Carla Kelly (13 page)

“He will call me an unnatural son for siding with you and dredge up all the arguments he has thrown at me for the last eight years since I first mentioned my plans to seek a medical degree—no matter that this has no bearing on anything that has happened here. He will rail on and on about a man of the leisure class engaged in such dirty business. Father rarely forgets a good argument. When he feels better, he will stamp off to bed.”

“How do you tolerate him?” Libby burst out, close to tears.

The doctor did not answer for a moment. He petted the colt one last time and rubbed the mare’s long nose. “He is my father, Miss Ames. I owe him that, surely.” He peered at her more closely then for the first time, and the color drained from his face. He touched her inflamed cheek. “Merciful heavens, Miss Ames, I had no idea. Did he—”

“I fell down,” she lied, devastated by the look in Anthony Cook’s eyes. “In all the excitement, I must have tripped.”

“Onto your face?” The doctor tugged at his coat, his knuckles white on the lapels. “I am so ashamed,” he said.

Libby’s heart went out to the doctor. Without a word, she stood on tiptoe, put her arm to his neck, and pulled him down. She kissed his cheek. “Please don’t be,” she whispered in his ear. “I will be fine.”

He put his arm about her waist for a brief moment and then motioned to Joseph. “Well, lad, you have earned yourself a place in the annals of midwifery.”

Joseph’s face fell. “Oh, I am sorry,” he said.

The duke smothered a laugh, and Dr. Cook glared at him over his spectacles.

“No, lad, it is a good thing. Maybe sometime you can really help a mare throw a colt.”

“Do you think I could do that?” Joseph asked.

“I expect you could, with the right instruction,” the doctor replied. “But let us endeavor in future to see that you practice on your own patients.”

Joseph nodded. “I know, sir. You are right. But I meant no harm, and nothing went wrong, sir? Cannot your father see that?”

The doctor shook his head. “I don’t understand it, lad. For some reason, you rub him raw.” He looked at the others. “Let us go indoors and see if there is some Mystic Soother for your back, Joseph.” He peered at the duke again. “From the looks of his trousers, our chocolate merchant could use some, too.” He peered next at Libby, and his eyes softened. “And maybe there is a dab for your cheek,” he said. “Where you fell down.”

The Duke of Knaresborough took his mutton that night clad in his dressing gown, his knee covered again with Mystic Soother and bandaged. Libby had insisted that he join them in the breakfast parlor for his meal.

“If you do not, the doctor will feel uncomfortable, and if he is uncomfortable, there is nothing in the room that is safe,” she had teased, tugging on his arm when he seemed inclined to resist.

“Surely your Aunt Crabtree will object,” he said even as he winked at her.

“Aunt Crabtree is almost as famous for her nearsightedness as she is for her solitaire,” Libby said.

“I wonder that your mother left her to chaperone,” the duke murmured as he allowed himself to be pulled along.

“You may blame Uncle Ames,” she said. “He has any number of female relatives who would leap at the opportunity for a summer of free room and board.”

His resistance was only token, although he would not have told her that, not yet. The thought of dinner by himself was unthinkable, especially with Libby Ames below, entertaining the doctor. He wanted to be part of their conversation, wanted to sit there in peaceful silence and enjoy the society of people who were rapidly become indispensable to him.

“I have no pants, Libby,” he had offered as his only excuse.

“No matter. Wear that robe of yours. After dinner I will hem my father’s pants for you,” she had said. “We have suffered this long with the sight of your hairy legs and I do not see how you could ruin our appetites.”

He wanted to keep her longer in his room, but she had grabbed up her papa’s pants and danced out of his reach, intent on other errands. You will probably keep going at a dead run until you collapse in exhaustion over your plate of soup, he thought. It puzzled him that she had no abigail of her own, but he did not question it. He knew that most of the servants had been dismissed for a summer holiday of their own. Still, it was odd that an heiress of her scope would deign to shoulder the burden of housekeeper, for that was what she was. He put it down to the eccentricity of the Ames household and considered it no more.

