The Wedding Escape (36 page)

Abruptly, Jack released his hold upon Amelia. “Quick—get back into bed!”

Amelia scrambled across the room and dove back under the covers. “Jack—straighten your wig!”

Jack made a quick adjustment to his snowy cap, then fixed a grave expression upon his face and slowly opened the door. Amelia's family stood crowded outside, anxiously awaiting a report.

“I'm sorry, Dr. Chadwick,” apologized Freddy, “but they refused to stay downstairs.”

“Of course I'm not going to stay downstairs,” Rosalind objected, fighting to maintain a semblance of calm. “I want to know how my daughter is, and if she will be able to get married today.” She peered anxiously over Jack's shoulder into the gloom of the chamber. “Is she better?”

“Don't be idiotic,” he snapped. “I'm a physician, madam, not some damned miracle worker. Your daughter is very ill.”

Lord Whitcliffe looked thoroughly disgruntled by this unwelcome news. “What the devil is wrong with her?”

“She has the pox,”
Jack bellowed at him, cupping his hands around his mouth.

“Mon Dieu!”
cried Annabelle, who was climbing the staircase with Grace and Charlotte, carrying a jug of hot water.

“May God have mercy upon us.” Grace set down her tray and made the sign of the cross.

“Shall I fetch a quarantine sign for the front door, Dr. Chadwick?” asked Charlotte.

“I'm afraid so, Sister Cuthbert.” Jack's expression was grim. “Those of you who have been exposed to the young lady may already have been infected and not know it. This disease is highly contagious, as I'm sure you are all aware.”

“Quarantine?” Rosalind blinked in confusion, oblivious to the breathless hush that had gripped the entire house. “What do you mean, quarantine?” Her voice was shrill.

There was a paralyzed moment of utter silence.

And then a stampede erupted on the floors below. Abandoning their posts in terrified droves, dozens of servants raced for the doors. They knocked over vases, furniture and each other in their desperate attempt to escape the disease-ridden mansion, startling the curious crowd outside as they spewed forth in a monumental tidal wave of panic.

“It's the pox!” they shouted, sending a palpable surge of terror through the crowd.
“Amelia Belford has the pox!”

An explosion of drunken humanity instantly discharged in every direction, sweeping up the police officers who until that moment had been trying valiantly to maintain some semblance of order. Even the journalists were jolted into action by this appalling development. Driven by a heady dose of self-preservation, they started to run with the river of fleeing onlookers, forfeiting any attempt to stay and interview the family. Amelia Belford had the pox. That was story enough in itself.

“Oh, dear God,” wailed Rosalind. “How on earth could this have happened?”

“She probably picked it up while she was running around these past few weeks.” William's face was filled with disgust. “God only knows what sort of scum she was consorting with.”

“Where are you going, Lord Whitcliffe?” demanded Freddy sharply.

The duke hesitated guiltily at the top of the stairs. “There's no real need for me to stay here,” he explained, his hand gripping the banister. “After all, I've barely had any contact with the girl—I've not seen her at all since her return—and I'm afraid my being quarantined here is out of the question…”

“She's your bride,” John pointed out, furious. “I would expect that you would at least feel some desire to stay close to my daughter and see how she is faring, since she was about to become your wife.”

Jack's white eyebrows shot up in feigned astonishment. “That young lass is your bride? Well, then, sir,” he bellowed, “by all means, you must see her. I'm certain a visit from her beloved groom will help to calm her considerable distress, but I must warn you to steady yourself. The pox is not a pretty sight, even in one as lovely as she. It can be damned messy, in fact. Best to look at her now, as tomorrow she will only be worse. Once the lesions become pustular and burst, the patient looks perfectly dreadful.”

His eyes bulging with dread, Lord Whitcliffe forced himself over to Amelia's chamber door and looked inside.

“Is that you, Lord Whitcliffe?” she whispered weakly, extending a clawlike hand to him. “Please come and hold my hand—I'm not feeling very well.” Amelia raised herself onto one elbow so he could fully appreciate the grotesque blotches dotting her face, chest and arms.

Lord Whitcliffe stood frozen, his spider-veined face drained of blood.

