You May Kiss the Duke

by Charis Michaels

  For this, Stoker had no answer. He’d stopped her snooping because it seemed unsafe. She’d promptly embarked upon the investigation of her uncle, putting herself in the path of a far more dangerous set.

  “You’re a natural sleuth, it would seem,” he said.

  She shot him a look but shouldered on.

  They’d staggered onward, walking nearly cheek to cheek. He could smell her—wind and grass and just the faintest whiff of . . . butterscotch. He tried to turn his face away, but it took all his strength just to make his way forward without crushing her. He breathed her in, filing away the memory. He felt her skirts, heavy against his legs; her thin shoulders, strong and upright. Her hand was small but tight in his own. Remember, he thought through the pain. He would fall asleep to these details for a year.

  Sabine was tall compared to many women, with deep curves and legs that ate up the ground with long, purposeful strides. She did everything, including carry his damaged form, as if it was the most important task of the day. When Sabine applied herself to something, everything else fell away. Distraction was never a threat. Time and again since his arrival, he’d found himself caught up in the simple pleasure of watching her. He was thoroughly entertained by the sight of her diligently rolling a bandage or tossing a ball to the dog.

  Now that he actually touched her, he thanked God for his wound. It was the double-edged sword that allowed him to hold her without disgracing her, or himself.

  “How did you manage to get so very far from the bed?” she asked now, glancing up to catch his stare.

  Stoker jerked his gaze to the floor. “The stitches tore when Harley helped me into your chair. I was quite mobile before that, actually.”

  “Congratulations,” she said, “for reversing days of progress in the length of one afternoon. To write correspondence.”

  He grimaced, allowing the excuse of extreme pain to preclude any answer. What could he say? She was exactly bloody right.

  Jon Stoker was a lot heavier than he appeared, and that was saying a lot. He appeared very heavy indeed. He was a foot taller than Sabine and twice as broad. He could scoop up Bridget with one giant hand. His sleeping body made Sabine’s comfortable bed look like a cot.

  With drunken progress, they skidded along one wall, then the other. It was strenuous, sweaty work, with copious oofs and profanity and a litany of excuses and denials from a gasping Stoker.

  Sabine was surprised by none of this—of course he was large and heavy, and of course it was a trial for him to be dragged, especially by her. What surprised her was how little it bothered her to be so very close to him.

  Sabine had avoided men, all men, even those who appeared too old or too drunk or too stupid to be a threat to her. Sir Dryden had spoiled men for her in that way, and she had no real hope of recovery, even after all this time. Today, on the Dreadnought, a sailor grateful for her visit had opened his arms for a brotherly embrace and she had recoiled.

  She’d never been overtly open to uninvited closeness, even before Sir Dryden, but after she escaped his particularly sadistic reign of terror, she found herself entirely unable to indulge anything more than the quickest of handshakes with a male. The notion of being handed down from the saddle, sitting crushed together in a crowded carriage—or, God forbid, dancing—was entirely out of the question. The very thought lodged a sharp knot of dread in her throat.

  All things being equal, she had not missed it—not like she missed her mother or her bedroom at Park Lodge or working on her father’s papers. She employed a ready selection of dismissive looks and curt withdrawals that kept most reasonable men at bay, and all things being equal, they hadn’t really been that difficult to avoid.

  Until a staggering, swearing man, only half in control of his motions, draped himself across her and forced her to drag him twenty yards. She should have been terrified, sick with anxiety. She was not.

  Once she got over the initial touch—hot male body through cotton and silk; straining muscle; heavy breath; raspy, stubbled cheek—she found she was not so much afraid of touching him as she was afraid of dropping him.

  They broached the bedroom door after ten minutes of effort, and his weight seemed to increase; his footfalls dragged longer. His strength was waning.

