You May Kiss the Duke

by Charis Michaels

  Now she was dragging a chair across the room, her movements more intent than careful. When she arrived at the bedside with the chair, she created a table by balancing five books on a footstool, topped by a wooden box, a sixth book, and now the tray of food teetering on top of it all. The makeshift tower listed slightly and she took up a napkin and spoon.

  “I beg your pardon?” she said casually, indulgently.

  Stoker snapped his head back to the ceiling. He hated being indulged.

  “I said,” he informed her, trying to sound sane, “that I will take my leave. Today—now.” The pronouncement actually managed to sound more petulant the second time around.

  “Oh yes,” she said, “by all means, you should go. Heave yourself up and gather your things and walk right out the door.”

  “I will hire transportation,” he said. He tried to shove up in the bed, but the jolt of fresh pain made him breathless and he collapsed against the pillows.

  “Yes, I know you can hire a great many things,” she said, “but that does not mean these are wise or healthy things. It doesn’t mean it would be the rational behavior of a man of sound mind.” He heard the clink of her spoon against china and the thud of something being lifted and replaced to the floor. Liquid sloshing into a goblet. His throat burned. He was so bloody thirsty.

  “Will you take some broth and water?” she asked.

  “My mind is sound,” he informed her, even while he wanted to say, Yes.

  “Brilliant. If your mind is intact, then we’ve made real progress. The doctor said your wits should eventually return, but there was never a guarantee.”

  Stoker groaned at the thought of Sabine spoon-feeding him under the assumption that he might never regain his wits.

  “Look,” she went on, “it’s obvious you are displeased with the arrangement, but I’ll not be responsible for the setback that would surely result from a . . . a hired transport. The doctor means for you to stay, and I am inclined to follow his orders. His directives have been very effective so far. And this includes the order that you should eat and drink as much as possible. So, while you glower and tell me how you will soon take your leave, can you also open your mouth and eat this soup? I’ve quite a full day, actually. You were much easier to feed when you were barely conscious.”

  Stoker considered refusing the sustenance; turning away was quite literally the only stand he could take at the moment. But then his stomach growled audibly, the rumble filling the room, and it felt more ridiculous to pretend.

  “There’s a good man,” said Sabine briskly, moving in with the spoon.

  “Oh God,” mumbled Stoker, wincing at her encouragement, and Sabine said, “What?”

  “No platitudes,” he said. “I will eat, but do not praise me like a child.”

  “Oh right,” said Sabine, but then she drew back, dropping the spoon into the bowl. “This position flat on your back will never work. Can you—?” She stood up. She opened her hands over him, and then stopped. She snatched her hands back. “Harley the footman usually hoists you up to sitting before I feed you,” she said.

  “I can sit,” he said. He had no idea if he could sit.

  “Can you?” Her tone said that he could not. She crossed her arms over her chest.

  Stoker ignored this and concentrated on animating his arms and planting his palms on the bed. His heart pounded; the sheets weighed at least a stone. Pain dragged along every limb like a match. He bit his lip and pushed on.

  “Harley has midday duties,” Sabine mused, watching with a worried look, “but I could ask him to come down for five minutes.”

  “I can sit.” Sweat poured down Stoker’s neck and he gasped, unable to contain the agony of shoving up. It took three tries, but he would not not sit.

  Sabine did not reach out to help him, nor did she look away. She observed his gaspy, red-faced struggle as if she was watching a stuck wagon slowly roll from the mud. Stoker closed his eyes.

  “I would congratulate you,” she sighed, reclaiming her seat, “but you’ve said no platitudes. Can you still take the broth?”

  “I can feed myself,” he rasped. This was likely untrue.

  “Of course you can,” she mocked. He heard chair legs slide closer to the bed, the clink of the spoon. “Open.”

  Stoker forced one eye open and looked at her.

  “Your mouth, not your eye.”

  “I will not be spoon-fed like an invalid,” he said.

  “You are not like an invalid, you are an invalid, and spoon-feeding is the only way to get this delicious soup down your gullet. Open.”

