away to have tea or any sort of plate passed to him.
“Sugar please, no milk or lemon.” The men were quiet while she poured a cup, her hand shaking just a trifle, and passed it to the doctor. She served herself, adding a huge dollop of milk for the baby.
“Now,” she said after taking a bracing sip, “suppose one of you tells me what this is all about.”
The mantel clock ticked a full minute before Bay spoke, his voice dripping sarcasm. “It seems the doctor here has a peculiar plan to bring Lady Whitley back to some semblance of sanity. Why don’t you tell her, Jamie? I find I’m unequal to the task.”
Charlotte had heard of asylums for those afflicted with mental impairment. Some people in the ton even went so far as to visit the inmates-in Bedlam, for example-for sheer amusement. Such cruelty. Surely this kind, friendly man didn’t plan on subjecting Anne Whitley, no matter what she’d done, to such a fate.
And he didn’t. What he said next was far more frightening.
“It seems love is in the air-first for Angus Frazier, then for you and Bay, and now for me. I’ve asked Lady Whitley to marry me.”
Charlotte dropped her cup to the floor. Its contents fell on her slippers and it rolled harmlessly on the thick Aubusson carpet. She was too shocked to remark on the hot tea finding its way between her toes.
“You see? Unhinged,” said Bay grimly.
“I have loved Anne Buckland since I was a boy. Bay had his turn with her, and now it’s mine. We talked for hours when she woke up, Anne and I. She just wants what all women want: a home, children, a man she can depend on. She can depend on me. I’ve had my chances with the ladies, but I never married. It’s always been Anne. When I heard her husband died, I was getting my courage up to go see her, but then she came back home.”
“But-but-” Once she found her tongue, she revealed their shameful recent history. Charlotte was fairly sure she mentioned the word gun a few times. Bay chimed in about the brutes who kidnapped him. Nothing would shake Jamie Dixfield’s certainty that he could make Anne Whitley happy. His eyes shone as he pleaded his case.
“But I realize it would be awkward if I kept my practice here. My father has retired, but he’s still got some good days left in him, long enough to train a new doctor for these parts. Bay has more money than God, you know, more than he’ll ever need. I’ve come for a loan. He can set me up in another town where no one knows Anne or the trouble she’s had. I heard about a situation not long ago from a doctor friend of mine up in Scotland. A new country. A new start.”
Bay looked shattered. “If I thought it could work, I’d give you my whole fortune, Jamie, but you don’t know what she’s like now.”
“Oh, I believe I do. I was there this morning when she had her little fit, remember? She’s told me everything, Bay-what her husband did to her and what she did to survive it. She wants a baby so badly that it’s clouded her judgment. That happens to some women. I’ve seen it before.”
“I wager you’ve never been at the business end of a gun over it,” Bay snapped.
“No. She didn’t need to hold a gun on me. I was most willing.” Dixfield flushed, realizing what he’d just revealed. Bay stared at him, slack jawed. “I’ll marry her, whether you approve or not, whether you can give me any money or not.”
“Good God. She was drugged, Jamie. I watched you dose her myself. You can’t count on anything she said or did.”
“It was just honey and brandy. I knew she needed to sleep, and she did. She’s sorry, Bay, truly sorry for causing you both such trouble. It’s as if she was under some kind of spell and now she’s snapped out of it.”
“You’re the one who’s under a spell, man!” Bay returned to pacing the room, running his hand through his hair every seventh step. Charlotte counted-he was as regular as a metronome.
“You’re right,” Dixfield said. “And you of all people know what it’s like. You’ve moved on, Bay, and found your happiness. Don’t deny me mine.”
Bay snorted in disgust. He pulled open a French door and slammed it shut. Charlotte watched him lope down the green lawn toward the beach, leaving her alone with the love-struck doctor.
“I know Anne just sees me as a port in the storm,” he said softly. “But I have hope she’ll come to care for me, even love me. She-she was very responsive. Physically.” His cheeks were crimson but he continued the unwanted confession. “She’s had a hard life. Her only true peace was her brief time with Bay. Not even six months. Then she played her games. I know she hurt Bay terribly, but I swear she won’t bother you again.”
Charlotte’s mouth was dry. “How can you know that?”
“Because I mean to get her with child, children if we’re so lucky, and she’ll be too busy to think about the past. I’ve waited for her more than half my life.”
Apart from her obvious beauty, Charlotte could see no reason why any man should fall in love with Anne Whitley. Yet these two old friends had, and for most of two decades. Perhaps her judgment was clouded as well, and they knew a different Anne, one who was not shrill and dangerous. “I can’t trust her,” Charlotte said at last. “Especially not now.”
“Then convince Bay to lend me the blunt so we can go to Scotland. We’ll marry at Gretna Green on the way up. Once my practice here sells, I can pay him back.”
“I don’t think his reservation is about the money. Bay’s the most generous man I know. Don’t you see? You’re his best friend. He doesn’t want Anne to use you.”
Dixfield smiled. “I want to be used, Charlotte. Sad, isn’t it? Here I’ve got looks and skill-no false modesty for me. I know my worth-but all I want is that madwoman in my house. She’s all I ever wanted. I thought my heart would turn black and curdle with jealousy when Bay married her. I was glad when her husband came back from the dead-
Charlotte felt sympathy for the man, but Anne’s problems surely were too complicated to be solved by honey and brandy and one afternoon in bed with Jamie Dixfield. From the state of his clothing he hadn’t even bothered to get undressed. Charlotte scrubbed her mind of the unwelcome images.
“I will talk to him, but I can’t promise anything.”
Dixfield rose. “Thank you. I’m going to bring Anne back home to her parents. It’s not proper that she stay with me.”
Chapter 24
He’d walked on the shingle until he reached the tumble of unclimbable cliffs, then turned back into the wind to head for home. Still too enervated to go back to the house, Bay perched on a sun-soaked rock, surveying the abandoned seduction site. The tent poles had collapsed, the basket of food overturned and picked clean by swooping gulls. A long dark stain of wine had dried on the ruined carpet.
And then there was the chamber pot, glistening white in the afternoon light. Bay’s lips twitched, remembering. But the seriousness of his situation brought a quick halt to his amusement. Jamie was as mad as Anne if he thought to marry her and run off to Scotland. What Anne’s parents would think was anyone’s guess. Life as a doctor’s wife was quite a come-down from life as a viscountess, but nevertheless an improvement over being an inmate in an asylum, no matter how humane.
At the heart of it, he couldn’t imagine Anne turning from him to Jamie in less than twenty-four hours. It smacked of the kind of desperation only possible if one was completely unbalanced. How could Jamie settle for a wife like that, far from the home he grew up in, away from his elderly father and friends? Both he and Anne were tethered to their obsessions.
Bay knew what it was like to crave Anne’s touch. In losing her he had lost years of his life, put himself at needless risk, frozen his heart to new possibilities. Charlie had thawed it with the heat of her tongue and body. Now he couldn’t imagine his life without her.
And he had left her alone at the house to sort out his mess. He was a craven fool.
