Carla Kelly (6 page)

“Joseph, you and Candlow will get him into his nightshirt. I will go downstairs and send the footman for my bag. Deuced foolish of me to leave it home, but then, we didn’t expect to find a chocolate merchant plowing up the road in front of Holyoke Green, now, did we? You can get us a basin and some tweezers.”

When she returned with the basin and tweezers and enough gauze and cotton wadding to upholster a chair, Joseph was inside the room. He stayed close to the wall, but the fear was gone from his eyes. Dr. Cook had removed his coat and was rolling up his sleeves.

“Very good, Miss Ames,” he said, and took the basin and tweezers from her. He sat on the bed, draped a towel on his breeches, and pulled the man’s leg into his lap. He perched his glasses firmly on his nose, picked up the tweezers, and began to extract little bits of gravel. In a moment, he was whistling tunelessly to himself as he plinked the gravel into the basin. Joseph began to grin, and Libby smiled in spite of herself.

The doctor looked up and noticed the amusement in her eyes. “Miss Ames, Mozart is efficacious for more than the concert hall, don’t you know?”

“I prefer a little Bach now and then,” she teased, and they laughed together.

“Well, when it is your turn, you may whistle Bach,” he said generously, and reapplied himself to his task until the bottom of the basin was covered with the stony fragments. He paused then and rubbed his eyes. “Now it is your turn, Miss Ames. I haven’t the eyes for this.”

They changed places. The man stirred and muttered something when the doctor moved his leg into Libby’s lap, but he did not appear alert. She took the tweezers from the doctor and continued the search for gravel. In a few moments, Joseph seated himself across from her. Libby looked up long enough to nod in his direction.

“I am sure that if you held his hand, when he woke he would not be so frightened, my dear,” she said to her brother.

“Then I will do it.” Joseph took the man by the hand, his eyes on his face, anxious for the first signs of returning consciousness.

Libby bent over her work again, pulling out the fragments and dabbing at the blood with the cotton wadding. Dr. Cook loomed over her as he carefully ran his hands through the man’s hair, searching for further injury.

The man looked as though he slept, so relaxed did he appear.

“A candy merchant?” Libby asked out loud, and then glanced at Joseph, who was subjecting the man to intense scrutiny. “Joseph, I should think that a candy salesman would be round and jolly, rather like . . .” She paused in embarrassment.

“Like me?” supplied the doctor, and then chuckled as she blushed.

There was an awkward pause as Libby devoted all her attention to the man’s leg. The blush left her cheeks in a moment, and she turned to the doctor.

“You are right to tease me,” she said, and then smiled. “But I will say this, Dr. Cook: you were a fierce competitor in the footrace.”

He bowed. “I will depend upon you never to let the medical faculty at Edinburgh know that I had to run after a patient.”

She giggled behind her hand, her good humor restored.

“Beg pardon,” said a faint voice from the bed. “If I’m not asking too much . . .”

The chocolate merchant’s eyes were open and the pain in them made Libby wince. Impulsively she leaned forward and laid her hand upon his chest, and then touched his face. “You are in excellent hands, Mr. Duke,” she said.

“Oh, I am well aware,” he murmured, turned his face toward her hand, and kissed it. “Now, is there a doctor, too? My joy would be complete.”

His eyes closed again.

Libby snatched her hand away and stared down at him in astonishment. “Dr. Cook, he is a shocking flirt. One would scarcely think he would feel like jollying the ladies.”

“Shocking,” murmured the doctor as he gazed at Libby, then shook his head, cleared his throat, and shoved his wandering glasses more firmly upon his nose. “Let us continue. Oh, thank you, Candlow. I was needing that.”

The butler held out his black bag and whispered in the doctor’s ear. “Mrs. Weller said your father had a particular message for you, Doctor. Said to make sure the merchant had money in his pockets before you even put so much as a stitch in him.”

