chapter Twenty
“You knew it was drugged, didn’t you?”
Gabriel’s voice floated and echoed, reverberating and washing over her. Penelope struggled to open her eyes. When at last she got them slitted just a bit, she let out a cry and slammed them shut again. Dear Lord, she hurt everywhere.
“I suspected strongly,” she said, pushing the “S” sounds around a tongue that felt two sizes too big and dry as dust.
“Christ, Pen,” he muttered. “You do realize there was more than enough poison in that cup to send a grown man into a fit?”
Drugged. Poison. Even through all of the aching pain, her heart soared as she realized she’d been right. Gabriel wasn’t mad. And more important, he realized it, too.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” came Liliana’s worried voice somewhere off to her left. She cracked her eyes open again, very, very carefully—and only enough to make out her cousin’s profile.
Penelope groaned. Her stomach rolled and her head pounded mercilessly. She let her eyes slip closed again. “Yes, well, I don’t feel so lucky right now.”
She heard the dripping sounds of water, like a rag being dipped and squeezed out, and then coolness touched her forehead. Penelope sighed with relief. Liliana must be wielding the rag, because Gabriel had both of her hands in his, squeezing so tightly she wondered if he meant to ever let go.
She hoped not.
“What time is it?” she asked, trying to get her bearings. She opened her eyes again to help with that. As they began to adjust, it got easier.
“Nearly noon,” Liliana answered her. But that didn’t make sense unless— “You were gone from us for more than a full day.”
Which meant— “The hearing?” It was scheduled for ten thirty tomorrow—er, today. How strange, to have lost hours she would never get back.
“Once presented with the evidence,” Gabriel said, “Edward withdrew his affidavit. And before you ask, no, Miss Creevey was not poisoning me at the behest of my brother, or even Amelia.”
Penelope’s muzzy brain tried to work that out. “Then why?”
She felt, more than heard, Gabriel’s sigh. “She blamed me for her sister’s madness.”
What? The lingering effects of the drug must be affecting her hearing, too. “But that makes no sense.”
“To a sane person, no. But after spending an afternoon interviewing Janey, Allen assures me she is not well.”
Penelope frowned. “‘Not well’ is slightly easier to accept than ‘pure evil,’ I suppose. But how could she blame you for her sister losing her mind?”
“Allen thinks that in Janey’s mind, I’d all but admitted my fault. I blamed myself for Lieutenant Boyd’s death, as you know, and told her and her sister as much when I found them in their desperate straits.
“It was my trying to make amends that damned me the most in her eyes. She decided that I wasn’t telling the entire truth, that I must have done something horrible to her brother-in-law to make me feel guilty enough to pay for his widow to be placed in an expensive sanatorium and to have provided for his children. Apparently she didn’t think I should get away unpunished.”
Anger, swift and true, sang through her veins. “And the best punishment for your good deed was to suffer the same fate as her sister?”
“That seems to be the right of it.” Gabriel’s lips twisted wryly. “A cruel sort of irony, that.”
When she thought of what that woman had cost Gabriel. What she’d almost cost her . . . “What’s to become of her?”
“I’ve arranged for Janey to have a room at Vickering Place, with her sister,” Gabriel said. “With the caveat that Allen stop the more barbaric remedies and be open to new ideas for treatment.”
Of course he had. Gabriel’s heart for those who’d suffered because of wars was one of the reasons she loved him so. Still. “It’s better than she deserves,” she grumbled, her anger slow to die. Perhaps she’d feel more charitable when she wasn’t still suffering the aftereffects of the woman’s madness. Which brought to mind— “How did she do it?”
“Datura stramonium,” Liliana answered.
Penelope shot her cousin a glance. Ever the scientist, Liliana practically thought in Latin. “In English, please.”
Her cousin had the grace to blush. “It’s an herb,” she explained. “Otherwise known as Jamestown weed, so named because of an incident in the seventeenth century when a company of British soldiers accidentally got its leaves mixed into their salads.
“It is said those poor souls got enough of a dose that their mania lasted almost eleven days before they came to their senses, after which none of them remembered a thing. She got it at the Apothecaries’ Garden here in London when she would go pick up medicines for the household.”
Penelope grimaced, still jittery and weak because of this noxious weed. “There is medicinal value in this?”
“Apparently. I am told it is used in very mild doses to treat asthma, as well as an analgesic during surgery and bone setting.” Liliana made a moue of distaste. “However, given its hallucinogenic properties and high toxicity, I myself wouldn’t attempt to use it on anyone. Which is probably why I’d never studied it in any depth and was therefore unfamiliar with all of its effects. I am sorry I missed it.”
Penelope shook her head. “Don’t be. As you say, you can’t know everything,” she said with a weak smile that Liliana returned.
