Page 52 of Libby's London Merchant
It was time to let him go on his way. “I shall sneak in the side door,” she said. “With any luck, I shall avoid everyone.”
“Why sneak in?” he asked. “If we mention the events of this afternoon to the right people, soon it will be evident that you are a bit of a heroine. Even if they were gypsies.”
She shook her head. All she wanted was a long soak in a hot bath and the opportunity to reflect on what they had accomplished that afternoon, and put Dr. Cook’s proposal to rest somewhere in her brain where her rudeness would not come back to chastise her.
“I think I understand,” he said. “I remember that first case in Edinburgh where it all depended on me. Let me just see you in the house and I will go. I could use some sleep, too.”
She took a good look at Dr. Cook, noting how red his eyes were and how his shoulders drooped. Surely I could have found a kinder way to let you down, she thought.
Candlow saw her first. He threw up his hands and his mouth opened and closed like a nutcracker. Libby could feel Dr. Cook’s amusement as they stood shoulder to shoulder. She hurried forward.
“Candlow, I am all right,” she said. “We had to splint a gypsy girl’s leg in the field and nearly got stoned for our pains. Imagine that!”
Candlow could not. He leaned against the wall and slid into a chair, staring at Libby. The doctor hurried to his side and felt his pulse and then backed into one of Uncle Ames’ vases that teetered a moment and then crashed into a thousand Oriental fragments.
Libby heard rapid footsteps in the hallway, familiar footsteps.
Her heart surged into her throat and then sank to her shoes. She looked into Lydia Ames’ startled face.
“Heavens, Libby, what has happened?” her cousin shrieked, her face as pale as the butler’s.
Libby hurried to her cousin, careful not to touch her and painfully mindful of her dishevelment. “It is a long story, cousin, but one perfectly reasonable when you hear it all.”
“I say, Lydia dearest, such a racket disturbs that bucolic calm you promised me. We can’t be under siege from Napoleon’s army. What have we here?’’
The speaker was a tall gentleman, bereft of most of his hair but dressed in the latest stare of fashion. He was finely muscled and his bearing and manner were without fault, but his voice—high and reedy—already grated on Libby’s raw nerves.
His eyes, slightly pop-eyed, stared out of their sockets at the sight of her, muddy and dripping wet in the hall. He raised a quizzing glass with shaking fingers and examined her.
Libby drew herself up and glared back at him as Lydia recovered, gulped, and pulled him forward. “Libby dearest, I have the greatest pleasure to introduce you—you will not believe how droll this is!—to my own dear Eustace Wiltmore, the Earl of Devere.”
Libby’s jaw dropped as she stared at the elegant man, who stared back at her through one overmagnified eye.
Lydia came closer to her cousin, careful to stay out of reach but close enough to lower her voice. “And aren’t you the sly one, Libby?”
Oh, Lord help us, I will die of embarrassment if she suspects that Dr. Cook proposed, Libby thought. “Beg pardon?” she asked.
“Naughty, naughty Libby, and who has been hanging about here for weeks but the Duke of Knaresborough?”
Libby shook her head to clear it as Nesbitt Duke strolled around the corner, as if on cue, and stopped short at the sight of her.
Eustace Wiltmore turned from his openmouthed perusal of Libby to cast his magnified eye upon the duke. He dug him in the ribs. “Nez, you quiz! This is your paragon? How droll you have become here in Kent.”
Libby stared from one man to the other. “The Duke of…”
“Knaresborough,” said Nez, his voice low, his eyes hopeful. Libby whirled about to face her cousin, whose attention was fixed upon Eustace Wiltmore with an expression not far removed from adoration. “Lydia. Lydia, pay attention! Are you telling me—“
“Yes, my very dear Libby,” the duke interrupted. “I was the spy. Do let me explain.”
12
The peace Libby had expected to find in the quiet of her room was not there.
The hot bath had been welcome. With a sigh of relief, Libby scrubbed off the grime and mud until her skin glowed pink, and she washed her hair until it squeaked.
“It does wash off, Dr. Cook, just as you said,” she said out loud.
And yet it didn’t, at the same time. As she thoughtfully scrubbed at skin already clean, she knew that the experience would never rub off. In idle moments, when all other subjects had been worked over and exhausted, she and Lydia used to speculate why someone as well-born and wealthy as Anthony Cook had felt the need to soil his cuffs with medical school.
