Page 7 of The Case at Castle Rock Cove (Beau Monde Secrets #4)

B en got quite a bit of work done that afternoon, despite the interruption of a guest. He cataloged today’s finding, doing his best to sketch the seahorse in his notebook. He had never had proper drawing lessons—a lack he sorely regretted. A natural historian who could not accurately sketch specimens would have difficulty sharing his findings with others.

Still, he thought his ability with a pencil had improved a good deal. His first attempt to sketch a seashell looked like the work of a nursery child, but his current attempts might pass for the work of a schoolgirl.

Did Lady Wilhelmina know how to draw? Ben laid down his pencil and stared unseeingly out the window as he wondered. He ought to have asked her whether she had any artistic abilities. Many ladies did study drawing and painting.

His friend Mr. Sanders had been fortunate enough to marry a woman who passed her artistic ability on to her daughters. The eldest Miss Sanders had grown up helping her father record the seashells he found. The father-daughter collaboration ultimately resulted in a pretty book about the beaches of Devon. Sanders had published it as a labor of love, but it sold surprisingly well.

For a moment, Ben imagined what it would be like to have an artist on hand with whom he could collaborate. There must be a book’s worth of discoveries to be made right here at Castle Rock Cove.

“Pfft!” He dismissed that pleasant fantasy and forced himself to look at the reality, which was a seahorse sketch that only a child would be proud of. Still, it was better than what he could have drawn a year ago. By this time next year, he might do better yet.

He set aside his notebook and pencil, reaching instead for the writing desk he used for his correspondence. Thinking of Sanders had reminded Ben that he owed his friend a letter.

Halfway through the letter, some whim made him add, “Do you happen to know anything about making jewelry out of sea glass? I found a particularly lovely bit of blue glass that I thought might do well as a pendant.”

A whine at the door reminded Ben that it was past time for Cato’s afternoon walk. He set the letter aside to be finished later and thought no more about either sketching or jewelry.

*

The evening after Lady Wilhelmina and her cousin called at Marlowe Tower, Ben’s pleasant day took a turn for the worse when his stomach started cramping. Again? Hadn’t he dealt with dyspepsia just a couple of weeks ago? He did not understand how he could have gotten sick so soon after the last incident.

Ben drank a cup of peppermint tea, at his aunt’s suggestion, and went to bed early. But he woke up less than hour later, when his nausea turned into vomiting.

The rest of the night was a horrible fog of nausea, cramping, and vomiting, followed by diarrhea. The latter symptom sent him downstairs to the water closet. After what seemed like an eternity of painful intestinal purging, he collapsed outside the water closet.

The cool wooden floor of the corridor soothed Ben’s body, exhausted from having so violently emptied itself. He closed his eyes, intending to rest for a moment or two to gain the strength needed to haul himself upstairs.

Instead, he fell asleep. Hours later, the shriek of a startled housemaid jolted him awake.

“Wha??” The foul taste in Ben’s mouth turned his stomach, his neck hurt from the angle at which he’d slept, and his nightshirt stank. The only good thing that could be said about his condition was that he was no longer violently emptying his digestive tract.

He stood up on legs so shaky, he had to lean against the wall for support. His hands and feet must have fallen asleep, too, because he felt the familiar pins-and-needles sensation of a limb that has lain in one position too long.

“Master Benjamin, should I wake your aunt up?” Rosie asked. “You look terrible.”

“I smell terrible, too,” Ben muttered. “You had better fetch Miss Marlowe.”

Naturally, his aunt fussed over him. She forced more of her home remedies on him when all he wanted was a cup of tea. The medicine she gave him this morning tasted far nastier than last night’s pleasantly flavored peppermint tea.

“I do hope you aren’t going to inherit your grandfather’s dyspepsia. It can make life miserable.” Aunt Faith dabbed at Ben’s face with a wet cloth, as if he were incapable of cleaning himself up.

“Auntie, it is merely an upset stomach. Probably something I ate. And I am still capable of washing myself.” He took the cloth out of her hand.

“But your grandfather and I ate everything you did yesterday,” she argued, “and neither of us are unwell. Why, just yesterday, Papa told me he thought Dr. Milner’s new treatment was successful, for he hadn’t had dyspepsia in days.”

“I’m happy to hear it,” Ben muttered.

Problem was, he’d heard it before. Every time Grandfather Marlowe went more than a few days without discomfort, he announced that his dyspepsia had been cured. Every time, he was proven wrong when his symptoms eventually returned.

“I had better send for the doctor,” Aunt Faith decided.

This time, Ben did not argue. He doubted Dr. Milner could do more than ease his symptoms, but sending for him would hurt nothing but Grandfather’s pocket. Easing Aunt Faith’s mind would be worth the cost.

Sure enough, when Dr. Milner arrived, he diagnosed Ben with something he called “gastritis.” He prescribed a colic treatment, the primary ingredient of which was laudanum.