  He blinked at her, wondering how long he could resist. His stomach growled again.

  “Did I mention,” she sighed, “that I have a very busy day?”

  “When did you write to Cassin and Joseph?” If he must consent to her ministrations, he would know for how long.

  “Four days ago,” she said, bringing the spoon to his mouth.

  He could not look at her and accept food from her hand, so he closed his eyes again. The warm, salty broth pooled on his tongue, the most delicious food he had ever tasted, and he gulped it down. She spooned another dose into his mouth, and another, and another. His pride melted away, and he forgot about closing his eyes. He was ravenous for the next bite.

  “Good, isn’t it?” she said. “I’ve been rather spoiled here with the Boyds. Their staff is impeccably trained and the cook in particular is a great talent.”

  “No word at all from Joseph or Cassin?” Stoker asked.

  “Oh yes, they’ve sent concerned letters, two and three a day, but I have hidden them from you, so that I may relish your convalescence as long as I can.” She offered a goblet of water and he drank greedily.

  “Never you fear,” she sighed. “I will relinquish you to them as soon as either of them makes an appearance. In the meantime, you are stuck with me.”

  “I am not ungrateful,” he said, gasping between gulps.

  “You are wholly ungrateful,” she said, refilling the goblet, “but my dog likes you, and I can look after you around my other work, so it could be worse, I suppose.”

  “The travel guides?” He was so weary of talking about himself.

  “There is that,” she said vaguely. She took up a baguette and flapped it back and forth over his face like a fan. “Would you try some bread?”

  “I can manage,” he gritted out. He forced his right arm to rise, and he snatched the bread, a small triumph. He raised his left hand and tried to rip the baguette in two, but his strength failed him. He blinked and looked at the ceiling, raging.

  Sabine snatched the bread as if she hadn’t seen and tore off a hunk. She tucked a chunk into his hand. “I’m actually balancing the work of the travel guides with another project,” she told him importantly.

  Whether she meant to distract from his weakness or actually wanted to share her work, he could not say. She stared thoughtfully into the distance. Stoker raised the bread to his mouth with a shaking hand and took a pathetic bite.

  She glanced at him, waiting for some encouragement, and he felt compelled to go along. “What other project?”

  “Piecing together criminal evidence. Against Dryden.”

  Stoker opened his mouth to take more bread, but he snapped it shut. He looked at Sabine. “What sort of criminal evidence?”

  “Well, I’ve always thought criminal was an apt general description of my uncle, but—clever me—I believe I’ve stumbled upon actual proof. Legal proof of crimes punishable by law.”

  “What crimes?” Stoker forgot the bread. Sir Dryden Noble was a tyrant and a sadist, and he’d thought he’d delivered her from ever tangling with him again.

  “Crime enough to oust him from Park Lodge and allow me to return home,” she said. She began to collect the bread and spoon and tidy the tray. “The Boyds’ home is comfortable and London has been diverting, but I cannot remain here forever. My real home is Park Lodge, and I always meant to go back. My mother’s health grows worse ev
ery year. But I can’t return if I do not remove my uncle. How much more effective to have the authorities do it for me?”

  Sabine reached to press a napkin to his lips, and he turned his face away. He summoned all his strength to wipe his own mouth with his sleeve. He said, “Sabine, what crimes?”

  Sabine looked right and left as if they might be overheard. “I learned in the spring that he’s dismissed all my father’s students and put a stop to their work on his last folio of maps. He’s using the maps for some other purpose—that’s what I believe.”

  “What purpose? What illegal thing could be done with maps?”

  “Well, the maps chart the landscape of the barrier islands that cluster around the shores of Great Britain. This had been my father’s last project. And . . .” now she lowered her voice “. . . I believe that Sir Dryden has taken some role in illegal smuggling, using these barrier islands to bring contraband goods into England.”

  “Smuggling?” Stoker choked. His mind leapt to every blackguard smuggler, every rotting boat, every danger he’d ever witnessed in his ten years as a sea captain.

