“Dr. Whitticomb,” Anne said, trying to catch her breath, “is no fool, believe me. He’s been sent here to treat your knee and he intends to do exactly that.” Casting a quick, critical eye over Whitney, she said, “Clarissa, bring two pillows and place them beneath Whitney’s knee. Then fetch some hartshorn from my room and put it on the bedside table. That will be a nice touch, I think.” She started for the door. “I’ll forestall Dr. Whitticomb for as long as I can to give you time, but don’t count on more than a few minutes.”
Clarissa remained rooted to the floor, her eyes glassy, her hands gripping the back of a chair. “Clarissa!” Lady Anne said sharply. “Do not even consider fainting!”
* * *
“I thank you, Lady Gilbert, but no,” Dr. Whitticomb said, refusing for the third time the refreshments which, in an apparent excess of polite solicitude, Lady Gilbert was again trying to press upon him. He had already replied to her inquiries about the weather in London, the weather outside, and the pleasantness of his journey from London. When she tried to engage him in a discussion over how much snow they ought to expect this winter, Dr. Whitticomb said bluntly, “I wonder if I might see Miss Stone now.”
Lady Gilbert led him upstairs and down the hall to the fourth door on the left. After a curiously long interval, the door was finally opened by a stout, elderly maid whose mob cap sat crazily askew atop her wiry gray head. Dr. Whitticomb, who was no stranger to the temperaments of wealthy, pampered young ladies, immediately assumed that Miss Stone was spoiled and had harassed her poor maid until that woman looked ready to swoon dead away.
This conclusion was reinforced by the appearance of the patient herself, a young lady of stunning good looks and high color who was reclining upon a large canopied bed, eyeing his approach with ill-concealed antagonism. A pair of jade-green eyes narrowed briefly on his face, wandered indifferently along his black frockcoat, then riveted in alarm on the black bag he carried.
Trying in his compassionate way to distract his patient from her terrified preoccupation with his instrument case, Dr. Whitticomb put it down beside her bed and said soothingly, “His grace, the Duke of Claymore, is most deeply concerned about you.”
Two bright spots of color appeared on her high cheekbones. In a strangled voice, she whispered, “He is the embodiment of kindness and solicitude.”
“Quite so,” Dr. Whitticomb agreed, not able to believe the sarcasm he thought he heard. “As I understand it, Miss Stone,” he began briskly, “you took a nasty fall down the staircase.” Reaching for the bedcovers, he said, “Let’s just have a look at that knee, shall we?”
“Don’t!” she yelped, clutching the bedcovers to her pretty chin and eyeing him mutinously.
For a moment he stared at her in amazement, but then he realized what was distressing her and his expression gentled. Drawing up a chair beside the bed, he sat down. “My dear girl,” he said kindly, “we are no longer in the dark ages when a female denied herself the ministrations of a competent physician merely because he was a man and she a woman. I applaud your modesty—God knows we see it all too seldom in young ladies these days—but this is not the proper time for it, as I am sure your aunt would tell you. Now then . . .” Reaching out, he tried to draw the sheets back, but his patient’s tightly clenched fists exerted equal pressure to draw them in the opposite direction.
Dr. Whitticomb reared back and frowned with frustrated annoyance. “I am a competent physician with a score of female patients, including Her Majesty, if that will reassure you, Miss Stone.”
“Well, it doesn’t reassure me in the least!” his patient fired back in a voice remarkably strong for one supposedly in excruciating pain.
“Young woman,” he warned, “I am under specific orders from his grace to examine your knee and prescribe the proper care. And,” he added ominously, “he instructed me to have you restrained, if necessary, in order to do so.”
“Restrained!” Whitney burst out. “Of all the unmitigated, unbelievable gall! Just who does he think would dare to do such a . . .” She choked back her outburst, already visualizing Clayton striding into her bedchamber in defiance of every law of decency and propriety, and forcibly pinning her to the bed, so that Dr. Whitticomb could examine her knee.
Frantically, she groped for some way to deter the physician from examining her. Excessive modesty was her only hope. Her lids fluttered closed, then opened to regard the man in charming embarrassment. Shyly, she plucked at the sheets. “I know how silly and foolish I must seem to you, Dr. Whitticomb, but I would simply die of mortification to be so exposed . . . to a perfect stranger, no matter how fine a doctor you are.”