And then he bolted for the staircase, nearly knocking over his prospective in-laws in the process.

“I'm sorry, but I really cannot stay!” he yelped, racing down the stairs as fast as his considerable girth would allow. “I cannot!”

Jack restrained the urge to smile as he peered over the banister and watched the old duke skating across the freshly polished marble floor of the entrance hall. The front door closed with a bang, officially terminating Amelia's betrothal to the illustrious Duke of Whitcliffe.

“Excitable fellow, that one.” He scratched his head.

“Good riddance,” snorted John in disgust. “I never liked the pompous old prick anyway.”

“This is a disaster!” Rosalind felt as if she was on the brink of hysterics. “The servants are gone, the wedding is off, and we are trapped while Amelia lies deathly ill—whatever shall we do?”

“I suggest you go down to the kitchen and see what needs to be done to preserve the food that was being prepared for today's reception,” Jack suggested pragmatically. “You're likely to be in here a few weeks. Sister Cuthbert is experienced with tending to patients with infectious diseases,” he continued, indicating Charlotte. “She and I have already had chicken pox; therefore, we will be the only ones permitted to enter and leave the house. We will see that the young lady is kept clean and comfortable, and I'll give her medication for the pain and an ointment for her itching. The rest of you should keep your visits with her brief so as not to tire her and to minimize your own exposure.”

“I'm sorry,” began Freddy, not certain he had heard correctly, “but did you say my sister has
chicken
pox?”

“Why—have you had it?”

“No.” He tried not to laugh. “But I believe when you said that she had ‘the pox,' everyone thought that you meant she had
smallpox
.”

“Damned difficult to tell the difference between the two, especially in the first two to three days of the rash,” Jack told him. “I've seen hundreds of cases, however, and I'm almost positive this is a case of chicken pox. We'll know for certain in a few days—perhaps as long as a week. Until then, this house is quarantined, just in case I'm wrong.”

“That is impossible!” protested William. “I can't stay locked in here for a week. I've a business to run!”

“Actually, it's
my
business,” John pointed out. “And as long as I can send and receive mail, I can bloody well run it.”

“Come,
messieurs,
” said Annabelle, smiling at William and Freddy. “Let us go down to the kitchen and see about organizing the food. Perhaps we can prepare a nice lunch,
non
?”

Freddy flashed his most charming smile at Annabelle. “I don't know much about cooking, but under your tutelage, mademoiselle, I'm sure I can learn.”

“I will help, too,” offered Grace.

“And so will I.”

Everyone looked at Rosalind in surprise.

“I do know how to cook,” she informed them briskly. “Although I'll admit, it has been a number of years since I have had to do so. I'll just go to my room first and change out of this ridiculously hot outfit.”

“Let me know when lunch is served,” William muttered, heading for the staircase.

“You're coming too, William,” Rosalind informed her eldest son. “This is a time of crisis, and in such times, we all have to work together. We certainly cannot expect Mademoiselle Colbert and Miss MacGinty to cook and wait on all of us, when they are lady's maids who only came here to help Amelia dress for her wedding. As it is, we are indebted to them for their kindness.”

“I can't work in the kitchen.” William looked stunned by his mother's suggestion. “I've never even been in the kitchen.”

“That was rather negligent on my part,” Rosalind decided. “There is no reason why a reasonably intelligent young man like yourself shouldn't know how to prepare a simple meal. Why, even your father knew how to fry eggs and bake a pan of biscuits when I met him.”

“Damn right,” said John. “And they were the best biscuits your mother ever tasted. I wasn't born with all of this nonsense, Dr. Chadwick,” he informed Jack, gesturing impatiently at the lavish surroundings. “I was raised on a small farm with eight brothers. We couldn't afford servants, so my mother insisted we all work in the kitchen, just as we had to work in the barn or the fields. If we didn't cook, we didn't eat—it was as simple as that.”

“A sound philosophy,” Jack mused.

“As a boy, I never had shoes that fit me properly,” John continued, sensing he was impressing the doctor with his impoverished beginnings. “If you look at my feet, you'll see that my toes are completely bent—”

“Really, John, Dr. Chadwick has greater things to worry about at the moment than your feet,” Rosalind interjected.

