The Painted Lady (6 page)

“What kinds of things does your friend see?” the physician asked, holding a pen poised over a fresh sheet of paper.

“You are certain we are private here, sir? I mean, I would not wish word of my friend’s trifling problem to be broadcast about, you know.”

“Quite certain, Your Grace. Words spoken in this room never leave this room. My staff is sworn to uphold our, ah, guests’ privacy upon threat of instant dismissal. We seldom have congress with the local residents, over whom, naturally, I have no control, so that should not be of concern. At this moment, we have but one other guest in residence, and she is not permitted communication with the world outside Maidstone, so no one need ever know Your Grace came to visit. On your friend’s behalf, of course. Now about those ... visions?”

So Kasey told the doctor about the lady in the painting. In his friend’s painting.

Sir Osgood looked up from his pen-scratching. “I see. Does your friend imbibe in alcoholic spirits?”

“Only moderately.”

“Has he suffered a wound to the head? Concussion? Does he practice boxing as I understand some of the gentlemen of the ton do?”

“Not to the point of injury.”

“Has he traveled recently, perhaps with the army, where he might have contracted malaria or some other plague?”

Kasey shook his head.

“Fevers? Chills? Numb fingers or toes?”

“No.”

“I realize this is rather an indelicate question, but is anything else ... numb?”

“You mean of a sexual nature? Hell, no.”

The doctor’s pale cheeks were awash with color. “No insult intended, it is merely in my studies I have found that frustrated desires can often lead to irrational behaviors. Let us continue.” Sir Osgood did, quickly. “Does your friend sleep well, or does he perhaps take laudanum to help? Other opiates?”

“Yes, no, no.” Kasey started drumming his fingers on the desk until the older man stared at his hand in silent censure. The duke put his hand in his pocket.

“Is there any possibility anyone might be trying to poison your friend? Some slow-acting agents have been identified as altering their victims’ mental states before eventually causing death, you know.”

“Great gods, no! Why would anyone want to kill me? That is, my friend.” He gave it up. “No, the only one who stands to profit from my death is my brother, and I swear the nodcock has nothing deeper in mind than a larger allowance. I doubt his mind goes any deeper, in fact. But I have already considered all the possibilities you’ve named, Sir Osgood, except for the poison, and none of them answer. I even entertained the notion of ghosts, goblins, and ghoulies, things from beyond. Pixies, poltergeists, ensorcelled princesses. Do you believe in such things?”

“More importantly, do you believe in them?” Kasey shrugged. “A person’s spirit might travel elsewhere after they die, but I daresay I would just as soon wait to find out the truth of the matter. Is there a possibility that my vision is something like that?”

Now Sir Osgood looked away. “ ‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,’ ” he quoted, “ ‘than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ Anything is possible, Your Grace, but I myself have never seen angels dancing on the head of a pin, leprechauns guarding pots of gold, or nude women speaking from paintings.”

“She was not entirely nude, recall.”

“Ah, that makes a great deal of difference.”

It did not, of course, make a tuppence worth of difference. Whether the woman wore battle armor or a bridal gown, she should not have spoken to him. “So what do you think it is?”

The doctor thought it was the most interesting case to come his way in years, one that could restore his reputation and his wealth. Not that anyone would know he was treating a duke, of course, but the duke himself would stand as reference, if Bannister could cure him, naturally. “Barring evidence to the contrary,” he said now, “such as others seeing the same spectral appearance, or an edict from the Creator Himself, we must assume your vision is an hallucination, a mirage, if you will. Hunger and thirst and heat can make desert wanderers create whole villages around water holes, complete with camels and tents.”

“But I was neither hungry nor thirsty nor overheated.”

“No, but a wearied mind, a hungry soul, a parched spirit can have the same effect, you know.”

“Yes, she said something of that nature.”

“She? You have perhaps consulted a Gypsy, Your Grace? Now, that I cannot condone.”

“No, the woman in the painting told me I was needful of something. She would not say what, of course, or you may rest assured I’d have found it by now, to end this confounded confusion.”

“Let us forget whatever that
...
apparition said to you. She does not exist, remember?”

“That’s what I told myself, until she winked at me.”

