Dangerous 01 - Dangerous Works (4 page)

“I saw your grandmother this morning,” Andrew interjected to change the subject.

“Gran? Wherever did you—”

“In front of her house. She was leaving when I passed.” Andrew hated the lie and his reluctance to describe his encounter with Lady Georgiana as soon as the words left his mouth.

Dunning didn’t notice. Polite conversation flowed smoothly between them. Dunning inquired about his health; Mallet lied that he felt better. University gossip filled several minutes.

“Tell me, Dunning, are you acquainted with Lady Georgiana Hayden?” The abrupt change of subject startled Andrew’s companion.
Stupid! I should be more subtle
.

“The Duke of Sudbury’s daughter?” Dunning sounded cautious. “Why do you ask?”

“It came to my attention that she lives nearby. The family seat is in Sussex, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes, of course. But you would know, wouldn’t you, Mallet? Did your time in London, didn’t you? You must have encountered them at some function or another. Sudbury’s family lives in rarefied air. They aren’t likely to frequent the haunts of Cambridge, I can tell you. Outside my scope, old boy.”

“But the daughter?” Andrew pressed. He just couldn’t drop the subject. He damned himself for a fool.

Dunning nodded. “She is reputed to live nearby. Helsington Cottage, out past Grantchester. Odd for a single woman to have her own establishment, particularly near the University.”

“It isn’t
generally done,” Andrew agreed. “One wouldn’t expect Sudbury to allow it.” That was the truth with no bark on it.

Dunning shrugged. “The house must be a family holding, of course. Gran would know. She knows everyone.”

Andrew felt Dunning studying him and forced a blank expression onto his face.

“Perhaps the lady is an admirer of scholarship,” Dunning said.

Perhaps? Unless she has changed greatly, scholarship is the air she breathes.

Andrew took a sip of scalding coffee and looked expectantly at Dunning.

“As to the lady’s fancies, I can’t say.” Dunning went on, “I did hear a wild tale that she sought admission to the Wren Library, but didn’t put much stock in it. The lady can’t be that big a fool, no matter what—” Dunning colored slightly. Andrew waited for him to go on. “The thing is, Mallet, Lawrence Watterson spread a tale that she sought tutelage. He claimed she showed him some crudely translated poetry.”

“Poetry?”

“Obscure minor works, unimportant. Watterson claimed the translation was accurate to a point but overly literal. What one might expect of the uneducated.” Dunning shook his head and drank deep. “Don’t like gossip myself, so I can’t say in any detail. Distasteful, isn’t it?” His keen eyes scanned Andrew’s face.

Andrew shrugged indifferently. “It is hard to say what flights of fancy the very wealthy get up to.”

Dunning waited a moment more, as if he debated whether to say something. The moment passed.

“Tell me, Geoff, how is your work on Horace coming?” Andrew distracted the gentleman easily and freed his mind to wonder.
Good God, Georgiana. What are you trying to do?

Andrew listened to Horace just long enough to be sure the subject of their earlier conversation disappeared from Dunning’s mind.

“Perhaps we can do this again, Geoff. Do you think Wallace Selby would join us?”

Dunning started as if remembering something. “Meant to tell you earlier.” He reached into his jacket and removed a sheaf of papers. “Selby said he enjoyed our dinner. He was pleased to see your father’s study, glad you’re taking up his work, and all that. Sent a passage for you to look over. It’s a bit by Proclus.”

Andrew took the papers with a surge of pleasure. Selby’s work on the Neoplatonist philosophers was causing a stir among Greek scholars. Andrew needed exactly this sort of contact. It would open doors.

“Excellent.” He grinned at Dunning and opened the papers. “Excellent!” The fragment wasn’t a major work, but Selby wouldn’t entrust it to just anyone. Andrew relished the opportunity to prove his skill.

Dunning smiled. “Meant to tell you earlier. Got Distracted. Lunch again next week then?”

“That would be excellent, Geoff, but I will see you again Sunday, I believe.”

“How so?”

“I am to dine with your grandmother.”