Dr. Cook sighed. “Do you know, Miss Ames, I think that my father and Hippocrates would never have seen eye to eye on the matter of payment for hire.” He touched her arm. “Those are embedded rather deeply, Miss Ames. You dab now and I will tweeze.”

The stones cut deeper around the man’s knee. Dr. Cook worked one out before the merchant opened his eyes again, reached down, and grasped the doctor’s hand.

“Hold him, Libby,” said Dr. Cook.

She took his arm and held it tightly in her hands. “Now, now, sir,” she said. “He’ll be through soon.”

To her horror, the man began to cry. Joseph let go of his other hand and retreated from the room. “Anthony,” she gasped, forgetting her manners, “what do we do now?”

Dr. Cook dropped the tweezers and reached for his black bag, drawing out a vial of amber-colored liquid. “A drop of this will simplify things,” he murmured as he reached for a cup. “Now, then, sir.”

Tears streaming down his cheeks, the merchant struggled to sit up. He knocked the basin off the bed and the stones rolled across the floor.

Libby took his face in her hands. “Oh, please, sir. Dr. Cook only wants to help,” she said.

The man ignored her, reaching for the doctor again. He grasped Cook’s arms. “No. Not any of that.” His hand began to tremble. “If you would, I could manage a drink.”

The doctor looked at him thoughtfully and put the cork back in the bottle. “As you wish, sir. Candlow, can you concoct a mild cordial for our guest?”

“I’d rather have whiskey,” said the merchant.

Dr. Cook shook his head. He lifted the man’s hand gently off his arm and held it steady, watching the slight tremor. “I think a cordial will be more than sufficient, Mr. Duke, is it? Doctor’s orders, sir.”

When Candlow returned, Libby raised Mr. Duke up and tipped the glass to his lips.

The man took a surprisingly strong grip on the glass and downed the cordial. “More, please,” he gasped, tugging at Libby’s hand. “Oh, please!”

Without a word, Dr. Cook poured another glass, this one larger.

The man drank without a murmur, closed his eyes, and slept.

“My stars, but he is thirsty,” Libby said. She wiped the corner of the merchant’s mouth.

“Yes, isn’t he?” agreed the doctor, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Let us continue.”

Dutifully, Libby dabbed at the wounds, her lips pursed in concentration. She heard Dr. Cook heave an enormous sigh. “Doctor, you must be weary of all this,” she said, without looking up.

“Me? Oh, well, yes, I suppose,” he said, and he sounded embarrassed.

He continued his work and Libby heard no further sighs until he finally sat back, rubbing at his neck. She noticed that his shirt was damp with perspiration. His glasses slid off his nose and she caught them expertly and handed them back.

“Thank you, Miss Ames.” He rose to his feet and stretched, going to the window and leaning out for some moments. In a moment he was back at the bed again, looking down at his patient. “He will have gravel working out of his leg for some time, I think,” he said. “But you will have nothing to do with laudanum, will you, sir? I wonder . . .” he mused.

He ran his hand over the man’s other leg, which showed bare from the knee down. He touched a pit mark that Libby had noticed, and another, and traced his hand up a long scar, faintly red, that meandered from ankle to knee by a jagged route. He raised the man’s nightshirt and Libby looked away.

“Really, Dr. Cook,” she exclaimed, and devoted her attention to the cotton wadding again.

“Yes, really, Miss Ames,” he said, a touch of asperity in his voice that surprised her. Alert now, the doctor leaned forward and unbuttoned the man’s nightshirt, looking at his chest with clinical interest, and uttering “H’mms” and “My words,” until Libby sighed in exasperation.

“Dr. Cook, what are you doing?” she whispered as the chocolate merchant stirred and muttered something imperative.

The doctor didn’t answer right away. He buttoned the man’s nightshirt again and then reached in his bag for a jar of salve, which he smoothed on the leg. He stepped back to survey his handiwork.

“It would appear to me, Miss Ames, that selling chocolate is a damned dangerous line of work. So glad I am a physician, instead.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Libby asked. The man moaned in his sleep and she rested her hand alongside his cheek for a moment until he was quiet.

