The Duke's Marriage Mission

by Deborah Hale

  It sounded to Leah as if the late duchess had enjoyed more active, social pastimes, while her husband had preferred quieter, solitary pursuits. She could not help but sympathize with Lady Northam. Had the duchess longed to travel and savor the amusements of London while her husband preferred the tranquility of his secluded estate? Might her young son have inherited some of her restlessness? Perhaps it would be best not to dwell on the subject.

  “Getting back to our discussion of Kit, sir, it seems to me there is an important part of his education I have not been able to undertake.”

  “What is that?” The duke seemed grateful to her for steering their conversation in a different direction. “And why have you been forced to neglect it? Are there particular materials you require? If so, prepare me a list and I shall secure them for you at once.”

  Leah shook her head. “It is not a lack of materials that prevents me, Your Grace. I assume there is plenty of paper, pens and ink available at Renforth Abbey. I would like Kit to begin practicing his penmanship and learning more advanced arithmetic, which will require him to write out the equations. But he cannot undertake written work in bed where ink might spatter on the sheets or spill onto the coverlet.”

  She rattled on, scarcely drawing breath for fear the duke would refuse her before she had a chance to finish. “I know Kit is capable of sitting up. Could we not install a writing table and chair in the nursery where he could take his lessons?”

  Concluding her request in a breathless rush, she braced for an argument like the ones they’d had before. At the time, she had rather relished such disagreements, for they injected a bit of excitement into her quiet existence at Renforth Abbey. Now she shrank from the prospect of a hostile exchange with His Grace.

  “I fear you have me at a disadvantage, Miss Shaw.” The duke did not sound as troubled by it as his words suggested.

  “In what way, sir?”

  “By compelling me to admit your previous suggestions have not done Kit any harm, you have demolished my arguments before I can make them. It would be perverse of me to claim otherwise.”

  Had she understood him properly? Leah scarcely dared to hope. “Does that mean you are willing to do what I ask, sir?”

  The earl gave a halting nod. “I cannot pretend it comes easy to me, taking any sort of risk where Kit’s well-being is concerned. Perhaps I have been overly cautious about his health to the detriment of his happiness. You have shown me that if we take small steps, the potential benefits outweigh the risk of harm.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace!” It was well they had the whole width of the table between them. Otherwise she might have thrown her arms around the duke, so pleased was she with his answer.

  Having watched Lord Northam care for his son, she knew how difficult this decision must be for him. She took it as a rare compliment that he trusted her enough to undertake a course of action that must seem so perilous to him.

  She must do everything in her power to make certain he did not regret his decision.

  It amazed and touched Hayden how much Leah Shaw had come to care for his son in the two brief months since she had arrived at Renforth Abbey.

  As he watched Kit at his writing table, learning to form his letters, Hayden recalled the joyful smile that had illuminated Miss Shaw’s face when he’d agreed to give her idea a try. At that moment, it became clear to him that she truly believed greater independence was as vital to Kit’s wellbeing as protecting his fragile health. From everything he had witnessed since she’d become the boy’s governess, he was gradually being forced to agree.

  He roused from his thoughts to find the governess gazing at him with a different sort of smile than the one she’d lavished upon him during their first dinner together. This one might lack the brilliant sparkle of the other, but its soft glow warmed him.

  “Your son can make all his letters now, Your Grace,” she announced with obvious pride in her young pupil’s accomplishment. “He can also form his numbers and write his name in script.”

  “Well done, Kit!” Hayden strode toward the table to look over his son’s latest written work.

  “Not my whole name yet.” Kit laid down his pen. “Just Christopher for now. But I will soon learn the rest.”

  Sitting at the writing table with papers and books spread around him, Kit looked like any other schoolboy his age, busy doing his lessons. Only his nightcap, dressing gown and the blankets tucked around his legs suggested otherwise. Lately Miss Shaw had proposed that the boy should be dressed in day clothes for his lessons.

