18. Torture via The Tyrant

18

Torture via The Tyrant

“Again.”

Agony poured through him like lava over a blooming meadow… Destroying everything in its wake.

Sweat didn’t just bead upon his brow. Lick across his upper lip. Dampen his face. Slick his shirt to his chest and arms.

Nay, it bathed him. Soaked his scalp and hair. Saturated the skin between his fingers, submerged that between his arms and torso. Dripped in rivers down the sides and front of his torso. Slid like a wave down his spine.

Yet still, The Tyrant wasn’t satisfied. Nowhere close.

“Again, Lord Warrick. We are barely halfway through. Do not think to waste my time and effort by giving up now.”

“Forty-seven,” he gritted out, tasting the salt of his sweat when it slipped past his lips.

Forty-seven “seat to stands” that might as well have been 4700. That might as well have been a total waste of both their time—and Warrick’s effort—given the lackluster difference in his lower half.

Yet using the specialized chair Arbuckle had devised, and the sets of handholds placed knee, waist and chest high, Warrick lifted and lowered himself time and again. “Forty-eight.”

He swallowed past the salty sweat, shook his head—slinging more droplets about his shoulders and the floor—when the older man offered him a drink. “After.”

After the torture was over.

That’s when he would drink and rest.

The first few times he had met Arbuckle in London—the man who now preferred his smaller practice in Bath grumbling about the distance—had been spent on his back or his stomach, with Arbuckle maneuvering his body this way and that, stretching and shaping muscles that had either gone completely unused for nearly a year, or, conversely, muscles that had been overtaxed and tightened during the same time.

At every appointment, the surgeon first had Warrick disrobe, covered with a sheet (oh, the indignity, that!) whereupon he then put Warrick through a series of manhandled motions, more pokes and prods than any sane man wanted to endure, and a plethora of ridiculous little “tests”.

Whether The Tyrant poked him with a needle, up and down his legs (unfelt), or along his lower back and up through his shoulders and arms (definitely felt), or squeezed his poor, withered muscles to a pulp, or angled Warrick’s feet upon his chest, had Warrick himself hold the outside of his legs, at his knees, restricting their propensity to angle outward, Warrick using his arms to keep his knees upright and in place, and proceeded to push against his feet, cramming Warrick’s thighs uncomfortably into his chest…

Whatever had been tossed his way, he had tolerated it. He had put up with everything. Every blasted thing. With such a small amount of complaint, Warrick quite thought he was due a medal, mayhap even another title from the regent.

No luck such as that. For what had he received in exchange? Only more orders, more nettling and more frustration and sweat than any peer ever wanted to experience.

More recently, though? The last handful of times Warrick journeyed south to London? At Arbuckle’s insistence, they met three times over the course of three days, keeping Warrick from home at least two full nights, something that wore on him more with each successive trip, given the decline in his governess situation, not to mention the continuation of Julia’s.

As to Sophia? It appeared she had charmed the cook he’d found willing to work for a pittance, as long as her son and his hound would have a home as well. Warrick had debated, counting pennies, but in the end decided feeding a growing boy of twelve who had interest in both animals and tending his mother’s precious herb and vegetable gardens would be less expense than finding another equally agreeable servant.

With his clever sister in the kitchens more often than not, under the watchful eye of Cook, making lofty proclamations about what sort of food her belly would not tolerate—usually with her arms wrist deep in flour or snapping peas her new favorite servant had bartered for given the young age of the just-planted garden—that was one burden off his chest. ’Twas impossible to overlook Sophia. If she needed attention, she was one to make sure it was known.

But still-silent Julia? The look in her blue-as-blazes eyes each time he told her he was leaving during the night for another trip nearly flayed him alive.

His lungs heaving like bellows, somewhere around sixty-three, Warrick paused. He might be “standing” but every bit of weight was supported with his upper body, hands clenched so tight around the waist-high handles he couldn’t feel his fingers anymore. “Cannot continue… Travel London. Not working—” for my girls, he intended to finish, but couldn’t, his dry throat swallowing against the effort of speech as he lowered himself back down.

