Page 103 of Seduced by an Irresistible Lady

Helena was going to marry Lord Jeffrey. She had never told him she wouldn’t. And he had been too weak to ask her the question because he was scared of what her answer would be. Whatever flitters he felt in his chest, no matter how many flips his heart did, what he had with Helena was only temporary and recreational.

Dr Frederick walked back to his seat and flopped into it. He closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of the chair. The chair’s sharp edge bit into the base of the back of his head, but he left it there.

Maybe the dullness of that pain could wash away the ache in his heart.

He had to be rational and realistic. Lord Jeffrey had sent him test animals that might have cost him months or years to get. He was making headway with his research. There was no reason to sabotage what he had for what he could never have.

*******

“Frank, Frank,” Dr Frederick shouted.

The monkey was dying.

Well, it is meant to die.

It was meant to die but not yet and not in this way. He needed Mr Frank to bring the scalpel. Dr Frederick could hear Mister Frank rummaging through his room for it, but there was no need for that.

“Frank, it’s on the table, in a bowl of water. I’ve already sterilised it as good as possible.”

Dr Frederick had been taught by Dr Terry that all surgical equipments used, which include one’s hands, must be properly washed before use.

“If you introduce a killer while trying to remove another killer, then you’re also a killer,” Dr Terry used to say.

The door burst open and Mister Frank ran inside with a small bowl in his hands. Dr Frederick looked into the bowl and picked up his surgical blade. He placed it at the centre of the small monkey’s chest and watched the rhythmical rise and drop of its chest.

“Pick your note, Frank,” Dr Frederick said.

“Blimey,” Mister Frank said, quickly stopping to pick up a writing pad and a pen from the top of a stool beside them.

“The poison has been introduced into the juvenile rhesus monkey for a quarter of an hour.”

Dr Frederick looked sternly at his dresser who stared at him absentmindedly.

“Oh!” Mister Frank squealed.

He bent his head and wrote down what Dr Frederick had just said. After Dr Frederick saw that Mister Frank had written that down, he continued speaking.

“There is an obvious reduction in breath rate,” he said. Dr Frederick lowered his ears to the monkey’s face and listened to its breathing.

“Slower and shallower breaths,” he said to his furiously scribbling dresser.

Dr Frederick took his tube listener and placed it on the monkey’s chest.

“Yes, as I thought,” he said under his breath so his dresser didn’t hear enough to write.

“What did you say, sir?” Mister Frank said.

“The heart rate has slowed to less than half its normal rate,” Dr Frederick said.

He flipped the hairy lids of the monkey’s eyes. Its eyes were white, pupils dilated.

“Pupils are dilated. All the signs of a body shutting down,” Dr Frederick said.

“Bring me the injection,” Dr Frederick said to Mister Frank.

Mister Frank looked at Dr Frederick with his brows arched.

“Am I to write that too?”