  “I am certain you will master writing your full name before I know it.” Hayden patted his son on the shoulder. Was it his imagination, or did the boy’s frame feel sturdier beneath his hand? “I have great confidence in your abilities. But you have had enough time sitting up for today. Let me get you settled back in bed, then you can read me a page from Gulliver’s Travels.”

  “Not yet.” Kit picked up his pen with a defiant air. “I want to try writing Latimer, first.”

  Before Hayden could reply, Miss Shaw spoke up. “You will have plenty of time to practice your family name tomorrow, Kit. You mustn’t tire yourself out.”

  Hayden shot her a look of gratitude for coming to his aid. Unfortunately, it was not enough to persuade his son, who deliberately dipped his pen in the inkwell and began to write.

  “I don’t like to stay in bed so much,” the child announced as he tried to form a script letter L. “Nobody else at Renforth has to.”

  His concentration broken by trying to write and talk at the same time, Kit had trouble forming the letter to his satisfaction. Again, he tried, becoming increasingly frustrated.

  His governess replaced the stopper in the ink bottle and removed it from the table so he could not continue. “People stay in bed when they are ill or tired and you happen to tire more easily than most.”

  “No I don’t,” Kit insisted with a mutinous scowl. He crumpled up his paper.

  “I am certain you are overtired now,” Miss Shaw replied briskly as she collected the remaining books and papers from the writing table until it was empty. “Otherwise, you would not be talking this way. Come now, back to bed with you.”

  She glanced at Hayden and nodded first toward Kit and then toward his bed.

  “Miss Leah is right, son.” Even in the midst of this disruption, it felt pleasant and natural to refer to her by her Christian name. “You do not want to fall ill and have to miss your lessons for a while.”

  He slid one arm beneath the child’s thin, stiff legs and wrapped the other around his torso.

  “No!” Kit struggled against his father’s grip as Hayden hoisted him from the chair. “I don’t want to go back to bed! I don’t want to stay in this room. I want to go somewhere else!”

  When his governess tried to calm him, Kit hurled his crumpled exercise paper at her. It hit her nose, leaving a streak of black from the ink that had not yet dried.

  “You keep me locked up because you’re ashamed of me!” In spite of his father’s and governess’s best efforts to quiet him, the boy began to scream and thrash about.

  Hayden feared he might drop his son, or perhaps hurt him by holding on too tight. Was that what he had been doing all these years without realizing it?

  In the midst of this turmoil, Hayden was vaguely aware of a knock on the nursery door. Then he heard it open and the butler announce, “Dr. Bannister to see the young master.”

  Hayden’s mounting anxiety and frustration eased upon hearing the physician’s name. Dr. Bannister had been away in France for the past three months. Though he had arranged for one of his colleagues to attend Kit if necessary, Hayden had feared his son might contract some serious illness that only his long-serving physician could treat properly.

  “What is all this ado?” Dr. Bannister marched into the room, exuding his accustomed calm competence. “How often have I stressed the necessity for preventing my young patient from becoming overexcited?”

  “Doctor.” Hayden brea
thed the word like a sigh of relief as he finally managed to deposit his son back in bed. The sound of the physician’s voice alone quieted the worst of Kit’s struggling. “As usual, you have arrived just when you are needed most.”

  It was Dr. Bannister who’d worked over the waxen mite Celia had borne with nearly her last breath. He had rubbed the tiny chest and limbs, blown puffs of breath into the small nose and mouth until suddenly the infant had given a feeble cry. With every illness the physician had helped Kit survive, Hayden’s reliance on him had grown.

  “It does appear I am needed now.” Dr. Bannister approached the bed and seized one of Kit’s wrists. The child tried to pull away, but the physician was a big man and very strong. Kit’s resistance quickly subsided into tremulous whimpering.

  After a moment spent silently counting the child’s pulse, Dr. Bannister clucked his tongue with an air of profound disapproval. “This will not do at all, my dear boy. You have excited yourself to the point where your heart is beating dangerously fast. If it gets much worse, I fear you might bring on a seizure.”

