Juliana (43 page)

“Th-thank you,” Emily breathed. Her sobs had diminished to shuddering sniffles. “I c-cannot believe that doctor be-believed you were my mother.”

“Stepmother,” Juliana said dryly. “And I cannot believe it, either.”

“I don’t want to get smallpox, Lady Juliana.”

“Of course not, sweetheart,” Juliana said soothingly, squeezing Emily’s good hand. “We’re going to get you a better doctor, one who knows how to make you well without hurting you.”

She had no idea if there
was
any way to make Emily well—but she wasn’t about to mention that to the terrified little girl. Juliana had an awful feeling there was nothing to be done other than pray. But there was someone who would know for sure. Someone who knew more about smallpox than anyone else in London.

“I’m going to send for Lord Stafford,” she said, rising from the bed. They’d agreed not to see each other until after tomorrow, but really, she had no choice. Emily’s health was at stake—maybe even Emily’s life. “Wait here while I write a note and give it to one of your father’s footmen.” She started out the door. “No, make that one of my brother’s footmen,” she amended. The Neville staff was so old, it would be tomorrow before one of them managed to shuffle to the Institute and back. And besides, she needed to run next door in any case, because they’d be wondering what was keeping her so long.

A few minutes later, she returned and peeled all the blankets off Emily. She banked the fire and drew back the curtains and opened the window. Gritting her teeth, she took the little bowl of blood and dumped it into the bushes outside, then rinsed it with water from Emily’s washstand and dumped that out, too. When all that was finished, her heart calmed a little and her stomach felt much better. She dragged a chair to Emily’s bedside, found a book, and read aloud for more than an hour until James arrived.

When the butler showed him to the room, he paused in the doorway and looked at her. Just looked at her, like he was drinking her in.

“Juliana,” he said softly. He looked tired and disheveled, his hair tousled and his neckcloth askew. He’d probably donned that and his tailcoat in his carriage on the way from the Institute.

Her insides squeezed at the sight of him. “I know we said we wouldn’t…”

She drifted off, noticing his gaze had shifted to Emily. And Herman. A moment ago his heart had been in his eyes, but now those eyes were glazed, and he looked very much like she’d felt when she’d seen Emily’s blood. Like his pulse was thready and his stomach was in knots.

Which was very probably the case.

“Emily,” she said carefully, rising from her chair, “you need to give Herman back to me now. I’m going to put him in his box until Lord Stafford is finished.”

“No!” Emily clutched the olive green reptile. “I want to keep him.”

“Emily—”

“The other doctor took him, and then he hurt me. I want to keep Herman!”

“Emily—”

“It’s all right,” James said, looking pale as paper. “She can keep him.” He drew a deep breath and looked back to Juliana. “Your note said she was ailing?” His gaze flicked to Emily’s bandage and back again. “Did she hurt her arm?”

“Not exactly. The other doctor bled her. She’s been exposed to smallpox, and—”

“Where? When?” He didn’t hesitate to approach the bed. But his hand was gripping the handle of his leather bag so tightly his knuckles had turned white. “Tell me what you know.”

“She’s been playing all week with three girls who came down with smallpox today.”

“How do you know it’s smallpox? Do they have spots, or only a fever?”

“Spots,” Emily said. “But Susan told me she was hot the day before.”

He nodded. On the opposite side of the bed from Juliana, he set his bag down on Emily’s night table. “Do you feel hot?”

“No. Not now. I did before, but Lady Juliana took all the blankets off of me.”

“The other doctor had her under seven of the things,” Juliana explained disgustedly.

“Idiot.” James leaned closer to Emily and reached toward her, flinching before he placed a hand on her forehead. “No fever,” he reported, quickly pulling back from the girl and her snake. “That’s a good sign. Smallpox usually isn’t contagious for the first week or two after exposure, but one can never be certain.”

“If it’s a good sign,” Juliana said cautiously, “does that mean you can do something to prevent her getting it?”