Arbuckle—terrible tyrant that he was—had the audacity to snap at him to pop back up, all the while shaking his head. “On that we may agree, for neither can I continue to journey to London. It takes me away from my regular patients for too many days. You’ll need to start coming to see me in Bath?—”

“Impossible.” It would mean more days, more nights away. “Cannot do that. Seventy-one.”

“You seem to think, my lord”—the title only ever proffered with noticeable sarcasm—“that I should halt all other efforts and tend solely to you.”

That was not true, not any longer. That might have been the attitude he had initially brought with him to London and their uncomfortable sessions, but as his own responsibilities had deepened, and he had allowed his alcoholic beverages to shallow, he had realized others had responsibilities too—ones they had not dismissed and ignored for years as he had.

Easier to fire back than agree, though. “Of course I do; I am likely the only earl in your care. Seventy-four.”

“Pffft. Conceited peers.”

“Cranky doctors.”

“Arrogant rakes.”

“Abhorrent tyrants. Seventy-five.”

Arbuckle muttered a few more choice insults under his breath. Warrick let those slide right off his perspiring body. Took too much energy, to think right now, anyhow.

“Hold it there.” Arbuckle indicated his current, arm-supported “stand”. “Do not seat yourself yet. Well, sir, you are going to have to find a way, because my contract for leasing this building is up next week, and I won’t be renewing it.”

“Re-spon-si-bil-ities,” he all but gasped. His entire body shook. Trembled like a frightened virgin on her wedding night. How was it that such stillness could cause so much sweat?

’Tis not the stillness, Richard. ’Tis the anger. The angst. The worry over those at home—and off at school—you perspire over, the ? —

“Responsibilities are something we all have,” the good and terrible doctor interrupted his mental tirade, “though some of us manage them better than others. It is time I stopped abandoning those who rely upon me at my other office.”

“Start to won…der…” Mortifyingly outbreathed, he had to pause, wipe sweat off his dripping brow with the back of one arm and swallow before he could take a deep enough breath to continue. “If things… Ever change… Both wasting our time?”

“Wasting our time, you wonder?” Arbuckle’s brown eyes suddenly lit with an unholy light, a predatory, almost wolfish smile upon his lips. “Do you not realize what you just did? My lord, you are standing! Actually putting weight upon your feet without the full amount being supported by your arms.”

Warrick immediately looked down, leaned forward, head bent, to see his widened, outward-pointing toes upon the ground.

And promptly pitched forward.

Straight into the waiting arms of The Tyrant. ’Twas embarrassing in the extreme, but he didn’t care. He pushed off the older man’s chest, away from the rescue, and gripped the handles once more, lowering himself before he fell again. “Did that really just occur?”

Arbuckle stepped back, reached for a towel and started blotting his face and chest—where Warrick’s sweat had dampened his skin and clothing. “It did.” The smile was still in place. “I know this has been difficult on you, mayhap not anymore than other patients I work with, but mayhap more due to your surrounding circumstances.”

Surrounding circumstances. What a pithy way to address losing one’s only remaining parent, gaining four siblings, two beggared properties (here, he thought only of his primary estate and the Thropmoor cottage, but in truth there were many others, all aligned with either the Warrick title or his family’s ancestry, and all equally paupered).

“Up!” The Tyrant snapped and pointed his thumb toward the ceiling. “I believe you still have twenty-five more.”

As Warrick took the proffered drink this time, swallowed down half in one gulp, his resolve firmed.

He had actually stood. His feet and legs had managed to hold his weight. It mattered not that the length was counted in mere seconds, even fractions thereof. What mattered was that it had happened. If it occurred once, he could make it happen again. Longer.

By the time he was counting out, “Eighty-nine,” his mind was floating, body had passed through the strain and struggle, and if it wasn’t quite floating, parts of him felt pretty damn close.

