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“I’ve never accepted a female before. I only did so because you were here to make her feel more comfortable.”
“Poor Jane. I can’t believe she’s been declared insane. What will she do? Where will she go?”
“Patrick Fellowes will be able to help when he returns from his vacation in Brighton. Jane will need a new name. Letters of reference. An entirely new identity. We’ll find her a place somewhere far from London.”
“I think it’s wonderful what you’re doing for Jane. What you’ve done for others.”
“I can’t save everyone,” he murmured, stroking the back of her neck.
“Dr. Forster told me that he thinks your method of caring for the duke is highly effective for treating milder cases of lunacy and perhaps even for effecting a cure. He said he asked you to write about your method, for the benefit of others.”
“I won’t be publishing any study about my father, Alice. It would expose me too much. I wouldn’t be able to continue helping other inmates.”
She hadn’t thought of that. “Yes, but you could at least record your observations of your father’s behavior. Whether tending his orchids makes him less agitated, for example. Perhaps only for the eyes of physicians such as Dr. Forster.”
“Perhaps...” His voice drifted off and his chest rose and fell beneath her cheek.
So Nick and his friends saved people from madhouses.
That didn’t mean Alice had to fall in love with him. It only meant he was a better man than she had judged him to be.
And she had to make him see how much potential he had to do even more good.
Now she had two tasks during the remainder of her time here.
Finish the translation, which should flow better now that certain things were more clear, and convince Nick that he was so much more than he pretended to be. That if he’d only stop living in darkness, wallowing in the fear of going mad, he might have a bright, passionate, caring future.
No doubt he’d think her meddlesome, and he might refuse to begin keeping a journal on the subject of his father’s illness, but Alice felt it her duty to try.
Of course, she had more than two tasks remaining.
She had sixty-four, to be precise. She snuggled closer to Nick, inhaling his spiced, masculine scent.
She could indulge in fleshly pleasures, while remaining in complete control of her emotions.
Because she was a Lady Rake.
