Page 48 of The Love Potion
Nate grimaced. “One and the same.”
It wasn’t one and the same. Especially since it was now affecting Miss Petrelli.
“Where were you last night? And before you answer, Fletcher said he watched your attackers try to kill you. At the docks.”
Nate was quiet long enough for Ras to think he might have finally passed out. But in the end, he spoke. “Fletch is a bloody liar.”
Yes, that was certainly true. But that didn’t answer the question as to what exactly Nate had been doing last night.
“He’s not the only one,” Ras said. And when Nate’s eyes opened, he met them with a hard stare of his own.
In the end, Nate sighed as he closed his eyes. “I can’t tell you. I want to, but I can’t.”
And that was the end of it as they finally arrived at the ducal home—the end of that conversation, but not the end of the discussion. Because Ras would have the truth if he had to throttle his best friend to get it.
But first, the man had to be healthy enough to put up a good fight.
Chapter Fifteen
The summons camein the early morning, well before most of the house was awake. But Zoe was an early riser as was her father, and so his valet passed the message to her maid who brought her chocolate in the morning.
Would Lady Zoe please visit her father as soon as she was dressed?
Zoe didn’t need the message. She’d heard her father’s hacking cough throughout the night. Their bedrooms were separated by a thin wall, and so she had started awake every time he’d wheezed.
“Good morning, Papa,” she said as she breezed into his bedroom. It was as lovely a morning as could come in London, so she threw open the curtains to let the light in. Then she steeled herself to look at the figure on the bed while she forced her smile to its absolute brightest.
There was her father, looking as small and frail as it was possible to appear and yet still be alive. His chest was sunken, his thin whiskers poked through gray skin, but his eyes were bright. Or so it seemed through the sheen of her tears.
She was the youngest of his children, born when he was well past fifty. Everyone had thought Mama past childbearing age, and yet out Zoe came, a tiny, bawling girl too fierce to die. That was what her father had said. She’d been too fierce to pass on for all that she was small enough to fit in his one hand.
Her brothers were already at school and her mother remained frail after the birth. Zoe grew strong, thanks to a wetnurse, a loving governess, and her father’s attention at the stable. He adored a morning ride, so she did, too. He loved horse racing, so she did, too. And because their stable was modest, she could learn the running of it when she was barely old enough to read.
Her father had never been one to study the science of horse breeding, but he praised her when she did. He also had never learned the details of doctoring the creatures, but he listened attentively when she explained it. He indulged her when she begged to learn about poultices from the local witch woman. He overruled her mother when it was thought that no girl should go to the horse market. And when he grew sick three winters ago, she’d sat by his bed and read him the racing news. They discussed it as passionately as Mama spoke about fashion.
At the time, she’d thought it merely a winter illness, and perhaps it was. But he’d had several of those sicknesses over the last three years, each attacking his lungs, each leaving him weaker than before. His hands shook now. He sat up to sleep to ease his breathing. And the smell that filled his bedroom grew a little worse every day.
It was why Mama slept in a bedroom down the hall.
“You’re looking well this morning, Papa,” she lied. “Do you come dancing with me tonight?”
Her father snorted, or he tried to. It ended as usual in a cough that left blood on his handkerchief. He folded it away so she wouldn’t see it, but she knew it was there nonetheless. Even more so because when he collapsed backwards against the bed, his gaze was sad and a little afraid.
Strange to think that two days ago, they had opened up her ball together. She didn’t know if he’d seen the tears in her eyes then. If so, he’d probably thought it was because she was finallyout in society. The truth was, she knew it was likely the last time they would dance together. The last time she would feel her hand in his and his arm about her waist.
He had taken to his bed that night and not risen since. But maybe he would rally again as he had all those other times. Maybe the potion for lung strength ordered from My Lady’s Apothecary would help him soon. And maybe he wouldn’t live through another winter.
He tapped the side of the bed, and she didn’t want to see the spots on his hands or the thin, knobby shape of his knuckles. His riding gloves would be loose now.
She smiled even more brightly and settled on the side of his bed. She was careful not to jostle him, but a little movement was inevitable.
“Do you want more tea?” she asked as she reached for his teacup. It would be cold now, but maybe—
He shook his head. It took him a moment to pull in a breath, and when he spoke, it was with a semblance of his former strength. “Will the duke propose?”
She winced. “I don’t know. I’m trying.”
“Is there anyone else?”
