Val whirled around to see the tall, stout man looking at him with curious concern. He gave the valet a sheepish look.
“It seems as though I have been summoned back to London,” he said.
Frank nodded, walking over to Val, and standing to face him.
“And you do not wish to return,” he finished for his master.
Val shook his head.
“I do not,” he said.
The two men sat in silence for several moments. Frank was the best employee that a man with his deformities could ever ask for. Even the maids on his payroll whispered about him when they thought he couldn’t hear them. But Frank remained loyal and kind, and he had never spoken a bad word about the Duke’s scars. He was patient and understanding and never treated Val differently for a minute.
“When do we depart?” Frank asked at last.
Val chuckled.
“When summer and winter change places,” he said.
Frank laughed heartily. Then, he looked at Val with kindness.
“I understand your apprehension, your Grace,” he said. “But I will be here to help you in any way I can. I know this is uncomfortable for you. But you are a strong and clever man. More so than any other I have ever known. If anyone can find some good in this endeavor, it will be you.”
Val gave the valet a warm smile.
“I hope that you are right,” he said.
***
Three things are happening simultaneously, and Val’s heart is racing. He whips his head around, trying to figure out what he should do first. The carriage is headed straight for the men who are fighting in the street, the footmen are shouting, and Val feels the carriage crash into a hole and rattle one of the wheels loose. A moment later, Val understands what is about to happen and that there is nothing he can do.
As he draws breath to order the driver to stop, the loose wiggles its way off the carriage. At the same moment, the coach reaches the fighting men, who at last see the danger and scatter. Val thinks the carriage hit one of them, but he cannot see. And he does not get another minute to try to see if any of them render aid.
In a moment that feels as though he is turning flips in slow motion and suspended in midair, Val is levitating off the carriage seat. With a strange sense of wonder, he realizes that he is about to slam into the top of the coach when it comes back down, bottom side up, onto the road.
But to his horror, the carriage does not just slam down once and remain on its top. It bounces, flying into an instant roll down across the street. Instead of hitting the coach’s inside top, he feels his face slam into the door of the carriage, just as it splinters all to pieces. Searing pain tears through his face as the broken wood punctures his skin…
Val started to awake as the carriage came to a sudden halt. He sat up, his mind struggling to let go of another vivid dream of the day of his accident. It took him a moment to determine that he was not still back at that time and that he was, in fact, safely back at his London home. The realization brought him little relief, as the dream had been a harsh reminder of why he had fled there in the first place.
Mustering a smile, he stepped out from the carriage. Frank and the footmen began unloading his belongings as he approached the door. To his surprise, it was his mother, rather than the butler, who greeted him. She flew into his arms, kissing his face as though he had gone missing in some war. In some ways, he supposed, he had.
“Oh, darling,” she said. “I am so glad that you are here.”
Val could not help laughing as he pulled back from his mother’s embrace to kiss her cheek.
“You sound as though I simply showed up unannounced,” he said.
The Duchess looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
“Of course, I knew you were coming,” she said. “But a mother never ceases her worrying.”
There was a brief silence as her unspoken words lingered in the air. She specifically would never stop worrying, especially while he was traveling by carriage. In her mind, the accident that had nearly killed him could very well repeat itself. He could not entertain such notions for long, though. Otherwise, he would never travel again.
“I am famished,” he said, desperate to lighten the mood.
His attempt was successful, as his mother beamed at him.
“I just called for tea moments before you arrived,” she said. “Come. Let us take it to the parlour.”
