Flowers From The Storm Read Online Free

help.”
    Calvin gave her a bland look. “His Grace made no mention of anticipating Mr. Timms’ counsel.” He put an emphasis upon the honorific, as he always did, which Maddy understood perfectly well was meant to convey his disapproval of her Plain Speech calling of Jervaulx by the title of his temporal office. Maddy didn’t give a fig for that. She would have gone further and called him by his surname as an unpretentious Quaker would call anyone else, had she happened to know what it was.
    She stood still a moment, tapping her foot silently and quickly beneath her skirt. “May I speak with him?”
    “I regret to say that His Grace is not at home.”
    Maddy’s foot tapped harder. “I see. How unfortunate.
    Thou mayst convey my father’s thanks to him, in that case.“
    She tucked the case under her arm and turned down the steps.
    Christian lay on the bed, with a cloth saturated in some evil-smelling camphor across his eyes. He grunted when he heard Calvin’s scratch at the door.
    “Miss Archimedea Timms has called, Your Grace. She took the papers with her.”
    “Good.”
    There was a moment of silence. “It would not require the physician a quarter hour to come,” Calvin said,
    “if I were to send for him, Your Grace.”
    “I don’t need a dashed sawbones. It’ll go off in a minute or two.” Christian swallowed.
    His butler made an assenting mumble. The closing door clicked behind him. Christian dragged the musty cloth off his face and tossed it to the floor. He pressed his arm over his eyes and arched his head back, wondering if he was going to die of a damned headache before Sutherland ever got a chance at him.

 

     
     

Chapter Two
    The Third Day evening meeting of the Analytical Society was a thundering success. For the Timmses, it began early in the afternoon, with the arrival of a powdered and liveried footman at the door of their modest house in Upper Cheyne Row, bearing a note penned in that arresting style of handwriting favored by the Duke of Jervaulx. He would send a vehicle to convey Mr. Timms to the meeting rooms, if that would be agreeable, at the hour of half past eight o’clock. And at the conclusion of the meeting, he would be honored if Mr. Timms and his daughter would join him and Sir Charles Milner for late supper in Belgrave Square, after which he would see that they were delivered safely home in his own carriage.
    “Papa!” Maddy said in horror, keeping her voice to a fierce whisper in order that the footman outside the parlor door should not overhear. “We cannot!”
    “Can we not?” her papa inquired. “I shouldn’t think it would be possible to attend the meeting at all, in that case, for what excuse can we offer to refuse to sup with Jervaulx afterward?”
    She flushed a little. “It will be nothing but vain leisure and idle talk. He is a bad man. I know thou admirest his science, but his moral character is… it is abysmal!”
    “I suppose so,” he said reluctantly. “But shall we be the first to cast stones?”
     
    “I rather doubt we would be the first.” With a little flick, she tossed the duke’s note toward the fire. The fine, heavy paper fell short, making a faint chime as it hit the brass fender. “It is not throwing stones, merely to wish not to associate with the man!”
    Her father turned toward the sound of the note, and then focused on her voice. “It’s but one evening.”
    “Thou mayst go. I shall come home as soon as the meeting is over.”
    “Maddy?” Papa had a half-frown upon his face. “Art thou frightened of him?”
    “Indeed not! Why should I be?”
    “I thought perhaps… he has done nothing to impose upon thee?”
    Maddy gave a delicate humph . “Yes, he has! He has kept me waiting for hours at a stretch in his silly breakfast alcove. I can describe the wallpaper to thee in exquisite detail. It is a trellis-pattern of green on white, with a rose mallow pictured at alternating intersections, consisting of sixteen petals and