Dinner was as pleasant as he had dared hope, Joseph cheerful but quiet, his attention riveted on the marvelous courses that kept coming from the kitchen; Dr. Cook was also closely involved with the plate in front of him. Aunt Crabtree sniffed at the cook’s art, called for bread and milk, and slurped it noisily. She darted little glances at the chocolate merchant and hitched her chair far away from him, to his amusement. Libby managed to put away a respectable meal in jig time, and still find time to see to the comforts of her guests.

It was refreshing to see a female eat so well, Benedict thought, remembering only two weeks ago a dreary, endless dinner with Lady Claudia Fortescue, his sister’s latest project. He had watched that paragon consume a piece of fish the size of a farthing, a thimble of wine, then roll her eyes, dab her dainty lips, and declare herself replete. It was a hum, and he knew it.

Nothing about Libby Ames was a hum. She ate with relish, cried if she felt like it, fought like a tiger for her brother, and laughed with her head thrown back and all her marvelous teeth showing. Lady Fortescue would have slid under the table in a faint over such female enthusiasm. The duke, on the other hand, was delighted.

“Divine, Miss Ames,” Dr. Cook exclaimed after Candlow removed the squab skeleton that he had picked clean. He managed a discreet belch behind his napkin. “How grateful I am that your cook is too devoted to abandon your household when Uncle Ames goes to Brighton.”

“So am I, sir,” she said. “Uncle Ames would have cut up stiff if Mama had not consented to accompany him and fulfill his wildest culinary dreams.”

“Your mother cooks?” the duke asked. “You are a talented family. I suppose now that you will tell me you are a seamstress of renown and also make your own hats!”

Libby laughed and leapt to her feet. She twirled around, showing off the pretty primrose muslin he had been admiring with sidelong glances throughout dinner. “One shilling, sir, and the ribbons off an older dress.”

The doctor applauded, shouted, “Hear, hear,” and Libby curtsied and beamed at him. No wonder the Ames fortune is reputed to be bulging at the seams, the duke thought as he admired the dress and the pretty girl in it. His own fortune was respectable enough. Think how it would benefit, placed alongside that of an heiress who knew how to make a guinea dog sit up and beg. Libby Ames is much too good for you, Eustace Wiltmore, the duke thought as he raised his glass of water to her and winked.

No one felt like lingering over port, particularly as the doctor had waved it away immediately, before the duke had time to form an opinion on the subject himself. And there was the daunting prospect of Aunt Crabtree, sound asleep and snoring softly. Libby helped her aunt to her feet and took her upstairs while the men sat at the table and contemplated nothing more strenuous than coffee.

“Very good,” said Libby when they joined her in the sitting room. “I get so impatient when men linger in the dining room, as if they are afraid to come out.” She threaded a needle and stuck it in her dress front, ordering the duke to try on a pair of her father’s pants in the next room.

When he returned, she made him stand on the footstool while she circled about the floor, pinning here and there and casting a critical eye on her handiwork. He was content to move about at her order as he listened to the groans of anguish from a corner table where Joseph appeared to be defeating Dr. Cook at checkers.

Libby looked up at him, a twinkle in her eyes. “I think Anthony Cook lets him win. Isn’t he kind?”

The duke nodded. Kind to a fault. He thought again of the horrific scene in the pasture and the capable way the doctor had handled all of them, horse included. He felt a twinge of envy, wishing that Libby would look at him that way, as though he could do no wrong.

“But then he will stumble over his own feet, or the carpet pattern, and I must confess to the giggles,” Libby said, bursting that little bubble. “Dear man. I wonder what woman will ever have him?”

The duke sighed in spite of himself. Safe. In another moment he was comfortably ensconced in his chair again, ankles crossed on the footstool, while Libby sewed new hems in her father’s pants and hummed to herself.

It was all so domestic and peaceful, and Benedict Nesbitt found himself contented right down to his toes. If I were to tell these people that I used to grace four and five parties, routs, and balls each evening, they would stare at me as if I were an Iroquois in Westminster Abbey, he thought, and chuckled at the idea.

Libby lifted her eyes from her needlework and raised one eyebrow at him.