“Maybe.” He opened his bag and drew out items she’d seen at the Institute. “Very possibly. Vaccination within three days of exposure will usually completely prevent it. Between four and seven days, vaccination still offers a chance of protection, and at the very least should modify the severity of the disease. Has she already been vaccinated?”

“I don’t know,” Juliana said. “The butler doesn’t know, and Lord Neville isn’t here.”

“The doctor sent him to the apothecary,” Emily said. “To get more purg—purg—”

“Purgative,” James supplied.

“Lovely,” Juliana muttered. “Do you think it’s been less than three days since she was exposed? Since the Lambourne girls became contagious?”

“We don’t know,” he said. “It would be better if Emily’s friends hadn’t developed spots. But then I suppose we wouldn’t be certain it was smallpox, so…” He shrugged and lifted the quizzing glass that dangled from the chain around his neck. “Open your mouth, sweetheart,” he said, bending closer to Emily.

He held his breath as he examined her, his jaw clenched tight. Knowing Herman must be scaring him to death, Juliana held her breath, too. Maybe it was a bit silly to be afraid of a harmless snake, but not any sillier than to feel ill at the sight of blood. She marveled at his self-control, his determination, his bravery. His knowledge. His skill. His perfectly formed lips…

She gave her head a little shake to clear it.

Amanda had better appreciate having such a wonderful husband, she thought fiercely.

When he straightened, they both blew out a breath. “What were you looking for?” she asked.

“Small red spots on her tongue and in her mouth. Pocks usually show up there first, although I wouldn’t expect to see any this early, before the fever. In any case, she has none.”

“That’s good, right?”

He nodded and visibly steeled himself before leaning close again to unfasten the buttons that went down the front of Emily’s nightgown. Herman was draped on either side of the placket, and his fingers trembled a little. Regardless, Juliana had never seen anyone unbutton anything so quickly.

“I want to check the rest of her body. Spots most likely wouldn’t appear there yet if she’s contracted smallpox, but we can hope her friends actually have some other disease that presents differently—”

He snatched his hands back and froze, staring.

At first Juliana thought he’d been bitten by the snake. Then she realized he wasn’t staring at Herman, but at Emily’s chest.

Or, to be more precise, at an odd, fleur-de-lis shaped birthmark on Emily’s chest.

He frowned and murmured, “I think I’ve seen a birthmark like this before.”

Emily nodded. “My father has one, too. All the Nevilles have one. In exactly the same place.”

“Oh,” James said. Still staring down at the fleur-de-lis, he frowned again. “But I’ve never seen your father’s chest.”

“Yes, you did,” Juliana reminded him. “At Lady Hammersmithe’s ball, remember? Lord Neville was choking, and you saved his life.”

“I removed his neckcloth but not his shirt. I only loosened a couple of buttons. I never saw—”

He blinked. And gasped.

“What?” Juliana asked.

His gaze flew to meet hers. “I never saw Lord Neville’s birthmark, but the day I was caught with Lady Am—” He broke off, glancing toward Emily and back again. “With your unbuttoned friend,” he revised.

Then he paused before concluding, very slowly, “I saw that birthmark on
her
.”

Faith, he was right! Juliana suddenly remembered it herself—a fleur-de-lis revealed by Amanda’s drooping neckline. She must have seen it from her hiding place behind the curtain that day.

No, she couldn’t have seen it. She’d been at entirely the wrong angle.

But she
had
seen that birthmark on Amanda. Hadn’t she?

Her brain felt fuzzy, but she knew she’d seen it. She closed her eyes and pictured it…in her very own bedroom, the night she’d presented the “new” Amanda to society, when she was dressing for Lady Hammersmithe’s ball.

And that meant…

Something hovered in the back of Juliana’s mind. Something significant. Across the bed from James, she followed his gaze down to Emily. If all the Nevilles had that birthmark, and Amanda had that birthmark…

Then Amanda was Lord Neville’s daughter, not Lord Wolverston’s.

