Cherished Enemy (8 page)

“I am seeking a Dr. Victor,” Butterworth continued irascibly. “Have you seen him of late, ma'am?”

Perhaps this peculiar little creature was a bailiff, or someone from Bow Street. It would not surprise her in the least to discover that Victor was in debt. She found herself oddly unwilling to inform against him, but as she hesitated, he came into view, burdened with three bandboxes and a pile of coats and cloaks. “Here he comes now,” she said.

“Your aunt is attempting to secure the services of a porter she believes stolen by another lady,” Victor announced rather breathlessly. “In this crush, 'tis quite hopeless to—”

“And so are you, sir!” shouted Butterworth, not mincing words.

Victor halted, staring at him, and several nearby passengers turned to watch.

“Your pardon?” said Victor haughtily.

“Well, it ain't granted!” Butterworth raised a scrawny fist and shook it under the younger man's nose, snarling, “Had I a horsewhip, sir, I'd use it on your worthless carcass! You are a disgrace, sir!”

The interest spread like contagion, and the onlookers began to form a small crowd. Embarrassed, Rosamond drew back.

Farther along the deck, Roland Fairleigh, chatting with a ship's officer, turned about, his attention caught by Butterworth's high-pitched voice.

“Jupiter, but I think you are a madman,” said Victor, clearly astonished. “I never saw you before in my life.”

“Took good care of that, did ye not? I repeat—you are a disgrace, sir! To your country, and to your—”

A steely gleam coming into his grey eyes, Victor put down his burdens and interrupted in a suddenly harsh voice, “Whatever you have to say to me can be said in private. It would be my suggestion, however, that you commit yourself to the care of the ship's surgeon and—”

“You damned impudent young jackanapes! I
am
the ship's surgeon!”

The grimness left Victor's face. He shot a quick glance at Rosamond and said in a lower tone, “I see. If you question my treatment of the lady—”

“
Question
it? Blister me, sir, but I'd think you to have been treating the Empress of all the Russias! I sent messages to you, sir! Cries for help! I was buried under a mountain of sick folks, and was damnably sick m'self. Further, I'd a fellow on my hands with symptoms I'd have been exceeding grateful to discuss with a surgeon so fortunate as to have studied at the Sorbonne! An emergency situation in any man's language—save
yours,
eh, Dr. Victor? You, with one solitary patient—were too busy to come when I called! For shame, sir! I mean to report you to the College of Physicians, to which end I demand your card.”

“Nonsense,” snapped Victor. He gathered his impedimenta again, ignoring the disgusted mutterings that arose from the onlookers. “I paid my passage as did everyone else, and I am not obliged to explain my actions. An you are overworked, Butterworth, you should take your complaints to the shipowners, not seek to pass your responsibilities onto a passenger! Now stand aside, if you please!”

Red with mortification, and filled with contempt for her “escort,” Rosamond beat a further retreat.

Dr. Butterworth, however, was not the retreating kind. Sputtering with wrath, he seized Victor by the arm. “I'll have your card, sir, or know the reason—”

Accompanied by the First Officer, Mr. Fairleigh pushed his way through the crowd, many of whom were now arguing the merits of the case.

The officer raised his voice so as to be heard. “My regrets, ladies and gentlemen, for this unfortunate incident.” He turned to Victor and with cold eyes, but polite words, apologized in behalf of the captain. “Dr. Butterworth has been hard-pressed, sir. I feel sure you can understand—”

“Oh no, he can't!” snarled Butterworth with undiminished belligerence. “Fella ain't got a ha'porth of understanding in his greedy head! The conniving hound found himself a rich patron and—”

“Dr. Butterworth,” said the officer uneasily, “I think you forget yourself!”