“I was just thinking how pleasant this is,” he said hastily, “and contrasting it with . . . with Waterloo.”

“I already told you we are dull dogs,” Libby said mildly, and turned her attention back to the pants in her lap. She raised her eyes again suddenly. “But perhaps that was what you were needing, Nez?”

How she could get so unerringly to the heart of the matter continued to astound him. The duke nodded, struck by the fact that never before in his entire life had he ever felt part of a family like he did here at Holyoke Green. His father had died young, and he remembered him only as a dimly seen figure on the edge of his growing up. Life had been a succession of nannies and then boarding schools with early hours, hard beds in cold rooms, hazing by the upper forms, and loneliness that had doomed him to painful heartache, until he became sufficiently cynical. His mother and sisters had paraded through his life at appropriate intervals, but never when he needed them.

None of them had sat with him through long hours like Libby Ames, holding his hand, as if it were the most important task that would ever fall her way. No one had ever allowed him to talk and talk, the way Anthony Cook had encouraged him. He thought of Candlow’s numerous solicitous kindnesses, and of Joseph’s genuine pleasure at seeing him up and about, and he knew that he owed these people more than he could ever repay.

But the doctor was speaking as he fumbled with his watch. “And now, Miss Ames, I had better take my courage in hand and see if Father has changed the locks on the house. Good night, Nez. Joseph.” He sighed and stretched, coming dangerously close to the glass figurines on the whatnot shelf.

The duke noted with some amusement that Libby had set aside the pants and was poised to spring to the rescue of the glass ornaments, even as she smiled and held out her hand to the doctor.

He held it longer than the duke thought necessary, but Libby didn’t appear to mind. “With any luck, my dear, my patients will be two-legged tomorrow.”

Joseph followed him to the door and Libby took her brother by the arm. “My dear, did I leave my paints and easel in the orchard? Would you be a love and fetch them?”

“Of course,” he said promptly, and darted out the door ahead of the doctor.

She saw Dr. Cook to the door and just stood there, watching him walk into the night, her shoulders shaking as he tripped over the flower bed bordering the driveway and uttered a mild oath obviously learned at his father’s knee. In another moment, she closed the door and dissolved into silent laughter before straightening up, and catching the duke’s eyes, and collapsing into laughter again.

“Oh, dear,” she said, wiping her eyes.

“If you were ever to kiss him, I expect he would fall into a fit from which he would never recover,” the duke said.

“We will never know, will we?” she said, her eyes merry. She went past him into the sitting room for her father’s trousers and returned to the duke in the hallway. “Here are you, sir,” she said, and fixed him with a stern look that didn’t fool the duke for a minute. “When you have run through these, it will be time to return to London.”

She hesitated then, and the duke knew she had something else on her mind. “Nez, I have been meaning to tell you . . .” Her face turned red. “I really don’t go around kissing people in orchards.”

He looked at her face, rosy with embarrassment, and thought to himself, You should, Libby dear. At least, as long as it is I. Instead, he shook his head. “No apologies, Libby. Let us just say I was overcome with the idea of being outside again.”

She sighed with relief. “Thank the Lord. I don’t want you to think I’m not what I should be. And besides . . .” She hesitated again.

Besides what he did not know. He thought for a minute she was going to tell him what he already knew about the long-standing promise between her father and Eustace Wiltmore’s father, but she did not.

He said good night and started upstairs.

A thought struck him, and he looked back at Libby where she stood in the hallway, watching him.

“My dear, do you know, I have just realized that I have not wanted a drink all day?”

She raised laughing eyes to his. “I do not know that we can promise so much excitement every day, Nez, to distract you, but we will try.”

He nodded, climbed another step or two, and realized that he was in love with Libby Ames. He started down the steps to say something to her—what, he really didn’t know—when the door opened and Joseph came in with the paint and easel tucked under his arm. His eyes were alive with excitement.

“Lib, only imagine what I saw.”

“I cannot, Joseph,” she replied.

“The gypsies have returned!”

10

THE GYPSIES had returned to Holyoke Green. Benedict noticed the pinpoints of light from the flickering camp fires as he paced about his room, unable to sleep.

