The King of Threadneedle Street (29 page)

Alysia kissed her forehead. “There, now, don’t worry. They won’t do it again; Lord Preston will see to it.” She said in a stage whisper, “
They are scared of him
.” Lindy finally giggled.

Andrew observed them from the shade under a row of trees, his heart in a knot. He dried his eyes on his sleeve. He saw Lindy’s books and pencils strewn on the ground and gathered them. He caught Alysia’s eye, and she shot him a meaningful glance that warmed him from head to toe.

He bundled Lindy’s things and brought them to her, staying two steps below so he didn’t loom over her. “I am so sorry, Lindy. You needn’t worry they will harm you again. You are my friend now, and I will take care of you.”

Alysia’s tender expression conveyed approval and gratitude, and his heart beat in double time. He sat on the stair because Alysia hadn’t risen yet, and he wasn’t going anywhere without her. Henry and Christian came to say they would bring Andrew’s horse if he would wait.

Henry looked between Andrew and Alysia then bounced his brows, making an obvious, suggestive smirk, then followed Christian out of the schoolyard.

Alysia spotted a drawing tablet among Lindy’s things. “My, Lindy! What is this?” Alysia flipped through the book of bent and crinkled pages, cooing over rather terrible, rudimentary drawings.

It took him a moment to realize Lindy’s drawings were imitations of pieces Alysia had recently donated to a local charity bazaar. He remembered there had been no small excitement over Alysia’s paintings of Lancashire landscapes, and she barely fourteen years old.

Henry brought Andrew’s black gelding and tethered him to a tree, then signaled he would take Christian home.

Andrew watched with great interest as Alysia drew a portrait of Lindy in her book. He remembered it as the first time he understood the depth of her talent. He recognized what Alysia was doing when he noticed that she drew longer, slightly wavy hair around the face; which delighted Lindy since her hair was as flat as a sheet and thin.

Alysia subtly rounded Lindy’s oblique-shaped eyes, raised the bridge of her nose, and gently sculpted more prominent cheekbones and chin. It was no great change, but Alysia’s purpose was clear: she drew Lindy’s beauty as she saw it.

He watched incredulously as a delicate angel took shape on the paper. Friendly, guileless eyes. A modest smile pulling one corner of her lips into an adorable dimple. Heart-breaking innocence in her expression.

Lindy clapped and cheered as Alysia improvised an elaborate tiara with sparkling jewels. Andrew found himself covertly dabbing his eyes again, which Alysia politely ignored. He resisted cursing under his breath. The few instances he remembered being laid so low as to fall victim to the deplorable vice of weeping all involved Alysia, an underhanded enchantress. He positively adored her.

Andrew saw the sun hovering low over the west hills and finally persuaded the girls to move along. He suspected he scored Alysia’s favor when he lifted Lindy into the saddle and announced she would have dinner at Ashton, and he would send for her papa as well. Both Lord and Lady Courtenay were away, so no one would contradict him. His horse was too large for Lindy to ride alone, so he asked Alysia to ride behind her. Alysia had never needed help into the saddle before, but that time she behaved as though she did.

He stepped near and looked down at her, feeling ridiculously alert for no reason and high-strung, his heartbeat erratic. He put his hands on her waist and for a moment did nothing other than revel in the feel of her under his hands, stricken with the primitive awareness that he was male and she female. His fingers had a mind of their own; they spread on her ribs and stroked. The moment he touched her he had calmed. It was so
correct,
yet bewildering.

He realized he should do something. Alysia stifled a squeal as he tightened his grip and lifted her into the saddle. He ordered himself to retrieve his hands and stop staring like an idiot.

Andrew walked home leading his horse, feeling tall and mighty. The girl riding in his saddle, whom he had grown up teasing, who saw true beauty and could create it with her hands, who made his heart dance and the rest of him burn, was the answer to a question he hadn’t yet thought to ask. He had never doubted it since.

The heavenly dream replayed in his head as he lay down to sleep, a welcome diversion from the persistent ache in his bones. He tossed and fidgeted, growing more uncomfortable by the hour. Hot. Too hot. His entire body seemed to be on fire. Before dawn peeked through the curtains, his muscles screamed with a nerve-riding pain, his stomach roiled, and his sheets soaked through with sweat.