Ben made a face when he heard Dr. Milner’s prescription. Perhaps some people enjoyed taking laudanum, but he hated the way the drug made him feel.

Unfortunately, Aunt Faith did not care about his preferences. After a servant returned from the apothecary with a bottle of the prescribed medicine, Ben’s aunt showed up in his doorway armed with a measuring spoon and a determined expression.

“You heard the doctor,” she said firmly. “You had better have a dose of this colic medicine. It will calm your stomach.”

Ben took it, if only because he felt too weak to argue. If he hadn’t been so sick, he would have pointed out that he was capable of deciding for himself which medicines to take. But then, if he had been well, his aunt wouldn’t have tried to make him take the nostrum in the first place, would she?

He fell asleep still trying to figure out whether there was a golden mean between being too sick to argue and too healthy to need medication. Unfortunately for his side of the debate, the laudanum proved helpful. He slept very well indeed.

*

The next day, Ben felt a good deal better. His digestive organs had ceased rebelling, so he refused to take another dose of the colic treatment. This time, his aunt respected his wishes. But she insisted that he needed time to recover from his sickness, and she refused to let Ben eat anything more demanding than beef tea and dry toast.

The next day, Aunt Faith entered his room, wearing a broad smile. “I have a surprise for you, Ben,” she announced.

“Is that it that new book about shipwrecks off the coast of Cornwall?” he asked hopefully. He had ordered the book directly from the publisher, but it seemed to be delayed.

Aunt Faith’s smile faltered. “Well, no. It’s not a book. Not exactly.”

Ben stared at her, waiting for her to elaborate. Instead, she merely shrugged. Then she studied Ben intently. “Maybe you should comb your hair first.”

Definitely not a book, then . Aunt Faith would only worry about Ben’s appearance if someone were going to see him, which meant that the surprise was... a better physician? An unexpected visit from King George?

Not quite. It was only Mrs. Trimmer and her cousin, Lady Wilhelmina.

“I thought Willa might like to read to you,” Mrs. Trimmer suggested. “She is very good at reading aloud.”

“I can read for myself,” Ben explained. “There is nothing wrong with my eyesight.”

His aunt glared at him, as if he’d said something horrifically rude. Had he said something wrong? But what he’d said was perfectly true! He’d had an upset stomach, which seemed to have passed already, and it hadn’t affected his ability to read at all.

“We don’t have to read. That was only a suggestion, you know.”

Lady Wilhelmina’s apologetic tone finally clued Ben in. She’d shown up with a book in hand, prepared to read to him. He had probably hurt her feelings with his lack of interest.

“Reading is a splendid idea,” he told her. “What did you bring?”

She darted a quick glance at her elderly cousin. “Cousin Sarah suggested Pilgrim’s Progress. ” She flicked her eyes towards Ben, twisted her mouth, and shrugged. “But perhaps you have a book here that you’d prefer?”

She looked intently at Ben, holding his gaze. But if she was trying to silently communicate something, Ben could not tell what.

“Anything you would like to read would be fine,” he said, though he had absolutely no desire to read Pilgrim’s Progress .

The corners of Lady Wilhelmina’s mouth turned down. She must have wanted him to recommend something from his library. But it was too late now, for Aunt Faith bustled off to another room to find a couple of extra chairs. She sat down beside Mrs. Trimmer, leaving Lady Wilhelmina to take the comfortable armchair beside Ben’s bed.

Ben fixed what he hoped was a pleasant expression on his face while he listened to the first page of Pilgrim’s Progress .

Then, to his great relief, his aunt turned to Mrs. Trimmer and said, “Oh, I meant to show you where I plan to put the climbing roses. Do you want to see?”

Mrs. Trimmer glanced doubtfully at Ben, then at her cousin. “Willa, would you like to see the garden, too?” she suggested.

“No, thank you, ma’am. I haven’t gotten a chance to read very much yet.”

The two older women exchanged Significant Glances. Ben expected one of them to remind Lady Wilhelmina that propriety forbade her staying in a room alone with a gentleman. Reputations could be destroyed by as little as that.

Instead, his aunt smiled and said, “I’m sure Ben will be glad of the company. We won’t be gone but a few minutes.”

Ben frowned. Did the rules of propriety change when one was sick? Or was Lady Wilhelmina for some reason exempt from them? Middle-aged spinsters could sometimes get away with behavior that would not be tolerated in a debutante, but Lady Wilhelmina looked closer in age to a debutante than a spinster.

Whatever the reason, his aunt and her friend left the room, talking happily about gardening. In their absence, an uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Ben found himself wishing this were only a nightmare from which he might awaken. But an embarrassing gurgle from his empty stomach made it all too clear that this was no dream.

Maybe he ought to have taken that dose of colic medicine after all. At least then he would have avoided this awkwardness!