Sir Osgood held up his hand. “No, she did not. That is, the painting is no more than a painting. By repeating your hallucination, you give it more weight in your mind, such as a child might, imagining a bogey under the bed night after night until the infant is paralyzed with fear. There is nothing hiding under your bed, Your Grace, nothing at all.”

No, his monster was hanging on an easel, but Kasey did not say so. He nodded his agreement.

“There is no such thing as a kobold on canvas.”

The duke had not, however, driven all the way to Maidstone to be told that his phantasm was a fake. He dashed well knew he was insane, or he wouldn’t have come in the first place! “Now what?”

“Now,” said the good doctor, almost rubbing his hands around the money they’d soon be counting, “now we eliminate the Turbulence that is creating your difficulties. Think of a carriage drawn by eight wild horses. We must put those kicking, screaming beasts under control before the coach can proceed in an orderly fashion.”

Or we could find a better driver, Kasey thought, waiting for the doctor to say something helpful, something that might end this nightmare once and for all.

“Control is the key,” Bannister was going on. “Moderation in all things, to let the mind recover from the storm within, to set those horses to a gentle gallop along the straight, true path. I have formulated a regimen of daily activities designed specifically to calm the nervous disposition, to extinguish firestorms in the brain. It consists of healthful exercise, nourishing foods, adequate rest, some herbal infusions as needed, and no overstimulation of the senses. I insist my patients adhere to the regimen, or the scientific benefits will be wasted.”

“You think such a course of treatment can help my condition?”

“I truly do believe that, Your Grace. I have wagered my reputation on the Theory of Turbulence, and continue to believe, despite setbacks. We have cured many a young female of hysterical paroxysms with these methods, and I see no reason Your Grace could not benefit also. A month or two should see an immense—”

“A month? I have to be back in Town for an important vote in Parliament Tuesday next. And a decision on those canal investments. I can spare a sennight, and that is all.”

“Wild horses, my dear duke,” the doctor reminded.

“No, a wild brother on his own in Town. A week.”

“Very well, we shall see what we can accomplish in that short time.” Then the disgraced doctor had to bring up another awkward topic, payment for his services. Bannister didn’t find the discussion of finances quite as embarrassing as the duke’s love affairs, but he blushed, nevertheless.

As well the charlatan should, Kasey thought, after naming such an exorbitant sum for one week’s effort. With such a purse, the duke could have bought those eight blasted carriage horses and hired a competent trainer besides. It might be worth it, however, His Grace decided. He had nowhere else to turn. What if he accepted the invitation to a house party and his host’s ancestors started prattling from the portrait gallery?

Granted, only his own creation had been conversing so far, but who knew the depths of his dementia? He agreed to pay the king’s ransom, albeit the King was not cured.

“Good, good. I will ring for my niece to come down. She will be your guide for the week.”

“Your niece?”

“Yes, my niece acts as my assistant, helping our guests follow the proscribed course while I continue my research.” He gestured toward the pen and stacks of paper in front of him. “My journals, you see. Someday the medical world will clamor to view these notes that reveal the secrets of mental equilibrium. Meanwhile Lilyanne has achieved considerable success with the young ladies entrusted to our care. I’ll send for her now.” He rang a small hand bell on his desk.

Kasey must have seen the man’s niece, he thought, as he’d driven up the carriage drive. A well-endowed female had been strolling about the lawns, holding a pink-tasseled parasol over her head. The silly thing was useless, for the fair-haired lady’s cheeks were already pinkened. Either that or she was wearing as much face paint as a Covent Garden familiar. If that was Bannister’s niece, Kasey decided, he would not stay to waste his time and his money. If he’d thought he could exorcize the woman in the painting between another female’s thighs, the duke would have stayed in London. “I believe I saw your niece out upon the grounds. A, ah, lovely woman, I am sure, but I fear I have reconsidered my decision to—”

“No, no, that must have been Lady Edgecombe, our other guest, on her constitutional. Sad story, that, I am sorry to say.”

“You haven’t been able to help her?”

Sir Osgood removed his spectacles to polish them. “I have not been able to find anything wrong with her, other than she is a woman. They are excitable by nature, you see, and a man must make allowances.”

“But if she is not...?” Kasey searched for a polite way of saying “crack-brained.”

“We refer to the condition as ‘discomposed’ here.”

Kasey liked that. He was discomposed, not deranged. “If the woman is not ... discomposed, why is she under your care?”