Arbuckle was talking again, and Warrick had to force himself to concentrate on the words. “Two things of note I want you aware of. Firstly, when we initially began working together back in May, your injury was two years old. I had no certainty that we would experience any progress, but you did write an impressively humbling note, to gain my cooperation?—”

Not overly pleased with that description, even given the truth of it, Warrick grunted. “Ninety-three.”

“Yet even that is not why I agreed. I agreed because of Lady Warrick”—his mama—“I knew there had to be good in you somewhere, having been reared by such a quality, determined female.

“What I did not tell you—I was saving it in my pocket in case you decided to become despondent or recalcitrant, and stop working as hard. But I admit you have surprised me, making every appointment we have made, and not slacking overly much in your efforts?—”

“Overly much!” exploded from him. “Ninety-seven.”

Another of those sly grins. “Around about June first, you were prone on your stomach, and I was going through my initial tests again—and you flinched. Flinched like a fiend when I pinched the bottom of your foot.”

“Nay, I did not. That I would have remembered. Ninety-nine.”

“You did, my man. That told me something—whether you could feel it or not, something in your body was responding. Because when I did the same test at our firs t meeting? No response whatsoever.”

Somewhat dazed now, he leveraged himself up with a groan, muttered out, “One…hundred,” and sank gratefully back down into his seat, every part of his body trembling. Even his thighs, he thought on an odd spark of wonder, placing both palms atop his twitching muscles. “You said you had two things of note. Was that it?”

“That was the first thing—that some thing in your body is changing, so what we are doing is worthwhile. What you are doing is worthwhile. The second thing is this—if you will agree to continue accomplishing what I assign consistently and without complaint, I will allow you to take the equipment we have used thus far home with you this trip. I expect weekly letters as to exactly what you are doing: I want counts on everything; I want to know how you feel every hour of the day. Not your contrary thoughts—you may keep those to yourself. But how your muscles and nerves go on, that is the detailed information I seek. You do that—keep me apprised of everything pertaining to your body’s strength, mobility and fortitude—and together, we will ascertain the best way to move forward from here. London is no longer an option. You refuse to travel to Bath. I am unable to travel all the way to your estate. But neither of us are imbeciles; something will present itself, of that I am certain.”

While Warrick spun with thoughts of doing these sorts of “exercises” at home, without Arbuckle to torture encourage him onward, the man continued. “Additionally, it is of vital importance, in my experience, that your legs continue to receive frequent stimulation. Is there anyone there who can work the muscles for you as you have witnessed me doing so?”

Blotting his face with another towel left beside him for the purpose, he lowered it, and shook his head. “Nay, but I shall do it myself.”

Arbuckle frowned. “Your thighs, your upper legs, both front and back, even sides, I agree that you can. But when it comes to your calves and feet? You are in no position to work them properly, not without more control and strength. The last thing I need is for you to be reaching for your toes and tumble about, blaming me over the whole fizz.”

What popped into his mind was steely-eyed Sophia’s stubborn chin and conniving ways. He was certain there was something he could trade the lass for helping him. But did she have the strength? “Can I get my ten-year-old sister to walk on the back of my legs?”

Arbuckle loosed a rare chuckle. “She would weigh, what? Somewhere around five stone? I see no reason why that would not help, but if there is an adult with strong hands, a coachman or stable boy, perhaps? Even better. What of your valet? You had one the first time we met. Does he not accompany you?”

Giles? After Mother’s death, when faced with the true and dire state of all the finances, Giles had been the first servant Warrick released. Not because he disliked the man, for he had never given him a chance. Too humiliated by all he had requested the man do for him during those darkest weeks of his initial injury, made the valet difficult to face.

Last he heard, the man had found work elsewhere.

Shieldings, though? Warrick’s trusted servant-of-all-work at the London townhouse? Mayhap ’twas time he asked Shieldings and his missus if they would relocate to the estate. Perhaps he could rent out the townhouse? Especially if he would no longer be using it for his visits with Arbuckle.

He grunted. “Aye. There is someone, a former soldier. He can pummel me about but good.”

At least until I am able to do it myself.