When Beauty Tamed the Beast

The door behind Linnet’s shoulder opened and a flock of men swept in. Before she even turned around she heard Piers’s growl. “Well, well, look who’s here, trying to burnish her halo.”

Linnet was watching Gavan, who was pushing himself even further up in bed, grinning madly.

Then she heard the thumping sound of a cane, and Piers was standing on the other side of the bed. “Slumming with the nearly dead and the newly bred, are you?”

“What’s newly bred?” And, without pausing, “Did you see this lady?” Gavan pointed to Linnet.

Piers’s eyebrow went up. “I did see the lady. What do you think of her? I was considering marrying her.”

Gavan nodded. “My da says . . .” He hesitated.

“Out with it,” Piers said. “She looks like a lady, but she’s not.”

Linnet glared at him.

“My da says that the best womenfolk have really big peaches,” Gavan said. He peered right at Linnet’s chest, so naturally, Piers did as well. “You’d better take her,” he said to Piers. “That cane means some women won’t want you.”

Ignoring Linnet’s scowl, Piers bent down to take a closer look at the attributes in question. “Are you sure? I always fancied a black-haired girl with a kind of gypsy look about her.”

Gavan threw him a disgusted look. “Don’t you know anything about womenfolk?”

“Maybe not as much as you do.”

“A gal who looks like a gypsy, well, she probably is a gypsy. And if you marry her, you’ll have to go out and live in the ditches because she won’t want to stop in one place, not for long.”

“Couldn’t I just let her go on her own?”

“Not if you’re married,” Gavan said. “Then you’re chained together, you know. That’s what my da says.”

“How are you feeling today?” Piers changed the subject. “Been up yet?”

“Nurse let me get up to use the chamber pot. But then I pretended to miss and splash her on the shoe, so she said I was as bad as Old Nick and put me back in bed.” He had the clear, happy laughter of children in the park.

“Where is the nurse?” Linnet asked, glancing up at Piers. “Gavan seems to think she’s having an attack of the megrims.”

“Too much dying around here,” Gavan said cheerfully.

“Probably sneaking my brandy,” Piers said. “I would if I had to cope with Gavan urinating on my slippers. Gavan, you tell me if Nurse Matilda rolls in here, drunk as a top, won’t you?”

Gavan nodded vigorously.

“Do you like the nurse?” Linnet asked him.

“She won’t let me get up. She says if I get up, she’ll give my bed away.”

There was another strangled noise from the next bed. Piers and his little coterie had moved farther down the row, so Linnet leaned toward Mr. Hammerhock. “Yes?”

“For God’s sake, woman, move back,” came a roar from behind her. “There’s a chance he’s infectious, you bacon-brained fool.”

Linnet ignored him, as Mr. Hammerhock was laboriously managing a few words. “The nurse is a tartar,” he said finally, gasping from the effort.

“Are you really going to marry the doctor, then?” Gavan asked. “Because he’s not very nice. He’s always calling people rude names, and the nurse calls him Old Nick too.”

From across the ward, as if on cue, Piers roared at one of his young doctors.

“Me mum would wallop him,” Gavan said. “I think if you marry him, you’ll have to wallop him now and then.”

They both looked down the row at Piers’s imposing figure.

“Might not be easy,” Gavan added.

“I see what you mean,” Linnet agreed. “So would you like to get out of bed?”

“Can’t,” Gavan stated. “I might lose my spot. There’s ever so many sick people who want to be here, you know.”

“I won’t let them give away your bed,” Linnet said, seeing that Mr. Hammerhock was nodding. “You might be a little tired, so perhaps a footman could carry you outside. I know you were probably a very active boy before you came here.”

“Couldn’t get to the privy yesterday,” Gavan said doubtfully, “not without hanging onto the nurse’s arm like she was a tree.”

“How annoying,” Linnet said. “Come on, then.” She stood up and rang the bell. By now Piers was all the way down the room, haranguing the doctors, and he paid no attention when a nice footman named Neythen scooped up Gavan and his blanket and headed out the door.

Linnet followed.

“Where would you like to go, miss?” Neythen asked over his shoulder.

“The pool,” she said.

“What’s a pool?” Gavan asked. His eyes were shining with excitement. “Do you mean a fishpond? ’Cause I’ve seen one of those. I . . .”

He talked all the way down the stairs and all the way down the path and only stopped when they reached the pool itself—and that was because his mouth fell open.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Linnet said, smiling. “Neythen, would you make Gavan comfortable right here on this flat stone?”

“It’s so big,” Gavan exclaimed, and Linnet realized he was looking straight past the pool at the ocean. “I never knew it was so big. All that water . . . where’s it going?”

“It just goes here and there,” Linnet said.

They sat, the three of them, and watched the waves for a while.

“How old are you, Gavan?” she asked.

“Six and three quarters,” he said. “Do you see the way the sun makes that path over the sea?”

There was a broad golden path stretching to the horizon.

“That’s like a road,” Gavan said. “Likely the road to heaven that me mum told me about.”

Neythen shifted position. “Do you have to return to your post?” Linnet asked him.

“Mr. Prufrock will understand,” Neythen said. “He’s a decent sort.” He reached over and tucked Gavan’s blanket more tightly around his shoulders.

“I don’t suppose I’ll be going to heaven,” Gavan said. He didn’t sound too worried about it.

“Of course you will,” Linnet said. “But not for a good while, I hope.”

“I expect they don’t let you in the door iffen you don’t believe in all the trappings. The clouds and harps, and such.”

“You don’t have to believe in it,” Linnet said stoutly. “When you need it, the door will just open.” She looked at Gavan again. Could he be dying from a terrible disease? The very idea was heartbreaking.

Gavan sighed. “Are there any dogs around here?”

Linnet turned to Neythen.

“There’s a dog down in the stables. But he’s a scruffy old thing who doesn’t belong to anyone.”

“He could belong to me, then,” Gavan suggested. “My brother has a dog, but I don’t have one of my very own.” Clearly he was no longer interested in further philosophical discussion of the afterlife. “Let’s go!” he said.

“Your nurse might be wondering where you are,” Linnet said.