Dunning grinned in wide amusement. “She attacks quickly!”

They shared a chuckle and left with an appearance of ease that lasted as far as Trinity Lane where they parted company. Andrew labored past the somber facade of Senate House, its Portland stone and classical lines gleaming white in the sun. The pain worsened. He grimaced; he would pay for this walk when he got home. He thought of Mrs. Potter’s little supper. He would pay for that, too.

Chapter 5

“It isn’t at all uncommon you know, and nothing to cause shame.”

Georgiana sobbed quietly in Edwina Potter’s tiny parlor. Her fears for her health were far from “nothing,” but the sympathetic words warmed her as much as the fire and the excellent China tea. They beat down the floodgates behind which she hid her fears—fear of death, fear of life, fear of nothingness.

It took all her courage to describe her body’s betrayal–the heavy bleeding and infernal weakness—to the older woman. Her failures as a woman shamed her; belief that her deepening weakness presaged her own death terrified her. Here in this parlor, for the first time, she felt less alone in her fear.

“How can it be common? Womankind would all die out.”

“No one would live to my ancient age?” The old woman twinkled up at her and reached out to hold her hand.

“Yes, precisely. I won’t live long. I know it! I don’t shrink from it. I only want to finish my work.” The words rang sour in her ears.

“Nonsense! You’ll live long enough to finish your work and beyond. You are a vital young woman, with much to give.”

Georgiana doubted that. “How can one get past it?”

“Some don’t.” The old woman shrunk a little under the weight of memory. “My own sister died when a bit older than you.”

“There! You see?”

“But she also wore herself out with childbearing.”

“Different then. I have no children and no hope of any.” Her childlessness weighed on her, more so lately than ever before. After she died, she thought, there would be nothing unless she finished her work, and even then, who would care?

“Not
so different. We all have our monthly trials, but some women, for whatever reason, bleed almost to death, children or no. Hannah did that even when she wasn’t with child. Doctors in Yorkshire could do nothing.”

“The old fool my father sent out from London wants to bleed me—again!”

“Any woman would see that for the stupidity it is.”

“Mrs. Potter, do you know anything about a Dr. Peabody? He is a surgeon—and a physician, too, I believe—who has premises here in Cambridge.”

“Edwin Peabody? Excellent man. He is the rarest of all beasts, a medical man who understands women’s complaints. I planned to recommend him myself. How did you hear of him?”

“My brother recommended him. Richard’s research is always thorough. The rest he recommended are all in Edinburgh of all places.”

Mrs. Potter chuckled. “Indeed. I believe Edwin studied there. Has no truck with the philosophical approach. He tells me they take a more scientific way at the University there. Proud of it, and Cambridge be damned. I think you would like him.”

Georgiana dried her face. “If you vouch for him, I will see him.”

They sipped in companionable silence for some moments.

“Tell me about this grandson of yours, Mrs. Potter. How is his Greek?”

“I’m no one to judge, but adequate, I think. It isn’t his specialty. That would be Latin. Horace. Not only that …” Mrs. Potter lowered her voice to a whisper. “He’s a Fellow of the University—a celibate old bachelor. You did say the works are by women, didn’t you?”

Mrs. Potter straightened awkwardly before going on. “Not
the man you need. Banish the thought. Now, what shall we do about this little supper on Sunday?”

Andrew’s progress along King’s Parade slowed with every step. He stayed on the main roads; he avoided Peas Hill this time.

“Harley’s right, damn his hide. Something isn’t healing.” He leaned on his silver-tipped walking stick, head into the wind.

The splendid medieval buildings of the colleges didn’t interest him. His mind, to his own great consternation, was filled only with Lady Georgiana Hayden.

Andrew knew what lay behind her visit and the completely unnecessary sympathy note. Dunning’s stories made it clear that she needed help with her work. She wanted to be rescued again.

“Damnable woman. Ever the wallflower and still not
able to dance with the ones she chooses.”