“I mean that this man has been in battle, and not overlong ago. I wonder, do you suppose he might have been engaged in last year’s little tiff in Belgium?”

“Waterloo, do you mean?” she asked, her eyes wide. “Oh, surely not.”

“Then we can only surmise that London is a singularly dangerous place,” said the doctor. “Or can it be that people there take exception to chocolate?”

After another moment in silence, Dr. Cook draped a long strip of gauze over the merchant’s leg and pulled up the sheet. “Perhaps we will learn something tomorrow,” he mused out loud. He looked toward the lawn, which was in shadows, now that the sun was behind the house. He returned the vial of laudanum to his bag. “He should sleep soundly enough.”

“If he wakes?” Libby asked.

“I’ve left some sleeping powders on the night table, Miss Ames,” he said. “If he should come around, try to get him to eat something.” He held out his hand.

She took it formally and then blushed as he enveloped her hand in both of his.

“I’m sorry this has fallen to your lot,” he said.

“It is I who should apologize to you, Dr. Cook,” she insisted as she tried to work her hand out of his warm grasp.

Dr. Cook blinked and pushed up his spectacles. “Whatever for?” he asked.

She couldn’t look at him. Libby freed her hands and put them out of reach behind her back. “I didn’t mean to call you . . . Well, you know, I called you Anthony a while back.”

“It is my name,” the doctor said.

“Yes, but you are a physician,” Libby said stubbornly. “And I hope you will overlook my rudeness.”

He leaned toward her for a brief moment and winked. “My dear Miss Ames, contrary to popular opinion, at least that which is noised about by physicians, being a doctor does not make me God. You may call me Anthony anytime you choose.”

She shook her head. “It won’t happen again. Please believe me.”

He smiled faintly at her reply, but there was little humor in his eyes as he sighed and bowed himself out of the room, setting the glass ornaments shivering on the table as he passed by.

With a smile of her own, Libby went to the window and looked down on the front drive, where the doctor’s horse had stood so patiently. She watched as the doctor heaved his considerable bulk onto the animal, gratified to see that he was more agile than she would have suspected.

As if he knew she was watching, the doctor turned in the saddle and waved to her. She waved back and then rested her elbows on the windowsill, wondering at the strangeness of her mood, wishing that he had not left her with this sick person, and suddenly fearful for the peace of her summer.

She watched the chocolate merchant a moment more, smoothing the tangle of straight hair across his forehead. “Poor man,” she whispered. “How can you earn a living from a sickbed?”

Libby hurried downstairs. The maid was lighting the last of the lamps and Libby was wondering about dinner when Joseph came into the room.

He was tugging at his earlobe and she knew something was wrong. When the front door slammed open and she heard heavy footsteps coming down the hall, Joseph hurried to the other side of the room.

The voice was loud now, an angry voice that made her stomach turn over, even as she flashed a reassuring smile at Joseph and held her hand out to him.

“I forgot where I was, Libby,” he said simply.

She nodded and kissed his cheek.

The door banged open and Squire Cook stalked into the room, pointing his riding crop at Joseph.

“If that simpleton trespasses on my land again, I’ll flog him,” he shouted. He pointed his whip at Libby. “And if I find you’re making sheep’s eyes at my son, I’ll flog you, too.”

5

LIBBY gasped at his accusation and then burst into delighted laughter. She laughed until the tears came to her eyes, and then struggled to a seat as she dabbed at her face. She raised her smiling countenance to the squire’s fury and watched as his expression changed from rage to a certain mystified agitation.

“Dear me,” she began when she could speak, “that was fearsome rude, but, sir, be aware that I have no evil designs on your son. I am convinced that he is an excellent physician, but I am equally sure that we would never suit.” She gestured toward the chair opposite her as Joseph retreated to the door. “Please have a seat and let us discuss this matter.”

Joseph ducked out the door. For a moment, the squire wavered between rushing after him and taking the chair instead. He just stood where he was, jerked off his hat, and slapped it against his knee.