Long after the house was quiet, he had walked back and forth from the door to the window, glanced out, and returned to the door to begin again. From the door to the window, he thought of Libby Ames and saw her in his mind. At the window, he paused and thought about the gypsies. From the window to the door, he wondered what Libby would think when she learned he was a duke instead of a purveyor of chocolate. It could only further his cause in an amazing way, he decided, if she didn’t cut up too stiff when he confessed all and told her that he had been sent originally to spy upon her.

The more he paced and the more he thought about it, the more muddled he became in his mind. There would be trouble with Eustace, of course, particularly if his friend ever got a glimpse of Libby Ames. He would never call me out, thought the duke, but he will be a trifle miffed. That the promise between the fathers could be circumvented he had no doubt. These were modern times, not the Dark Ages.

A place would have to be found for Joseph eventually, too. He didn’t know Libby Ames well, but he knew her well enough to know that Joseph’s welfare would always be a prime consideration when she contemplated marriage. London would never do, he thought as he took another turn toward the window. Suppose the duke’s friends saw him? No, Joseph would have to content himself elsewhere.

The duke stopped at the window finally and leaned his hands on the sill, looking out at the June-scented darkness. He would write to Eustace first thing in the morning and tell him that the affair held no promise for him and that he might as well remain in Brighton. It was not the truth, but Benedict Nesbitt did not think he could deal with Eustace right now. He would smooth his own path with Libby and make all things right before he took her to London to meet Eustace Wiltmore and the other lions that awaited.

Soon even the gypsy camp fires flickered out. With a sigh, the duke went to bed and surprised himself by dropping into a sound sleep.

“The gypsies have returned,” Candlow said when he came to open the draperies and bring a can of hot water.

Nez lay with his hands behind his neck, deriving some amusement from the evident fact that Candlow did not seem to bear his news with the enthusiasm obvious in Joseph last night.

“Joseph was quite pleased with those tidings last night,” the duke said.

Candlow sniffed. “That’s what comes from living in foreign parts for so many years, I don’t doubt. We as are Kentsmen born and raised know better than to get exercised by the notion of smelly gypsies.” Candlow looked out the widow and frowned, as if he expected to see them camped on the front yard and washing their persons in the fountain. “They are early this year.”

Benedict rolled over and propped himself up on his elbow. “What do they come for, Candlow?”

“The hops harvest, Mr. Duke, and that is still six weeks away.” Candlow turned away from the window. “They come to trade for horses, more like steal some. If you have anything of value, do not leave it lying about.”

“I shall not, Candlow,” said the duke, barely able to suppress a smile. “Are Joseph and Libby about yet?”

This apparently was a sore subject to the butler, but he was too well-bred to show his disapproval, beyond the raising of one eyebrow. The duke was forcefully reminded of his own retainer.

“They have collected several pans that want mending and have taken them to the gypsies already,” said Candlow. He cleared his throat and rocked back and forth on his heels. “Miss Crabtree retired to her bed again at the news.”

“I do not doubt it,” the duke said as he sat up. “I understand the necessity of a figurehead of Miss Crabtree’s talents, but she is a singularly ineffective chaperone. That reminds me, Candlow. Does not Miss Ames have an abigail to do things for her of the pan-mending variety? Is her maid away on holiday with the others?”

The butler forgot himself enough to smile. “Miss Ames with an abigail? I don’t think so.” He leaned closer in conspiratorial fashion. “Such independence comes from too many years following the army about, I am sure, but the Ames will do as they choose, will they not?”

The duke nodded in solemn agreement. He knew enough about the eccentricities of the titled and wealthy to have augmented Candlow’s text.

And speaking of text . . .

“Candlow, can you get me my pen, ink, and paper? I have some correspondence that cannot wait.”

Candlow nodded. “With pleasure, Mr. Duke. Miss Ames has been wondering when you would feel good enough to inform your relatives of your mishap.”

His relatives. He had not thought of them in some time, and the matter did deserve some rational contemplation. Mother would not object to Libby. The Ames name was a good one, despite whatever deficiencies—real or imagined—that Mother could dream up. Benedict Nesbitt felt sure that the Ames fortune would more than recompense for the fact that Uncle Ames was only a baronet.

