Enchanting Pleasures (34 page)

“Change your mind,” Sophie said bracingly.

“I can’t! What if it doesn’t work?”

“It
will
work. And you can’t go on like this, buying filthy medicines from cracked apothecaries. You’re like to kill Quill one of these times.”

“I’ve never actually given him any of them,” Gabby said miserably. She had a secret little collection in her desk. “I was waiting until he had a migraine attack.”

“Well, he’s never going to have an attack if you don’t take him back into your bed,” Sophie pointed out.

“He said he would visit a concubine,” Gabby whispered. One tear spilled down her cheek.

“Absurd! Quill is undoubtedly lying abed at night planning to break down your door. Patrick and I stopped having relations for a time during the first year of our marriage, and he never visited a concubine. He glowered at me for his entertainment.”

“You did, really?” Gabby was fascinated.

“You’d be surprised at the foolish things we did,” Sophie replied dryly. “But I’ll save them for our next cup of tea, because I promised to take a young guest to see the Tower this afternoon.”

Gabby bit her lip. “I don’t know how to thank you enough, Sophie. It—”

“Poppycock!” She laughed. “I sounded just like my mama there. Have you met my mama yet?”

Gabby shook her head.

“Count your blessings. Now—” She leaned conspiratorially across the table. “I shall think of you tonight, Gabby. Be of strong heart.”

G
ABBY RETURNED HOME
to find that two letters had arrived from India. She snatched them from the salver, only to discover that neither was from Sudhakar.

She read the first letter with keen interest. It appeared that her plan to save Kasi Rao was well in train. She felt a little gleam of pride at the idea that one of her fantastical ideas might actually be useful.

Then she turned, reluctantly, to the letter bearing her father’s handwriting. Richard Jerningham’s letter was like to blister Gabby’s fingers as she read it. Her father had never heard of a request so absurd as hers. Was she aware that no right-minded Englishman would take a foul brew handed to him by a
vaidya?
What was good enough for an Indian person would kill the delicate constitution of an Englishman. Did she want to kill her husband? Under no circumstances would he allow any person from his village to be involved, let alone help her, with her infernal plans.

And he suggested, rather as an afterthought, that she repent her sins and confess all to her husband.

Gabby was well-aware of her father’s low opinion of her, but this was rather surprising. She wouldn’t have thought he would accuse her of murder!

With a sudden jerky movement, she tore the parchment in half. And in half again. She was staring at a desk covered with small scraps of paper when her husband entered her bedchamber.

“What on earth are you doing?” Quill asked.

Gabby colored and hastily swept up the scraps of paper. “It was nothing more than—”

“Love notes from another man?” he suggested, with just a flash of seductive humor.

“No!” Gabby said, and then, “Oh, Quill—”

But he had turned away, and to her horror, he picked up the small brown bottle she had brought home from the apothecary. She had forgotten to secrete it away.

When Quill looked at her, his face was closed and tight. “Where did you buy this rubbish, Gabby?”

“Abchurch Lane,” she said miserably. “I thought perhaps—”

“But I was under the impression that you had declined to sleep with me,” Quill said with great politeness. “When were you planning to administer this…medicine?” He held it up.

“You said you would visit a concubine,” Gabby said, stumbling.

“Oh? I see. Since you dislike connubial relations, I am to visit a concubine. And then when I incur a migraine due to my labors, you are planning to administer this medicine?”

Gabby felt as if she must be purple with embarrassment. “I saw an advertisement. And it looked—”

“How many medicines have you bought, Gabby?” he interrupted.

She blinked.

“You see,” he continued, “I watched my mother do exactly the same thing. She bought medicine from every quack who placed a false testimonial in the papers. After she almost killed me, I swore not to take any more medicine. And I shall not break that vow.”

Gabby swallowed. “He said it was a most efficacious—”

But he had turned away. “Where are the rest?”

Gabby watched in silence as he started to rummage through her clothespress. Anger was building in her chest, but she kept silent. When he began looking in her desk, she could no longer countenance his actions.

“You have no right!” she said fiercely. “Take your hands out of my things!”

“I have every right,” Quill responded as he jerked open another drawer.

“That is my desk!”

“Here they are,” her husband said. “I suspect that
my
medicines have somehow found their way into
your
desk.”

