Part 18 (2/2)

His face stiffened, but only for a moment. ”I'm not sure what else they could have done,” he said slowly. ”She was tearing it out in b.l.o.o.d.y clumps, according to my father and uncle. She did not realize it was her own hair, I think. She must have believed it was the talons. The imaginary claws of the imaginary Furies.”

Gwendolyn left her chair and went to him and stroked his hair back from his face.

He smiled up at her. ”I give you leave to cut my hair, Gwen. I should have done it weeks ago-or at least for my wedding.”

”But that is the point,” she said. ”I don't want to cut your hair.”

”I don't wear it this way because of some mad whim you must indulge,” he said. ”I had practical reasons, which are no longer relevant.”

”I thought you did it to spite your grandfather,” she said. ”If he had been my grandfather, I am sure I would have done something to vex him.” She considered briefly. ”Trousers. I should have worn trousers.”

He laughed. ”Ah, no, I was not so bold as that. When I went to London, I was concerned that someone might recognize me and tell him where I was. Then he would punish my landlady and my employers for giving aid and comfort-such as it was-to the enemy.”

He'd told her about his time in London, slaving night and day. Working on the docks explained his muscles, which had puzzled her very much. One rarely saw that sort of upper body development among the n.o.bility, though it was common enough among laborers and pugilists.

”Looking like an eccentric-and possibly dangerous-recluse keeps the curious at bay,” he went on. ”It discourages them from prying into one's personal affairs. Such concerns obviously applied here in Dartmoor, at least while my grandfather was alive.”

”Well, I'm glad you were impractical and didn't cut your hair for the wedding,” she said. ”It suits your exotic features. You don't look very English. Not in the ordinary way, at any rate.” She paused, struck by an idea.

She stood back to consider him...and grinned.

He grasped her hand and drew her toward him, and tumbled her onto his lap.

”You had better not be laughing at me, Doctor Gwendolyn,” he said sternly. ”We madmen don't take kindly to that.”

”I was thinking of Cousin Jessica and her husband,” Gwendolyn said. ”Dain is not ordinary-looking either. She and I seem to have similar taste in men.”

”Indeed. She likes monsters and you like lunatics.”

”I like you,” she said, snuggling against him.

”How can you help liking me?” he said. ”I spent hours yesterday talking of little but medical symptoms and insane asylums. And you listened as though it were poetry and all but swooned at my feet. It is too bad I haven't any medical treatises about. I'm sure I need read but a paragraph or two, and you will become ravenous with l.u.s.t and begin tearing off my clothes.”

All he had to do was stand there-sit there-to make her ravenous with l.u.s.t, she thought. She drew back. ”Would you like that?”

”Your tearing off my clothes? Of course I'd like it.” He bent his head and whispered in her ear, ”I am mentally unbalanced, recollect.”

She glanced toward the door. ”What if Hoskins comes in?”

Dorian slid her hand into the opening of his s.h.i.+rt. ”We'll tell him it's a medical treatment,” he said.

She turned back to him. Behind the laughter glinting in his eyes, desire smoldered, fierce and not.

One day, too soon, the fierceness and heat would turn dangerous-deadly, perhaps.

But she would deal with that day when it came, Gwendolyn told herself. In the meantime, she was happy to burn in his strong arms.

She lifted his hand to her breast. ”Touch me,” she whispered. ”Make me mad, too, Dorian.”

He had an attack the next day.

They had just finished breakfast when she saw him blink impatiently and brush at the air near his face.

He caught himself doing it and laughed. ”I know it does no good,” he said. ”A reflex, I suppose.”

Gwendolyn left her chair and went to him. ”If you go to bed now and I give you a dose of laudanum, you'll scarcely notice when the headache starts.”

He rose, and went upstairs with her, his expression preoccupied. She helped him undress, and noticed that his vision was not so impaired that he couldn't find her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He fondled them while she wrestled with his neckcloth.

”You are remarkably good-humored,” she said when she'd finally got him under the bedclothes. ”If I didn't know better, I'd suspect my lord only wished to lure me into his bedchamber.”

”I wish it were a trick,” he said, blinking up at her. ”But there the d.a.m.ned things are, winking and blinking at me. And you were right, Gwen. They are not like ghosts, after all. You described it better. 'Like colliding with a lamppost,' you said. 'First you see stars, then the pain hits.' I should like to know what it was that persuaded my brain I'd suffered a blow to the head.”

She knew, all too well.

I told you he must be insulated from all sources of nervous agitation, Kneebones had said.

He was a real doctor, with decades of experience. He understood the malady, had studied Dorian's mother for months.

You saw what the news about his family did to him: three attacks in one week.

She recalled yesterday's conversation, and her conscience stabbed.

”I can see what it was,” she said tightly. ”Yesterday, I obliged you to relive the most painful experiences of your life. And I was not content with the general picture, was I? I pressed you for details, even about the post-mortem report on your mother. I should have realized this was too much strain for you to bear all at once. I cannot believe I did not think of that. I do wonder where I misplaced my wits.”

She started to move away, to fetch the laudanum bottle, but he grabbed her hand. ”I wonder where you've put them now,” he said. ”You've got it all backwards, Gwen. Our talk yesterday did me nothing but good. You eased my mind on a hundred different counts.”

He tugged her hand. ”Sit.”

”I need to get your laudanum,” she said.

”I don't want it,” he said. ”Not unless I become unmanageable. That's the only reason I took it before. I wasn't sure I could trust myself. But I can trust you. I'm not your first lunatic. You'll know when I need to be stupefied.”

”I also know the pain is dreadful,” she said. ”I cannot let you lie there and endure it. I must do something, Dorian.”

He shut his eyes then, and his face set.

”It's started, hasn't it?” It was a struggle to keep her voice low and even.

”I don't want to be stupefied,” he said levelly. ”I want my mind clear. If I must be incapacitated physically, I should like to use the opportunity to think, while I still can.”

Gwendolyn firmly stifled her screaming conscience. Her guilt would not help him.

She had come with low expectations, she reminded herself. She had hoped to learn while ameliorating, insofar as possible, his suffering. She had never had any illusions about curing what medical science scarcely understood, let alone knew how to treat.

She had not expected to fall in love with him, almost instantly. Still, that changed only her emotions, and she would simply have to live with them. She would not, however, let them rule, and be tempted to pray for a miracle, when what she ought to be doing was listening to him and ascertaining what he needed and how best to provide it.

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