It took me a moment, because all the world felt as though it were spinning, but as my vision steadied, I looked at the freckled face of Bernice, who knelt beside my bed, watching me with wide eyes.
“Are you all right, my lady?” she asked as I slowly began to sit up.
“I—” I jumped at the flash of lightning and sound of rippling thunder that quaked outside the window. It only added to the splitting ache that spread through my head.
“I shall tell her ladyship—”
“No!” I grabbed her arm desperately. Seeing her startled expression, I sought to calm myself, releasing her and taking in a deep breath. “It is nothing, truly. I believe I might have gotten a bit foxed last night. I surely do not wish her ladyship’s concern over it.”
I tried to smile, but my head still hurt, so I quickly rose from the bed. Bernice lifted a robe for me to step into. Typically, the medicine prescribed by Dr. Cunningham, our family’s physician in Everely, worked perfectly. Yet two nights in a row, I had awoken to cold sweats and worried glances.
“I will draw water for you, my lady,” Bernice said.
I merely nodded as I sat by the window. I had no clue what to do if the medicine did not work. It was not as though I could call for Dr. Cunningham. I thought of writing to Evander, but I doubted he’d even be able to read it for days, if not weeks, while he tended to his new wife. Also, it would be in poor taste for me to be writing to him now. He’d think me a bother—well, maybe not, but he would be concerned, and the last thing I wished to do now was disturb his peace.
“My lady, what would you like to wear?” Bernice asked me.
“Anything is fine. I doubt we shall be going out in this weather.”
“Yes, the rains have been terrible this season.”
I knew that to be a fact. Upon coming to London, the wheel of our carriage had gotten stuck in a rut, and part of me believed it was a sign for us to turn back. But coincidentally, at that very same time, a carriage belonging to the Du Bells drove past, and Evander had stared at it as though it had wings. It made me wonder at the time if there were always two forces at work, one willing us to go forward and one trying to keep us stuck in place.
“My lady, is this all right?”
I glanced back at Bernice to see the simple lavender dress she held up for me. I nodded and rose to my feet again.
It took us about thirty minutes for me to get ready, and in the process, I heard the rest of the family rise. It was like one moment there was utter silence, and then the next, a rumbling of feet and voices in the hall.
“Abena!” I heard someone—Hathor—yell as soon as I opened my door. I glanced down over the railing to see the little girl run from one room into another, a box of ribbons and a single shoe in her hands.
“She truly loves to drive her sister mad.” I smiled as I walked down alongside Bernice. “Is she not worried her mama will be angry at her?”
“Lady Abena seems to forget about consequences while in the act of having her fun,” she replied just as Hathor opened her door, still in her nightdress and nightcap…and her cheeks excessively painted with rouge.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
She glanced at me, her eyes wide. “Which room did the little bug run to!”
It took all my strength not to laugh. “I did not see.”
“Very well. I know how to deal with her.” Hathor huffed, marching back into her room and slamming the door.
“We should continue on, my lady, for things shall get louder,” Bernice added. “Rainy days are never short of…Abena.”
I wished to see what she meant but took her advice. We were just before the doors to the dining room when I heard the marchioness’s voice.
“Truly? You mean it? Clementina is all right?” she exclaimed, and I moved closer to hear without being seen.
“How many times must I tell you yes?”
“How is it that you know such news before I?”
“The coachman went to retrieve my pocket watch in the early morning hours and saw all the servants were in much brighter spirits. He heard it himself that the young lady was well.”
“They made it seem as though she were minutes away from being read rites. Did you not hear the way her mother screamed? Such sounds are made only when—”
“Apparently, the girl truly was upon her last breaths. But that doctor, the one we were introduced to, all but brought her back to life with his bare hands. Evidently, he stayed till past dawn.”
“The bastard?”
“Deanna.”
“What? Is that not what he all but proclaimed to us?”
“You asked about his parents, and he told you the truth. But that is neither here nor there. The man has saved the duke’s daughter. Such a thing, such a brain! I tell you, my dear, truly what makes a man is his mind.”
The marchioness giggled. “You are merely excited at the prospect of speaking to someone who knows all of your great books and philosophers.”
There were muffled sounds from the marquess before he said, “Mark my words, this Dr. Theodore Darrington shall no doubt become well-renowned one day. I have an eye for these things.”
I had never heard the marquess speak so much and so freely.
“Yes, dear. It is still a pity, though,” the marchioness added.
I frowned, not sure why I was a bit annoyed at her tone, but I ignored that feeling for a better one. One of relief…
Dr. Darrington had saved her.
“What has you smiling so early this morning?”
I turned to see Bernice had gone, and now Silva and Damon stood at the stairs. Smiling? Was I smiling?
“Damon, leave her alone.” Silva nudged him.
“What?”
“Clementina is going to be all right,” I said, since that was why I was smiling…wasn’t it?
6
Verity
It had been three days since the concert at the Rowleys’, and since then, neither the rain nor the ton’s interest in the newly famed Dr. Darrington had subsided. Even in the downpour, women still came to visit the marchioness in order to share what information they had managed to gather or to describe the way in which he had either miraculously healed them or someone they knew.
“Your ladyship, Mrs. Marie Loquac is here for you,” Ingrid announced to the marchioness as she entered where we all sat in the drawing room.