Gabby pressed her lips together as Quill gathered three small bottles and put them on the table. He picked up the first. “My mother visited these charlatans as well.” The bottle crashed into the fireplace. There was a brief scarlet blaze. “Must have had alcohol in it,” he remarked.

He picked up another bottle. “Don’t recognize this one.” The bottle followed the first into the flames.

“Don’t you wish to be cured?” Gabby said desperately, seeing her purchases disappear before her eyes.

“Not at the expense of my life,” Quill responded. He was looking at the third bottle. “This is a bit more interesting. Did you know that it will cure plagues of every kind and description? Rubbish.” The last bottle shattered against the bricks in the fireplace.

“Those were mine,” Gabby said hotly. “You had no right to destroy my purchases.”

“Were you intending to dose yourself?” Quill asked. His voice was calm, but his eyes were alive with anger. “I shall not drink another fraudulent concoction—
ever.”

“That is irrational.”

“I must request that you do not buy any more headache cures,” Quill said. He turned his back to her and strolled over to the fireplace.

“Don’t turn away!” Gabby said in a wild fury.

He poked a few scraps of thick glass back onto the hearth and spoke over his shoulder. “I am waiting for your response, Gabby.”

She saw red. She reached out blindly and caught Mr. Moore’s brown bottle in her hand. “You forgot this one!” she shrieked, and threw it at her husband as hard as she could. It sailed past his shoulder and smashed against the fireplace. Brown liquid seeped down between the seams of the bricks.

Quill jumped back when the bottle exploded. There was silence as viscous liquid dripped onto the hearth. Slowly he turned around.

Gabby’s hair had fallen around her shoulders, and she had her arms crossed. She was beautiful. She was wrathful. He would give anything to take her in his arms and change her mind about the virtues of connubial pleasure.

He walked toward her. “Apparently, I married a woman with a formidable temper,” he said.

“My lady,” Margaret called through the door. “Would you like to change from your walking dress now?”

“Promise me, Gabby.”

“I promise not to buy any more concoctions for your headache, Quill.” Her voice was leaden.

“Thank you.”

“Although I am not the only one with a temper.”

“I swear I never played the maniac until I met you.”

The scratching was repeated. “My lady?”

Gabby sighed. “One moment, Margaret.” She looked up at her husband. “I was only trying to help.”

He dropped a kiss on her nose and turned to leave. Gabby stretched out her hand, but let it fall. After what had just happened, she couldn’t follow Sophie’s advice and try to seduce her own husband. In fact, she ended up pleading a headache and eating a light supper in her room, conscious of her own cowardice and unable to overcome it.

T
HOSE LADIES
of the
ton
who specialized in gaping, gadding, and gossiping often found London sadly flat in the months before the Season truly began. But this year the prattling crowd had reached the conclusion that the household of the new Viscountess Dewland was likely to provide them some entertainment.

“After all,” Lady Prestlefield gleefully reported to her crony, Lady Cucklesham, “not only has the girl created a scandal by dropping her bodice, but it must be clear to the simplest mind that she jilted her fiancé the very moment his elder brother inherited a title.”

“I think we need have no doubt about her motives,” Lady Cucklesham agreed, conscious of the fact that she herself had married a man old enough to be her father for precisely the same reason. “We might, however,” she added, “question the graceless manner by which she traded a fiancé for his brother within moments of his father’s death, if I have heard correctly!”

“Yes,” Lady Prestlefield added, “and we can only hope that she didn’t make a bad bargain…given the rumored extent of Erskine Dewland’s injuries.”

There was a delicate pause.

“Perhaps we should pay a visit to the young viscountess,” Lady Cucklesham remarked. “Hers must be a most interesting household. And if she is as encroaching and, to be blunt, as scandalous as she would seem, it is our
duty
to unveil her character before the Season begins.”

Lady Prestlefield offered no objection to this thoughtful and fair observation.

“H
ER
G
RACE
THE
D
UCHESS
OF
G
ISLE
, Lady Prestlefield, Lady Cucklesham,” Codswallop said majestically. There was nothing he preferred to welcoming a whole gaggle of aristocrats into the household.

“What a pleasure to see you,” Gabby said, curtsying to Ladies Prestlefield and Cucklesham and offering a shy smile. She had clear memories of the withering advice each lady had offered regarding her lost bodice.