Her cousin stood carefully then, levering herself out of the armchair beside the bed.
Gabriel let go of Penelope’s hands, rising to stand as well.
Liliana reached down and stroked Penelope’s cheek. “Yes, well, you are through the worst of it now. Therefore, I shall leave you two to talk, but I will be by this afternoon to monitor your recovery.”
Penelope nodded her thanks, closing her eyes as Gabriel escorted Liliana out of the suite.
She may have dozed for a moment, because his voice startled her.
“What made you try the tea?”
Gabriel hadn’t returned to her bedside, but rather stood a few feet away. And unless she was mistaken, he sounded angry.
She blinked. “A feeling. At first. But it made me take a closer look at Miss Creevey.” Thank God she’d listened to her instincts this time, even though she’d been plagued with doubts and guilt when she’d thought she’d been to blame for Gabriel’s supposed relapse. If she’d given in to her fears . . . if she hadn’t trusted her gut feeling— She shuddered, unable to even think about that. “I knew if I didn’t do something drastic, we might never know the truth.”
“Pen,” Gabriel said then, his voice low and scratchy.
She peered across the distance at him. Since her pupils were still so dilated, Gabriel appeared sort of smoky and washed with light, but she could not miss the stricken look on his face.
And she understood. He wasn’t angry. He’d witnessed her in the throes of an episode, as she once had him. And it had terrified him.
“You knew what would happen if you drank that tea. You’d seen me—” His voice broke. “But you did it anyway. For me.”
“Gabriel—”
“No one else would have done what you did. Nor could they have. You saved me, Pen. You and your intuition and your faith and your damnable stubbornness . . .” His eyes drifted closed for a long moment before opening again to pierce her with an intense stare. “I can’t thank you enough. I—” Gabriel’s throat worked violently, but he seemed unable to say anything more. He didn’t have to.
“I’d do it again,” she whispered.
He came to her then and took her hand in his. “So would I,” he said fiercely. “I would suffer all of it again, and more, if it meant that in the end, you would be mine.” He pulled her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her skin. Fervent. Reverent. Eloquent.
For that one precious kiss told her more than a thousand words.
“I love you, Pen.”
Well, it was still nice to hear the words, she decided as joy infused every part of her.
In this moment, she could feel nothing but happiness and a deep, deep gratitude. They’d both been given another chance at life, and they’d both been brave enough to take it.
“Thank you, Gabriel,” she said, unable to govern the smile that spread across her face. “Now, will you please get in this bed and hold me so that I can tell you how very much I love you?”
He did. And she kept good to her word, proclaiming her love for him with whispered words and gentle kisses. It was all she could manage in her present exhausted state. But it was perfect.
Sometime later, she lay against him with her head cradled in the crook of his arm, listening to the steady thump of his heart.
“You do know what today is, don’t you, love?” Gabriel murmured.
She looked up at him sleepily and shook her head.
“The twenty-seventh,” he said with a grin. “Thankfully, we did not have to endure a hearing, but I do believe proving that I am not mad qualifies as success. Which means . . . you promised to marry me today.”
Penelope groaned, dropping her head back to his chest. She didn’t think she could manage to get out of bed right now, much less—
Gabriel laughed, a low rumble beneath her cheek. “You’re lucky I understand what you are going through right now, or my feelings would be very hurt.” He dropped a kiss against her hair to let her know he was teasing. “I suppose I shall have to give you a reprieve, at least long enough to have a proper wedding dress made.”
“Let me guess,” she said with a yawn. “A yellow one?” As much as she felt the color no longer suited her, she would wear it for Gabriel gladly, because it seemed to mean so much to him to see her in it.
“I don’t think so,” he said thoughtfully.
“What?” She tipped her head back to look at him once more, curious as to what he was thinking.
“I always loved you in yellow, in life and in my imagination. It is the color you wore in my mind’s eye whenever I thought of you. A color of sunshine and optimism, of enlightenment and happiness—and I will always see you that way.”
She’d known that, which was why his answer surprised her so.
“But it is also the color of unrequited love,” he said quietly. “It felt safe, imagining you in yellow, because it reminded me that you could never be mine. First, because you were the wife of my cousin. But later, because despite how very much I wanted you in my life, I could never tell you so. Not when I had nothing to offer but a life of madness.”
Tears pricked her eyes. She’d never realized the depth of his feelings for her. It humbled her to know that he’d loved her for so long and that he’d kept his feelings locked away inside of himself to protect her.
“What would you have me wear to our wedding, then?” she asked tenderly.
“I should like to see you in red,” he decided, his gaze roaming her face. “That is the color of passionate, courageous, all-encompassing love. And that is how I see you now.”
He cupped her face in his hands and took her lips in a kiss.
