Chapter Four
Peter awoke having his senses assaulted. When he opened his eyes, it was to find his chambers filled with sunlight. Looking down, he found himself covered in different bedclothes and dressed in a white cotton shirt.
He lifted the shirt to his nose and inhaled. It smelled clean and fresh, as did his skin.
He not only smelled clean, he realized, but felt clean, like everything, from his skin to his soul, had been scrubbed. Running his hands through his hair, he found that it too had been washed, and was braided and tied back in a small queue at his neck.
He was beginning to wonder how all these had happened when the door to his room was opened and in walked Stevens.
“Good morning, Your Grace. I am relieved to see you looking so much improved,” he said with a smile.
Stevens smiling? When was the last time he had seen his butler happy?
Not since you’ve been back. You made sure that no one in the entire house had cause to smile.
While Peter did feel rather like a new gentleman now that he was freshly clothed and washed, he knew that this alone could not be the cause of his butler’s grin. Something else had happened, and he needed to know exactly what.
“Why are you looking so jubilant this morning, Stevens? What has happened while I’ve been asleep?”
Stevens opened his mouth, but his words were cut off by the entrance into the room of perhaps the most beautiful woman that Peter had ever seen. She was, however, wearing the most hideous gown his eyes had ever had the misfortune to lay their gaze upon.
Still, the gown did nothing to detract from the intelligent twinkle in her eyes, which were the color of honey taken straight from the beehive. She had skin that resembled young strawberries, white with the faintest hint of blush pink beneath. Even from his position in bed, Peter could see that freckles dotted the whole of her face.
Freckles, to most gentlemen and ladies of the English upper classes, were unbecoming. Peter knew that Magdalene had tried to remove hers with an awful-smelling combination of sodium borate and camphor. But he had always liked freckles. They made him think their owners whimsical.
He had, in fact, tried on more than one occasion to get Magdalene to stop with her skin treatments and had even gone so far as to suggest she walk outside without a hat. He loved her freckles—they were one of his favorite things about her. However, her response had told him that such suggestions would not be welcome again.
“Keep my freckles! Peter, you must be mad! My freckles are what kept me from getting proposed to until my fourth season! My mother threatened to make me wash my face four times a day with acid and lavender if I did not find a husband by this winter. It’s a lucky thing I found you, or the skin of my face might have fallen off by now,” she’d scolded him.
This woman, however, did not look as though she minded her freckles one bit.
Peter wondered, rather wickedly, whether her freckles extended beyond those visible parts of skin available to him. Were there freckles on her breasts, whose shape he sadly could not assess due to that terrible frock? Would the legs he assumed, from her height, must be long and lean also be so dotted with the things? He wished he could find out.
But a woman like this would not be easily wooed, he knew. Her confident stance, legs apart, shoulders thrown back, chin up, told him she was in complete control of herself. He also guessed, from the relaxed way she carried herself, that she was perfectly happy with herself exactly the way she was. Which was something to be admired.
She obviously cared nothing for fashion or style. The dress, combined with her hair, which was pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck, made her seem severe, but the hint of a smile at her lips and the intelligence in her eyes suggested the exact opposite.
Those eyes, which were a beautiful golden brown, were staring at him with an assessing stare, like a maid might do to a cut of meat at the market. It was not a feeling Peter liked overmuch. It did strange things to his stomach and skin, making one jump and the other tingle.
Real gentlemen do not tingle. They…shiver? No, they…tremor?
Rolling his eyes inwardly, Peter gave up the fight to replace the word “tingle.” After all, he wasn’t a real gentleman anymore. Why shouldn’t he tingle?
Such frivolous wonderings were thankfully interrupted when his attention was diverted a moment later by the mystery woman walking further into his room. In fact, she walked all the way to his bed.
The tingling grew even more pronounced with each step she took in his direction, and extended down his body, coming to rest in the region between his thighs, which recently had not had much reason to be excited. One minute in the presence of this woman, however, and Peter found himself stiff as a board. It was an odd, but not altogether unwelcome situation, especially since he had his bedclothes to cover his indecorousness.
“Good morning, Your Grace. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lavinia Bell, daughter of Dr. Robert Bell. My father was unable to attend you last night while you were sick with fever, and he sent me to tend to you. I bled you and administered medicines to help flush the fever from your body. I then had your servants change your bedclothes, wash you, and then dress you in loose, clean clothes, in order to ensure you are no longer surrounded by the remnants of your illness. Now that I have returned, I would like to conduct an examination, to ensure you are in fact cured of your febrile disease.”
