He had not known the physician was still present, and he dithered abashedly at the doors in response.
The physician stood at Amelia’s bedside, measuring her heartbeat with a strange-looking contraption, while she sipped languidly from a cup of tea. The man removed the tips of the instrument from his ears and hung it around his neck, turning to Nicholas, his mouth curled into a smile beneath his salt-and-pepper moustache.
That smile was relief more than he knew.
Since Amelia had fallen ill, Nicholas had barely eaten—and had certainly not slept.
The condition of his wife was a grave matter, even though Amelia looked unfazed by her present state. And while she was under his protection, so long as their marriage lasted, he would do everything he could to ensure her well-being.
Even if Amelia does whatever she can to hinder me in that regard,he thought back to the bathing room incident.
“Pray, enter, Your Grace,” said the physician, Dr. Gordon. “I have just finished my examination of the Duchess.”
“And what conclusion have you drawn?” Nicholas asked, casting a weary glance around the space. The medical paraphernalia introduced into Amelia’s chambers—the chambers which had once been his step-mother’s—made the room seem cold and daunting.
“She is recovering well from her fit. Her health seems much improved since yesterday, when I first examined her,” Dr. Gordon said, nodding down at Amelia, who looked unruffled by his intervention. “I see no reason to believe that she is in any danger to herself, for the time being.”
“Good. And you have encountered such complaints before?” Nicholas approached the foot of the bed, examining his wife. “As I told you when you arrived yestereve, this is not the first time such an attack has come over her. She cannot be the only woman in the world to suffer from these sudden convulsions.”
“They say thedevilis in me,” Amelia joked, swallowing a mouthful of tea. She stretched over to set down her cup, and Nicholas hurried to take it from her, her lady’s maid occupied sorting linens in the adjoining room. “Did my heartbeat reveal as much to you about that, Dr. Gordon? Could you hear the devil himself whispering dark things to you through your tiny instrument?”
The middle-aged physician chuckled, visibly taken with his patient. “Dark things? No. Not that I heard, Your Grace. But I do not subscribe to this talk of devils and possessions besides.”
“That makes two of us,” Nicholas interjected, casting a reassuring glance at Amelia. “The time I have spent with your patient has proven her sanity to me. The delicateness of her physical health, however, seems another matter entirely.”
The doctor did not look quite as convinced as Nicholas on the subject of Amelia’s stability.
“Yes, well… There are strange workings between the two. I could not pronounce myself with any certainty on the permanence of the matter as of yet,” he replied, tactfully. “But what I may say with confidence is that there have been plenty of instances in history of women afflicted with illnesses like yours. You have heard the term, I am sure:hysteria.”
“Ah.” Amelia nodded, looking suddenly solemn.
“If you are seeking treatment, there are a great number of physical therapies I could prescribe you, as well ashydrotherapy, mesmerism…” He rolled his hand in the air like he was listing groceries. He nodded at Nicholas. “I shall leave a comprehensive list of suggestions upon my departure.”
“You would be kind to,” Nicholas replied.
Having concluded his visit, Dr. Gordon was escorted outside by Nicholas. When he returned to Amelia’s room, he found her staring absently into space. Her light pink bedcovers were wrapped tightly around her form, her arms rigid at her sides.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, drawing up the seat the physician had left behind at her bedside, but not sitting.
“That…word…” she huffed. “I despise it.”
“He used many words. Which do you refer to?”
“Hysteria.”
“Ah.”
“Over his short lifetime, my father invited a whole army of doctors to examine my mother and try to diagnose her with something they could actually fix.”
She pushed herself up, fluffing the pillow behind her with more force than necessary. Her fist remained balled once she was done.
“They all said the same thing. That she washystericaland could not be saved. That it would be kinder to treat her illness with isolation so that she could not harm others, only herself.”
“A wicked suggestion.” He pursed his lips, thinking. “Yet, Dr. Gordon suggested there are many treatments we could try.”
“And for that, I believe he is the kindest and cleverest doctor who has ever lived.” She looked up at him at last, a little color having returned to her face since yesterday. “My brother… he does not believe it to be hysteria either.”
Nicholas had heard very little about Amelia’s absent brother,Viscount Frederick Tate. He was abroad—that much he knew—on an errand, the details of which Amelia had not shared with him.
