.”

  “Nonsense,” Lambeth snapped, walking over to her chair. He reached down and spread his wide, clean hands on her stomach. After a second he straightened.

  “I have to ask you to unbutton your nightdress, Your Grace,” he said gently.

  Simone was hovering behind the doctor, and as he discreetly walked to the window and looked out, Simone helped Sophie unbutton her nightdress and pull it forward so that her stomach was free.

  Sophie watched the rusty red hair on the doctor’s head as he bent over her body.

  As the hands kept moving and pressing, and the doctor said nothing, a heavy truth settled in Sophie’s heart.

  “Why don’t you get dressed, Your Grace?” In Lambeth’s experience, people were a good deal calmer when they were fully clothed.

  Sophie looked at the doctor mutely, then nodded to Simone. Dr. Lambeth retired and stood in the hallway. He stared at the wall. Remembering the stern face of Foakes’s lawyer as he questioned his medical record, Dr. Lambeth had no doubt but that the husband would make a good deal of fuss about his child’s death. He sighed. Sometimes he wondered why he spent so much time with aristocratic patients. Money, he reminded himself.

  Simone opened the door and summoned him back into the master bedroom. Sophie was seated on the chair again. When Dr. Lambeth met his patient’s eyes, he saw no fear. Terror had been replaced by despair.

  “I am indeed sorry,” he said gently. “I think it is likely that your babe has not survived, for some reason. All we can say in these cases is that it is the will of God.”

  “He’s dead,” she said dully.

  “We’ll have to see,” Dr. Lambeth replied. “I dislike making absolute statements but I cannot find any indication of life. Sometimes children do not live through the gestation period … no one can say why. Do you feel any pain here?” He delicately touched Sophie’s stomach.

  “No.”

  “If the baby has ceased to live, your labor will likely begin today or tomorrow.”

  “Labor.”

  “The baby will have to be delivered, Your Grace.”

  Sophie couldn’t find any words to say.

  “Would you like me to inform your husband?”

  Sophie just looked at him and shook her head.

  Dr. Lambeth persisted. “I’ll ring the bell and see if the duke is in the house, shall I?”

  “No!” Sophie’s face was dead white. “I need to think. I …”

  “Are you sure that you wouldn’t like me to inform your husband?” Dr. Lambeth started to turn toward Simone.

  “No,” Sophie said drearily. “I’ll tell him myself, later. Please, Dr. Lambeth.”

  The doctor nodded and turned to Simone, giving her a muttered series of instructions. Then he turned back to Sophie.

  “I have told your maid what symptoms to expect,” he said, picking up her wrist and taking her pulse. “Please, send a messenger as soon as there is any sign of labor or birth. I suggest that you retire to bed. I will attend you first thing in the morning.”

  Birth seemed an odd word to Sophie. Birth was for babies who were living.

  “I can’t do that,” Sophie replied. Go to bed and wait? A horrible notion. Innate politeness and her mother’s training got her out of the chair.

  “Tomorrow, you said?” she asked, quite as if she were talking about a garden party.

  Dr. Lambeth nodded, his eyes shrewdly assessing Sophie’s near-sleepwalking state. In shock, he thought. Well, probably just as well.

  “Keep her warm,” he said, turning to Simone.

  The maid nodded, her eyes full of tears.

  Dr. Lambeth bowed politely. “I shall visit you tomorrow, if I may, Your Grace.”

  “I shall walk with you downstairs,” Sophie replied.

  Dr. Lambeth said nothing. It certainly wasn’t normal for his aristocratic patients to accompany him to the door. He doubted very much that this patient was thinking clearly.

  He tried once more. “Madame, are you quite certain that you don’t wish me to speak to your husband?”

  “Quite certain, thank you,” she replied with dull civility.

  They walked down the wide steps of the great marble stairs side by side, Dr. Lambeth an odd, dignified figure with his red hair and tired eyes, and Sophie looking blazingly beautiful. Her face was no longer stark white; her cheeks had taken on flaming circles of red that would have given Dr. Lambeth pause, had he registered them.

  But his mind was already racing ahead to the rest of his day. He’d better go see the viscountess next—a mother of four whom he rather thought would give birth today. The birth was going to be easy, as she’d had no problems with the last four girls, but if the babe was another female, he was likely to have a hysterical mother on his hands, not to mention the viscount himself. The viscount had not taken the arrival of his fourth daughter well. If there was a fifth …

  So Dr. Lambeth nimbly bowed again in the foyer and took his leave, promising a
gain to visit in the morning. He hopped into his carriage and directed his driver to the viscount’s residence, thinking intently of soothing phrases.