  The doctor’s pronouncement sent a bolt of ice piercing Hayden’s heart. Kit had suffered a seizure when he was only a few months old and nearly died from it. Only Dr. Bannister’s skilled treatment had saved the little fellow. In his nightmares, Hayden could still see Kit’s tiny body twitching uncontrollably. Never in his life had he felt so helpless. He could not bear the thought of his son suffering like that again, especially now that he was old enough to be aware of what was happening to him.

  “He seemed so well only a little while ago.” Hayden stroked the boy’s head and looked toward Leah Shaw for confirmation.

  Kit’s governess had retreated to stand silently by the hearth. She appeared as shaken by the incident as Hayden felt.

  The doctor opened his satchel. “As a precaution, it will be necessary to administer a calming draft.”

  “No!” Kit grew agitated again and tried to burrow under the bedclothes. “It tastes bad and makes me sleep and sleep. I shall not be able to do my lessons!”

  “Lessons?” The physician unstopped a bottle and poured a quantity of rusty-colored liquid into a small metal receptacle that looked like a cross between a teapot and an overgrown thimble. “What is the child talking about, Your Grace?”

  Hayden did not answer immediately for he knew what would have to be done next and he dreaded it. Only the desperate need to prevent Kit from suffering a seizure compelled him to accept the lesser of two evils.

  At a nod from the doctor, he reached under the covers and pulled Kit into his arms. His son’s head and back rested against his chest while he wrapped one arm around the boy, holding his arms still. With his other hand, he held Kit’s head, to keep him from thrashing it from side to side.

  “Here we go now.” Dr. Bannister approached with the spouted cup. “If you would be more cooperative about taking your medicine, young man, this would be much easier on all of us.”

  Hayden braced himself for what would come next. The physician must force the cup’s spout between Kit’s lips and pour in the contents. Meanwhile, he would hold the child’s nose so Kit must swallow the medicine or choke.

  It had to be done, yet Hayden hated it.

  “Stop this at once!” cried Leah Shaw, echoing the words trapped inside of him. “What sort of medicine are you forcing upon my pupil?”

  Her outburst made the doctor hesitate and caused Hayden to relax his grip on Kit’s arms. The child took full advantage of the distraction. With greater strength than his father had thought him capable, he broke free and batted the medicine cup out of Dr. Bannister’s hand. The contents spilled all over the bedclothes, staining them reddish-brown and sending up a spicy-sweet aroma with a bitter undercurrent.

  The doctor barked an oath and surged up like a great bear on its hindquarters to turn on Leah Shaw. “See what you have done you fool woman! What are you doing here, interrupting Lord Renforth’s treatment? If he suffers a seizure, you will be to blame!”

  He stabbed his forefinger toward her as if it were the barrel of a pistol he longed to fire.

  In spite of all Hayden owed the doctor, his protective instincts roused in defense of the lady who dared confront a powerful man she feared might harm her young pupil.

  Before she could reply with some flippant remark that might only inflame the doctor worse, Hayden spoke up. “This is Miss Shaw, my son’s governess. Everything happened so fast, I fear she may not understand we mean Kit no harm. Do not fret, Miss Shaw. Dr. Bannister knows what he is doing.”

  He cast her a look that he hoped would reassure her, together with a plea not to make the situation worse.

  If she understood his wordless request, Leah Shaw chose to ignore it. “Does he, indeed? What is the good doctor doing, pray? From what I can see, he appears to be breaking his own rule about keeping your son from getting excited. If one may call abject terror excitement.”

  This was a kind of wit Hayden had not heard from her before—sharp, black and calculated to provoke.

  The doctor was even less accustomed to having his actions questioned than Hayden. He responded accordingly. “I do not expect you to understand my treatments, Miss Shaw, since the science of medicine is too complex for the female mind to grasp. If it distresses you to see the boy administered a vital dose of laudanum, I suggest you step outside.”

  As Hayden watched Kit’s physician and his governess confront one another, he felt as if his arms were chained to a pair of powerful draft horses, each pulling in the opposite direction. Thanks to Miss Shaw, his son appeared heartier and happier than he had been in a very long time. Renforth Abbey seemed a warmer, brighter place since she had taken up residence. But had her campaign to allow Kit more freedom given the boy dangerous ideas?