And that meant…

“Oh, faith,” she breathed.

JAMES’S EYES
met Juliana’s, and they both sucked in their breaths. She was obviously struggling just as hard as James to keep her mouth shut, to keep from blurting out everything in front of little Emily.

The girl’s father arrived, purgative in hand—muttering about hiring some servants young enough to run errands—and James asked him if his daughter had ever been vaccinated. Neville looked confused by his presence, but he answered readily enough.

The answer was no, which James found rather irksome.

To everyone’s relief, the purgative was put aside. Emily whimpered while James explained the vaccination procedure, but in the end she bore it well. A tiny incision, a little dip into the wound using an ivory lancet tipped with cowpox virus, and a swiftly applied bandage. It all went very quickly, even though James didn’t have a sugar stick. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever vaccinating anyone faster.

Herman might have had something to do with that.

Now they could only wait. The incubation period for smallpox generally ran seven to fourteen days, but occasionally went as long as seventeen. Emily had most likely been exposed two or three days earlier, which meant it would be at least two weeks before they knew for certain whether she was out of the woods.

But the odds were well in her favor. And for now Emily was healthy and happily spooning up chocolate cream.

It was nearly seven o’clock by the time all was said and done and James and Juliana left the Neville house. As soon as the door closed behind them, she turned to him on the doorstep. “Will she really be all right?”

“I cannot make any promises, but I think so. She may not get smallpox at all, and if she does, it should be a very light case.”

Even a light case of smallpox could be arduous, but at least it wouldn’t be fatal. And in any event, what would be would be. James had done all he could, and the matter was in God’s hands now.

And he and Juliana had pressing matters of their own to discuss—yes, he was ready to
discuss
.

He was ready to think.

“Lady Amanda isn’t Castleton’s sister,” he said, taking one of Juliana’s hands.

“I know. I figured that out.” She squeezed his fingers, looking more lively than he’d seen her in days. “Isn’t it marvelous?”

“She might not think so,” he said cautiously. “Such a strait-laced girl might be upset to learn she’s another man’s daughter. Even a much nicer one.”

“She’ll cope with it. She’ll have to. And the best part of it is, you won’t have to marry her when there’s no good reason for her not to marry the duke.” She seemed to be holding her breath. “You won’t, will you?”

Much as he wanted to make her that promise, he couldn’t. Not yet. ”Wolverston may still insist—”

“He can withhold Amanda’s dowry and inheritance, but he cannot make her say ‘I will.’” Sounding very sure of herself—well, she
was
Juliana—she finally released her breath. “Amanda won’t need her father’s—or rather, Lord Wolverston’s—money if she’s wed to the duke.”

“The duke may not agree.”

“He wants her. I think he’ll agree. Let’s find him and ask him now.” She started down the steps, then stopped and turned back to him. “Oh, drat. We can’t.” Her newly recovered enthusiasm disappeared, replaced by blind panic. “I still have to make thirty-three pieces of baby clothes before tomorrow morning.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do! Perhaps the others made three or four items in the past couple of hours, but that still leaves—”

“You don’t have to make any more baby clothes, Juliana.” He smiled and kissed the puzzled little lines between her brows. Then he tugged on her hand, drawing her down the steps and across the pavement, back to her own house. “Look,” he said, stopping in front of the large window that fronted number forty-four’s drawing room.

On the other side of the glass, Corinna leisurely painted, her face a mask of concentration. Behind her, Lady Frances stood with her back to the window, gesturing or perhaps explaining something. On the far side of
her
, a dozen young women were perched on the drawing room’s chairs and sofas, hunched over the needlework in their hands.

Juliana turned to him, bewildered. “Who are they?”

“My former assistants and a few neighborhood girls they managed to scare up. Common-born girls may not all learn to read and write, but they do know how to sew.”