  Oh no, you do not, she thought, and she said, “You mustn’t stop now, Stoker. We’ve nearly made it.” She stooped to get a better grip. It was impossible not to feel the muscles of his body constrict and stretch with every movement. He had been laid low by the knife wound, but he’d not succumb, even to the infection. This, she felt sure, was due entirely to his preexisting fitness. “You can make it three yards.”

  “I’m too heavy, and I’m less able to walk than when we began.”

  “You are not so heavy,” she countered, but she thought, You are so incredibly heavy.

  “I’ve damaged you.”

  “Stop,” Sabine breathed. “I am not a piece of china in a shop, and I know my own endurance, thank you very much. Keep walking.”

  “Leave and allow me the dignity to crawl to the bed on my own.”

  “You and I will make it to the bed together if I have to drag you by your hair. Go, Stoker. Walk on.” Biting her lip, Sabine squeezed him tightly and they staggered to the bed.

  “Let me go,” he rasped when they were in reach.

  “You will fall on your wound. We must pivot.”

  “Let me go.”

  “I will lower you down,” she insisted.

  “You’ll be crushed.”

  “I’ve already been crushed a half dozen times. At least now I will be pinned against the mattress rather than plaster wall.”

  Before he could broach another argument, Sabine took a deep breath, bent at the knees, and pivoted, pitching both of them in the direction of the bed. She felt her feet leave the floor, felt the mattress take her hip, and—flop, she found herself pressed beneath him in the center of the bed. His weight was like a dead horse. She could hear his sawing breath and feel his chest heaving up and down.

  Sabine remembered to draw her own breath and she wiggled her fingers and toes. She waited for some distress or alarm, but she felt only weariness—and gratefulness. They’d made it. She’d said they would, and they had. She turned her head and breathed in, willing her heart to slow, giving him time. Bridget stood beside the bed and looked up at her. Sabine smiled down, and the dog sat attentively and studied her mistress squashed beneath their new houseguest. She cocked her head, opening one bug-wing ear to a potential command.

  After a long moment Sabine said softly, “Stoker, you’re alright.”

  Her face was flush with his neck. She could see a faint pulse throbbing above his collar. She had the strange, unfamiliar urge to press her lips to it. Just a swipe. The work of a moment. To test the temperature of his skin and feel the texture against her lips. To breath him in.

  She ignored the impulse and looked again at the dog. “You’re alright,” she repeated.

  “Can you move?” he asked.

  “I’m not the one clinging to life. Of course I can move.”

  Then why haven’t I? Sabine wondered. The soft mattress was, indeed, a great relief. The sheets were clean and cool. The living, breathing weight of Jon Stoker felt . . . not anything like she had expected.

  “Are you crushed?”

  She shook her head, and her lips grazed the skin of his neck. Stoker stopped breathing for half a beat and she sucked in a little breath.

  “I told you we would manage,” she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. She looked again at the dog. “Is this not preferable to the study?”

  “Preferable?” he said shakily.

  She chuckled and she heard him wince. It could not be useful for him to drape across the curved landscape of her body. She began the slow, strange process of disentangling their arms and legs. By inches, she slid from beneath him. There was no graceful or impersonal way to do it. She touched every plane of him, every crook, every hollow and swell. When, at last, her arms an
d legs were free, she rolled right and tumbled onto the floor. Bridget barked and he let out a moan.

  “I am fine,” Sabine announced.

  “This was not worth the letters I posted,” Stoker said to the ceiling.

  “Obviously,” she said, “and we haven’t even gotten to the truly terrible part.”

  “No.”

  “No—what?” She sighed, brushed back her hair, now loose and wild.

  “No to whatever you believe to be worse than what we’ve just done.”

  “I must look in on your stitches,” she said. “If you’ve torn them, I will have to send for Dr. Cornwell.”

  “For God’s sake, Sabine,” he breathed, “send for the bloody doctor. Please.” He sought out her face with red, weary eyes. His skin looked grey beneath his tan, and his hair was wet with sweat. “I will pay for the man to call every ten minutes if that is what I require. Spare yourself bloody stitches, if nothing else.”