“Dash it all, Miss Ames, doesn’t that chucklehead have any sense of boundary?”

She gestured toward the chair again and he threw himself into it. The chair creaked and Libby held her breath, but it did not crack.

“No, I fear he does not, Squire. I wish that he did, and I am equally sorry that his presence is such an agitation to you. I can only reassure you again that he is completely harmless.”

The squire refused to be mollified. “That’s not the half of it. Do you know where I found him?”

Libby shook her head. Candlow came into the room on tiptoe and set a tea tray at her elbow. She poured a cup for the squire, who frowned at it and then accepted some refreshment. He took one sip and then another. An expression less forbidding came into his eyes for the smallest moment, but then he recalled the matter at hand. He set down the cup with a decisive click.

“Miss Ames, you cannot distract me with tea,” he said. “Your brother was in my horse herd again. Again! I always find him there.”

“Surely he causes you no trouble, Squire.”

He snatched up a biscuit from the tray she offered, and chomped down hard on it, glaring at her through bushy brows. “That is hardly the issue, Miss Ames, but trust someone of your sex to obfuscate the problem. He has no business among my herd.”

Libby counted to ten in her head, poured another cup of tea for the squire, and handed it to him. “I cannot disagree with you, sir, but Joseph loves horses and you have a particularly fine herd. Certainly the best I have ever seen.” She took a sip of her tea and allowed that bit of mild flattery to settle in.

The squire drank his tea and did not object when she offered him another biscuit.

Libby watched him in silence, wondering to herself how it was that such a cantankerous old rip would have fathered such a good-natured son as the doctor. She was moved to empathy for Dr. Cook. I wonder, Doctor, did he bully you to ride to hounds? she thought. She reminded herself that the doctor did sit a horse rather well, and concluded, in all fairness to the squire, that there was likely no childhood tyranny. But how different they were.

“I ask you again, Miss Ames, and beg you to attend me: what do you propose to do?”

The squire’s voice penetrated into her thoughts. She looked up from a frowning contemplation of her hands. “I do not know, sir,” she said at last. “Joseph loves it here. I think he would suffer anywhere else. And there is no question that he cannot be sent away to school.”

The silence hung heavy for a moment as the squire chewed and swallowed some more. “Do I gather from your less-than-satisfactory answer that you intend to allow him to roam across my lands?”

“I do not know what else to do, Squire, short of locking him up,” she said simply. “I nag, scold, and admonish him, and it does little good.”

He stared back at her and she did not allow her glance to waver. “This may eventually become a matter for the constable, Miss Ames,” he said finally. “There are places for people like your brother.”

“I know there are, sir,” she replied, and had the small satisfaction of watching him break away eye contact first. “But I trust to merciful providence that you are too kind for that, Squire.”

Her calm words hung in the air and he made no reply, other than to brush the crumbs vigorously from his coat and rise.

Libby stood, too, thinking to herself what a tall race the Cooks were. A mere mortal could get neck strain in that family, she thought, and her lips curved into a smile.

Her smile seemed to recall the squire to the other reason for his visit. He slapped his hat against his knee again.

“I warn you, Miss Ames. Do not try that smile on my son.”

She stared at him in surprise and felt that warmth rising up her chest to blossom on her face. “But, Squire, I—”

“Pretty is as pretty does, miss,” he said, and waved his riding crop at her again. “My Anthony can look much higher for a wife than a penniless brat whose mother is a shop owner’s daughter.”

The words stung. For a fleeting moment she thought of her beloved grandfather, now deceased, and his tobacco shop. “Yes, I suppose that renders me completely ineligible for this county’s society,” she said softly. “You may rest assured, Squire Cook, I would never do anything to encourage your son. I have been raised better than that.” She marched to the door and resisted the urge to fling it open. “And now, sir, if you will allow me? I needn’t take any more of your valuable time. Your son is safe, and I will do what I can with Joseph.”