  Chapter 26

  Sophie showed the doctor out, quite as if she weren’t shaking inside. As she walked up the stairs, Patrick stepped out of the library.

  “Weren’t you planning to tell me what the doctor said?”

  “Yes, later.”

  “No.” Patrick’s denial came through clenched teeth. “Join me, please. I should like to know why you summoned the doctor to the house.”

  Sophie took a quick look about. No footmen happened to be assigned to the hallway at that moment.

  “I don’t think I shall, at the moment. I am going to my room.”

  “Sophie!”

  They probably heard that bellow all the way to the servants’ quarters, Sophie thought. She walked back down the stairs to within three steps of the bottom and paused.

  “He said … he said …” She could not say what he had said. “He said that he will return tomorrow morning.” That was half the truth, less than half. Sophie’s heart twisted in unbearable anguish. Oh God, she had to get upstairs, away from Patrick’s hard, questioning face. Her head was throbbing in heavy, unending waves of pain.

  “You didn’t want the baby,” she heard herself say, hearing her own words dully, as if from under water.

  The savage look on Patrick’s face made her grasp the railing in alarm. What was happening to her head? Patrick was speaking, but she didn’t hear. Her heart was thudding, heavier than her head, two claustrophobic rhythms going on at once. Sophie clutched the railing tightly, the sensation of clenched fingers pulling her out of the maelstrom of pain for a moment.

  Patrick was shouting at her. And behind him, down the hallway, Clemens paused, his face startled and horrified. Sophie forced her mind to clear, to concentrate on what Patrick was saying to her. She looked down at him. His black eyes were flashing at her … with disgust, probably, she thought dully.

  “What in bloody hell are you saying?” Patrick’s voice was thick with rage. “How can you say such a thing to me? I do want the child!”

  Sophie gave him a little smile. Quite suddenly she felt as if her head were about to float off her shoulders. At least the terrible throbbing was lessening. “I know you don’t want children,” she said to him, almost chidingly, as if he were a child.

  “Oh God, Sophie, what are you talking about?”

  “You were glad you married me, don’t you remember? Because I’m probably just like my mother, and so you won’t have to deal with brats underfoot. But I’m not like my mother—” The thought made her head even more unsteady.

  Patrick finally realized that Clemens was in the hallway and dealt the butler a glare that sent him whisking back through the door to the servants’ quarters. He tried to calm the surges of rage pressuring his chest. Sophie didn’t know what she was saying. She was pregnant. Pregnant women were always irrational.

  “What are you talking about?” He spaced his words very carefully, as if he were speaking to a child.

  Sophie looked at him in surprise. How she wished that this silly conversation were over so that she could lie down and be still. “You told Braddon,” she reminded him. “You told Braddon, and I heard you, that you were just as glad to be marrying me if you had to be leg-shackled, because likely I would be as incapable as my mother, and then you wouldn’t have a lot of brats underfoot.”

  There was a moment of pounding silence.

  “May I go to bed now?” Sophie began to back up the stairs. Now she felt certain that her head was floating above her, and her heart was beating so fast that she felt dizzy. She cautiously felt backward for the next stair, holding tightly to the railing. She was afraid to turn about and walk away while Patrick’s face was so black with rage. She shivered.

  When Patrick spoke, his voice was grating, splintered. “I didn’t mean it, Sophie.”

  Sophie just looked at him. His voice had started to have that otherworldly quality again, as if she were hearing through piles of cotton batting.

  She nodded helpfully. “I’m sure you’re right,” she murmured.

  Patrick looked at his wife hopelessly. She was backing away from him, a smile fixed on her lips. A pit of black, bottomless despair opened at his feet. Sophie believed the horrible words she had heard him say. No wonder she’d never fallen in love with him. No wonder she was looking at him as if he were the devil incarnate.

  “Sophie!” He bellowed it, with all the force of pent-up frustration and raw pain swelling his heart. “Oh God, Sophie, I want the baby!”

  But Sophie didn’t grasp his statement. She heard his rough voice as another bellow of rage, and it was one too many; she gasped almost thankfully as a sweet darkness flowed through her head, numbing the painful beat of blood in her ears, relaxing her clenched, throbbing fingers.

  As Patrick leaped toward her in horror, Sophie swayed slightly and plummeted forward. It all seemed to happen so slowly. Her body fell forward like a rag doll, knees striking the next-to-bottom step, pregnant stomach slamming against the marble floor. The only thing Patrick caught as he desperately threw himself toward her was her head. With both his hands outstretched, he managed to stop Sophie’s head from striking the marble.

