Page 91 of Libby's London Merchant
“I think you have, Dr. Cook.”
The two men looked at each other through the haze of the now-smoldering oasting house. The doctor grabbed up his bag. Libby shrugged off the duke’s arm and hurried to the man who lay quiet on the cooling-room floor. She hesitated and looked at Anthony, wanting with all her heart to follow him.
He knelt by her, but said nothing.
“Anthony, I . . .”
He tried to smile and failed. “I wish I showed to better advantage, Libby, against that paragon, but I suppose that is not the issue now, is it?”
“You don’t…”
He did not hear her. “Sometimes when you have done everything you can, you just have to sit back and let nature take its course. That’s another rule of medicine. I suppose it’s a rule of life, too. I’m sorry, Elizabeth.”
His words sounded so final. “Will I see you tonight at dinner?” she asked, her voice unsteady.
“I think not,” he replied. “No sense in flogging this dead horse.”
He got up and started after the hop pickers, looking back at her as if he did not expect to see her again. He started to say something, but shook his head and turned away.
20
Libby watched him go. The duke knelt beside her, his face set, as she stayed by the man on the floor. In a few moments, his wife arrived, her hands smelling of washing soap. She helped him to his feet—scolding her man about taking her away from the washboard—and bore him away from the dispersing crowd.
The fire was out now and a slight breeze cooled them, clearing out the smoke. Both oasting houses connecting to the cooling room were blackened cones. As she watched, the far one crumbled in on itself with a crash, sending up a plume of ash that set them coughing again.
“Come away, Libby,” urged the duke.
Maud Casey hugged her and brushed off the front of her dress with a bit of sacking. “Miss Ames, you’ll become as ramshackle as we are if you stay around here much longer.”
Libby managed a brief smile. She did not took down at the ruin of her dress, but allowed the duke, his arm about her waist, to lead her away.
In another moment he had lifted her into his curricle. “I remember fires like that at Waterloo,” the duke said as they started back toward Holyoke Green. “The smell washes out, but you never forget it. Libby, you don’t belong in a place like this.”
“Perhaps I don’t,” she agreed, her voice dull as she saw again the look in Anthony Cook’s eyes as he turned away from her to follow his patient.
She started to tremble. Without a word, the duke pulled off his jacket and pulled it tight around her shoulders. His arm went around her waist again as he drove carefully down the road.
“Cry off, my darling,” he said at last. “All you’ll ever have here is hard work and worry.”
She started to say something, but the duke was just warming to his subject.
“I can give you everything you want, my dear. You have only to ask and it will be yours, plus my name, of course,” he added scrupulously.
Confused, she forced a smile, then sat back in surprise and sudden gratitude as something precious found its quiet way into her mind and heart. Mama was right. It had taken too long, but Libby knew, and in the knowing - really knowing - her life changed.
“Of course,” she echoed, on sure ground now, perhaps for the first time ever. “Tell me what I will have, Nez.”
“I have a beautiful town house on Clarges Street, my love,” he said. “You may have your pick of estates for the summer and fall, but I prefer the one in Yorkshire.”
“I am sure it is lovely,” she said absently, her mind on the doctor.
“Oh, it is! And if you should wish to jaunter over to Paris, now that the monster is on St. Helena, we can do that, my dear. You have only to ask. I can give you anything.”
Libby sat up straighter, listening to him with all her heart, and heard the final confirmation. “Anything?” she asked.
“Anything,” he declared firmly.
She turned in the seat to face him. “Nez, tell me honestly. Have you ever had a mistress before? One? More than one?”
