By a Lady by Amanda Elyot

Author:Amanda Elyot
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307345325
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2006-03-27T16:00:00+00:00

Book the Third

Chapter Sixteen

This time Lady Dalrymple does not cry wolf; our heroine rids the household of parasites, and makes a desperate effort to take matters into her own hands.

THE HOUSE ON the Royal Crescent was dark and still as C.J. approached, and she wondered if she had been missed when Folsom, who opened the door to admit her, gave her an anxious look. She slipped inside and tiptoed up the highly polished wooden staircase, removing the skeleton key from her reticule when she reached the blue room. A cursory glance in the beveled cheval mirror to ensure that there was nothing suspiciously untoward about her appearance revealed one or two stray curls; but otherwise, her thin muslin gown, though it had appeared to be a total loss at the time, had survived the soaking in Sydney Gardens.

It was too quiet. C.J. shuddered. Something was amiss. She quickened her step as she approached Lady Dalrymple’s bedchamber and almost collided with Saunders, who was leaving the darkened room. “Miss Welles! You gave me such a fright,” she exclaimed, a panicked expression in her light gray eyes.

“Saunders—whatever has happened?” C.J. asked. She had learned enough about the dour maid’s character to know that she would not offer any intelligence unless it was demanded of her, though Saunders’s countenance—like that of the footman, Folsom—clearly betrayed the fact that a matter of grave importance had transpired within the past few hours.

“It is her ladyship’s heart, Miss Welles,” Saunders whispered, unable to mask her alarm and distress. “Dr. Squiffers is with her now.”

“How . . . grave is her condition?” C.J. asked, already divining an answer from the maid’s tearstained face.

At the entrance to Lady Dalrymple’s bedchamber, C.J. paused to steady her breath so that her entrance would not further upset her “aunt.”

The heavy crewelwork drapes were drawn around the countess’s bed. The small, slight Dr. Squiffers, dressed in a somber wool crepe frock coat, stood beside her, illuminated by the flame from a single taper.

Lady Dalrymple looked surprisingly diminutive and alarmingly thin propped up by numerous damask-covered bolsters and eiderdown pillows. It was horribly warm within the confines of the closed curtains, and the odor of illness was palpable. The dowager’s white lace cap was askew; a sheen of sweat plastered her gray curls to her glistening brow. She held out her arms to C.J.

“My niece. My dear niece. Come to me.”

C.J. obeyed immediately. She took her “aunt’s” hand in her own. The older woman’s palm felt small, somehow, and slightly clammy.

“Tell Dr. Squiffers to pull the curtains. I want to see Portly.”

“It is inadvisable for the patient to have so much light,” the medic soberly counseled, kneading his knotted arthritic thumbs.

“Nonsense. Give her ladyship what she wants.” C.J. decided to take charge. She placed a kiss on Lady Dalrymple’s damp forehead. “Get her a cool, wet cloth,” she ordered the doctor, who rang the velvet bellpull; then, drawing him aside, C.J. softly asked the medical man about the countess’s condition.

The response did little to cheer her.

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