Page 19 of To Tame the Wild Rake
“And am I to wish you happy?” Charlotte asked.
Sarah blushed. “I do not know, sister. Uncle James says that I must listen to Nate’s explanation of his disappearance all those years ago, and I know he is right.”
Nate was Lord Bentham, whom Sarah had loved and lost when she was a girl, and who had suddenly reappeared in London just last week.
Sarah’s voice softened. “I do not dare hope, but I find myself doing so, anyway.”
Whereas Charlotte had no hope at all. Only a yearning that could never be fulfilled, and a grief for the life that should have been hers.
Lady Lechton, the Earl of Lechton’s young wife and Bentham’s stepmother, gave Aldridge an address for her husband’s son: serviced rooms in a block of apartments for well-to-do young men. The building’s doorman, however, said that Lord Bentham had gone out, and was not expected back until evening.
Aldridge stopped at the top of the building’s steps and waved to his groom, who was walking the high-strung pair harnessed to Aldridge’s phaeton. Aldridge wanted to know how the injured boy was, but beyond that, he’d hoped to consult Bentham about the report from Haverford Castle. After all, the man had been a doctor in the navy, so must be familiar with the condition that had driven the Duke of Haverford insane.
Three different doctors had three different opinions about treatment, and the steward whom Aldridge had left in charge of Haverford’s incarceration was appealing to Aldridge to make the decision.
He needed advice from someone he trusted to keep the consultation secret. His father’s deterioration would make fine scandal for the gossipmongers, and his mother and her wards, his half-sisters, had suffered enough over the years from the rumours that swirled around the evil old man.
There must be dozens of doctors who served London’s upper classes, and perhaps every one of them was a pillar of moral rectitude. Or perhaps any of them would succumb to the temptation to let their closest confidants bask in the reflected glory of knowing the details of the medical history and condition of the notorious duke.
Bentham knows how to keep a secret. Aldridge had once been part of the wild pack of young rakes with whom Viscount Elfingham, the Winderfield twins’ brother, ran. The young viscount had done his best to keep up the acquaintance even after Aldridge lost interest in constant drunkenness and whoring. The young viscount was indiscreet when in his cups, which was most of the time, and had told Aldridge a couple of strange stories not long before he died. One was about a vicar’s son who dared to run off with his sister—Elfingham was proud of his contribution to breaking up the mésalliance, as he saw it. The other—Aldridge had always hoped the other was a drunken fantasy.
Aldridge had already known about the young lovers. They had run away the same summer that Aldridge met Charlotte, when she and her sister had been convalescing at the Somerset estate from mumps. Charlotte had sworn her new friend to secrecy then told him about her sister’s romance, which was the reason that Charlotte spent so much time alone.
Aldridge remembered her story years later when Lechton inherited, and people speculated about the son who had gone missing. Lechton had been a vicar. He’d held his living in Somerset from the Dukes of Winshire through their Somerset estate.
When Lady Sarah suddenly acquired a ward earlier this year, he’d done the maths. And now Bentham had reappeared, and immediately began courting the lady.He loves her still. Aldridge knew the symptoms. But Bentham had not said a word to embarrass Lady Sarah or to force her hand.
Which gave Aldridge another reason to approach Bentham—befriending the man might be a service Aldridge could offer to Charlotte. If she would accept nothing more from him, she had come close in this last twenty-four hours to giving him her friendship, and he yearned to cement his gains.
Perhaps the man had gone to the Ashbury Clinic? Aldridge leapt up into his phaeton, and his groom ran from the horses’ heads to clamber up into the perch behind. “Where next, my lord?” the man asked.
“Do you know where the Ashbury Clinic is, Henry?” Aldridge asked.
“Somewhere near the slums, my lord?”
Aldridge guided the pair around a stopped carriage, neatly avoiding a curricle coming the other way. “An actual address?”
“Sorry, my lord.”
“No matter.” He made the necessary turn, barely slowing. “Someone in the Ashbury household will be able to tell us.”
Lady Ashbury was another person who could give him a perspective on the duke’s treatment. She had her medical training in the East, and—according to his mother—would have the title ‘doctor’ if English medicine were not so resolutely convinced that women were not intellectually and emotionally capable of the role.
That said, Aldridge couldn’t see himself discussing third-stage syphilis with a lady, which—he supposed—made him as hidebound as the rest of the establishment. Perhaps he could talk things over with Bentham and ask Bentham to talk to Lady Ashbury?
When Aldridge was announced, he found Ashbury sitting cross-legged on the drawing room hearthrug, a little girl leaning on each knee, his single hand busy with charcoal over paper. The earl glanced up and smiled. “I’ll just be a moment, Aldridge. Help yourself to a seat.”
Aldridge felt one eyebrow rise. He had seen fathers who enjoyed their children’s company —his brother David Wakefield, for one. But he’d not before been in a home where children were permitted to make themselves at home in the drawing room, let alone where attention to them took priority over guests, even unexpected ones. Watching the vignette on the hearthrug left him charmed and wistful.
A short time later, Ashbury folded the sketch he had been working on as if it was a fan and handed it to one girl child, and picked up another folded paper from between his knees to give to the other. “There, my sweets. Make your curtsey to Lord Aldridge before you begin, if you please. Aldridge, my daughters, Mirabelle and Genevieve.”
Both girls stood to curtsey. “Good morning, Lord Aldridge,” they chorused, as their father clambered to his feet.
Aldridge bowed. “Lady Mirabelle, Lady Genevieve. May I enquire what your father has been drawing for you?”
The smaller of the two girls approached, holding out the paper. “Paper dolls, Lord Aldridge. Look. We cut out around the lines and then we can paint and dress the line of dollies.”
Ashbury had a talent. The front fold of the fan showed half a fine lady, her hand and skirt remaining uncut on the fold on one side, the rest of which had been cut away, one dainty toe stretched to the bottom of the page, the tip of her half bonnet touching the top. The details of the lady were lightly sketched in, a row of ringlets, one fine eye with lush lashes, half a Cupid’s bow in a sweet smile, the neckline of a morning gown and its high waist, a hint of lace at cuff and hem.