  “Yes, smuggling,” Sabine went on. She sounded triumphant. “There are more than a hundred barrier islands around Britain, and none of them had ever been properly mapped until my father’s last expedition. Intimate knowledge of these islands is a smuggler’s dream. Contraband can be unloaded, hidden among the rocks and caves, and rowed to shore in small lots. The islands have been used for this purpose for centuries, but I believe Sir Dryden is organizing a fleet of smugglers to navigate the barrier islands on a grand scale.”

  Stoker blinked at her; the words fleet of smugglers and grand scale spun in his head. He said, “Sabine, who is helping you?”

  She stopped in the process of hoisting the tray. “Helping me? Why would I need help?”

  Because smugglers are deadly serious about their work, and you have no idea what you’re doing, he thought. But he said, “Because collaborations can be . . . useful.”

  She shrugged and continued with the tray. “My mother’s nursemaid, May, writes me with any gossip she overhears from Dryden’s many meetings and dinner guests. Her letters to me could be considered a collaboration, I suppose.”

  Stoker opened his mouth to contradict but Sabine had warmed to the topic. “According to May, one man returns repeatedly to Park Lodge. Mr. Walker Leaver. We know his name, but it’s been nearly impossible to learn his occupation. We have ferreted out the workplaces of every other Park Lodge guest, but I’ve found so few details on Mr. Leaver. Only a vague connection to shipping. Finally, at the end of last month, I overheard a conversation in Blackwall.”

  “Blackwall?” Stoker repeated in a strangled voice.

  Sabine nodded with enthusiasm. “The two men talking suggested that the illustrious Mr. Leaver is not so much a shipper as a smuggler. And that’s when I knew I had him. Dryden is consorting with known smugglers, and I need only learn how and why. When I discovered that sailors under the employ of Mr. Leaver could be found recuperating on the Dreadnought, I knew my next step. And that is why I was on the hospital ship—well, that, and to discover your lifeless form, of course. Assuming one believes in fate. But now I shall return to the hospital ship to speak to the sailors about the nature of their work for Mr. Leaver.” She rattled it off like plans for the market. She was halfway to the door.

  “Sabine,” Stoker called, trying to keep his voice level, “the men who work as smugglers would not think twice about taking a life to protect their profits.”

  She did not miss a step. “Perhaps, but I am very careful. And I have the travel writing to disguise my investigation. No one knows I am snooping around, piecing together my uncle’s business.” She smiled and sailed from the room, her dog trotting after her.

  For the first time since he’d awakened, Stoker forgot about the pain, the helplessness, or the mortification of being an invalid. He thought only of Sabine in her pretty dress and yellow ribbon moving through the underground network of pirates and smugglers on London’s docks. His mouth went dry. “Sabine?” he rasped.

  There was a pause and she stuck her head back into the room. “Yes?”

  “Do you mean to return to the Dreadnought—now?”

  “Of course.” She looked at him like true madness had finally set in. “Don’t worry. I won’t acquire any additional corpses. I went there to interview sailors who are still very much alive. Or at least they were four days ago,” she said, smiling vaguely and ducking away.

  Stoker was left to stare at the empty doorway and realize a new level of helplessness. The Dreadnought was likely the safest of the places Sabine would venture. Clearly, she’d been to Blackwall, and more than once. She was hounding the steps of a possible smuggler. God only knew the business of these other men or how it all tied together. Stoker allowed himself to think, perhaps for the first time, of all the places his wife had snooped before he’d washed up on England’s shores. He knew her well enough to acknowledge that she would not stop with scurvy sailors on the Dreadnought.

  No, he thought, helplessness was not being spoon-fed by his wife; helplessness was being too bloody infirm to protect her.

  Chapter Six

  Five hours later, as the setting sun cast long shadows on Belgrave Square, Sabine hurried home from interviewing the scurvy-ridden sailors in Greenwich. Her boots struck a confident clip, clip, clip on the walkway, and Bridget scuttled to keep up. She’d made such progress in one afternoon. Names, dates, the port from which they sailed, the barrier islands they’d dropped anchor—the details crowded her brain like unmarked roads on a map.