When a footman summoned him, the urgent-sounding words swam in his head, but he understood something about Christian. Temples throbbing and screaming, he dragged himself from bed and tried to answer the footman. He stumbled a few steps, and the blood drained from his head. He protested the disoriented sensation, then it reared, consuming him in a black wave.

Chapter Eighteen

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.

Cymbeline
, William Shakespeare

August 12, 1873, Rougemont Park in Devonshire, England

Alysia felt it crawling on her skin, tingling in her bones long before she heard the words. Something was wrong. She knew it was Andrew. She watched with narrowed eyes as a bedraggled courier delivered the message, the envelope rain-soaked and smeared with dirt and grease.

The others in the breakfast room fell silent, watching Lady Devon open the urgent missive in the absence of Lord Devon. It was a telegram sent from the Torquay office. Lady Devon hadn’t finished reading aloud the first line when Alysia shot to her feet and ran for the door.

Andrew’s steward at Dunsbury was beside himself, unable to reach Lord and Lady Courtenay. Alysia already knew they were abroad. The steward requested help from the Montegues, and Alysia wouldn’t wait for Lord Devon to return home.

“The brougham! My valise!
Now
, please!” she barked to the staff. None dared contest her, stern-voiced but fighting tears of panic. She must have appeared fit to charge the gates of hell.

She thanked heaven she had stayed in the neighboring county of Devon instead going to France, as she had planned, and nervously counted off the miles until she reached Dunsbury.

****

August 12, 1873, Dunsbury Castle in Somerset, England

“What are you doing here?” came Andrew’s hoarse voice.

Alysia scoffed impatiently at the footman who wouldn’t move the handkerchief from his mouth. She pushed past him through the doorway and found Andrew at Christian’s bedside, slumped over. “That is what I usually say to you.”

“Shouldn’t be here. Where’s May?” He looked awful. Pale, a bruised look around his eyes and cheeks.

“I sent her away.”

“Lisa, mmm good of you to come, but don’t want you ill. May can—”

“May is with child, and I don’t want
her
ill. I am staying.” She tested his forehead and his skin burned her hand. His eyes were red-rimmed and bleary.

She leaned over Christian’s bed and stifled a gasp — finally his chest moved up and down, but he looked dead. She quickly tied her hair back and pushed her sleeves to the elbow. Andrew grasped the arms of the chair and tried to stand. Judging by his nauseated look and swaying balance, he was in no condition to help. She pushed on his shoulder and he collapsed back in the chair. “Why don’t you just supervise, Drew?”

“Mmm fine.”

“Sure you are.” Alysia felt Christian’s forehead and pressed an ear to his chest. The rattling sound in his lungs was a bad sign. His breath wheezed through a dangerously swollen throat. She pinched the skin on the back of his hand — tight and ashen. Water-deprived. Delirious with fever, or infection. Perhaps both.

She swallowed the urge to whimper. “When was he last conscious? Will he eat and drink? How long has he struggled for breath? What does the doctor say?”

Andrew blinked, as though she’d spoken in Zulu. He scrubbed his hands over his face and tried to answer her questions. “Never came back, mmm Chris got worse. Sent ‘spress for Greyes. Here hmm-morrow.”

Oh, good. Mr. Greyes, the Montegue’s family surgeon, was coming. She had to make do until then. Alysia studied Christian, unconscious with fever and infected lungs. He might not last until morning. The worry etched in Andrew’s face and the desperate way he hung his head in his hands meant knew that and believed it was his fault.

“It cannot be cholera, Andrew, I swear it.” She sat on the bed, unsure of what to do first. “Influenza is my guess, perhaps pneumonia. And you mustn’t blame yourself. He will pull through.”

He shook his head, still gripped in his hands. The green tinge to his skin worried her.

“I will watch over Chris until the surgeon arrives. Go to bed, Drew.” He groaned and shook his head again. “If anything happens I will wake you. Meanwhile, you will be of no use to anyone if you drop dead.
Go away
, Andrew.” She tugged on his arm. “Go!”

He finally rose. That he was too weak to argue indicated he was worse than he let on. “Who is here to run errands for me?”

Andrew answered with the names of a few footmen and rang for the butler, then left the room in a dizzy meander, and she was glad she hadn’t wasted a single minute in coming.