The dignity of her reply left the squire wordless, for once. He jammed his hat upon his head, bowed to her curtly, and took his leave.

When she heard the front door close, Libby sat down to wait. In another moment, Joseph stuck his head in the parlor door. “Is he gone?”

“Yes, dear,” she replied, and was unable to hide her exasperation. “Joseph, what possesses you to bother that man’s horses?”

Joseph sat down beside her. “He has beautiful horses, Libby,” was all he said.

The anger left her as quickly as it had come. “Yes, he does,” she agreed. “Joseph, perhaps you could just admire them from the other side of the fence from now on.”

“They always come up to the fence when I am there,” he said. “I think that angers him, too, Libby.”

He was silent. After another moment, Libby patted his hand and left the room. She mounted the stairs slowly. Her first instinct was to summon Dr. Cook and pour out her woes to him and ask his advice with Joseph. Her second thought convinced her of the utter folly of her first thought. She smiled in spite of herself at the thought of the overpowering Dr. Cook kneeling before her, offering marriage.

She giggled. “Oh, dear. Such a picture!” she said out loud as her practical nature took over. No, Dr. Cook, you and I would never suit, she thought as she peeked in the room where the chocolate merchant lay.

He was wide awake and staring at the ceiling, shivering in the room, which was still warm from the lingering effects of the afternoon sun, long gone from the sky.

“Are you cold, sir?” she asked in surprise.

He nodded. His eyes followed her as she hurried to the blanket chest at the foot of the bed and pulled out another coverlet, tucking it over him, high up under his chin.

“There, now,” she said, her voice gentle. “You’ll feel much better in the morning, I daresay.”

He sighed and settled himself more comfortably in the bed, while Libby smiled down at him. “Would you like something to eat? You must be famished.”

He shook his head. “I would like another drink, Miss . . . Miss . . .”

“Ames. Libby Ames. The doctor left that bottle of cordial here.”

She raised him up and he drank, uttering sounds of pleasure deep in his throat that startled her. “I don’t know how you stand that brew,” she said when he finished and lay back. “Mama bullies me to drink it when I am feeling peaked. And I hold my nose.”

“Thank you, Miss Ames.” He shivered again involuntarily.

Libby smoothed the blanket across his chest. “People do that when they have suffered a severe shock, Mr. Duke. I have seen it before in Spain.”

She stood by the bed another moment. “Do you want me to sit with you for a while?” Libby asked. “Just until you fall asleep?”

He nodded and she pulled the chair closer. “I don’t have any clever stories to tell,” she confessed. “There isn’t much that happens around here. I suppose your London is much more exciting.”

The merchant did not answer. He had closed his eyes. She thought he slept, but in another moment he opened them.

“It can’t be too dull here, Miss Ames. Didn’t I hear angry voices below?”

“You did, but it was only one angry voice. It was the squire. Joseph was trespassing again.” Libby giggled. “And the squire never forgives those who trespass against him.”

She was rewarded with a smile from the chocolate merchant. “I would suspect that you must have managed him admirably.”

“I try, sir, but I am running out of ways to placate him.” Libby hitched the chair closer. “You see, Joseph is continually trespassing on his land. He loves the squire’s horses, and strange to tell, they follow him about like Mary’s little lamb.”

Libby wanted to say more, to pour out her troubles to this stranger, but she closed her lips in time and managed an embarrassed laugh. “See here sir, you should not allow me to burden you with our difficulties. I suppose that wrangles among neighbors are common enough in London, too.”

He smiled slightly as his eyes began to close again.

Libby peered at him. “Oh, I shouldn’t be talking so much.”

He shook his head. “I enjoy it.”

“I cannot imagine why. We country folk are a decided dull lot,” she declared, and then allowed herself to twinkle her eyes at him. “But, then, we rarely have captive audiences.” She tucked the blanket up higher and, after only the slightest hesitation, felt his forehead. “Ah, very good! Dr. Cook will be pleased if you are not running a fever in the morning. And I, too,” she added softly as she blew out the candle.