  “Fine,” she said, and she realized she was relieved. He had won this point. Dragging him through the apartments was one thing; torn stitches were quite another.

  She brushed her hands briskly over her dress, avoiding his gaze. “I’ll just dash off a summons. Don’t move,” she said, and he actually barked a faint laugh.

  Five minutes later she’d written to Dr. Cornwell and sent the note to Harley Street with a groom.

  “I suggested it was urgent,” she said, returning to the doorway. “He won’t be long.” She paused, watching him. He hadn’t moved from the spot where they had flung themselves. His gasping breaths had subsided, and she wondered if he’d fallen asleep.

  “Stoker?” She took a step into the room.

  “I’m here,” he said, staring at the ceiling.

  “Are you . . . comfortable?” It seemed like the correct thing to ask.

  “No,” he said.

  “Should I—”

  “No,” he said.

  “You would be an easier patient if you were more demanding,” she said.

  “You say that, but it is not really true.”

  “I feel rather helpless, now that you’re awake. If I’m being honest.”

  He chuckled and then winced. “May you never know real helplessness.”

  “Oh, but you forget. I already have.”

  He raised his head. “Yes, I suppose you have.”

  A flash of recognition passed between them. She looked into his eyes and they saw the same memory. She could not think of the next thing to say. She took another step into the room.

  Stoker said, “Will you tell me what you discovered when you were out today? With the sailors?”

  “You’re joking,” she said, a test. She wanted to tell him.

  “Not a joke,” he said. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because you’re half-dead.”

  “Possibly. But if that is true, I am also half-alive. You may be shocked to learn that the living part of me knows quite a lot about smugglers.”

  She shook her head because she did not have the conviction to say no. She must refuse him, mustn’t she? They were not collaborators. They were not even friends.

  “You do not trust me,” Stoker guessed.

  “I do not know you,” she said, the truth.

  “You knew me enough to marry me.”

  “I would have married anyone.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  You shouldn’t believe it, she thought. I would not have married anyone.

  He asked again. “Tell me only what you’ve learned today.”

  She hesitated.

  “It will become clearer in your mind to relate it,” he said. “Only until the doctor arrives, perhaps? To take my mind off the pain.”

  “The pain is your just reward for today’s recklessness,” she said, sighing, but she drifted closer.

  He waited. After a moment she said, “I have an idea. I’ll tell you about the sailors if you tell me what’s happened with the Duke of Wrest.”

  Stoker made a sound of regret.

  “What?” she asked. “It’s only fair. My investigation in exchange for yours. You cannot include me in the early days and then filch on the ending.”

  “There is no ending,” he sighed.

  “There is more than has been revealed to me.

  “Tell me about the smuggling.”

  “Tell me about the duke.”

  “Ladies first.”

  “Why?” She laughed.

  “I am half-dead.”

  Another laugh, but she drifted to the bed and settled on the corner of the mattress. Bridget leapt into her lap and Stoker winced.

  “Today,” she began carefully, “I met twelve sailors who claimed to have served as crew on a small brig owned by my uncle’s associate—this man, Mr. Leaver. The boat sailed from Portsmouth across the channel to France, making delivery of one hundred bails of wool. When they returned from France, however, they sailed with fifty barrels filled with some unknown . . . something. The sailors were not told.” She paused for effect, relishing his attention. “They did not return to their home port of Portsmouth with the unidentified barrels,” she said. “They sailed west instead, just off the coast of Dorset, to a tiny barrier island called the Isle of Portland . . .”

  Chapter Eight

  Stoker found the doctor to be a competent man, practical and reasonable and in no way alarmed that a beautiful woman was tending to a half-dead man who she discovered in a morgue. Dr. Cornwell was more concerned with what he referred to as Stoker’s “escapades” of the day—possibly the first time the act of getting out of bed had been considered an escapade—but the older man did not scold or coddle. He unpacked his satchel and set to work, pulling away Stoker’s blood-soaked dressing gown and sending Sabine for whiskey and a piece of wood on which to bite. He did not say the words, but his message was clear: This would hurt.