Then she wasted several precious minutes pacing the room, fisting and stretching her hands, feeling stupid. All right. The first order of business? Air out the dank room. It smelled like death, and she couldn’t stand it. She ordered a kettle of water to boil on the fire, both for the steam to treat Christian’s lungs and to brew medicine. Infuriating, the bottle of “medicine” the country doctor had left for Christian. It reeked of alcohol and laudanum. No wonder he had gotten worse.

She sent a runner to the village with a list of herbs to fetch. “Drag the apothecary out of bed at gunpoint if necessary,” she had ordered. His eyes went wide when he saw she wasn’t joking.

Keeping busy held the panic at bay. Christian wouldn’t speak, but sometimes moaned in response to her voice. The first time he convulsed in a horrible coughing fit, she thought it was the end.

Alysia felt frighteningly helpless. She was no doctor. She wasn’t even a nurse. She only knew what she had gleaned from books — mostly fiction — and helping Lord Courtenay’s tenants. She tried a few of the tricks she had seen other doctors do; pungent compresses on the neck and chest to ease breathing, honey and lemon tea to soothe the throat, and cold towels to counter the fever.

To pass the time, Alysia chatted with Christian, hoping he could hear. She recited Shakespeare until she ran out of lines, then decided against reading from the Bible, fearing he would think she had given up and was praying his soul into the next world. She bathed his limbs and kept the linens fresh while she prayed, begging God to spare her little brother.

She ignored the suspicion that Christian grew steadily worse. Alysia forced water down his throat, sometimes herbal tea or broth but had to clean up again when he vomited most of it. She wished he would put up a fight; when he relaxed between fits, it seemed he lost the will to struggle for breath.

The footman returned with supplies from the village, reporting dozens of locals infected and nine already dead, an elderly couple and seven children. Christian’s wheezing and moaning nearly sent her shrieking.

In between treatments, Alysia sat next to Christian on his bed, held his hand, her coaxing now angry scolding. “You’re the only brother I have, Chris. Andrew needs you. Keep that knucklehead in line, will you?” She reminded him of the experiments and excursions he had planned. “The Sudan. The Galapagos. You haven’t even seen the wildlife in Boston yet.”

She pled with him to fight for his future as a husband and father. She asked him to do it for Andrew, who loved him best of all. She might as well have talked to the kettle in the fireplace for all the response she got from him.

The minute hand seemed heavy on the clock, but somehow minutes blurred into hours. Sometime after two o’clock in the morning, Alysia had a revelation. Every time she applied the hot compress of mustard, camphor, and garlic, Christian coughed violently for a while, bringing up the infection from his lungs. Perhaps if she encouraged him to cough, he might clear his lungs well enough to breathe freely. And perhaps if his lungs were better, the fever would break. A wise idea, or dangerous?

She decided to ask Andrew and sent for him. He dragged himself through the doorway minutes later, grasping the doorjamb to keep from swaying. She regretted disturbing him — he looked like the walking dead. He looked like he would rather be dead.

She explained what she wanted to do. “Do you think it would help or harm him if I induced coughing? Do you think it could help clear his lungs?” She wrung her hands and resisted pacing the floor.

He groaned, obviously swallowing panic as well. “Alysia, I don’t know the first thing about doctoring. Shall I send for Dr. Seymour?”

“No!” she nearly shouted. “His idea of medicine is whiskey diluted in laudanum. I won’t let him near Christian.”

“What do
you
think, Lisa?”

“I am not sure, that is why I sent for you before attempting it. I wish your surgeon was here!”

“Should I wire Lord Devon? He might know.”

“How long would that take?”

“A few hours to get a response. A rider must be sent from the Torquay dispatch to Rougemont.”

Alysia whimpered and looked anxiously at Christian, his lips and fingers tinged blue. Despite her treatments, his body still burned with fever. Worse, if she didn’t keep close watch, he simply quit breathing, and she had to jostle him into fighting. She didn’t tell Andrew that.

She shook her head. “I don’t know if we can wait. Yet, I hardly dare experiment—”

“But what do you believe is best?”

“I believe he cannot remain this way. And since he is not coughing up blood, it might help break the fever if he can expel the infection,” she said like a question.