Page 7 of The Duke's Last Dance
Nicolas walked in and he felt at home. This surprised him; after having been away for so long, he had not been expecting to feel so welcomed. Perhaps it was because everyone was worried about his father and welcomed the fact that someone else had come to help them out with it.
As he walked up the grand staircase, he put his hand on the railing and ran it up as he walked.
The cool ridges felt well-worn and well-used since he had been here last. They were a familiar feel, and when he reached the top of the stairs, he walked towards his room from childhood. Then, he realized he had no idea if he was in the same bedroom.
“Your old bedroom is still open, if that is what you wish to know, Nicolas.” His mother’s voice startled him.
When had she walked up the staircase?
“Thank you, Mother,” Nicolas replied.
He then started towards the room he would be sleeping in for the duration of his stay at Ashwood Manor. There was nothing new in the upstairs, either; all the portraits were still on the walls, and there was not a new one in sight.
When he walked into his bedroom, he found that had changed some. Instead of the small single bed he had had, a large four-poster bed had been put in. His small writing desk had been replaced by a larger one, one of his father’s old ones that he had once expressed a wish of having in his room. He was glad to see that it had happened, even if it was not exactly what he wanted to see today when he walked in.
He set his bag on the bed, and then he walked towards his father’s study. That was probably the first place his father would take up residence, if he could.
When there was no answer, he determined that his father was not there. He started to search each room to make sure he had not walked right past whatever room his father had taken to stay sick in for the moment.
When he did not find his father on the second story of the house, he walked back downstairs. It was possible, he now realized, that his father was well enough to take residence in any part of the house, but not well enough to move outside of the house for very long.
He started in the kitchen. That had always been his father’s favorite spot to sit down by a fire, perhaps because of the way it smelled in the kitchen. The cook always had something wonderful going on the stove or in the oven, and it wafted through the entire kitchen. Unlike Camberton Manor, you had to be near the kitchen to smell it.
Nicolas smiled as he thought about the way Camberton Manor was set up to allow the residents to smell whatever was cooking in the kitchen without having to be near the kitchen or dining room. That was the kind of set up he wanted for his own house.
When his father was not in the kitchen, Nicolas did not know where else to look. So, he headed towards the drawing room, hoping that perchance his father had decided to watch over the snowed-in backyard, as he had often done during Nicolas’s childhood.
That is where he found his father, and he did not like what he saw. As much as he wanted his father to leave him to live his life the way he wished to – especially when it came to his choice of career – he did not want to see his father wasting away. That was exactly what he saw in front of him: his father had become quite pale, and he seemed to be thinning out.
He wondered for a split second how his father was still alive with the way he did not seem to be eating much at all.
“Please, take a seat, Nicolas.” His father’s voice, however, was still strong and authoritarian. It had not changed, though his body was wasting away with his illness.
Nicolas took a seat, though he wanted to stand for the moment. He had sat on the boat for too long, and the docking process and carriage ride had cramped his legs. But, if his father asked him to sit, he would sit for the day. It was only the polite thing to do, despite how much he wanted to take polite society and thrust his hands around its neck sometimes.
“I am glad to see that you are doing somewhat better than Mother’s letter told me you were, Father,” Nicolas said something and went to say more.
His father stopped him.
“Since you are here in Town because of my illness, I do not want you to sit in the house all day.” He looked at him with sincere eyes. “You are to participate in this Town Season.”
“Many young women will be out during said Season, I am sure,” Nicolas mused. “I was planning to participate in the Town Season while I was here; it would be useless to come all the way from Paris – from the sea – only for your illness, only to care for you.”
“With the way this illness is going, even the doctors do not believe I will survive.” His father shook his head. “They do not know me. They do not know that I will survive and come out strongly. I will live.” His father managed a smile.
“That is good to hear, Father.” Nicolas did not argue.
As much as he did not want to see his father control his life again, he could not argue that if his father could come out of the illness, then there was a chance that everything could change.
He wanted to take advantage of that.
Chapter Three
Camberton Manor stood before him the next evening, and it looked exactly as he remembered it looking in the wintertime. It had a happier air to it than Ashwood Manor, and that was not a bad thing. It was something he looked forward to enjoying again.
As he walked in, he could not help but think about something that he had been thinking about a lot since his father sent him into the Navy: if he had not gone into the Navy, it was entirely possible that he could have been courting or married to Lady Catherine Radcliff now. He still wanted to fulfill that promise, and he hoped that she had not given up hope that it would happen.
If she had, then all hope for it was lost as she was most likely ready to move on with her heart this Season.