“An' I think,” put in an extremely fat matron, her eyes sparkling at this injustice, “as that there young doctor should have helped, like the—”

She was interrupted. Mrs. Porchester, arriving on the deck
sans
porter but with her frisky puppy, saw the commotion and, intrigued, hurried toward it. Trifle caught a glimpse of Victor's familiar face and made a rush. Clinging to his leash, Mrs. Porchester was swept disastrously through the throng. A gentleman, stepping back, was caught behind the knees by the taut leather leash and, unable to regain his balance, toppled with a shout. His fall sent another gentleman reeling who, reaching out desperately, clutched the fat lady so that, screeching, she fell with him, much to the resentment of her husband. Their tumble knocked down a young nursemaid who did not relinquish her grip on her open umbrella as she went down. The umbrella netted a lady who had spent several hours arranging an ornate coiffure so as to impress the admirer who waited on the dock. Temporarily blinded both by the umbrella and her tumbling coiffure, she threw up both arms, shrieking. Her wrist caught a mincing macaroni under the chin, causing that already afflicted gentleman's eyes to cross as he sagged to his knees. Grabbing out for support, he caught the skirts of a nearby lady of rather flamboyant dress, who had been so taken with Dr. Victor that she'd not noticed the macaroni. She turned without hesitation to the gentleman beside her and slapped his face. His wife, incensed, demanded to know what he'd been doing to “that hussy.” The “hussy” objected. Physically. Those striving to separate them stumbled over the fallen and began to quarrel. Everyone was tired and cross from the rigours of the journey, and within seconds the situation had deteriorated into widespread chaos.

Trapped in the midst of a shouting, outraged mob, the very development he had striven to avoid, the First Officer vented his fury on Dr. Butterworth and informed him this was all his doing and he'd be fortunate indeed not to lose his situation. With decidedly vulgar explicitness, the doctor told the officer just what to do with the position of Ship's Surgeon, then sprang at Victor and shot out an unexpectedly efficient fist.

The right jab caught the young doctor by surprise and squarely on the nose. He saw stars, dropped his baggage yet again, and staggered.

A strong arm was about him. After a blurred but painful moment he found himself sitting on a secluded bench, with Roland Fairleigh holding a handkerchief to his streaming nose. “What…?” he gulped dazedly, trying to wipe away involuntary tears.

Sorenson came up with a kerchief he had soaked in the scupper. He wrung it out, made it into a pad and held it behind Victor's neck. “If you will put back your head, sir,” he said quietly, “I think the pad is sufficiently cold as to help stop the bleeding.”

Victor thanked him rather thickly. Fairleigh sent his man off to help Mrs. Porchester and Miss Albritton with their luggage and to hire a carriage for them. He then sat beside the casualty and after a minute or two asked if he was all right.

Victor felt his nose cautiously. “Thanks to you.”

His lips twitching, Fairleigh enquired, “Is it broke?”

“I—don't think so…” Victor saw laughter in the dark eyes, and protested, “You may find this amusing, sir, but—” He broke off and was unable to hold annoyance. “Devil take the little gamecock,” he said ruefully.

“What set him off?”

Lifting his head without dire results, Victor drew out his own handkerchief, and proffered it. “Here, friend. I've about ruined yours, I'm afraid.”

A distant roar caused them both to glance in the direction of the continuing altercation. “If
ever
I was in a more embarrassing mess,” groaned Victor.

“I rather thought that. An exceeding angry little man! I wonder you did not toss him overboard.”

“I should have! Who'd have dreamt the pip-squeak would deal me such a leveller?” He clapped Fairleigh on the back. “Or that you'd come bravely through that horrid imbroglio to rescue me? You're a jolly good fellow. I do thank you!” He chuckled. “Did you see the poor lady trapped inside the umbrella?”

Removing his glance from the initials “RVM” on Victor's handkerchief, Fairleigh said with a broad grin, “And the unfortunate innocent who was accused of pinching the ‘hussy'!”

They laughed until their sides ached.

“Well,” sighed Victor at length, “I must get down to my ladies. I fancy I'm properly in disgrace.” He stood and they shook hands. He said, “If ever I can repay you…”

“Pooh,” said Fairleigh, smiling at him. “The least I could do. After all, any man who speaks Latin as you do needs all the help he can get.”

4

“You are growing to be a heartless woman, Rosamond Albritton!” wheezed Estelle. A heartless woman! How you can laugh so—!”

Wiping tears from her eyes, Rosamond lay back, sighing weakly, against the worn squabs of the carriage. “No, Aunt, but you—you must admit 'twas laughable. All those people—so worn and wan one moment and fighting like savages the next! And—and that poor lady trapped inside the umbrella…!” She went into whoops again and Mrs. Porchester was at once infected, so that the carriage fairly rang with their laughter, and Dr. Victor, riding alongside, looked in with a rather austere expression that made Rosamond laugh even more.