“Examination? But…but you’re a woman!” Peter said, feeling thoroughly confused. He had no recollection whatsoever of meeting this woman before. And he would certainly remember making the acquaintance of such a beautiful creature. Of course, the last day was rather blurry in his mind. He remembered sitting with Magdalene in the garden, looking at her smiling eyes and full lips, and then…nothing. Well, not nothing, precisely.
There were glimpses of the battle, of Brock and his men around the cannon. But he knew that was just his usual dream. This Lavinia Bell, however, featured in none of those remembrances.
“I am indeed female, Your Grace, but I think you will find me just as capable as my father in the art of practicing the medical sciences. My father has taught me everything he knows, and were it not for the laws governing medical training in England, I am sure I would make a fine physician.”
“That may be true, but the fact of the matter is that you are not currently a physician. You are a woman, standing in my chambers, which I think you will agree is rather untoward. Leave, and send for your father. I will wait for him to conduct the examination.”
Peter rather liked the idea of examining Miss Bell, but he was not nearly so fond of her returning the favor in kind.
Miss Bell raised one of her eyebrows, which Peter now realized were quite dark, especially in comparison to her fair hair. Somehow, this lent her expression a rather regal air, like she was a queen and he a mere manservant. Peter almost found himself feeling cowed in front of her, especially since he was laying in bed, and she was standing over him, her height suddenly making her seem giant.
But that feeling of almost-weakness made him agitated. Peter had been feeling weak for months, but prior to now, he had only been able to do so in front of his staff and Lady Magdalene. No one had challenged him, tried to emasculate him. If anything, they had tried to lift up his spirits.
However, the woman in front of him was doing the exact opposite. Her formidable nature was reminding Peter of just how unintimidating he was in his current condition.
How weak I must look.
And so, using the skills he had honed after weeks of shouting at maids, refusing meals and generally making sure that everyone around him was as miserable as himself, Peter looked up at the woman and said, in his lowest, most menacing growl, “Get. Out.”
My legs might be lame, but my voice is just as ferocious as ever. He was grateful for that, at least.
“I beg your pardon, Your Grace, but I really do need to examine you in order to—” Miss Bell began, but Peter interrupted her, raising his voice as he a
gain shouted, “Get. Out!”
This time, he paired the shout with a thrust of his chest that had Miss Bell jumping back with what looked like fright.
“My goodness,” she said, her hand over her heart, her breaths coming out fast and shallow: a sure sign that Peter was winning. He purposefully ignored the delicious sight of her bosom heaving, finally giving him some sense of her proportions in that area.
Get her out of your room, and then you can think about her bosoms.
Peter didn’t want to scare her. He just wanted her gone. He needed her gone, from his chambers, and from his house.
Turning to Stevens, Peter gestured at the woman and said, “Stevens, will you kindly remove this bluestocking, uppity chit from this house? And please see to it that she does not return. I will have only qualified physicians in this house,” he said.
He was gratified to see the look of shock on Miss Bell’s face as she backed away from him. With her gone, he was free to go back to the delicious imaginings of earlier, back when Miss Bell was not a physician looking to examine him, but simply an attractive stranger who had ignited in him desires he had long forgotten he possessed.
Indeed, he was rather satisfied with how well he had managed the situation, or at least, he was until he saw the look on Stevens’s face. It was one of disappointment, and one of loss of faith.
This served to immediately quell his satisfaction, replacing it with the familiar melancholy that seemed to color so many of his days.
Stevens’s look reminded him that the good Duke of Kingwood, a kind gentleman, a friend to all, was gone, and that his butler was mourning him.
He’s not the only one.
Peter was glad when Stevens left a moment later. Once again, he was alone. Fantasizing did not commence. Instead, he engaged in self-pity, contemplating how truly wretched he had become, that he would yell at a woman and banish the only man, perhaps the only person, who truly knew and cared for him.
* * *
“What do you mean, he ordered you from the room?” Lavinia’s father asked that evening. He was finally home from Mrs. Huan’s birth. The baby was born breech, and it was thought for most of the night that the mother would not survive. However, due to the combined efforts of her father and the midwife, both Mrs. Huan and her baby, named Robert, after Lavinia’s father, had survived.
