Page 3 of Libby's London Merchant
Hours later, Nez opened his eyes to total darkness and a great weight pressing on his face. I have died, he thought, and it was not an unpleasant notion.
He felt curiously detached from his body. After a moment’s serious thought, he concluded that he could probably not even move a finger, so he did not try. His head throbbed with a life of its own, as if a small animal had climbed inside and was running about from ear to ear, throwing itself against his skull, seeking a way out.
He concluded that he was not dead. Death would have felt better. He had seen enough of dead men on battlefields and worse, in hospitals, and had noted the look of resignation and the gentle relaxation of the facial muscles to tell him that death was preferable to his present state.
If he were truly alive, there was the matter of darkness. He opened his eyes wider, and it was still dark, which jolted him considerably. I have finally drunk myself into blindness, he thought as he felt cautiously for his face—and then sighed with relief. He took the pillow off his face and blinked his eyes against the exuberant excess of a June morning.
When his eyes grew accustomed to the brightness of the sunlight that streamed in the open window, Nez looked at the underside of his table. I have spent the night under the table in my dining room, he thought, and I am sure I was not alone.
Nez crawled out from under the table and looked around. A wine bottle rested on its side, dispensing its contents a drip at a time. He hauled himself into a chair, surveying the ruin of last night’s meal, and sank back to the floor again, nauseated by the sight of drying bones and hard potatoes.
The sight of the open window disturbed him even more. He had a vague memory of Eustace Wiltmore perched there last night, teetering about on the sill as he rambled on about... what? Nez shook his head slowly. He crawled to the window and raised himself up enough to look out. There were no remains of Eustace littering the flower beds, so obviously his friend had not hurled himself to the ground.
But there was something else, something Nez could not quite recall. He took several gulps of the clean air and felt better. His second attempt to sit in a chair was more successful. Gingerly he propped his leg on a footstool and wondered what he had promised Eustace Wiltmore last night when he was three sheets to the wind.
Nothing came to him. He looked down at himself in disgust. “Oh, Lord,” he said out loud. “Why do I do this?”
No one answered. The only sound was the ticking of the clock, a sound that crashed about in his brain and kept time with the little animal in there that still hurled itself about.
His neckcloth was already draped over the bust of an ancestor, so he unbuttoned his shirt, eased himself out of it, and sat there bare-chested, his eyes drooping. The little breeze from the window was cool and felt good, even though he shivered. He moved to another chair in direct sunlight and sighed. June. June in England.
Someone banged on the door, pounding so loud and long that the hinges shook and the door bulged. Nez put his hand to his head. No, the door did not move. It was someone barely tapping. The animal inside his head stopped to pant and listen for a moment, then whirled around again.
Luster poked his head in. “Sir?” he asked. “My lord?”
“Get my dressing gown.”
The butler returned in a moment with the dressing gown, all tapestry and frogs and much too busy for a man scarcely able to comprehend primary colors. Nez closed his eyes against its design and allowed Luster to help him into sleeves that seemed too difficult to maneuver alone.
“What . . . what day is it, Luster?” he asked finally.
The butler permitted himself a smile. “It is the fifteenth, my lord.”
“The year?”
The smile broadened and then disappeared as Nez frowned back. “1816, my lord.”
The duke managed a slight twitch of his lips. “I know that, Luster,” he said. “I was merely testing you.”
The butler coughed and held out a cup.
The duke sighed and looked away. “No, Luster. I think I will never drink again.”
The butler would not withdraw the offensive cup. “Please, your grace, try it,” he urged. “You’ll feel much more the thing.”
“Do you promise?” the duke asked, eyeing the cup with vast disfavor.
“I do,” said his butler. “It was my grandfather’s own remedy for the Duke of Marlborough.”
“Very well, then, in memory of the great duke.”
Benedict sipped the brown brew, wishing it did not look so awful. He closed his eyes and huddled down into his dressing gown, wishing to pull it over him like the shell of a turtle and retreat from all contact, particularly the brightness of this June morning.
He took another sip this time, less cautious, and noted that the animal in his brain was slowing down. In another moment, it slept. He handed the cup back to Luster.
“If this were Waterloo, you would have received a battlefield commission just now, Luster.”
The butler bowed and accepted the cup. “Your grace, there is a curious person waiting below who insists upon seeing you.”