Heads turned at the low growl that came from his hunched frame. This time the suitors were the Fellows of Cambridge, and once again not one would have her. This time she would manage without his rescue. He had sacrificed his father’s esteem to rescue her once before. He wouldn’t do it again.

By the time he reached Trumpington Road and turned into his own lane, every step increased his agony. Nausea gnawed at him, and he clamped his teeth hard against the pain.

The wretched neighbors are about to be entertained by my undignified collapse,
he thought. The mere idea propelled him forward with as much speed as he could muster.

His door stood ajar and saved Andrew the effort of knocking or wrenching it open. He pushed with his good shoulder and stumbled into the front hall. “Harley, blast you! Come here at once!”

Charles Harley stood a few feet beyond the door, taking a gentleman’s hat. Two faces looked at him with alarm.

“Damnation,” Andrew spat. “Jamie Heyworth. Richard sent a nursemaid again! I don’t need any bloody Hayden interference, damn it anyway.”

Jamie ignored the obvious lie. Andrew sank unceremoniously toward the floor and into Jamie’s arms.

After two hours and much rough ministration at Harley’s hands, Andrew felt no better. He glared at his very irritated friend.

“I’m not
your bloody nursemaid,” Jamie insisted. “Can’t an old friend pop in without you acting like a bear with a thorn in its paw?”

Jamie, who picked Andrew up off the floor and helped Harley haul him up the stairs to his bed, was certainly not
as gentle or patient as a nursemaid.

Sometime later, the vial of laudanum Jamie had generously offered lay splintered on the bedroom floor, its contents staining the offerer’s waistcoat.

“Ruined my best waistcoat!” Jamie complained. “There’s gratitude for you.”

“A nursemaid would at least be nice to look at.” Andrew managed a defiant growl.

Heyworth’s face split with a cheeky grin. “Still the old Andrew inside, I see.

“Tell Richard he owes you a new suit. Something better than that one, I trust. And Jamie, go away.”

“Not
yet, old boy.” Major Lord James Heyworth, late of His Majesty’s First Dragoon Guards, remained unflappable. He effortlessly raised Andrew while Harley slid warm stones under his hip.

“Good gad, Andrew, you’re as white as these sheets.”

Andrew didn’t answer.

“So, no to the laudanum?” Jamie asked.

Andrew replied with a very soft growl that Jamie ignored.

“Can’t say your physician had aught else to offer. If you won’t take it, no point in calling him next time. Richard is probably right. You need a surgeon, not a physician. Physics won’t fix this.”

A quiet mumble from the bed sounded like a strong wish regarding where the devil might put Richard Hayden.

Heyworth chuckled. “Wished him there many times myself, old boy, but he’s right this time. You are worse than three months ago, almost as bad as on the ship after Waterloo.”

“Is that why Richard sent you?”

Heyworth hesitated but didn’t deny it. They both knew he couldn’t afford to turn down any little commission Glenaire might give him, even one involving an old friend, one he would have willingly done for free.

“He sent you to care for me on that bloody ship, didn’t he?”

Jamie’s temper rose. “I chose to do it, and you damn well know it. Richard didn’t pay me to care for you, you blasted fool. I’d have done this, too, even if he hadn’t asked. There’s the name of a good surgeon in Harley’s care and orders to see you use it.”

“You don’t order my household, and I’ll thank you and Richard not to interfere with my servant. What else did our erstwhile friend send you to do? Come, come, Jamie. I can’t talk much longer. I’m getting ready to faint.”

Heyworth leaned forward, alarm on his expressive face, but the patient snarled at him. “Just finish it.”

“How do—” Heyworth sighed. “Never mind. I gave up trying to follow your mind or Richard’s years ago. It’s trivial anyway. I am to ask you if you’ve seen his sister. Said to ask casually, blast him. Don’t know why. Lady Georgie’s too high in the instep for soldiers like us.”

“He should choose his messengers more carefully. There’s a reason you were never a diplomat or a spy.”

“So have you? Seen her, I mean.”

“Tell Richard I have no idea what he’s talking about. No. Tell him that Cambridge is none of his damn business.”