“My dear girl, we are only talking about ‘exposing’ your knee, after all.”
“But I can’t help the way I feel,” Whitney protested virtuously. “You don’t know me, but surely his grace, who does know me, should have considered my tenderest feelings in this. I’m quite shocked by his callous disregard of my . . . my . . . ?”
“Maidenly sensibilities?” the doctor offered automatically, thinking to himself that Claymore was going to have his work cut out for himself on his wedding night with this young woman, and that it was a very good thing that the duke was no novice where females were concerned.
“Exactly! I knew you would understand.”
Reluctantly Dr. Whitticomb capitulated. “Very well, Miss Stone, I will not examine your knee on one condition: You must permit a local physician to examine it.”
“Immediately!” Whitney agreed, beaming a bright smile on him.
Leaning over, he snapped his bag shut and picked it up. “Do you know of someone who has experience with sprains and breaks—someone with whom you could feel comfortable?”
“Someone with experience with sprains and breaks?” Whitney repeated, searching madly for some name to give him. “Why yes. Yes, I do,” she announced triumphantly.
“Who?” Dr. Whitticomb persisted, standing up. “What is his name?”
“Thomas,” Whitney provided promptly, smiling widely at her own inspiration. “I trust him implicitly, as does everyone for miles around . . . whenever there’s a sprain or a break, it is always brought to Thomas for treatment.” With a gracious smile, she said, “Good-bye, Dr. Whitticomb. I do thank you for coming, and I’m most dreadfully sorry for the inconvenience you’ve been caused. Clarissa will show you out.”
“No need to bid me farewell just yet,” Dr. Whitticomb assured. “I’ll be up to see you after I’ve spoken with Dr. Thomas.”
“Oh dear God!” Clarissa gasped, blindly clutching the bedpost for support.
Dr. Whitticomb ignored her outburst. Reaching into his waistcoat pocket, he withdrew a heavy gold timepiece, glanced at the time, then snapped it shut. “His grace’s driver and coach are waiting, so if someone will be so kind as to direct me to Dr. Thomas, I’ll meet with him and assure myself of his credentials, then bring him back with me.”
Whitney levered herself up on both elbows. “Whatever for? I mean, I’ve just assured you that he’s qualified. You can take my word for it.”
“No, I’m sorry, but I can’t. Even if I were willing to entrust your health to some unknown colleague, which I’m not, I can assure you that the duke would never permit it. Actually, we discussed calling in Grundheim from Germany; he’s a good man with injuries to the joints. And there’s Johanssen in Sweden—”
“He wouldn’t dare!” Whitney retorted.
“Actually,” Dr. Whitticomb admitted ruefully, “it was my idea to have them come to examine your knee. Claymore thought it best if I saw you first. He had certain—ah—doubts about the severity of your injury. Lady Gilbert,” he said, “would you be so kind as to give me directions to Dr. Thomas?” He started for the door, but stopped in his tracks when, from the occupant of the bed, there came a stifled moan, followed by a series of blistering remarks about someone’s character and integrity, liberally salted with words such as “scoundrel, wretch, blackguard, and hypocrite.”
Dr. Wh
itticomb turned in surprise. Gone was the shy, demure young lady who’d sighed and languished in her bed but a moment before. His lips twitched with laughter and admiration as he beheld the tempestuous beauty who was now sitting bolt upright against the pillows, positively emanating stormy wrath.
“Dr. Whitticomb,” the beauty snapped at him, “I really cannot endure another moment of this. For the love of God, look at my knee before that man has every leech in Europe at my bedside!”
“I personally do not condone leeching,” Dr. Whitticomb remarked as he walked back to the bed and put his instrument case down. This time there was no resistance when he drew back the bedcovers. He parted her dressing robe well below the thigh, exposing a pair of long, shapely limbs, one of which was propped upon a pile of pillows.
“That’s odd,” he said, suppressing a smile as he glanced at his rebellious patient. “Yes indeed—I wondered about the lump created by this pile of pillows.”
