Page 11 of Trusting Miss Austen (Miss Austen #3)

I tiptoed into the dimly lit room and saw Dorian in a nightshirt, lying in bed. His eyes were closed, and his arms lay still on a grey blanket that was tucked around his chest. A bandage wrapped around his head had a patch of blood near the temple, and his face was sweaty and pale. But he was still devastatingly handsome even close to death. Oh Lord!

He did not stir and seemed to be asleep or unconscious. His breathing was stilted, and his chest rose and fell with a shocking rattle. I took a step backwards, not wanting to disturb his slumber. Perhaps I should come back later ... I turned to open the door, and the floorboard under my foot creaked.

‘Felicityyy,’ a voice rasped from the bed. ‘Is that you?’

I swung around to find Dorian with his head turned on the pillow, looking straight at me. So I couldn’t escape.

‘Harry said you were here.’ He struggled to sit up, and alarmed by this, I rushed to the bed in case he made himself worse.

‘Please lie still, I beg you.’

He collapsed back against the pillow with a low moan, his dark eyes unfocused, rivulets of sweat running down the side of his face. It is the fever, I thought. That might kill him before his injuries!

There was a basin of water with a cloth next to the bed. I wrung out the cloth and gently wiped away the grimy perspiration from his face and neck. When I had finished, the water looked none too clean as there had been streaks of dirt on his neck. It appeared he had been plucked from the street after his accident and unceremoniously deposited into the bed without anyone giving him a wash.

I got up with the basin, feeling purposeful, and poked my head out the door. ‘Maurice, can you fetch me some fresh water? Boil it over the fire first. And also get me a clean rag and some bandages. A bar of soap would be good too.’

Maurice stared at me and held up his hands helplessly. ‘I have no money for luxury items like soap, let alone bandages or anything else. I have barely been able to make broths and stews to keep us both alive. Luckily, the butchers at the market have given me offcuts, and a few of the local ladies have been kind enough to give me some vegetables.’

Harry instantly jumped to his feet. ‘I will go with Maurice and procure everything you need, Felicity, if you think it will help.’

‘Thank you,’ I said gratefully. ‘It would make him more comfortable to be clean at least.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Actually, while you are out, can you also get some new linens, a decent pillow, and an embroidered coverlet? Oh, and a couple of towels and new nightshirts as well.’

Harry didn’t look convinced that these things I was ordering would make a difference to Dorian’s declining health but dutifully nodded nonetheless. ‘We will take a hackney to Cheapside.’ He and Maurice left the room on a shopping mission, and I returned to the patient.

Dorian was awake again and moving his legs about fitfully. But he stopped when I sat on the bedside. He stared up at me in wonderment.

‘Is it really you, Felicity? Or am I dreaming?’ He seemed to have forgotten that he had just seen me.

‘You are not dreaming,’ I said gently. ‘You have a fever and may be slightly delusional.’

‘Oh.’ His eyes fluttered closed, and he tried to breathe, but it obviously pained him. Did he have a broken rib? Maurice had not given any details about his injury. Despite his past wrongs, Dorian looked so vulnerable and helpless lying there, and I could not help but feel sorry for him. Surely, with the proper care, he could heal and get well again? A broken rib was not too life-threatening if attended to properly.

After a short time, Dorian opened his eyes again.

‘You are still here,’ he said weakly.

‘Yes. How are you feeling?’

‘I’m dying,’ he said, sounding mournful. ‘Nothing can be done. The doctor said so. I heard him telling Maurice.’

‘Doctors don’t know everything,’ I replied, attempting to be cheerful. I patted his hand. ‘Who was this doctor? He sounds like a quack to me.’

A glimmer of a smile touched his mouth. ‘Quack or not, I am at his mercy. For he attended me for free, and I cannot afford anyone better.’

He tried to sit up again but fell back with a gasp.

‘You must not move, Dorian.’ I pressed his shoulder lightly for emphasis. ‘We will make you more comfortable very shortly. But for now, I need you to stay calm and lie quietly.’ And be a good little boy, I felt like adding but did not want to be condescending.

He muttered something about me being bossy and seemed to pass out again. At least when he was unconscious, he wasn’t moving. I was no doctor, but I suspected that he did indeed have a broken rib, and it was moving freely around inside his chest. The fever also signalled an infection of some kind.

I sat with Dorian, keeping an eye on him, until Harry and Maurice returned laden with the items I had requested.

Harry and I spoke in hushed tones in the ‘parlour’ while Maurice stoked the fire and hooked up a smaller pot and poured in water he’d collected in a bucket from an outside pump. The conditions people had to endure living in these London houses were rudimentary to the point of being primitive. It was all rather shocking. Dorian was a human being, and I was determined that he should not die because of filthy sheets or grubby bandages—not on my watch.