  Her instinct had been correct; Sir Dryden was furnishing her father’s channel-island maps to seasoned smugglers. Together they were sneaking illegal goods into England, and on a grand scale. The sailors could not have been more clear. She now knew Dryden’s particular interest was to a barrier island off the Dorset coast called the Isle of Portland. It was only a matter of time before she learned what they smuggled and how the newly mapped Isle of Portland came into play. Then she would have solid, actionable proof of illegal smuggling, including names and dates. His certain imprisonment would be her freedom. And her revenge.

  When Sabine reached home, she clipped down the cellar steps, bypassing the Boyds’ front door. She typically spent a few minutes chatting with the older couple when she returned for the day, but not tonight. Tonight she had pages of notes to transcribe and consider. She’d jotted down a few things while she was interviewing the sailors, but not every word. She’d visited them under the guise of charitable caller, visiting the sick, so most of the visit had been spent tsking and fawning and allowing them to play with the dog. But they spoke so very easily about their role in the last smuggling run, the conversation had been a veritable goldmine of evidence. She wanted to get down every detail while it was still fresh in her mind.

  Sabine unlocked her door with haste and flung her satchel and scarf in the direction of the bench. Bridget was hungry, yipping at her feet, but she ignored her, tugging off her gloves as she made her way down the corridor to her study.

  When she passed the bedroom containing the inert Jon Stoker, she shot him a quick glance, certain he would be asleep, and hurried on to the—

  Sabine stopped so quickly, she nearly stepped on the dog.

  Jon Stoker was not sleeping or inert. He was gone.

  The bed containing Jon Stoker contained no one at all. Jon Stoker appeared to be gone.

  Sabine blinked twice, pivoted, and stared into the room. The empty bed was lit by the last orangey ray of sunset. The crisp sheets were folded back like a carefully opened envelope.

  She let out a little gasp and scanned the room. The chair by the bed was vacant. The desk unoccupied, the window unobstructed, the bookshelf clear. She looked back to the front door. The entryway was empty and the small parlor adjacent to the bedroom was—she spun around—empty.

  “Stoker?” Sabine called, her voice hollow. She felt an unexpected surge of someth
ing like panic. But could he have actually gone?

  The words Not yet formed, unbidden in her brain. He was still so ill, his friends would surely be rushing to his bedside at any hour. And she was going to tell him about the sailo—

  But no, she thought.

  He couldn’t have managed to drag himself away. He couldn’t even hold a spoon. He—

  “I’m here,” said a gravelly male voice from the study.

  Sabine’s head shot up. She was flooded with a strange rush of emotion.

  Relief? He had not gone.

  No, not relief. Anger.

  How in God’s name had he managed to leave the bed?

  She looked at the door to the room down the corridor. Her room. No, so much more than a room, her sanctuary. Sabine had taken over the room as her study when Tessa and the baby had gone. She slept in the bedroom, she took meals with the Boyds, but her life and future were carefully drawn in her study. She’d moved in a proper desk and leather chair, castoffs from the Boyds. She’d assembled shelves and bought a used drafting table.

  She used the study for her cartography and writing and, most recently, her growing evidence against Sir Dryden. She didn’t want anything disturbed, she wanted to come and go at all hours, and she did not want anyone looking at her evidence. Even the maid was not allowed inside.

  It had been one thing to install Stoker in her bedroom, but it was quite another to discover him inhabiting this, of all spaces.

  “Stoker?” she called. “Are you there?” She strode down the corridor, swiping a glowing lamp from the sideboard. The dog darted ahead.

  “Stoker?” she repeated, her voice all business. “I am not—”

  She paused at the threshold. There was an open-flame candle on the desk, illuminating the study with an eerie yellow glow. In her desk chair sat Stoker, freshly shaved, hair trimmed, wearing a dressing gown and breeches she’d never seen before. Even in the shadowy candlelight, she could see his face was as white as cold ash. He appeared to be five seconds from rolling to the floor.

  Sabine held up her lamp. “You’ve left your bed. You’re dressed. How, in God’s name?”