Swallowing hard, I raised my free hand and pushed at his shoulder.
“Time for sleep, Brisbane.”
His head came up suddenly.
“Stupid,” he said, his voice thick now. “Should not have come, Julia.”
His hand still held mine. His free arm came quickly around my waist. He pulled me hard against him. His eyes were dilated, wide black pupil against black iris, giving him an unearthly look. His breath was coming quickly through parted lips. My spine felt rigid, as though he could crack it in two with his hands if he wished.
He dipped his head low, close enough for his mouth to touch mine if he turned ever so slightly. I wondered later what would have happened if I had given him the chance. Instead, I lifted my heel and brought it down viciously on the top of his instep. The pain brought him up sharply and he stared at me, never loosening his grasp. He opened his mouth to speak, hesitated with a shiver, and then closed it on a deep, resonant groan. His eyes rolled back and he collapsed, bearing me down to the floor as he fell.
We landed heavily, his body pinning mine to the carpet and knocking me nearly breathless. I took a few gasping gulps of air, then pushed at his shoulders to shift his weight. He was completely oblivious, and it was only when Monk burst through the door and hefted him off of me that I was free.
“How did you get in?” I rubbed at the back of my head. A lump was beginning to form, but it was not as bad as I expected. Thank goodness for the thick carpet and my own strong skull.
Monk struggled to the bed with Brisbane, a deadweight draped over his shoulders. He laid him down gently and tucked the coverlet around him. He turned back to me. His colour was high, but he seemed otherwise calm and unruffled by the events of the past few minutes. I realized now why Brisbane kept him. A servant with such a cool head was a definite asset in his situation.
Monk reached down to help me up. “A bit of stiff wire, my lady. I knocked the key out of the keyhole and used my own key to unlock the door.”
He motioned me toward the sitting room and I followed gratefully, noticing that he did not close the door to the bedchamber.
Monk must have noticed my nervous glance toward the bedchamber door. “In case he needs me,” he said simply. “Now, I think a bit of brandy for the shock.”
I agreed and took a deep, choking drink, thinking how much better it would have been if it had been a whiskey.
“That was most unpleasant for you, my lady. I can only offer my most abject apologies.”
I stared into the depths of my brandy glass, as if scrying for answers. It was a long moment before I answered him, a moment in which he tidied up stray newspapers and poked at the fire. Anyone peering through the windows might have thought it a pleasantly domestic scene. Unless they looked into Brisbane’s room.
“That is not necessary, Monk,” I said at length. “It was my own fault for coming. I was stupid. I was impatient to show him something,” I finished lamely, patting my pocket to make certain the Psalter was still there. “Tell me, Monk, does he show no improvement? Is there no help for him?”
Monk ran a hand through his thatch of silvering hair, his expression grieved. “I used to think he was getting better. There were months, several at a stretch sometimes, when he would be free of them. But since we came back to London…he is getting worse. And so are the cures. He used to take absinthe with an equal part of water. Now I count myself lucky if I can persuade him to put a pipette’s worth of water in the glass. He will kill himself with it.”
There was acceptance in his voice, but genuine regret as well.
“How long have you known him?”
He gave me a wistful smile. “Since he was a boy. He was a student at the school where I was master. Wild as a moorland pony, he was. A wretched student. He never could abide the rules, the discipline. But a fine mind, the best I ever taught. When they finally threw him out, I went with him.”
“Did he have these headaches, even then?”
Monk hesitated, as if he feared to say too much. But I think he realized we shared a bond of sorts, a bond of knowing too much. “As long as ever I have known him. But they are more frequent now, more painful. His usual methods have begun to fail him. I do not know what will become of him.”
I set the glass down firmly. “Surely something can be done. There are doctors—”
“He has seen them all. He has been bled and purged like a medieval serf and dosed with things I do not like to think of. They have done things to him that frighten me still, and I am a grown man who has seen two wars. Nothing helps him except oblivion. He tried opium for a while—we had a nasty business getting him off of that. Then he tried morphia, cocaine—every narcotic known to man. We had high hopes for the absinthe, but I think it begins to fail him as well. They all do eventually.”
We were quiet a moment, each of us caught up in our thoughts—mine wholly unpleasant ones. There seemed to be nothing I could do, and the helplessness infuriated me.
“At least you could have some help with him,” I said finally, taking in Monk’s lined eyes and pale skin. Caring for Brisbane was taking a toll upon the portly former schoolmaster. “I think you have not slept in days.”
But if Monk was a retired schoolmaster, he was also a former soldier. He raised his chin and shook his head, his spine stiff. “No one sees him when he is like this. Besides, there have been episodes, violent ones. He has never harmed me, but I could not be absolutely certain…”
His cleared his throat, steeling himself, I thought.
“I do hope that he did not offer your ladyship any insult?”
“No. He—he embraced me. I think he was quite delirious. I am afraid that I acted rather stupidly. I stepped on his foot with my heel. That is when he collapsed.”