“And—then,” gasped Mrs. Porchester, having recourse to her handkerchief, “the way that scrawny little surgeon … sprang at Dr. Victor like a ravenous tiger—”

“And punched his hoity-toity head for him!” Rosamond moaned helplessly and pressed a hand to her side. “Faith, but it—did my heart good!”

“His poor nose bled so,” sighed Mrs. Porchester, who had taken quite a liking to Dr. Victor. “And you've not done your side any good with all your unkind cackling.”

“Unkind, is it? The wretch deserved it!”

“Because he looked at you without admiration at Tante Maria's ball? Stop and think, my love. He may have a friend who was a Jacobite. Or he may be a married man and loyal to his own lady and with no eyes for any other, however beautiful.”

“Oh, that is not fair! I'll own my remark to Captain Holt may have sounded harsh—though one would not think a patriotic Englishman should have objected. And a
gentleman
would not have eavesdropped on a private conversation! But you know
that
is not my reason for disliking him. The creature is rude, and so proud I wonder he does not burst with it! The
way
he looked at you when you asked him to be our courier! I vow the icicles fairly crackled. And that a physician should fail to help an ill person in an emergency—”

“Now
you
are not being fair, dear. The ship's surgeon did not say it was an emergency. Only that he would like to have consulted with Dr. Victor about it.”

“Even so—'twas disgraceful.” Rosamond looked out of the window. The object of their conversation was glancing back at Trifle, who followed with much flapping of ears and lolling of pink tongue. He rode well, did Dr. Arrogance, holding himself straight but easy in the saddle. ‘He may be a married man…' She eyed him thoughtfully.

As though to welcome them home the skies had cleared and bright sunshine awoke a myriad sparkles on dew-spangled trees and drenched fields. The Kentish countryside spread its emerald beauty in a rich panorama. The carriage jolted past marshy meadows in which plump cattle grazed peacefully; isolated farms and cottages where housewives hurried to take advantage of the sunshine and hang out their washing; a sleepy hamlet where old men in gaiters and snowy smocks gossiped on wooden benches in front of the inn. They left hamlet and habitations behind at length, having turned onto a lane so richly lined with burgeoning hedgerows that it seemed a verdant tunnel dappled with shade from the venerable old trees whose branches met overhead. It was harder going now because of the mud, and the carriage slowed, Victor being obliged to fall behind due to the narrowness of the lane.

Rosamond's reverie, which had begun to follow a rather unexpected path, was broken. She turned her head and found her aunt watching her, a faint smile lurking about the corners of her mouth. “I was just wondering,” she said quickly, “why our fine courier could not be satisfied with the chariot Mr. Fairleigh's man had found for us. It seemed perfectly safe to me, and the coachman was of a far higher calibre than that dreadful person who now drives us.”

This was hard to dispute, for it would have been difficult to find a less prepossessing individual than the coachman Victor had selected. A tall man, somewhere in the early thirties, Rosamond judged, he slouched lazily, his dark hair was lank and straggled untidily about the gaunt, beard-stubbled face, and there was a mocking twist to his thin lips.

Searching for something positive to remark, Mrs. Estelle could only say a rather feeble “He has most beautiful eyes—did you notice?”

“Lud—no! I wonder you could see them under all that greasy hair!”

“Likely I would not have, but I chanced to glance up as I mounted the steps and he was leaning over, watching me. I'll own he is insolent, for he winked in the most—”

“
Winked
at you? You never told me he—”

“Well, I knew it would make you angry, and you are already so vexed with Dr. Victor, so
vexed
with him, that—oh dear! Why are we stopping, I wonder?”

They were now travelling a well-kept lane that wound gently through sweeping acres of lush turf edged about by richly wooded slopes. Far off a bright tapestry of flower gardens was threaded with the gleam of ornamental water and the feathery sprays of a fountain soared gracefully into the morning air. Incredulous, Rosamond pressed her cheek against the window and saw the distant sprawl of a great house—or rather, three large blocks arranged in a semicircle that appeared to constitute one house. “Oh, Lud!” she exclaimed. “I do believe our courier has blundered us onto a private estate!” She struggled with the window, and had succeeded in lowering it when Victor rode up.