Augusta would be charmed, too, at least until she realized that Libby Ames—no, Lady Nesbitt, Duchess of Knaresborough—was not one to be lead by anyone. By then, Gussie’s opinion would scarcely matter. Libby would have stormed the battlements of society with that beauty, sweet nature, and indescribable charm the good duke himself was rapidly finding indispensable to his happiness.

He spent the better part of the morning at the escritoire in his room, considering what to say to Eustace and discarding mistake after mistake. He finally decided on the simple expediency of the truth, telling Eustace that he had at last found the girl of his dreams and that by the time he received this missive, Eustace would probably want to return a letter of congratulations.

“The truth hurts a bit, Eustace,” he said out loud with some satisfaction as he affixed a wafer to the letter and pocketed it.

Libby and Joseph had not yet returned from their visit to the gypsies, which suited him. He would take the time for a stroll into Holyoke, where he would post the letter himself.

He considered the matter of his leg for a moment, and then decided that a genteel stroll would do it wonders. I could continue to coddle myself, he thought, but to what end? He smiled to himself as he started out, remembering much longer forced marches through terrain more arduous than a Kent neighborhood. And with snipers shooting at me, too, he added to himself. I can rest if I get tired, and not have to worry about death around the next bend in the road.

The walk would be long enough for him to think of his next course of action. I will confess all and throw myself upon her mercy, he decided as he started back from the village, hands in his pockets, the sun warm on his back. I don’t suppose any woman alive would be disappointed in a duke. She knows that I have dipped too deep in liquor, but it did not seem to disgust her, and besides all that, I am a reformed man. She will laugh when I tell her about Eustace’s harebrained, rum-sodden scheme to scout her out in Kent and see if she was a fit vessel for the Wiltmore aspirations.

His fancies occupied him so fully that he did not hear the doctor’s horse until the animal’s hooves struck a stone beside the path. He started in surprise and then looked up with some amusement.

Dr. Cook was seated correctly atop his mare, his gloved hands poised precisely and capably over the pommel, his eyes closed, his spectacles barely lodged upon his lengthy nose. He was sound asleep. Nez thought he snored.

The duke cleared his throat and the doctor’s eyes snapped open. He jerked his head up and watched in dismay as his glasses slid off his nose. He grabbed for them, but Benedict was quicker, catching them in midair and returning them, with a flourish, to their owner.

“Dr. Cook, do you always sleep in the saddle? Surely your father didn’t banish you to the stables for championing us yesterday.”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” said the doctor. “A paucity of dialogue passed between us last night, but by then he had vented his spleen on the groom and I got only what was left.”

The doctor dismounted, his horse trailing along behind him like a large dog. He rubbed his eyes.” It has been a long night, Nez, that is all. One of many long nights. I disremember when I last slept the night through.”

They walked along in silence. The doctor seemed distant, uncommunicative, and the duke rose to the challenge. “Well, I trust the outcome was to your liking.”

“The patient died.”

An awkward silence stretched out along the path the two men followed. The doctor blinked his eyes several times, and the duke saw that he was dangerously close to tears. “Well,” Nez said heartily, even as he wished he would keep his mouth shut, “I suppose you are better equipped to deal with death than the rest of us.”

“I never deal well with death, particularly when the patient is a child,” the doctor said, slapping the reins in his hands in agitation. “Death of a young one is such an affront to nature.”

The duke found his attention captured by a lark on the wing as the doctor whipped out a handkerchief, blew his nose, and pocketed it again, his eyes straight ahead, his lips set in a firm line. He sighed then and managed a slight smile. “I brought her into the world three years ago, only to usher her out of it this morning, poor honey. I hope to God I never grow used to such events, Mr. Duke.”

“Indeed, no,” Nez murmured. “I didn’t mean to sound so flippant. I must remind myself not to speak until I think.”

