This Duchess of Mine

  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—”

  “No one will know. Our entire household is well aware of the duke’s heart ailment. He and I shall be alone tonight. Should the worst ensue, everyone will assume that the duke’s heart has given out, which will be, in fact, the case. I will never say a word to anyone.” She held Withering’s eye. “I do not ever tell untruths. I say to you now: I will not betray you.”

  “If only I had six months!” Withering cried, wringing his hands.

  “Might you perhaps gather some notes in case we decide to try this remedy?” Elijah said to the doctor.

  Withering looked at him blindly. “I wish you had not found your way to my chambers!”

  “We wouldn’t have,” Jemma said, “but Elijah is as well-known to the poor in Spitalfields as you are.”

  “Doctor, will you give us a moment alone?” Elijah asked.

  “I’ll write it down, but I don’t approve; I don’t approve!” The doctor trotted from the room, still wringing his hands.

  “You’re determined, aren’t you?” Elijah asked Jemma.

  She looked up at him. “It’s your only chance.”

  “What if, in years hence, you come to doubt your actions?”

  She was so frustrated that she actually reached out and tried to shake him, except that he was so large as to be unshakable. “We’re both in this marriage, Elijah! You and I are both here. I will be with you. You don’t have to make all the decisions yourself. Please!”

  “It seems to me that you are making this decision.”

  “Rule number three of marriage,” she said, “is never to allow an ocean to come between us again. Death is a great deal wider than the English Channel, Elijah. I am fighting for that. For that rule.”

  His face eased. “I know.”

  “You may die tonight,” she continued steadily. “But I will be with you. And if you die, I will live knowing that we tried every single remedy we could to steady your heart and to give you more time on this earth.”

  They just held each other until Withering came back in the room. And they left with a scrawled sheet of paper and five small vials containing a boiled solution of Dead Men’s Bells.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Jemma moved through the next hours as if she were in a dream. Fowle had a meal waiting, so they ate. She felt curiously observant. The fish tasted of the sea. There were pickled peaches that tickled her tongue with the memory of summer.

  Her lips kept parting, as if she had something to say to Elijah, and then closing again, stiffly, the words unsaid.

  At last the meal was finished. She heard Elijah telling Fowle, as if from a long way off, that they would retire early. And then he asked for a bath.

  Jemma knew what he was doing. Elijah would not want to put his servants to the work of washing his dead body. He would prepare himself.

  She walked upstairs and felt their decision burning fiercely in her heart.

  “I believe I should drink half a vial,” Elijah said on entering her chamber following his bath. He was wearing a dressing gown, and had brought a small brandy glass wi
th him.

  “Didn’t Withering give his last patient a full vial?” They had read the doctor’s scrawled description in the carriage.

  Elijah nodded.

  “Then why don’t we start with a quarter vial?” Jemma suggested. “If it has no effect, you could take another quarter.”

  “That seems reasonable,” Elijah agreed. He poured a quarter of the vial’s contents into the glass. The concoction looked cloudy, and seemed innocuous. Jemma found herself wishing desperately that there were more ingredients—perhaps a magic feather, or a touch of dew. It seemed preposterous to entrust one’s continued existence to a single flower.

  Elijah set the glass carefully on the mantelpiece and then pulled her into his arms. “I am fortunate to have loved you.”

  “We are fortunate. I am just so sorry that I—”

  His hand gently covered her mouth. “We have already made our apologies for the time we lost.” Then he cupped her face, his strong fingers gentle on her cheeks, and looked into her eyes before bending his head. They spoke to each other in that last kiss. Jemma tried to give him a lifetime’s worth of love and devotion. She felt the same fierce love burning in his tender touch.

  Too soon, he pulled back. “You may feel nauseated, but you will not die,” she told him.

  “Because you won’t allow it?”

  “I am a duchess,” she said, not even smiling.

  He kissed her again, fleetingly but so sweetly that her heart would have broken except that it had turned to something strong and like stone. Wordlessly, he emptied the glass.

  They sat down together to wait. Jemma kept a hand on his chest. Two or three times she began to hope, and then would feel a double beat or a missed stroke.

  “I think I should take another quarter vial,” Elijah said ten minutes later. “Withering’s patient, the one who took a full vial, is described as a plump man. Unless he was very tall, I am quite likely to weigh more than he does.”

  “But you are not plump,” Jemma protested.

  “Muscle is heavier than fat,” Elijah said. “I’ve observed it among pugilists. A fat man weighs less than a muscular man of the same size.”