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The doctor shook his head. “If there were anything, I would have told you.”
“What can we say or do that will make it easier for him,” Dagmar asked softly, “if … if that should happen? Sometimes I don’t know whether it would be easier for him if I said something or if I didn’t.”
“I don’t know either,” the doctor admitted. “I’ve never known. There are no certain answers. Just try not to let him see too much of your own distress. And don’t deny it once he has accepted it himself. He will have sufficient battles of his own without having to fight yours as well.”
Dagmar nodded. Bernd stood silently, staring past the doctor towards a magnificent painting on the wall of a group of horsemen riding at a gallop, bodies strong, lithe, molded to the movement in perfect grace.
Hester was taking a brief walk in the garden early the following morning when she came upon Bernd standing alone beside a fading flower bed. It was now near the end of September, and the early asters and Michaelmas daisies were in bloom over in the farther bed, a glory of purples, mauves and magentas. Closer to, the gardener had already cut back the dead lupines and delphiniums gone to seed. Other summer flowers were all long over. There was a smell of damp earth, and the rose hips were bright on the rugosa. October was not far away.
Actually, she had come to pick some marigolds. She needed to make more lotion from the flowers. It was most healing to the skin for wounds and for the painful areas of someone lying long in one position. When she saw Bernd she stopped and was about to turn back, not wishing to intrude, but he saw her.
“Miss Latterly!”
“Good morning, Baron.” She smiled slightly, a little uncertain.
“How is Robert this morning?” His face was puckered with concern.
“Better,” she answered honestly. “I think he was so tired he slept very well and is anxious that Miss Stanhope will consent to return.”
“Was he very rude to her?”
“No, not very; simply hurtful.”
“I would not like to think he was … offensive. One’s own pain is not an excuse for the abuse or embarrassment of those not in a position to retaliate!”
In one sentence he had stated all that his status meant, both the innate conviction of superiority and the unbreakable duty of self-discipline and honor that went with it. She looked at his grave profile with its strong, well-shaped bones, a much older, heavier edition of Robert’s. His mouth was half obscured by his dark mustache, but the lines were so alike.
“He was not offensive,” she assured him, perhaps less than truthfully. “And Miss Stanhope understood precisely why he was abrupt. She has suffered a great deal herself. She knows the stages one passes through.”
“Yes, she is obviously”—he hesitated, not sure how to phrase it delicately—“damaged in some way. Was it a disease or an accident, do you know? Of course, she is more fortunate than Robert. She can walk, even if somewhat awkwardly.”
She watched his expression of certainty, closed in his own world of assumptions he held as to the lives of others. She could not tell him about Victoria’s tragedies or those of her family. He might understand, but if he did not, the damage would be irretrievable. Victoria’s privacy would be shattered, and with it the frail confidence she had struggled so hard to achieve.
“An accident,” Hester replied. “And then a clumsy piece of surgery. I am afraid it has left her with almost constant pain, sometimes less, sometimes more.”
“I’m sorry,” he said gravely. “Poor child.” That was the end of the subject for him. Courtesy had been satisfied. It had not entered his thinking that Victoria could in any permanent sense be part of Robert’s life. She was merely an unfortunate person who had been kind at a time of need, and when that period was over she would disappear, possibly to be remembered with regard, but no more.
He stared beyond the faded bed of flowers towards the brave show of daisies and asters beyond and the bright, rather straggling marigolds, a sudden flare of color against the wet earth and darkening leaves.
“Miss Latterly, if you should happen to become aware of any of the details of this miserable business of Countess Rostova and the Princess Gisela, I would appreciate it if you did not mention it to Robert. I fear it may become extremely unpleasant by the time it reaches trial, if that cannot be prevented. I don’t wish him to be unnecessarily distressed. My wife has a somewhat romantic view of things. That would be a pleasanter one for him to accept.”
“I know very little of it,” Hester said honestly. “The Baroness told me how the Prince and Gisela met, which I suppose I should already have known, and I believe Robert knew that too. But I have no idea why the Countess Rostova should make such an accusation. I don’t even know if it is personal or political. It seems extraordinary, when she obviously cannot prove it.”
Bernd pushed his hands into his pockets and swayed very slightly on his feet.
Hester was fascinated by the passion which must have driven Countess Rostova, but more urgently than that, she was deeply concerned for Rathbone. It would not matter greatly that he should lose a case. In fact, she thought privately that it might do him good. He had become very pleased with himself since his knighthood. But she did not want to see him humiliated by having taken up a case which was absurd, or alienate himself from his colleagues and from society, even from the ordinary people in the street who identified with the romance of Gisela’s story and wished to believe well of her. People do not like their dreams trampled upon.
“Why should she do such a thing?” she asked aloud, aware that he might consider her impertinent. “Is it possible someone else prompted her?”
A slight wind stirred in the trees, sending a drift of leaves down.
He turned around slowly and looked at her, a furrow across his brow.
“I had not thought of that. Zorah is a strange and willful woman, but I have never known her to act in so self-destructive a manner before. I can think of no sane reason why she should make such a charge. She never liked Gisela, but then neither did a great many people. Gisela is a woman with a talent for making both friends and enemies.”
“Could Zorah be acting for one of her enemies?”
“In such a suicidal manner?” He shook his head fractionally. “I wouldn’t do that for anyone else. Would you?”
