Page 34 of Libby's London Merchant
“Nothing, Dr. Cook, not a thing in the world.”
“Do you want to leave?”
The question was blunt and unlike the doctor somehow, totally professional and cold, almost. It was bracing in the extreme and somehow unwelcome. Did he want to leave? No, he didn’t. What he wanted more than anything was to take a stroll in the orchard with Libby Ames.
“Not yet.”
Dr. Cook grinned at him then, the formal spell broken. “Then don’t. I don’t know how well your confection business will fare if you linger in Kent, but it can only rebound to your advantage, I am sure, in your health.”
“Yes, likely you are right.” The duke hesitated. “Dr. Cook, she promised me a stroll in the orchard tomorrow, if you think it advisable.”
Before he answered, Dr. Cook pulled back the bedclothes and examined the duke’s legs. “You’re already up and about to the necessary, aren’t you, lad?” he asked as his fingers probed the deeper lacerations.
“Yes, of course.”
“Then I can’t see how a stroll about the orchard can do you any possible danger, particularly as the orchard does not intersect at any angle with a public house or a wine cellar.” The two men laughed.
“You don’t really think that Lib—Miss Ames— would permit me within a league of a pub, now, do you?” the duke asked.
“No, I do not,” the doctor agreed. “You’ve already observed that she doesn’t object to ordering people about.”
“Bossy little baggage,” murmured the duke.
“She does tend to make her opinions known.” The doctor patted his coat, brushing off imaginary lint. “Please observe that I have arrived here unwrinkled for once, strictly to impress her.”
“She is rather a nag about your sleeping and dressing habits, Doctor,” the duke replied. “I wonder that you tolerate her.”
“I wonder, too. Do you think she will notice my new suit?”
The duke doubted that Libby took much notice of the doctor. “I am certain she will,” he prevaricated.
Once the subject of Libby Ames had been introduced, words failed both men. The doctor twiddled with his spectacles as the duke collected his thoughts and finally recalled one pressing concern.
“I will relish this stroll about the orchard, Doctor, but until Candlow recovers from amnesia, I am afraid that I cannot oblige either you or Miss Ames.”
“What’s that?” the doctor asked, caught off-balance. He dropped his glasses and fumbled after them on the floor.
“Candlow seems to have forgotten where he stowed my traveling case, after you, uh, jettisoned it from that very window.”
“Is that a fact?” the doctor asked, when, red-faced, he finished foraging for his glasses and put them on again. “I predict he will undergo a remarkable cure in only a matter of minutes, Mr. Duke.”
“What a relief for him,” said the duke.
There was a knock at the door, a familiar knock. Both men turned toward the door expectantly. Libby flung the door open, her eyes on the doctor. She was out of breath, as if she had taken the stairs two at a time. “Dr. Cook, Jimmy Wentworth waits below and he says his mama needs you right now.”
The doctor nodded absently. “I can’t imagine why, really. This will be her seventh, Mr. Duke,” he explained. “I think she could find the resource to weed her garden, play a game of whist, and still have the time and energy to tell me how to go about my business. Thank you, my dear.”
Libby came into the room, standing well back from the doctor, as if wondering what piece of furniture would be in jeopardy as he made his ponderous way across the room. The duke grinned in appreciation as her eyes widened and she clapped her hands.
“Dr. Cook, that is a magnificent suit,” she declared. “I didn’t know you were a Bond Street beau!”
Touché, thought the duke. Miss Ames, you are more observant of the good doctor than I would have thought possible, or do I flatter myself?
Dr. Cook blushed, turned aside, and would have stumbled into a potted plant if Libby had not darted in front of him and borne it to safety. She hurried to the window with the rescued plant. “Needs sunlight,” she said, still breathless.
The doctor nodded, his face pink. He bowed with a flourish that impressed the duke, who would have thought such an exercise beyond the doctor’s talents. “Miss Ames, the inmate in this room needs sunlight, too. You have my permission to take him on a stroll about the grounds tomorrow. He may exert himself only to the extent of picking up your handkerchief, should you drop one.”
“You know I never do that, Doctor,” Libby teased. “I am not a flirt.”
