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Helena nodded her head. She tapped the letter in her hand and her face brightened.

This is it. This is the way out, a long break.

“Aren’t you going to read it?” Miss Justina asked.

“Not just yet, Justina. Go pack our bags, we’re leaving for Ireland this week,” Helena said.

Miss Justina stared at her mistress with mouth agape.

Chapter 19

Heartbreak

Dr Frederick rubbed his eyes. They itched. His eyes itched when his body was trying to tell him to have some sleep, but Dr Frederick pushed the urge away. He was awake for a large part of the night, working on the re-extraction of the hormone from the juvenile monkey. The hormone was adrenaline. He had just found out. He looked to the page in his laboratory note where he had written down his observations.

Higher rate of heartbeat consistently observed with higher concentrations of adrenaline in the blood stream.

He was yet to test the hormones gotten from an external source on the animals. That was the next step in his experimentation. He needed a new monkey.

“The reaction of organisms to the introduction of familiar or even the same chemicals from an external source is sometimes different to their reactions if the chemicals were produced bodily,” Dr Frederick said to himself.

At least I am getting somewhere.

The word “somewhere” triggered Dr Frederick’s memory.

Miss Helena is somewhere now with Lady Lavinia.

Dr Frederick had gone to Miss Helena’s house the week before only to get there and be informed that she had travelled with her maid to meet Lady Lavinia in Ireland. She was said to have left the day after Lord Jeffrey had walked into both of them in the garden.

It cannot be a coincidence.

Lord Jeffrey was not a good man. Dr Frederick remembered what Mister Frank had told him about Lord Jeffrey, and he could only shake his head. The Duke’s son had more vices than he had thought. Now he understood why the Duchess had been so startled at the possibility of her son becoming the Duke anytime soon.

The man is wicked, selfish, and vicious. And I’d really have to check the Duke today, it’s been long since I went.

The possibility of meeting Lord Jeffrey there was not one he embraced, but Dr Frederick knew the Duke’s life might rest on regular check-ups. Lord Jeffrey had no authority over him.

Dr Frederick looked outside the window in the room. He saw Mister Frank outside. He was bent over, doing something to his shoes.

“Frank, is the carriage ready?” Dr Frederick asked.

Mister Frank raised his head and stood akimbo.

“Yes sir, it is. I just need to attach the horses.”

“Well go and have that done. We are leaving soon,” Dr Frederick said.

Mister Frank nodded, bent down, and put on his shoes. He walked around the side of the house in the direction of the stable. Dr Frederick sat back down.

His life had become much staler since last week since he found out Miss Helena wasn’t around anymore. He hadn’t known it was possible to miss the few moments he spent with her every week.

I would have made more of those moments. I would have cherished every passing second with her.

Now he missed her sorely. He woke up many a night now, erect like a rod because he was in a sensual dream that felt too real. Dr Frederick wished those dreams could become reality. But besides how his body reacted to hers, how his breath refused to flow normally when he heard her voice and how his heart beat like a war drum if she bothered to spare his skin a fleeting graze, Dr Frederick missed her sound mind, her informed words, and the assuredness of her gaze. He missed the soft crinkling her cheeks did when she smiled. He missed the heave of her heavy bust when she took a deep breath. He missed the deep red of her hair and the sweet scent her skin carried. He missed her.

Please come back soon, I need to see you.

His door eased open. Mister Frank’s head popped in the crack.