Page 43 of The Best-Kept Secrets
“The Cornish Duke?”
“Yes. I attended his fights as well.”
Tobias whistled appreciatively. “The Cornish Duke didn’t fight in many bouts compared with the others. To have actually seen one...” He shook his head in amazement before more of the pugilistic trappings of the place claimed his attention.
With Tobias moving on to other interests, Uncle Niles let himself laugh silently. Duke did the same. Niles Greenberry was known as an effective and efficient member of Parliament, one who would be returning to the House of Commons in January. He was considered the least notable of his group of impressive friends. Many who did not know him or Aunt Penelope well speculated whether so outgoing and capable a lady as she was was bored with a gentleman whom they considered sedate and comparatively dull.
How little people understood him.
Uncle Niles hadn’t merelyattendedthe legendary Cornish Duke’s fights. Hewasthe Cornish Duke, having fought under that epithet and in disguise to hide his true identity. Duke, when he’d decided to choose an Anglicized name for himself, had chosen what he had in honor of the uncle in whom he’d found support and a listening ear.
Duke had long suspected that the reason Fairfield was a more peaceful place than Writtlestone, despite the Seymour family upheaval, was owed in large part to Uncle Niles’s preference for tranquility. Which only added to the uncertainty Duke felt at the prospect of—once Father, Mother, and Grandmother left—requesting that his aunt and uncle sacrifice a portion of that peace for the possibility that Duke might have a modicum of it himself.
Chapter Seventeen
Grandmother, Father, and Mother madeit through supper without yelling, throwing anything, or poisoning each other’s food. And Aunt Penelope managed to look only slightly likely to murder them in return. That, in Duke’s estimation, was both miraculous and reason for a rare bit of familial optimism. The night might not be a complete disaster. The uninvited individuals would leave for Lancashire in the morning, and all would be well again.
Duke trailed behind the Pack, his uncle, and his father as they made their way toward the drawing room, where the ladies had already assembled. He was still a few doors from their destination when he heard what sounded like his name being whispered.
He stopped and listened more closely. Then he heard it again. He looked around for the source and found Eve standing in a doorway, motioning him over.Odd.
Curiosity compelled him there every bit as much as the excitement of being in her company again. She tugged him a bit away from the doorway when he stepped inside. The room was lit, and the door was open, so there was no true impropriety in the arrangement.
His inward smile diminished when he saw an unmistakable look of distress on her face. “What’s happened?”
“I’m worried about Nia. She didn’t feel equal to joining everyone at supper. When I looked in on her while the other ladies went to the drawing room, Nia hadn’t eaten a single bite of anything from the tray that was sent to her. And she’s asleep again.”
Duke took Eve’s hand. It was a gesture meant to comfort her, but he’d also missed holding her hand. He was grateful for a chance to do so again. “If Nia’s feeling poorly, sleep is likely the best thing for her.”
“Except it’s so unheard of for her to be as tired as she has been the past few days, especially today.” Eve paced away a little, which pulled her hand from his. “In the past, whenever we’ve been reunited with the other Huntresses after an absence, she is bounding with energy, staying up far too late, gabbing and learning the latest from all the others. Instead, she took to her bed within an hour of our arrival.”
This was a significant change, then.
“I think she ought to be seen by a doctor, but I know she won’t admit it, and I know why.” Eve wrung her hands just above her heart, her entire posture one of nervous worry. She met his eyes but only for a moment. In that moment, he saw unmistakable embarrassment. “I need to ask you a favor.” She stopped directly in front of him and looked up at him once more, a hint of franticness now in her expression. “But you have to promise not to tell Artemis. She’ll turn this into a crusade, and that would be disastrous.”
“Tell me what you need, Aoife. I will do whatever I can.”
She took a tense breath, her hands still clutching each other. “Even if your prediction proves true about Colm and his parents not allowing us to leave a token of acknowledgment for the servants, we—we still don’t have enough to pay a doctor. If I tell any of the Huntresses that, they’ll begin asking questions about the true state of our finances, and I’ll be faced with the impossible choice of either lying to them or revealing the truth to Nia and breaking my promise to our parents.”
“Your parents ought not to have required you to keep this from her. I suspect you do not care to withhold confidences from your sister.”
“Fromanyone,” Eve said, shaking her head. “I’ve told you of my tendency to speak without thinking overly much. I find myself doing an awful lot of thinking lately.” Her hands stopped twisting around each other but remained clutched in front of her heart. She held his gaze with a pleading one. “Would you—” She took a bit of a shaky breath. “Would you pay the doctor?” She immediately and frantically added, “I will reimburse you, I promise. I don’t know how, but I will manage it eventually.”
He took her hands in his, lowering them. “You don’t need—”
“You’re going to say that I don’t need to worry about repaying the debt, that you’ve money enough and are happy to pay the bill.” She shook her head. “But I am tired of always taking and never being in a position to give to others. If I make good on this debt, then I will, for once, not be a leech, bleeding dry everyone around me.”
“Always taking?You do remember the inn, don’t you? Without your cooking while we were there, all of us would have been in dire straits. You certainly weren’t bleeding anyone dry then.”
Her hands shifted into a more comfortable position in his. She hadn’t pulled away. His heart pounded out a pleased rhythm.
“Perhaps instead of remaining at Tulleyloch while my family attends the Season, I should find myself a position as a cook at someone’s house.” She smiled at him, but there was too much worry in the expression for him to believe the jest was anything but forced. She was trying to keep her spirits up in the face of anticipated humiliation.
“I was not going to say that you didn’t need to worry about reimbursing me for the cost of the doctor but, rather, that you needn’t worry about the cost at all. When a guest at a home grows ill, it falls to the host to fund the services of a man of medicine. No one would expect you or Nia to take on that obligation.”
She looked hesitantly hopeful. “Truly?”
In all honesty, there was a small fraction of a chance that he was remembering that incorrectly, but he didn’t think he was. He would sort out a means of discovering the established protocol without betraying Eve’s confidences. Should paying the doctor, in actuality, be the responsibility of the person who was ill, Duke would quietly see to it.