  Sabine returned quickly with the wood and whiskey, but Stoker wanted only the liquor. He took a long drink from the bottle, relishing the fire in his throat.

  “Will you leave us?” he rasped, looking at Sabine.

  She glanced at the doctor and back to the bed, and then nodded. It was clear that she had no wish to bear witness to whatever the doctor would inflict. In this, they were agreed. But still, she lingered. Stoker grimaced and turned his face away. His pride was at the breaking point.

  He took another drink, purposefully ignoring her, willing her to go. Finally, thankfully, she stooped to pick up her dog and stepped from the room, closing the door behind her. Stoker let out an uneven breath.

  “Am I meant to survive this?” Stoker asked the doctor when she was gone.

  “You’ll survive,” said the doctor, rummaging through his tools with a foreboding clink and rattle.

  “Can you make out what happened? And how long ago?” Stoker asked. The fire in Stoker’s side raged hotter, and he took another drink. He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing in and out.

  “Stab wound,” said the doctor. “I’d say about two weeks ago. Infection has set in. It was very bad indeed when your wife rescued you from the so-called hospital ship, but you’ve made great progress since then. Until today, of course.” Dr. Cornwell prodded gently at Stoker’s side with a metal tool and he let out a howl of pain. The doctor tsked and replaced the tool with shears.

  “Can I be safely moved from Mrs. Stoker’s bedroom?” Stoker grunted, speaking around the pain. “Assuming you can repair the damage of today.” He paused, hissing out a breath. “I have a suite of rooms in Regent Street and can raise a full staff. I’ll be very cautious, and the most attentive servants can be hired to manage the move.”

  Cornwell jabbed and tugged at his wound but gave no immediate answer. Stoker grimaced, bracing against the anticipation as much as the pain. It was madness, of course, to remain here. Sabine was unsettled and inconvenienced. He was in considerable pain, obviously, but her constant presence was an even greater challenge. He endured a terrible mix of desire and helplessness.<
br />
  Say no, he thought, in spite of it all. Say I must remain.

  “I wouldn’t,” Dr. Cornwell finally said, carefully snipping at his burning side. “Your body is fighting for life, Mr. Stoker. My advice would be to work in accord with the fight and not against it. Stillness, rest, nourishment, a clean room, and an attendant with a vested interest in your improvement. Staff is very handy except that they frequently couldn’t care less if you live or die. Nothing like the motivation of a loving wife. Unless you mean to move her to Regent Street too. Even so—why risk the health of this wound? Why inconvenience yourself when you already battle an infection? Stay put, that’s what I say.”

  Stoker let out a breath and nodded. It was irrelevant to point out that Sabine was not a loving wife but a charitable acquaintance. It was unbelievable to say that his time here would be devoted to tracking her movements among London’s maritime criminal element, not to battling infection, although theoretically he could do both at the same time. Regardless, he’d been given permission to stay, at least a little while, and he would seize it.

  “Ah, bloody hell, man, what have you done?” said the doctor, poking and prodding with what felt like searing blades.

  “What indeed?” Stoker breathed, taking another swig of whiskey. The doctor reached for a swath of fabric, dipped it in boiling water, and applied it to the raw, damaged flesh of Stoker’s side. The new pain was immediate, overwhelming, cold and hot at the same time, high and low, deep and shallow. Consciousness flitted, spun, and finally, thankfully, dissolved to pink then red and then blessedly black.

  Chapter Nine

  The northwest London borough of Marylebone is renowned for an Anglican church of the same name and an eighteenth-century pleasure garden. The church has been rebuilt three times since 1200 AD, but the pleasure garden, including its once remarkable shell grotto, now languishes in ruin.

  The only remaining feature is the garden’s musical venue, The Rose of Burgundy tavern, which has remained in business for two centuries and stages concerts daily. Likewise, the church, as ever, carries on.