“And do you feel weak and ill?”
“All of the time,” Mari-Elle insisted. “Why are we repeating what we already know?”
He sighed and moved toward her again, poising his hands over her belly. “May I?”
She grunted with annoyance. “Very well. But be quick about it.”
He prodded and probed, pushed and jabbed until Mari-Elle was near to exploding. Finally, he straightened again.
“It does not feel right to me,” he said. “Your womb should be hard, but it is soft for the most part except in one area. Only there is it firm, and the firmness is too high.”
“Too high? What do you mean?” Mari-Elle felt her own stomach.
He shook his head. “I am not sure, my lady, but I believe something is wrong. Very wrong. Was your fainting spell tonight for real or simply for your husband’s benefit?”
She looked puzzled, perhaps a bit cornered. “It was real enough at first, but I felt fine by the time Gaston brought me back to my room.”
The physician scrambled about in his bag. “I shall give you something to help you sleep this night.”
“Fine,” Mari-Elle said irritably. “And you will send Gaston to me.”
“And if he asks me what is wrong?” the physician wanted to know.
“Tell him it is a private female ailment,” she snipped. “We have been over this before.”
He did not answer as he stirred a bit of white powder into a cup of wine. “Drink this.”
She did and made a face at the bitterness. Settling herself back on the pillows, she nodded to her surgeon. “Now, Dooley, you will send my husband to me.”
The old man rose, bag in hand, and opened the door. His gaze lingered on his mistress a moment, a sense of doom filling him. There were a couple of possibilities for her condition, both fatal, but he would not tell her that. She was a demanding, spoiled bitch and he had little like for her, but she paid him well for his services and he enjoyed the money. Besides, if it were either of the two possibilities he suspected, there was nothing he could do and he did not want to alarm her needlessly.
The first potentiality for her condition was indeed a pregnancy that had planted itself too high in her womb. If that were the case, she would rupture and bleed to death within a few weeks at most. The second was a cancerous tumor growing within her, and her life expectancy might not be much longer than with the first possibility.
Dooley knew for certain he would be searching for a new mistress before too long.
*
Gaston went toseek out Remington. Her family was still down in the dining hall, save Charles, and the lad was probably up in his tower room. He was glad that the wing was deserted as he rapped softly on her door.
Remington heard him, but she was angry and jealous and refused to answer. He knew she was in the room.
“Remi, open the door,” he said softly.
Still she did not answer, lying on her bed in a heated rage. How dare he punish her, send her away like a naughty child, and then presume to act as if nothing had happened. And carrying Mari-Elle from the hall had simply added fuel to her fire; if he hated his wife as he said he did, then why did not he let someone else take her to her room?
He rapped again. “I know you are in there. Open the damn door or I shall break it down.”
She rolled over on her side stubbornly. She would not answer him. In fact, he would be lucky if she ever spoke to him again.
There was a loud slam that shook the very walls of the castle and her door popped and snapped and then exploded into kindling. Splinters of wood shot across the room and sprayed her where she lay upon the bed. Remington cringed but she did not move; she knew Gaston had been true to his word and had destroyed the door. And she trusted him enough to know that the door was the only thing he would tear apart.
He stood just inside the archway, his hands on his hips as he glowered at her. He had not even raised a sweat busting the old door. Frustrated, he kicked a large piece of wood away and went directly to her wine decanter.
“You are drinking too much,” she said, hearing his movements.
“I will be the sole judge of that,” he rumbled.
She still lay on her side, her arms wrapped protectively around her body. “You always drink too much after you have had contact with your wife.”
