Page 33 of Libby's London Merchant
“Where do you go all morning?” he complained once when his legs were particularly painful and he wanted gin more than he wanted breath. “It seemed to me that you can’t wait to dash out of here each morning.”
He hadn’t thought he was a whiner by nature, but the duke was also discovering that he wasn’t much of a patient, either.
Libby put her hands on her hips and shook her head in mock exasperation. “Are we feeling left out?” she asked. “Abandoned? Cast upon the muddy beach of life?”
“Cut it out,” he growled, but not seriously.
“My days are busier than you think,” Libby said. “I find myself compelled to fabricate another story about the progress of your illness to Aunt Crabtree.”
The duke nodded, appreciative of the effect of culebra fever on his system. ‘‘Am I getting better?” he teased.
“Indeed you are, sir,” she replied with aplomb. “Soon you will be well enough for whist with Aunt Crabtree.”
He made a face. “I dislike cards, but if that is the sacrifice I must make in order to be completely cured of this loathsome disease, I will chance it.”
‘‘Sir, you are all condescension.”
He took her by the hand. “Seriously, my dear, what occupies you? I wouldn’t mind a few more hours of your time.”
She withdrew her hand. “It is scarcely mysterious. I snatch what remains of my time to go into the orchard and paint.” Encouraged by his look of interest, she continued. “I’m not very good, but I did promise myself at the start of summer that I would get much better.”
“And have you?” he asked, his pique forgotten.
“You may judge that for yourself,” she replied as she pulled up the sheet from the end of the bed to expose his knees. “I shall ask Dr. Cook this afternoon if he thinks a little orchard air would be good for you tomorrow.”
That he, the Duke of Knaresborough, who had experienced all of life’s pleasures and most of its extravagances, should be so thrilled by the thought of a toddle in an orchard, would have astounded him only a week ago. He lay there, gritting his teeth as she carefully removed the gauze, eager for a glimpse of the orchard, that Elysian field.
“Yes, put it to Dr. Cook, by all means,” he said as she patted on the Mystick Soother. His comic demon took possession. “He can visit me there in safety. Nothing to trip over,” he said, and was rewarded with Libby’s smothered laugh.
Soon it was Dr. Cook’s turn. His arrival was heralded by Candlow, who had such a gleam in his eye that Benedict could only wonder what the good doctor had stumbled over, fallen into, or run up against on his perilous journey from the front hallway to the upstairs guest room. And bedbound as he was, the duke took a certain unholy glee in the doctor’s meanderings.
Libby Ames greeted Dr. Cook with that same brilliant smile she bestowed on everyone—now why did that make him grumpy—and withdrew from the room, allowing privacy for doctor and patient.
Dr. Cook began by feeling his pulse. This particular afternoon, Anthony Code felt the duke’s wrist, frowned, and then chuckled to himself.
“My pulse amuses you?” the duke couldn’t resist asking.
“No. I do believe that in future I will take it just before I leave your room, and not just as I enter it. Miss Ames does make one’s heart beat faster, doesn’t she?”
The two men smiled at each other in perfect accord.
The doctor proceeded with his examination, even to the point of making him rotate his shoulder several times.
“Do have a care with that in future, lad,” the doctor said. “I am discovering there is no guarantee of eternal youth, after age thirty.”
Usually at this point, Dr. Cook would comment on his eating habits, as faithfully reported to him by Candlow or Libby, remind him to drink water, water, and more water, and then take his leave.
This day was different. The doctor went to the window and rattled the keys in his pocket, prelude, the duke already knew, to some bit of business. “Have you had a drink in the past week?” he asked finally.
The duke snorted and hunkered himself lower on the pillows. “And how would I engineer that, I ask?”
“Anything is possible, lad. I was curious.”
“The answer is no.”
The doctor opened his mouth to speak, but Nez waved him to silence. “No, no, and let me guess? Your next question: do I want a drink? God, yes, I do. There have been moments in this past week when I think I would have killed for one lick of a cork.” He let that bit of intelligence sink in and shrugged. “The moment passes, until the next one, and then I deal with that. And so my day goes, Dr. Cook.”
“An honest appraisal, Mr. Duke,” the doctor said. “I suppose there is nothing to prevent you from taking up with the bottle again when we finally spring you from this place.”