‘He needs a thorough wash with soap and warm water,’ I said to Harry. ‘Otherwise, he’ll start attracting lice and fleas.’

I supposed I could do it if Harry did not want to. But washing Dorian’s naked body ... I shook my head. No. He was ailing, but he was still a rogue, and I was a married woman.

‘You and Maurice must do it. I cannot, for it is not proper. When you do so, look for discolouration around his chest area. If there is purple bruising, then I suspect he has a broken rib. You will have to bind his chest tightly with clean bandages. It will be painful for him, but it will help the bones knit back together and keep everything in place.’ I gestured to my corset. ‘Like one of these. Hopefully, that will bring the fever down. Bathing his forehead and neck plus sips of cool boiled water will help with that too.’

Harry was looking at me in awe. ‘How do you know all this? Are you secretly a doctor?’

I laughed .

‘I borrowed a couple of Jane’s father’s books from his library once because I was interested in human anatomy. One was a medical encyclopaedia with all sorts of common injuries. Broken ribs was one of them. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do for it except binding and attempting to keep the infection at bay.’

The way I was talking sounded very knowledgeable, and I was sure that if an actual doctor was in the room, even he would have been impressed!

‘I am surprised that the doctor Maurice brought in to see him did not suggest anything of that nature,’ said Harry, rubbing his unshaven jaw. ‘Then again, this is London; one shouldn’t expect services without paying for them.’

When the water had boiled and cooled off enough so it would not burn his skin, Maurice and Harry—or ‘the clean team’, as I had dubbed them—went to work on Dorian while I collected the dirty items when they were passed out to me. I boiled up more water, intending to give everything a good sterilising soak.

Eventually, Harry stuck a damp hand out the door and said from within, ‘Bandages, if you please, Dr Fitzroy’, which made me giggle.

There had been no sounds of protest from Dorian as this was happening, so I assumed that they had been able to undress and wash him without moving him too much. But the chest binding would be another matter. By my (un)professional reckoning, it was going to hurt—a lot!

I swirled a blood-streaked bandage around in the steaming water with a stick and braced myself.

From the bedroom came pitiful screaming, and I gripped the stick hard, trying not to imagine how bad the pain was. It tapered off into a faint whimper and then silence. I released my white-knuckled grasp on the stick. Yech, I was glad that was over. I liked the theory of being a doctor, but not the practical part!

Maurice came out carrying a bundle of dirty linens, looking green around the gills. ‘Master Dorian fainted when Master Harry did the bandaging, so we took the chance to change the bedding while he was out to it. He’s trying to revive him now.’

I nodded, blanching.

Harry came out after a few moments and told us that Dorian had regained consciousness but was resting.

I ventured into the bedroom to check on him. Dorian’s skin had lost its grey pallor, and now there was even a faint bloom of colour in his cheeks. His chest rose and fell more evenly, and his breathing sounded better too. That alarming rattle had vanished. He was wearing one of his newly purchased nightshirts, the sheets were snowy white, the pillow his head lay on was soft and fluffy, and the yellow embroidered comforter brightened the shabby room considerably. All in all, the clean team had done an excellent job!

Sidling closer to his sleeping form, I checked the new bandage around his head. Blood was soaking the temple again as if the wound was bleeding afresh. I made a mental reminder to keep an eye on it. I really need some paper and a quill to make some patient notes, I thought, feeling driven to my cause.

I would do so tonight at Harry’s house after I had written to Jane to let her know we had arrived. There was much to tell her of the day’s events!

There was nothing else left to do, and Maurice was busy lighting candles as it was getting dark. So Harry suggested we leave and come back tomorrow.

I thought that we, as Dorian’s principal carers, should remain vigilant throughout the night in case the fever worsened. But he did seem more comfortable. There was nowhere for us to sleep, and Harry looked exhausted after his ordeal. So I reluctantly agreed, giving Maurice overnight instructions for the patient, and he promised to follow them faithfully. Harry had also bought some food supplies, so we left Maurice happily preparing his supper, saying we would return bright and early the next day.

Gas lamps had been lit outside, and the murky street had considerably thinned of people. Indeed, now that the butchers had shut up their shops, Saffron Hill now reeked of danger rather than offal.

As we hurried along, I stepped in something squishy with an exclamation of disgust and paused to inspect my boot. But Harry, peering into the shadowed alleyways, said anxiously, ‘Make haste, Fliss. Otherwise, we may come to the same end as the day’s butchered meat!’