Nez held out his hand to her as she rose to leave the room and she grasped it.

“You will sleep well, sir, I know you will. And I will see you in the morning.”

***

He did sleep well all night, his thoughts untroubled by dreams or anything more menacing than the deepest reluctance to move. When he woke in the morning, his shoulder ached, but it was a pain he could live with. His right leg was on fire, but he gritted his teeth and slowly moved his ankle, noting with relief that it was still attached.

I seem to have all parts and accessories still assembled, he thought as he opened his eyes and looked about the room, wondering only briefly where he was and then remembering that he had sacrificed considerable dignity and skin the day before on one of Eustace’s whims.

The room was bright with morning sun that streamed in through lacy curtains just now being drawn back by the loveliest woman he had ever seen.

He remembered her from the day before, but he had seen her through such a haze of pain that her beauty had not fully registered in his mind. Now it filled all his senses, and he wondered that such a creature really drew breath.

Her hair was deep brown or black, and curled about her head. She had attempted to twist it into a knot on top of her head, but must have given it up for a bad job. The tendrils curled about and the disordered effect was so endearing that he smiled, despite his aches and pains. He was glad that her hair was not cropped in the current fashion. As he gazed at her in frank admiration, the duke wondered how all that riot of curly brown would look tumbled about her shoulders. The thought stirred him as nothing had in recent memory.

She was a perfect assembly of exquisite parts, from the proud way she carried her head to her elegant deep bosom, to the trimness of her ankles, which just peeked out from under the muslin dress she wore. Her waist was tiny, and he wondered if he could span it with his hands.

As he watched in admiration, she opened the window wide and perched herself on the window ledge, looking out at the morning. She waved to someone below and then clasped her hands together in heartfelt delight at one more summer day. He thought her eyes were blue. Her high-arched eyebrows and prominent cheekbones gave her face an inquiring look. She seemed to the duke the kind of woman who would just naturally look interested in everything about her, because nature had designed her face that way. Even her lips had a natural curl to them.

As she sat so still on the window, her hands clasped together in her lap, something about her spoke of endless, tireless energy, a vitality that made him feel older than old and then suddenly young again.

He sighed. No, he did not sigh; someone else did. The duke, still holding his head still, shifted his eyes to the door, where the doctor stood, his glance fixed on the woman in the window.

Dr. Anthony Cook wore a good suit, but it was rumpled, as though he slept in it. Possibly he had, the duke decided. Perhaps he had spent the night at another bedside. He certainly looked the part. His hair was rumpled, even as his suit. On closer observation, the duke realized that it was curly rather than rumpled. The shade precisely matched his black eyes in hue, eyes that appeared slightly enlarged behind the gold-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose.

The doctor’s whole face seemed to beam out benevolence and a quiet capability that spoke louder than words. For no real reason, the duke felt a sudden twinge of envy as he regarded this massive, rumpled, good man. He used the measuring stick on Dr. Cook that he had used on every man for the past year. Could you have kept your men alive at Waterloo? It was a mean thought, and for the first time in a year he wished he had not considered it. As he surveyed the doctor’s calm, rather placid face, the duke decided that Dr. Cook would have managed very well, indeed. No matter how unprepossessing, the physician appeared to be a man with enormous reservoirs of strength. It showed in his face.

And my strength is almost gone, thought the duke.

There was more to the doctor’s expression as it rested on the charming young lady in the window. Libby? Was that her name? Never had the duke seen so powerful a glance of love cast in anyone’s direction, and the scope of it almost took his breath away.

The duke enjoyed a tiny moment of superiority and resisted the desire to call out to the besotted physician in that bored voice he reserved for London parties: “Doctor, oh, dear doctor, don’t you know that love is decidedly unfashionable? One dallies, one plays about, one pretends, but one does not love. That sort of nonsense is not seen in the best circles these days. Did no one tell you that we are living in an epoch of cynicism right now?”