Lavinia had smiled upon hearing the baby’s name. Robert Huan was not the first baby to be named after her father, and Lavinia expected he would not be the last, not so long as her father continued to excel at his profession.
Now, however, that smile was gone, for she was recounting her morning with the insufferable Peter Cadden, The Duke of Kingwood.
“He said he would not be seen by a woman, and then he asked his butler to escort me out,” Lavinia huffed, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair. They were seated in the library, a stack of books between them and the day’s newspaper laid out on the table in front of them. They had split the paper equally, and ought to have been enjoying the day’s news in silence, except that Lavinia’s father had idly asked how the duke was, resulting in an emotional tirade she knew was annoying them both.
Still, she could not help it. Lavinia had only been thrown out of one other patient’s home, and that was by the daughter of an old woman dying of wasting disease. Lavinia had apparently resembled the old woman’s sister, and had so distressed her with her appearance that the woman’s daughter worried if Lavinia entered the house again, she would shock the old woman into death.
“Best if you go, love. She’s not long for this world anyways. There’s naught you could do to help her,” the old woman’s daughter had told her in a thick Yorkshire accent.
But at least then, there had been reason for Lavinia to go. Whereas with the duke, there was no reason for her expulsion from his chambers. Lavinia was a seasoned and skilled, if not qualified, professional. She was trusted by her father, the duke’s physician, and she had helped His Grace get through his fever. That alone ought to have proved her usefulness, but apparently her sex nullified any of the ways she might positively contribute to the duke’s health.
She had at first found Peter Cadden merely frustratingly attractive, but she had revised her assessment during her journey home that morning. Now, she found him simply frustrating.
“Well, from what you told me of the gossip his maid and his butler shared with you, it is clear that he is mentally agitated. He is not in his right mind. I will conduct an examination tomorrow morning, and hopefully I can make him see reason. It’s likely he will need more care in the coming weeks, and I will most certainly not always be available to give it. He’ll simply have to get used to you,” her father said, shrugging like that would be a simple task.
But Lavinia knew that gentlemen like The Duke of Kingwood did not willingly accept such things. They thought that their money and privilege allowed them to live life exactly as they pleased. And usually, it did, which made it all the more complicated when circumstances beyond their control forced them to accept situations they deemed less than ideal.
It was for this and many other reasons that Lavinia often regarded gentlemen like the duke with something akin to pity. Their lives were, after all, so complicated. The ladies were sold off like cattle at a market, thrown to the highest bidder with the most money and the best reputation. Marriage took up so much thought and consideration, as did clothing, titles, property, and other superficial things that were meant to define a person, but in fact only served to ensure that every person looked, acted, and talked like every other person.
Lavinia often thought of the ton as a bunch of sheep, with the gossip rags and old biddies their shepherds, leading them all toward one trend or another. She was glad not to be one of their set.
Though her life was unusual, she enjoyed it. She never had to worry about coming out to society, about finding the right husband. In fact, she had begun to suspect that her father would be happiest if she stayed unattached for the rest of her days, because it would make it so much easier to work together.
Still, her contentment with her lot in life did not prevent her from despising His Grace, or, as she was now calling in her head, “The Uncouth Duke.”
“…so do not wait for me, for I am not entirely sure when I shall be home.”
Lavinia looked over and realized that while she was thinking unkind thoughts about dukes and sheep, her father had been talking. And of course, he would not repeat himself, so she was forced to glean, from his facial expression and the final words of his speech, a rough summary of what he had said.
He’s leaving. To see a patient? And won’t be home by the time I retire to bed, she guessed, though she did not remember him mentioning any patients earlier that afternoon. Then again, she had been rather distracted then, too. In fact, her thoughts had been unusually unfocused since she returned from the duke’s residence.
“Do try and forget about the duke, my dear. Or at least, think of ways to help him, rather than thinking of clever ways to insult him. It would be a much more productive use of your intelligence,” her father said, showing uncharacteristic attentiveness to her mood.
“Yes, Father. I’ll do my best,” she said, and grabbed Cheyne’s book from the stack beside her, deciding to spend the rest of the evening planning so that when she was eventually let back into the duke’s chambers, she would be prepared.
She would not be distracted by him or anything else. Not when the happiness of the duke’s entire household clearly hung in the balance. The servants needed their duke, that was clear. And she was going to deliver him back to them, a new, improved version of his former self.
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Also by Violet Hamers
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Sins 0f An Intoxicating Duchess (Steamy Historical Regency Romance) Page 34