Whitney frowned at him. “I can’t see anything the least bit ‘odd’ about two pillows propping up an injured knee.”
“I quite agree with you there.” Dr. Whitticomb’s eyes twinkled. “But unless I misread your note to his grace, it was your left knee which was injured. Yet it is your right knee which we see here upon these pillows.”
His finger pointed accusingly to the wrong leg and Whitney pinkened. “Oh that,” she said hastily. “We propped the right leg up to keep it from bumping the left.
“Very quick thinking, my dear,” Dr. Whitticomb said with a chuckle.
Whitney closed her eyes in chagrin. She wasn’t fooling him at all.
“There doesn’t appear to be any swelling.” His fingers gently felt first her right knee, then her left. Then the right again. “Do you feel any pain here?”
“Dr. Whitticomb,” Whitney said with a resigned smile trembling on her lips, “would you believe, even for one second, that I am in any pain?”
“No. I’m afraid not, actually,” he admitted with equal candor. “But I must say I admire your knack for knowing when the time has come to throw in your cards and call the game lost.” He replaced the bedcovers and leaned back in his chair, gazing at her in thoughtful silence.
He couldn’t help admiring her spirit. She’d concocted a scheme and she’d done her level best to see it through. And now, when she was defeated, she conceded the victory to him without rancor, no missish sulks and sullens, no tears or begging. Damned if he didn’t like her for it! After a moment, he straightened and said briskly, “I expect we should discuss what I am going to do next.”
Whitney shook her head. “There’s no need to explain. I know what you’re obligated to do.”
Dr. Whitticomb gave her an amused look. “First of all, I’m going to prescribe absolute, undisturbed bedrest for the next twenty-four hours. Not for you”—he laughed at Whitney’s joyous expression— “but for your poor, beleaguered maid behind me, who’s been torn between grabbing the nearest heavy object and bludgeoning me unconscious or swooning dead away.” Plucking the hartshorn bottle from the bedside table, he passed it to Clarissa. “If you will take some free advice from an extremely expensive physician,” he told her severely, “You will not involve yourself in any more of this lovely hoyden’s intrigues. You haven’t the constitution for it. Besides, your face quite gave your mistress away.”
When Clarissa closed the door behind her, Dr. Whitticomb turned his gaze upon Lady Gilbert, who’d gone round the bed and was standing beside Whitney, waiting like a condemned man in the box to share her niece’s sentence. “You, Lady Gilbert, are not in much better condition than that maid. Sit down.”
“I’m quite all right,” Lady Anne murmured, but she sank to the bed.
“Much better than all right,” Dr. Whitticomb chuckled “Quite splendid, I should say. You never betrayed your niece by even the flicker of an eye.” Whitney was the next object of the doctor’s penetrating gaze. “Now then, how do you think your future husband is going to react to this deception of yours?”
Whitney closed her eyes against the frightening image of an enraged Clayton, his gray eyes icy and his voice vibrating with cold fury. “He’ll be furious,” she whispered. “But that was the risk I took.”
“Then there’s nothing to be gained by confessing the deception, is there?”
Whitney’s eyes snapped open. “Me confessing? I thought you were going to tell him the truth.”
“The truth I have to tell, young lady, is this: An injury to a joint, any joint, can be difficult, even impossible, to diagnose. Despite the absence of swelling, I could not definitely rule out the possibility that your knee was injured precisely as you claimed. Beyond that, any further revelations will have to come from you. I am here as a physician, you know, not an informant.”
Whitney’s spirits soared. She snatched a pillow from beside her and hugged it to her chest, laughing with relief and gratitude. After thanking him three times, she said, “I don’t suppose that you could tell his grace that I should stay in bed?”
“No,” Dr. Whitticomb said flatly. “I cannot and would not do so.”
“I quite understand,” Whitney said generously. “It was just a thought.”
Reaching out, he took Whitney’s hand in his and smiled gently. “My dear, I have been a friend of the Westmoreland family for many years. You are soon to become a Westmoreland, and I would like to think we are also friends. Are we?”
Whitney was not going to become a Westmoreland, but she nodded acceptance of his offer of friendship.