“I think it's damned interesting,” Jack assured her, feeling a slender thread of solidarity with Amelia's father. He had also spent most of his youth wearing ill-fitting shoes, generally stolen, and most often too big. Under different circumstances, he and John Belford might have shared a mutual respect. As it was, he was about to steal the man's daughter out from under his nose.

Somehow he doubted the wealthy railway magnate would ever have warm feelings for him after that.

“Sister Cuthbert, I need you to assist me with the patient,” he told Charlotte.

“Of course, Dr. Chadwick.” Charlotte limped dutifully into Amelia's chamber.

“Here is your soap, towels, and whiskey,” said Grace, carrying her tray into the bedroom.

“And here is your water,” Annabelle added, taking in her jug. “Do you need anything else?” She regarded Jack meaningfully.

“After Sister Cuthbert and I have tended to the patient, I'll let you know if there is anything more. Then I must get back to the hospital to see if my liver patient is still alive. Damned unlikely, after all that mess.”

“But surely you're going to stay to look after my daughter?” Rosalind wanted to ensure that Amelia received the best possible care.

“Sister Cuthbert will be back later to check on her,” Jack promised. “And I will visit each day, to assess her fever and see how her lesions are progressing. For the moment she requires rest, food, and drink, and sufficient medication to keep her comfortable.” He disappeared into Amelia's chamber and closed the door.

“Very well then,” said Rosalind. “Since there is nothing more we can do for Amelia at the moment, let us go to the kitchen and see about preparing lunch.”

With that she shepherded her family, Annabelle, and Grace down to the unknown territory of the kitchen, leaving Amelia in the tender care of Dr. Chadwick and his quietly capable nurse.

 

W
HERE ARE YOU GOING?” DEMANDED WILLIAM ABRUPTLY.

Startled, Charlotte managed an innocent smile. “Dr. Chadwick asked me to fetch some supplies from the carriage.”

“Let me get them for you.”

“Thank you, but that isn't necessary.” She sensed it wasn't gallantry that motivated him, but a nagging suspicion that something about his sister's sudden illness wasn't quite right. “I am perfectly capable of walking to the carriage and back by myself, Mr. Belford.”

“I didn't mean to imply that you couldn't,” William assured her, realizing the gray little creature had obviously taken offense. “I only thought given the extreme heat of the day, you might appreciate not having to climb up and down all those stairs.”

“I find the exercise is good for me.”

“Indeed.” He took a deep swallow of brandy.

Charlotte laid her palm upon the door handle and hesitated. She and Jack had thought all of Amelia's family was occupied in the kitchen downstairs with Annabelle and Grace. Apparently, William had found a way to escape the drudgery of the kitchen after all.

“That's a remarkable cloak you're wearing,” he observed. “Most people would not wear such a heavy garment on a hot day—especially with the hood up.”

“The cloak is part of my uniform when I am outside. I wear the hood up to protect my face from the sun and the dust that fills the air.”

“Sister Cuthbert, what the devil is keeping you?” barked Dr. Chadwick from the floors above. “We haven't got time for you to stand about blathering all day about fashion.”

“I'll be right there,” Charlotte told him.

“Well, hurry up—and ask those maids to make some tea, will you? I want to see Miss Belford drink something before I go.”

“Would you be kind enough to go down to the kitchen and ask Miss MacGinty to make some tea?” Charlotte asked William sweetly. “That will permit me to retrieve what I need from the carriage and take it up to Doctor Chadwick faster.”

It would be ungentlemanly to refuse, but William had hoped to avoid the kitchen so he could keep from being conscripted into service again by his mother. “Very well.” Depositing his empty glass on one of the rented tables that had been abandoned as the servants fled the house, he ambled downstairs.

“Dr. Chadwick wants you to make my sister some tea,” he told Annabelle.

“Can't you see that Mademoiselle Colbert is busy, William?” Rosalind was hot and somewhat exasperated as she poked a fork into a pot of overcooked potatoes. The servants had rushed out of the kitchen leaving everything a mess, and she was having difficulty deciding what to do with all the abandoned food. “I'm sure you can manage to boil some water and make tea yourself.”