The doctor seemed to come out of himself then. He touched the duke’s arm. “It is a tendency we all have, lad, that propensity to speak where we should not. I didn’t mean to trouble you with my woes. No one forced me to go into medicine.” He laughed then, a rueful laugh with little humor in it. “Indeed, it was quite the opposite.”

The doctor grew more expansive and his mood seemed to lighten as he talked. The duke was wise enough to be silent and give Anthony Cook free rein of the conversation.

“Father still does not understand why I wanted to be a doctor. I can’t tell you how many times he said, ‘But you are a gentleman’s son,’ until I wanted to crack his head.” The doctor stood still and took the duke by the arm. “I am certain you, of all people, must understand. There is little value in doing nothing, is there?”

“None at all,” agreed the duke, hoping that he sounded convincing.

“I mean, you understand the value of work—you, a purveyor of chocolates,” said the doctor, warming to his subject, enthusiasm evident in his eyes again. He laughed at his own earnest tones and shook his head. “I suppose some of us are not meant for a life of leisure, eh?”

I shall be smitten on the spot by a just God if I continue prevaricating, thought the duke as he laughed along with the doctor.

They walked along in companionable silence, the horse nudging his master until the doctor gave the animal a slap on the flank and sent him home. Cook looked at the duke then, as if seeing him for the first time.

“See here, sir, should you be out jauntering along? I must admit, however, that you do seem cheerful for one who must have his budget of aches and pains. How are you feeling?”

“Quite fine, thank you.”

“‘Quite fine,’ and nothing more? Sir, you appear to have a gleam in your eye,” teased the doctor, whose own eyes were red with late night, badly drawing fireplaces in crofters’ cottages, and the general anxiety of his calling.

“Well, yes, I suppose I do,” replied the duke, gratified, flattered even that his love showed on his face. Perhaps with this guileless man he could try the waters now, test out this great, remarkable truth he had learned, and see how it flew with Dr. Anthony Cook. The man had a right to know.

“Sir, I am in love. I have discovered that I cannot live without Miss Libby Ames close by.”

If he expected something more than raised eyebrows and silence from Dr. Cook, he was disappointed. News of this import demanded herald angels at least, or so Benedict reasoned. But Dr. Cook merely looked thoughtful, even a trifle down-pin, truth to tell.

“You are certain?” the doctor asked at last when the gates to his own estate came into view.

“Never more certain of anything,” Nez replied stoutly. “Sir, why do you look at me like that?”

He could not have described the look, not even under oath, that Dr. Cook fixed on him then. It was as though someone had struck the portly physician a sound blow between the shoulder blades and he was trying to regain his breath without appearing too startled. Where his expression was habitually kindly, avuncular even, it was now desperate, as if the man longed for breath and saw no hope of getting any. It was the look of a drowning man on a sunny road in the middle of Kent.

“Are you well, sir?” Nez asked in surprise, putting his arm around Dr. Cook.

As quickly as the curious look had come, it was gone. Dr. Cook straightened himself around, managed a little chuckle, and smiled. “I am quite well, thank you.” He hesitated and then plunged ahead. “Sir, how do you think the Ames family will regard your suit?”

Benedict laughed out loud, his head thrown back, a wonderful laugh that he had not attempted in over a year. “Oh, Dr. Cook! There is more to me than meets the eye.”

The doctor nodded and settled his hat more firmly upon his head. “So we suspected,” he murmured.

It was the duke’s turn for surprise. Good God, did Libby know? And had she said nothing?

But the doctor was still speaking. “She rather suspected that you were a partner in the firm.”

The duke nodded, relieved to find his secret still his own. He would tell Libby when the time was right, when he could smooth it over and not risk her sudden disgust at his dissembling. “Oh, I am that and more,” he replied quixotically.

They walked a little farther in silence, each man absorbed in his own thoughts. If the doctor was a little slower, if he seemed more deeply involved in his own private conjectures, the duke could only put it down to Anthony Cook’s all-night exertions.

Benedict owned to a small twinge of conscience. He knew the doctor loved Libby; that was obvious for all to see, except to the doctor himself. He was as clear as water. The duke gave himself a mental shrug. Libby had assured him that such a notion on the doctor’s part was ridiculous.