With that in mind, I scampered after him, and we managed to hail a hackney as darkness fell and a fetid fog rolled in off the Thames.

Only when we were safely ensconced in the carriage and travelling at a fast clip towards Holborn did I feel easier. I settled back against the seat, listening to the comforting sound of the horses’ hoofbeats on the cobblestones. The tenseness from my shoulders eased.

Harry, across from me, had his eyes closed. He looked as shattered as I felt, but he recovered a little when we were well away from Saffron Hill, enough to make conversation.

‘How do you fare, Fliss? That thing looks awkward to wear.’ His eyes were trained on my stomach as I was still wearing the padded corset. It had made running through Saffron Hill most cumbersome, and I could not wait to take the blasted thing off!

‘I am well, thank you. Yes, it is awkward and heavy. But thankfully, I am not with child. Otherwise, it would have made the whole experience today much more harrowing!’

Harry’s gaze went to the window, and he stared out at the passing street, now blanketed in fog. ‘Did Dorian notice your condition?’

‘No, I do not think he noticed much, apart from who I was.’

Harry nodded. ‘He was too ill to say anything to me except to grasp my hand and say, “I am sorry, Harry, for Rose ... for everything. Please forgive me”.’ He shook his head and looked sad.

‘You can take comfort from that, at least, if he happens to take a turn for the worse during the night,’ I said, trying not to feel miffed. After all, I had been dragged away from Godmersham and Lucy with the expectation that Dorian wished to atone for his sins, and he had not mentioned anything of the sort to me. I supposed I could live without an apology if he snuffed it overnight. At least I had done everything in my power to save him and then some.

Harry idly scratched his arm and then again, harder, and I too scratched my ankle. I fervently hoped we were not bringing fleas back to Holborn, and my thoughts turned to remedies for fumigation.

** *

As promised, we visited Saffron Hill the next morning and entered the grotty little apartment with bated breath to find that Dorian had survived the night. It was a miracle! Maurice said that he had been in to check on the patient several times, and apart from Dorian muttering that he needed help to ‘use the pisspot’, he had slept right through.

‘That is good news indeed,’ I said, feeling relieved and rather chuffed that my ‘treatment’ had been right on the money. It appeared the patient’s prognosis had gone from ‘hopeless’ to ‘favourable’.

Harry also looked relieved and, when Maurice had gone into the bedroom, said that he was in the process of organising a midwife for Lucinda. ‘When do you think we should leave?’

‘Perhaps the day after next?’ I said, wanting to make sure that Dorian was definitely on the mend (but also needing reparation).

However, Dorian spent the next three days sleeping and woke only in the evening, when we had left to take some broth or stew and a little bread. As I said to Harry, this was a good thing as sleeping meant his body was healing. But it was frustrating too as we did not know if we should stay or go. And Maurice could not leave yet as Dorian was nowhere near well enough to be able to fend for himself .

It wasn’t until the fourth day that Dorian was properly awake when we visited. Maurice said that he had been enquiring after me, so I knocked and went into the bedroom alone.

I was surprised to see the patient sitting up in bed with a sketch pad on his lap, drawing. The bandage had been removed from his head, and his dark hair had been carefully brushed as if he was expecting visitors. It was a little matted around the wound on his temple, but that looked to be healing nicely.

He looked up, smiled when he saw me, and lowered the pad. ‘I don’t have a chair, but you can sit here beside me if you like.’ He touched the edge of the bed.

Cautiously, I crossed the room and sat down, careful not to crowd his legs. ‘How are you feeling?’ I enquired politely, but I was also curious to know since he had been on death’s door only a short while ago. I was amazed at the body’s ability to heal itself.

‘Much better, thanks to your cheerful sanctuary.’ He inclined his head to the room. Together, we looked around as the space had been quite transformed. There was the yellow embroidered cover for the bed, a small bedside table, and a jam jar, which I had filled with violets from a street seller. A dark-green woven rug had been laid on the floorboards, and Maurice had cleaned and polished the mucky windows. Though the view outside was not of anything attractive (only a grim cobblestone courtyard), at least more daylight could enter now.

‘I hope you do not mind me doing a little decorating,’ I said sheepishly. ‘I had some spare time on my hands while you were sleeping, and Maurice helped, of course.’

‘It is a vast improvement,’ Dorian agreed. ‘Though I do not deserve your help after how I treated you at Hartmoor. I behaved atrociously ...’

His eyes met mine. But I looked away, heat creeping into my cheeks at the remembrance of him on top of me, trying to rip my bodice with his teeth.

