Marriage Made In Shame(17)

What had Daniel and Cressida both said of him? That he was kind. The lie of that made his stomach feel hollow; he was his father’s son, a man full of anger and retribution.

The truth of it scalded against honour as he upended the brandy.

* * *

Adelaide wished she could just go home away from this house and these people and the gaiety of a salon filled with friends. Close friends—a group who were relaxed in each other’s company and at ease with the expressing of strong opinion. The Earl of Wesley patently was barely interested in her appearance here.

Her cheeks still scalded her from the earlier blush and she chastised herself. But it was hard to appear as indifferent as she would have liked to when he was standing a few feet away from her with his beautiful face so bruised and broken.

He seemed more reticent tonight, less relaxed, the muscles of his jawbone grinding in a constant motion. She had glanced across at him a moment or so before and caught him watching her, the pale gold gaze pulled away as soon as their eyes met. He was drinking a lot, too.

Tormented. The word came from nowhere, but sat across explanation with a quietly formed ease. If the demons in him were circling even here amongst friends in a cosy London town house, then imagine what they must do at other more lonely times.

Heartsick or soul sick, she wondered, looking at the pulse in his throat. Faster than it should be at rest and his hand trembled as he reached for the brandy bottle. Perhaps he had loved Cressida Murray and was drowning in the sorrow of her betrayal—a wretched public denouncement at that, the bruises on him testament to a sense of honour that was startling.

He’d kept his word. He had not hit back. From the way he looked Adelaide doubted such decency was much of a consolation to him. Indeed, he gave the singular impression that he would like to fling his fist through the hard wall behind him and keep bashing until pain scoured wrath and sanity returned.

She had seen the look Lucien Howard had given Daniel Wylde when he’d joined them at the drinks cabinet.

Be careful, he’s suffering and I don’t know how the hell to change it.

Adelaide had always been good at reading the nuances, postures and expressions of others.

Lord Wesley’s lack of response suggested he’d be here not one moment longer than he needed to be and she was glad that the dinner was to be a formal meal because otherwise she was certain he would have already left. ‘Please God, let me be seated next to him,’ she whispered beneath her breath, the incantation repeated even as the party were called in to the dining salon, bedecked with candles and small posies of flowers.

Lady Christine Howard took the seat opposite, the smile she offered friendly.

‘I am so pleased to be placed near you, Miss Ashfield, as I cannot wait to ask you questions about your prowess in the healing arts. It was always something I was interested in, but have not really had the chance to further.’

‘You would be welcome to come to Northbridge and watch me at work...’ The words tailed off as Gabriel Hughes came to take the empty seat next to her under the direction of Amethyst Wylde. He looked plainly wary, eyes cold and distant as he pulled out the chair and allowed a great gap of space between them.

‘Lady Christine. Miss Ashfield.’ The glass he carried with him was empty and he nodded to the servant behind him to fill it up again.

The skin on his left cheek had been broken by the force of the altercation in the ballroom and Adelaide determined it must hurt a lot for the swelling was still most noticeable.

She glanced away in uncertainty. The earl was plainly not looking for sympathy and neither was he seeking conversation. The silence from him was absolute and solid as he turned to look down the table, three fingers of his left hand beating out a rhythm on the cloth. Marking time. This close she could see that the embossed silver ring he wore was inlaid with a cross of gold. Unusual. Different.

‘Do you see many people in your clinic, Miss Ashfield?’ Lady Christine leaned forward as she asked the question.

‘Many, my lady.’

She knew Gabriel Hughes was listening by the slight tip of his shoulders and the way his hand stilled. ‘I have various people from the village who come and buy my potions, though I find just as many want words of reassurance on a particular condition or ailment.’

‘Mama is rather depressed with her life at the moment, a result of our failing finances, I think, and Lucien’s injuries on the Continent. She now believes we are all fragile and that chaos is crouching around a very close corner. Do you make medicines for those suffering in this way?’

‘Indeed I do. My aunt Eloise used to say emotion always has its roots in the unconscious and manifests itself in the body, so I make concoctions to jolt the mind into an alignment with the flesh for those who want to make the change.’