“Good. Then allow me to presume upon this new friendship of ours by telling you that denying your fiancé your company in order to gain whatever it is you want, is not only foolish but risky. It was obvious to me that his grace has a great affection for you, and I truly think he would give you anything you want if you simply gave him that lovely smile of yours and asked him for it.”
More emphatically he said, “Deceit and deviousness do you no credit, my child, and what’s more, they will get you absolutely nowhere with the duke. He has known females far more skilled in deception and trickery than you, and all those ladies ever got from him was the opportunity to amuse him for a very brief time. While you, by being direct and forthright as I sense that you are, have gained the very thing those other females most desired. You,” he said, “have gained the offer of his grace’s hand in marriage.”
Fireworks exploded behind Whitney’s eyes; bells clanged in her ears. Why did everyone act as if she’d just been offered the crown jewels because Clayton Westmoreland had stepped down from his lofty pinnacle and deigned to make poor little lucky her an offer of marriage? It was insulting! Degrading! Somehow she managed to nod and say, “I know your advice is well meant, Dr. Whitticomb. I—I’ll think about it.”
He stood up and smiled at her. “You’ll think about it, but you don’t plan to follow it, do you?” When Whitney made no reply, he reached down and patted her shoulder. “Perhaps you know best how to deal with him. He’s quite taken with you, you know. In fact, I never thought to see the day anything or anyone would unnerve him. But you, my dear, have come very close. When I arrived from London this morning, I found him wavering between anger and laughter. One moment, he was quite prepared to break your pretty neck for pulling this ‘stunt,’ I believe he called it. The next minute he was laughing and regaling me with stories about you. The man is torn between merriment and murder.”
“So when he couldn’t choose between the two, he sent you here to teach me a lesson,” Whitney concluded darkly.
“Well, yes,” Dr. Whitticomb said, chuckling. “I rather think that was his intent. I confess that I felt a certain annoyance when I discovered that the patient I’d been hauled out of my house and bounced across half of England to treat was most likely shamming. But now that I’ve been here, I daresay I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!”
* * *
Gaiety, Whitney thought testily as she dined with her houseguests that evening, was not a balm for misery, it was an i
rritant. But then, nothing seemed to help. In an attempt to bolster her drooping spirits, she had taken extra care with her appearance and had even worn one of her new gowns—a soft powder-blue confection. At her throat and ears were blue sapphires encircled with diamonds which she’d bought just before leaving Paris. Her hair was pulled back off her forehead and fastened with a diamond clip, leaving the rest to cascade naturally over her shoulders and down her back.
I am a kept woman, she thought as she listlessly pushed at a stuffed oyster with her fork. He had paid for the clothes she was wearing, the jewels, even her underthings. To add to her unwholesome feelings about herself, her cousin Cuthbert’s slavering gaze kept slithering sideways as he tried to steal a glimpse of what her bodice concealed.
Her father, she noted, was behaving with artificial joviality, proclaiming to his guests how happy he was that they’d come, and how sad he was that they were departing tomorrow. Whitney thought that he probably was sorry to see them go. After all, he had been using them as a shield to insulate himself from her impending wrath. So much the better, Whitney thought. She didn’t want a confrontation with him. All she felt for him now was a frigid core of . . . nothingness.
After the gentlemen had enjoyed their port and cigars, they joined the ladies in the drawing room, where tables were set up for whist. The instant Cuthbert saw her, he started toward her table. He was pompous, balding and, to Whitney, wholly repulsive. Mumbling a quick excuse to Aunt Anne about not wanting to play whist, Whitney hastily stood and left the room.
She wandered down the back hall and into the library, but could not find anything of interest among the hundreds of books lining the shelves there. The salons were being used for parlor games, and Cuthbert was in the drawing room. Under no circumstances could Whitney endure another moment near him, which left her the choice of either returning to her bedroom and the plaguing problems that would haunt her there, or else going into her father’s study.
She chose the latter and, after Sewell brought her a pack of cards and added a log to the cheerful fire burning in the grate, Whitney settled into a high-backed chair beside the fire. I am becoming a hermit, she thought, slowly shuffling the deck, then laying the cards, one at a time, on the parquet table in front of her. Behind her, she heard the door open. “What is it, Sewell?” she asked without looking around.