“Courageous, am I? And passionate, you say?” she teased when she could speak again. She rather liked the vision of herself that he painted for her. She’d never really thought of herself as either. But looking back at the past months—truly the past years, at least since Michael had died—she had to admit she’d been both. And she couldn’t see herself ever going back to the woman she’d been before.
A thought struck her then—an irreverent one, to be sure, but also one she couldn’t resist saying aloud. “You know, some people say that the equilibrium of the mind can be dislodged by a surplus of passion.” She mimicked Mr. Allen’s pompous nasally tone. “‘It is a well-documented cause of insanity.’” She smiled at Gabriel as she cocked a brow. “Are you certain you want to take the risk of a life of madness with me?”
Gabriel stole her breath with another kiss before whispering in her ear, “Oh yes, Pen. For it would be a life of sweet, sweet madness, indeed.”
Author’s Note
I hope that you enjoyed Sweet Madness. Penelope was an interesting heroine for me to write, particularly as she was so different from Liliana, the chemist heroine of Sweet Enemy, and Emma, the criminologist and mathematics genius of Sweet Deception. You see, those heroines were born with brilliant minds and fought against what society expected of them. Penelope, on the other hand, was happy to be a debutante and content to live the life she was born to. Unfortunately for her, life (or in Penelope’s case, the author!) had other plans for her.
What made her a challenge for me was that I needed her to do something extraordinary, even though she wasn’t brilliant—at least not in the classical sense. Where Liliana and Emma strove to discover things and purposefully pushed their boundaries, Penelope didn’t. Nor did she want to or even believe that she could. But to be able to save Gabriel, she had to. Therefore, I had to give her a terribly difficult reason—the suicide of her husband—to dig within herself and discover her inner gifts.
Since Penelope was not necessarily the scholarly sort, I had to be true to her nature and really resist making her hit the books and attack her problems with confidence, as my other two heroines would have done. Not that she necessarily could have. Psychology was a much different science than it is today. The study of mental maladies was a very muddy field in the nineteenth century. Many irreconcilable theories and misunderstandings abounded. Some thought madness to be evidence of moral failing on the part of the patient. Others thought it was due to an imbalance of bodily humors, which itself was faulty medicine (blame it all on that pesky spleen!). Some still suspected the devil had a hand in lunacy. Others argued that madness was a “lesion of understanding” and that lunacy was simply a self-contained defect of reason or a misuse of will. The mental philosophers of the day expounded on their variant theories with lengthy treatises that would have made Penelope’s head spin (as they did mine just reading them!).
So I gave Penelope good instincts and common sense. She took bits and pieces of what made sense to her and experimented practically until she found things that worked. She wasn’t trying to prove anything. She simply wanted to help people. She was an intuitive soul, even in Sweet Enemy, and that is the strength (and weakness) I tried to give her in her own story.
The theories I had her work with came out of the British associationist school of thinking. Associationism had its roots in Aristotle, but really started to take shape in the seventeenth century with the philosopher John Locke. He believed that our ideas formed from our experiences and sensations, and that madness could result from the wrong joining together of ideas rather than simply uncontrolled or disturbed “animal passions.” In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many others ran with that idea, working on theories of how those ideas/associations were made and could be broken (such as David Hume’s Law of Causality), which would later lead to such treatments as cognitive behavioral therapy. Penelope simply applied those theories to otherwise sane soldiers to try to explain where their harmful associations might be coming from in relation to their war service.
While “art therapy” didn’t become its own distinct profession until the twentieth century, visual and creative expression has been used in healing throughout history, according to the American Art Therapy Association. Penelope’s art therapy experiments came from who she was as a person and artist. Painting made her feel better, so she gave it a try with the soldiers she worked with and noticed positive results.
As for other parts of the story, lunacy hearings were the public spectacles that I described and were printed up as entertainment in newspapers. Nearly two hundred such cases were featured in the London Times alone between 1820 and 1860, and about a dozen of them were considered the top news of their day, depending on how salacious the hearing was, how depraved the testimony, or how well-known the lunatic. One of the most sordid was the 1823 hearing of the 3rd Earl of Portsmouth, which shocked the reading public with claims of abuse, adultery and threesomes, and which resulted in the earl’s marriage being set aside and his wife’s children being declared bastards.
Finally, the inspiration for Gabriel being trapped beneath his dead horse actually came from the life of the real Prussian general who also plays a small part in this story. During a serious defeat at the Battle of Ligny, the then seventy-two-year-old Blücher was repeatedly run over by cavalry as he lay beneath the body of his dead horse for several hours. He was rescued by his loyal aide-de-camp, and after bathing his wounds in brandy (and drinking some, I’m sure!), he was able to rejoin his army and later lead them to victory at Waterloo two days later. Color me quite impressed.