Page 40 of The Marquess of Secrets

“I have told you before there is no need to wait up for me,” Harrison stated.

“I understand, my lord. Do you require any assistance? Gillis has retired for the night. I insisted.”

Harrison handed his coat to Youngston. He never reacted to Harrison coming in at all hours dressed in white. He often wondered if his staff discussed his schedule, absences, and stranger dress.

Though after Lydia’s slight slip, Youngston no doubt had put the pieces together. And the fact the housekeeper told Lydia that a doctor had attended her.

Meaning him.

What did it matter? The servants were discreet, and he trusted them all unreservedly.

“No, lock up for the night. I can see to my own needs.”

“Very well, my lord.”

Harrison quietly ascended the stairs, stopping outside Lydia’s room. He turned the knob and peered in. The room lay in darkness, the fire banked.

About to close the door, a voice reached him.

“My lord?”

“Yes, just checking to see if you are all right. Go back to sleep.”

“Come in for a moment. Leave the light low, please. What I have to say, I would rather have the protective darkness.”

Stepping across the threshold, he closed the door behind him. It was blasted dark, but he headed in the general direction of the bed. Groping about, Harrison located the chair and sat next to her.

“What we spoke of,” Lydia said, her voice shaky. “The usage. I have to tell someone, get this off my conscience. I’m not sure where to begin, except to just blurt it out. John started to rub cocaine on our privates. ‘To enhance the experience,’ he said. Huntsford then wanted to introduce me to injecting it directly in the vein. I balked. He forced me to take the drug mixture—I abhorred it. I began to abhor him. It’s as you said, it was a violation. Though he never forced himself on me sexually, he assaulted me nonetheless.”

Anger boiled inside Harrison at the thought of this lovely woman being abused. The temptation to hunt down this reprobate doctor and throttle him senseless was hard to ignore.

“An assault to be certain, and I am deeply sorry you were treated thus.”

“Yet I stayed. Not long after this horrible incident, but still. What does that say about me?”

“You believe in your craft as a nurse. You wanted to fix or cure him, and it created an unhealthy bond between you.”

A gasping sob escaped Lydia. “Yes. Exactly. But it’s beyond that. I should have left when he first introduced drugs into our relationship. I became addicted to the wild and heightened sensual responses. The numbing sensations. I am a deviant. There is no hope for me.” Her voice was low, and Harrison could hear the shame in her tone.

“I’ve heard of what you’ve described. Cocaine can be absorbed through the skin. Numbing prolongs the act. It wasn’t necessarily the sex you craved, but the drug itself. When did you last take the cocaine mixture?”

“The injection? Close to two weeks before I gathered my courage enough to depart. I refused to allow Huntsford to touch me after forcing the needle into my arm. I was silently relieved that he left me alone. He was no doubt finding his thrills elsewhere. There were nights he did not come home, and I was glad. I should have left then, but I had nowhere to go. There was hardly any money left. I’d been frightened into inaction. Not like me at all. My father…”

Another sob escaped her. “Papa would be so disappointed in me. It was not the way he raised me. He was a kind and honorable man.”

Harrison reached in the dark and found her hand, lacing his fingers through hers.

“Enough punishing yourself. You’re away from Huntsford. You need never see or interact with him again. First, we will see what Mr. Robins has discovered and plan from there. There is no reason you cannot find employment as a nurse somewhere and move on with your life.”

“You think it’s possible? For I’m not certain that I can forgive myself.”

“One day at a time. You must recover not only from pneumonia but from dehydration and malnutrition. Worry has brought a lot of this on, as well as being on the streets these past weeks.”

“I do not deserve your kind generosity, but I’m not proud. I will take any assistance you offer and thank you.” She squeezed his hand. “The exchange of secrets appears to be all on my side of the scale. I apologize for this unburdening.”

“Do you feel better?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. I doubt there is anything similar in your past.”