  Carefully, carefully he turned her over and drew her into his arms. His wife’s face was dead white except for high-arching circles of red. Oh my God, that was no rouge. Her face was burning with fever, her body totally inert. The only thing Patrick could hear was blood pounding in his ears, a horrible rhythm that sorted itself into “please, please, please, please, please.”

  Help. He needed help. Sophie’s eyes were closed, the eyelids pure blue.

  “Clemens!”

  Clemens appeared in fifteen seconds, a sure sign that he had retreated no farther than the opposite side of the servants’ door.

  “Summon the doctor,” Patrick snapped.

  Clemens looked stupefied, staring at the duchess lying on the floor. Then he looked up at his master and the expression of horror in his eyes turned to one of reproach.

  “Dr. Lambeth, man! Now.” The blame in his butler’s eyes only confirmed the blame in Patrick’s heart. He turned back to Sophie, gently kissing her eyelids. She didn’t move.

  Swiftly he felt his wife’s limbs to see if anything was broken, but they seemed intact. He whispered, “Sophie, I’m going to carry you upstairs now.” No response.

  He gathered her up in his arms. Sophie’s head fell back against his left arm. Between the rise of her shoulders and the rise of her knees, where he held her, her stomach rose even higher.

  Patrick swallowed hard. Oh God, if anything had happened to the babe. The drumbeat in his ears increased: please, please, please, please.

  When Sophie’s maid arrived, running, Patrick had already stripped off Sophie’s morning gown and was pulling a nightdress over her head. Simone helped him silently, for which he was grateful. When Sophie was arranged in bed, the sheets drawn up to her neck, Patrick looked at Simone helplessly.

  “What do we do now?”

  “She hasn’t moved or spoken?”

  Patrick just stared at her.

  “She hasn’t woken up since falling down the stairs?”

  “No.” His voice was husky with dread.

  “We need to cool her down,” Simone said practically. “She’s burning up with fever, poor lamb.”

  Patrick stepped outside the room and snapped at the footman hovering at the end of the hallway. Then he watched as Simone tenderly bathed Sophie’s face. Sophie twisted and moaned, trying to get away from the icy cloth. Finally he couldn’t bear to stand there helplessly, and took the cloth from Simone’s hands, pushing her away. He sat on the side of the bed.

  “Wake up, Sophie,” he commanded softly, rubbing the cloth over his wife’s forehead. After a few minutes she opened her eyes.

  “It hurts.” She fixed her eyes on his.

  “Sophie, I’m sorry, I didn’
t mean to shout….” He was almost babbling with relief.

  Sophie frowned at him. “It hurts,” she repeated.

  Patrick cupped her little face in his hands, giving her a quick kiss on her forehead. She was alarmingly hot under his lips.

  “You have a fever, love. Fevers always hurt. Don’t worry. Dr. Lambeth will be here soon.”

  “No! No, don’t let him come! He’ll make it happen.”

  “Nothing is going to happen, darling.” Patrick began to rub the cloth over her face again. “I won’t let anything happen.”

  “I don’t think you can stop it,” Sophie whispered. Her eyes were a dark midnight blue, still fastened on his. “You’ll hate me now.” Tears welled up in her beautiful eyes and spilled over.

  Patrick’s heart jolted. She must be delirious, he thought as he bent over, kissing away the tears.

  “Nothing could make me hate you, Sophie. Don’t you know that? Don’t you know how much I love you?”

  But Sophie’s eyes had shifted away from his face. “It hurts!” she cried suddenly.

  It was only when Simone handed him another cloth that Patrick realized that the one he was rubbing over her neck and face was now hot.

  And so it continued. Occasionally Sophie opened her eyes and said incomprehensible things about how much he hated her, and meanwhile Patrick kept washing her face until the little rivulets of water trickling off her face had soaked through the sheets beneath her. He didn’t know what else to do, and he had to do something besides sending out more and more footmen with infuriated messages for Dr. Lambeth.

  When the door finally opened, Patrick leveled a glare on the good doctor that would have shaken a less toughened practitioner. But Dr. Lambeth had dealt with many an angry relative, most recently a viscount who had just welcomed his fifth daughter into the world, and he judged husbands to be on the lesser side of rationality at the best of times. He bustled in importantly, standing at the head of the bed with two fingers delicately poised on Sophie’s forehead.