Gabriel Hughes turned at that and addressed her directly, his voice low and a marked crease across his brow. ‘Philosophers since Locke have struggled to comprehend the definition and connection of mind and body, Miss Ashfield. Are you implying that you have found the answer?’

A challenge; direct and forceful. Eloise and Jean had been the masters of such discourse and a shiver of anticipation rushed through her. ‘I believe every part of our bodies is linked, Lord Wesley, the cerebral and the physical.’

‘Is that right? For the life of me and after copious reading I simply fail to see how a mental state can causally interact with the physical body.’

‘Belief in one’s mind is a powerful force for change, my lord.’ Adelaide was mindful that conversations all around the table had ceased in order to listen in to this one. ‘And while I agree that the conscious experience is on the one hand the most familiar aspect of our lives and on the other the most mysterious, I also sincerely believe that only together can mind and body form a whole to heal.’

‘Any living body?’ His glance swept the room to stop at the sight of a bumblebee hovering over by the window’s glass. ‘Does every living thing employ its own consciousness of being?’

‘I for one would not discount it.’ Clenching her fingers in her lap, she carried on. ‘Religion, law and culture have their hands in moulding our thoughts to be...moderated, but I am not so certain that they should be.’

Daniel Wylde at the head of the table laughed and raised his glass. ‘I would like to make a toast to the tenets of free discussion and liberal conjecture. Intelligence is a far underrated attribute and it is always welcome here, Miss Ashfield.’

Amethyst Wylde used the following silence to inject her own observation. ‘You would like my papa, Miss Ashfield. He is most interested in these sorts of discussions. His heart is his problem, you see, and his mind refuses to accept the poor prognosis of every doctor he visits. With happiness he has far outlived his naysayers and is that not a triumph for mind over matter?’

‘I want it to be true and therefore it is?’ Gabriel Hughes’s words were flat and yet when she looked at him there was a flash of gold in his eyes that surprised her. Hurt and hope had a certain entreaty to them that was easily recognisable for she had seen the same in so very many of her patients.

Was it for himself that he asked these questions? A malady that was non-physical was the only diagnosis that made sense here. Oh, granted, he had cuts all over his face and hands and bruises probably in the small of his back where the bully Murray had lashed out hard, but she knew there was more to it.

The other day in the park when he had placed his hands across her own she had felt his withdrawal.

Panic. Fright. Disbelief.

The Earl of Wesley had bolted for safety and had been running ever since; even tonight placed next to her in close confinement with no chance of an escape he had been wary, the distinctive echo of a personal battle within that was costing him much.

She wished they might talk again quietly and away from the notice of others. She wished he might inadvertently touch her so that the spark of notice she seemed consumed with might again burn and she could relish the mystery of it.

Aunt Eloise and Aunt Jean would not recognise her here, quivering with the want of a man she hardly knew. Lord Wesley was a rake and a womaniser, an earl who wore his clothes in that particular and precise way of a dandy and one who had admitted to having as much of an issue with commitment as she did.

There would be nothing at all to gain by his company and yet here she was in the quiet lull of other conversations turning to him again.

‘The philosophy of mesmerism is gaining in traction as a most useful tool in the healing of the mind. I do have some skill in the area, my lord.’

* * *

Hell. Was she suggesting that he place his secrets in her trust? Gabriel could not believe it.

‘I think I shall pass up such an offer, Miss Ashfield. Even an enlightened healer such as yourself might have some trouble in knowing what is in my mind.’

She nodded. ‘Well, if it is any consolation to you it is also my belief that most people can find the solution in themselves if they are honest.’

‘Then that is heartening.’ He tried to inject as much lightness in the reply as he could manage, but even to his ears the humour sounded cold.

‘Reliving a point of memory sometimes helps, Lord Wesley. It opens the mind to further possibility.’

The flash of fire. The slow burn of skin. Henrietta’s last quiet words seared into guilt. Her hands holding something just out of the reach of comprehension.