  Dr. Bannister clearly thought so and Hayden owed the physician his son’s life many times over. How could he cast aside that obligation and question the doctor’s advice, which he had followed so rigorously for the past seven years?

  “Laudanum?” Leah Shaw pulled a face, as if someone had thrust a vial of the medicine under her nose. “Tincture of opium, you mean? You may not think me clever enough to understand what you do, sir, but at least I know better than to give a child poison.”

  “Poison?” The doctor sneered. “Nonsense! Perhaps if you took a dose now and then, you would not be prone to hysterical outbursts, young woman.”

  “P-poison?” Kit whimpered, twisting himself around to burrow into his father’s embrace. “P-please don’t let him give me poison, Papa! I shall be good, I promise. I shan’t get excited anymore.”

  “Hush, now.” Hayden held his son close. “I will not let anyone poison you.”

  “Now see what you have done?” Dr. Bannister snarled at Kit’s governess. “You have frightened the child for no reason. After this it will be twice as hard to dose him.”

  He advanced toward Leah Shaw and reached for her arm. She wrenched it away before he could get a proper grip.

  “What do you think you are doing?” She did not cower from the physician, though he was nearly twice her size. “Don’t you dare lay hands upon me!”

  “I intend to escort you out,” the doctor growled, “before you make any more mischief. If that means I must pick you up and toss you out, so be it.”

  Hayden had no doubt Dr. Bannister would try to carry out his threat. And what might Leah Shaw do to prevent such an assault upon her freedom? Whatever it was would not be good for either of them, nor for the frightened child in Hayden’s arms.

  “Doctor, no!” he cried when the physician looked ready to lunge. “That will not be necessary.”

  Both of them turned to gape at him in a way that might have been comical under other circumstances.

  “But Your Grace...” the doctor protested.

  “Miss Shaw,” Hayden pleaded, “will you kindly excuse yourself?”

  “Not until I have your word that you will not let anyone dose Kit with that foul brew.” Her eyes flashed with
the righteous defiance of a martyr willing to go to any extreme for her cause.

  Another man might have told her what she wanted to hear to secure her cooperation, but Hayden could not bring himself to lie to her. “I promise I will take no such action until I have carefully considered your charges.”

  Dr. Bannister scowled, making Hayden realize how alarming his thick, black brows and heavy features might appear to a young child. “Surely you are not going to indulge this dangerous nonsense, Your Grace.”

  For the first time in seven years, Hayden refused to accept the physician’s advice as law. It was a disturbing feeling, yet strangely liberating at the same time. “I assure you, Doctor, when it comes to my son’s welfare I take this nonsense very seriously indeed.”

  The duke was prepared to hear her out?

  Waves of surprise, relief and gratitude buffeted Leah. It was clear to her that this great, glowering ogre of a physician was accustomed to imposing his will upon everyone at Renforth Abbey. Was he the one who had persuaded the duke that Kit must be wrapped in cotton wool as if he were made of spun glass instead of flesh and blood?

  That would have been bad enough, but the thought that he would drug a child into submission was one of the most abhorrent things Leah could imagine.

  The duke drew back to look his son in the eye. “Now Kit, I must speak with Dr. Bannister and Miss Shaw. Mr. Gibson will fetch Tilly to sit with you, but you must promise to rest quietly while we are gone. Can you do that for me?”

  The fright he had suffered and the threat of being forcibly dosed with medicine seemed to have shaken the child out of his earlier defiance.

  He nodded meekly and said, “Yes, Papa.”

  It outraged Leah to see a child intimidated into obedience. She had witnessed enough of that at the Pendergast School to last her a lifetime—young spirits crushed by bullying. It might have happened to Hannah and Grace, perhaps even to her if not for the moral support her circle of friends had provided. She must give Kit some of that same encouragement.

  But what if Dr. Bannister insisted she be dismissed from Renforth Abbey? It was clear he exercised powerful influence upon the duke and equally clear that he wanted her gone. Could her fledgling alliance with His Grace stand a chance of prevailing against that?