“I regret to say that her husband refused to make those allowances. I believe she removed a goodly handful of the viscount’s hair when she found him in her maid’s bed. His lordship banished her to our facility, threatening to have her incarcerated at Bethlehem Hospital if she left my care.”

“But that’s an asylum. It is no place for a lady!”

“Which is why she stays here. He does pay for her upkeep and incidentals, however, which is more than many a man does for a wife he no longer wants.”

“That is diabolical!”

“It is all too common. Divorce is too scandalous; murder is too messy. At least Lady Edgecombe is not suffering, I assure you, although she does miss her maid. I am sorry to say that the viscountess does not follow all of my recommendations for a tranquil mind. Her clothes, for instance.” He grimaced. “But you must put her out of your thoughts. Think of that as an exercise in controlling your mental processes. I always do.”

Kasey would have asked how a man learned to ignore a painted lady right under his eyes, but a soft knock sounded at the door.

“Enter,” Sir Osgood said, and a maid came into the room.

No, Kasey realized when the physician started to make introductions, this little gray wren was the man’s niece. The duke belatedly came to his feet, noting her blush at his error. “Miss Bannister,” he said as she curtsied and he bowed. “I am charmed to make your acquaintance. Your uncle speaks highly of your successes.”

She blushed again, and Kasey was, indeed, charmed. None but the greenest, most giggly girls in London could call forth a blush. This young—but not that young—woman was a true innocent, as only an experienced rake could instantly recognize. In her Quakerish gray she embodied all of Bannister’s tenets of moderation, which Sir Osgood was expounding on again. With a connoisseur’s inspection, he decided there was nothing to excite a man’s blood there, under that high-necked gown and shapeless cap.

Then he saw Miss Lilyanne Bannister’s eyes. They were gray, too, but not the dreary almost non
-
color of her gown, not the color of the smoke that hung over London, nor clouds on a sunless day. Those eyes were like night fog over water, luminous, all-encompassing, and endless at the same time. Kasey could not imagine how he’d mix that color, but his hands were itching to try. He thought they might change with Miss Bannister’s gown’s reflected color, or perhaps the light. A man could paint those unique stargazers every day for a year, he’d wager, and not grow bored.

“There will be no painting for the week, of course,” Bannister was going on, elucidating the duke’s coming routine.

“What, I am not to be permitted to paint?” Kasey snapped out of his reverie in moonbeams to face Sir Osgood. The man might as well have asked Kasey not to eat when a banquet was laid out before him.

“Of course not, Your Grace. That’s what started the Turbulence in the first place, wasn’t it? No spirits, no spices, nothing to agitate an excitable brain.”

“But, Sir—” Kasey began at the same time Miss Bannister said, “But, Uncle—”

His Grace bowed his head, deferring to the young lady.

“But, Uncle,” she said, “I thought His Grace was here about his sister or his niece, our usual type of guest.”

“No, we are to be honored with the duke’s own company for the week. It is a short time to accomplish such a great deal, but I know you will do your best, my dear. You always do.”

“I am to lead a duke on quiet walks and read improving works to him?”

The week was sounding better to Kasey. He was sure he could find a set of watercolors or pastel crayons somewhere, to paint Miss Bannister while her soft, soothing voice flowed around him.

That soft, soothing voice rose ever so slightly in volume and vehemence. “No. I will not do it.”

Chapter Seven

Sir Osgood straightened the pile of papers in front of him and placed his spectacles in the exact center of the stack. “Would you excuse us for a moment, Your Grace? If you could wait in the sitting room, my niece will be along in a moment to escort you to your room.”

No one was in the hall to direct him to the sitting room, so Kasey opened the door to the chamber adjoining Sir Osgood’s study. This appeared to be the morning parlor, where the family would take their meals. Three places were put out, he noted, with a modest number of forks and spoons at each setting, indicating the informality of the meals. The room itself was comfortable but plain, with no scenes of successful hunts to ruin the appetite, not even a floral print to enliven the light straw-colored walls. The room would get monotonous, Kasey decided, supposing that was the point to the minimal decorations. He wandered toward the window to examine the view. Some late chrysanthemums and Michaelmas daisies were still in bloom, with a few last roses trying to hold off the approaching winter. Nothing to tempt his talents there, either.