If they were married, he would help her with the accounts. True, he'd said she would never learn to read, but he didn't make it seem like a criticism; his words didn't lash her the way the various tutors her father had hired had done.
No one ever understood that she had spent hours and hours trying to memorize letters that twisted into little dragons and leapt off the page, or slid sideways as if water had suddenly drenched the ink. No amount of staring or repetition would stop them from moving.
"If you don't do something, you will lose Mr. Dautry," her mother remarked, from the bed.
Lala started.
"Did you hear what I said?" Her mother's voice was rising, which was never a good sign. "My maid has told me everything that's going on in this house!"
"I did hear you, Mama," Lala said. "You are concerned that Mr. Dautry is no longer interested in me." She couldn't bring herself to point out that a few days ago her mother had been appalled at the very idea.
The problem was that Mr. Dautry was a terrifying man. The idea of marrying him made her shudder, though she was not afraid that he would say cruel things to her. He was frighteningly large, overly masculine-but not cruel. He might feel silent scorn for her, but he would never speak the words aloud.
"I think that Mr. Dautry and I are forming an acquaintanceship," she said lamely.
"Apparently the servants think that Dautry is tupping that hopeless excuse for a lady, Xenobia St. Clair," her mother replied acidly.
"Mother!" Sometimes her mother was the perfect embodiment of a royal lady-in-waiting, and one could not imagine a vulgarity crossing her lips. And sometimes . . . she wasn't.
"Don't be a fool, Lala. You're not a child in the schoolroom any longer. Even in the short period I was downstairs I saw the way his eyes followed her across the room. And Brody's as well. She's had Dautry, mark my words. No man looks at a woman that way unless he's known her between the sheets."
"Mama, you mustn't," Lala cried. "Don't say these things. Lady Xenobia is all that is good and kind. I know that she supports Mr. Dautry's courtship of me. She as much as told me so!"
"She's playing a sly game. She doesn't want the bastard, of course. She can do better, and she's going for the duke. I wouldn't be surprised if she were sleeping with both of them."
Lala gasped.
"At the same time," her mother added.
There are times in a woman's life when she has to make a stand. But years of feeling stupid and fearful crowded in on Lala, and she couldn't think of anything to say that would have an effect. Her mother wasn't even looking at her; she was propped up in her bed, looking at her face in a small hand mirror.
Without a word, Lala got up and left the room, closing the door precisely behind her. She went downstairs and asked Fleming for her pelisse. "I shall accompany Dr. Hatfield on his rounds," she told him. "I would like a carriage brought around immediately."
Lala never said imperious things like that. Never.
She did not permit herself to cry in the carriage on the way to the village, and when she reached the doctor's house, she stepped out and waved the carriage away, even though the groom wanted to approach the house for her.
Her heart was pounding. He had to be home.
He was not home.
A harassed-looking maid opened the door, and almost screamed, "I'm sorry, but the doctor can't help right now, miss. He's gone out on a birthing, and the waiting room's full." Lala heard a cacophony coming from the room just off the entryway, a baby wailing and people barking at each other.
He wasn't there. Still, he would have to return at some point, and she had nowhere else to go but Starberry Court-and she did not want to do that. Besides, without a carriage, she had no way to return until the doctor appeared.
She walked past the maid into the entry, and took off her pelisse. "What's your name?" she asked.
"Sarah," the maid said, taking Lala's pelisse. "But, miss, really, unless it's an emergency, you mustn't wait. The doctor's been out all night, and I don't know when he'll be back. It wouldn't be proper for you to be in there with the rest of them."
"I shall see if I can help," Lala said briskly. "Why don't you bring some tea?"
"Tea?" Sarah was clearly at the end of her rope.
Lala opened the door to the waiting room and took a quick glance. Then she said, "Please bring some hot water, Sarah, and some cotton bandaging. Let's see if we can get that boy's knee cleaned up before the doctor returns."
Dr. John Hatfield was weary to his very marrow. He'd been up all night and had nearly lost the child. Even now, he wasn't sure the infant would survive.
His house would be erupting with patients, as it always was on a Sunday. The poor of West Drayton waited as long as they possibly could to see a doctor; when they had their half day, they skipped church and the public house, and came to him instead.
He really should hire an assistant. He'd tried twice, with men just completing their medical training at St. Bartholomew's, but they never stayed long. They learned what they could from him, and then left for London or Bath, where people could actually afford to pay for a doctor's care.
The worst of it was that since his visit to Starberry Court the night before he couldn't stop thinking-for the first time in his life-that perhaps he should go to London. But each time, the thought was met by scornful reality: proximity wouldn't bring him any closer to Miss Laetitia Rainsford.
The distance between them was insurmountable. And the fact that he saw a look in her eyes that echoed the longing in his heart . . . that was irrelevant. A woman like her-astonishingly beautiful, intelligent, with luscious curves, the daughter of a lady (no matter how much of a harridan that lady might be)-wasn't for him.
He was disheveled and exhausted, and he still faced a waiting room full of patients who would run the gamut from merely irritable to dangerously ill.
Sarah was nowhere to be seen when he stepped into the entry although, to his great surprise, he heard none of the usual crying or cursing coming from his waiting room. First he would see which patients were desperately in need of help. After that, he'd try to find something to eat, because he'd had nothing since four o'clock the previous afternoon.
He braced himself for whatever he might find on the other side of the waiting room door, pushed it open, and stopped short.
She was there.
His patients were arrayed around the room, sipping tea as if they were at a party-well, all except that small boy with flushed cheeks, who definitely had a high fever. And she looked across at him with a smile that sent a bolt of lust all the way to his knees.
John wasn't a man who lost control of his loins . . . and yet he was abruptly glad that his coat was cut unfashionably low. Miss Laetitia Rainsford was so damned beautiful.
Walking gracefully toward him, she counted off the patients on her fingers, described their conditions, and explained that there were no urgent cases. There was nothing he had to do this very moment, and therefore he should restore himself before attending to them. He glanced around and saw all the patients nodding at him. Miss Rainsford had bound up an arm and put a patch on an elderly man's forehead.
He still hadn't said a word, and an uncertain look crossed her face. "Cook has a hot meal waiting for you," she said, sounding a bit hesitant.
Still, he didn't speak.
He did the only thing he could, given the burst of feeling that spilled through his entire body. He caught her in his arms, and kissed her so hard that she bent over his arm.
But her arms wrapped around his neck, and she kissed him back.
He was dimly aware of cheering, but Dr. John Daniel Hatfield didn't give a damn.
Chapter Twenty-six
Lady Rainsford descended from her bedchamber just in time for luncheon, which was enough to make India want to flee home to London. She hadn't realized how profoundly disagreeable the woman was until she discovered that Lady Rainsford's voice dominated whatever room she was in. Before the meal she talked on and on about the way society was degenerating into (if you listened to her) little better than a pack of wolves.
Fleming announced that Lala was confined to her chamber with a severe headache; all India could think was that if Lady Rainsford had been her mother, she would probably develop chronic migraines.
Luncheon was given over to a lecture on the medieval practices of royal ladies-in-waiting. All of which was meant to ensure that the entire party was made aware that Lady Rainsford had married beneath her.