‘And for that, I apologise profusely, Felicity, and humbly beg your forgiveness,’ he added, his eyes now downcast.

His words hung in the air between us, and my chest constricted. Here it was, my apology. Was it enough? Could I forgive him completely? Only time would tell.

‘Thank you,’ I said stiffly. ‘Apology accepted.’

‘Congratulations are also in order, I believe.’

‘For what?’ I asked, confused.

He smiled and arched an eyebrow. ‘It is rather difficult not to notice that you are expecting a child.’

I followed his gaze to my belly and gave a short laugh.

‘Oh, why, y-yes, I am. Thank you,’ I stuttered and placed my hands over my stomach protectively as I had seen pregnant women do.

Dorian lifted his pad again and started making some light sweeping strokes on the pad. ‘I am a little surprised as you told me quite emphatically that you did not want children,’ he continued. ‘But I suppose accidents do happen.’

‘Yes, quite,’ I mumbled. Time to change the subject—and fast! ‘I see you are still drawing?’

‘Yes, I was actually on my way to an appointment about a commission when I was struck by the carriage. Bad luck on my part, but there will be other opportunities hopefully. I have been earning money by painting portraits. If I can land some bigger commissions with some wealthy clients, Maurice and I can move to a better part of town.’

‘That sounds like an excellent plan indeed,’ I said, glad that he had a way of regaining a footing in society. Even if I did not ever see him again, I did not wish him (or anyone!) to live in poverty. ‘Speaking of Maurice, I don’t suppose you would release him from your service so he could come and work for me? But it seems you have some sort of hold over him ...’

Dorian’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t stop drawing.

‘Yes, that. Well, I was threatening to tell the innkeeper near Hartmoor that Maurice had a dalliance with his daughter.’

‘Gracious! Did he have a dalliance with her? That doesn’ t sound like Maurice.’

‘Of course not,’ replied Dorian. ‘It was to punish him for his disloyalty and to scare him into working for me. But after my near-death experience, it seems petty to play that kind of game, especially as he has been looking after me. So Maurice is welcome to go with you if he wishes. I do not want to keep him against his will. I hope he will be happy with you.’ He added another stroke to his drawing with a flourish. ‘God knows I’ve made him miserable enough living in this hovel. He was probably hoping I died.’

‘Do not say that, Dorian,’ I said sharply. ‘Maurice wrote to Harry immediately and asked him to come to London to see you. He would not have done that if he did not care.’

Dorian grunted, and I saw his eyes move from his pad and inspect my belly more carefully. I shifted on the bed, feeling uncomfortable from his scrutiny. Perhaps it was time to leave.

‘When are you due?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Er, very soon.’

‘I have been thinking that I would like to be a father one day,’ he said conversationally. He gave a small laugh and looked at me quickly, then away, as if embarrassed to be sharing such thoughts.

I did not say anything. Lucinda’s voice was sounding in my mind like a warning: Be careful, Aunty Fliss. He could be leading you into some kind of trap. And even worse, I was starting to feel guilty because Dorian was about to become a father and did not know it. Surely he had a right to know?

The words ‘But you are going to be a papa much sooner than you expect’ were on the tip of my tongue. But just as I opened my mouth to speak them, there was a light knock at the door, and Harry poked his head in.

I snapped my mouth shut instantly.

‘We should go shortly, Felicity. The rain is worsening, and the cabs won’t come near Saffron Hill if it’s too muddy for fear of becoming stuck. And, Dorian, you need to rest.’ He smiled at his brother, who laid his sketch pad down obediently, and Harry shut the door again.

I rose from the bed in a daze, smoothing down my skirts. That was close! Thank God Harry had interrupted. Otherwise, I would have let the cat out of the bag!

Dorian grasped my hand, as if he sensed I was perturbed about something. ‘I am grateful, Felicity, for everything you have done. I know I may have died if it wasn’t for you. And I hope that by you doing so, it means ... that it is because you care for me, at least a little.’

I squeezed his hand, then extracted mine from his gently. ‘I would have done the same for anyone, Dorian. Now you should do as Harry says and get some rest. ’

He nodded and smiled, almost knowingly.

As I turned to leave, I glanced down at his sketch pad and almost gasped aloud at the image he had been drawing: It was me, holding a swaddled baby in my arms and smiling. But not just me. Dorian had drawn himself into the scene too. He was standing behind me, with his cheek against mine and his arms around my waist, peering down at the little bundle of joy with a happy expression.

My heart started pounding, and an icy shiver ran down my spine. I had thought that by our conversation and his apology, Dorian had moved on from his obsession with me. It appeared that was not the case at all!