Page 5 of The Wolf and the Wildflower
Jules smiled gently. “Forgive me, Your Grace, for assuming.”
“Someone…a man was recently found in the Alaskan wilds by a trapping team. Or he found them. That man appeared on my doorstep exactly four weeks ago. Iknowhe is my son, not like those charlatans who have shown up over the years claiming to be the duke, seeking wealth and rewards. He…he is the very image of his father.”
The duchess fell silent, and Jules and her father patiently waited for her grace to find her equanimity. There was a pleading look in her eyes when she glanced at Jules’s father. It prompted him to ask, “Did this man recognize you?”
“Yes. I immediately saw that recognition in his eyes, but he did not rush into my arms or even show his relief and happiness to be back with me…with his family.”
Jules shifted on the sofa. “How does he refer to you?”
The duchess’s shoulders stiffened. “Your Grace…since his return only ‘Your Grace’ or ‘Duchess.’ The newspapers are having a whirl with the news of his return. The queen sent her personal physician to Hertfordshire and my son, he…he barely responds to Sir James Reid, who understandably has a lot of questions. How can he give a good report to the queen?”
“Is it your hope the duke will be more forthcoming with his experience to us?” her father asked. “Or do you fear that he has been hurt…mentally?”
The duchess flinched. “I cannot see why he would speak with strangers instead of his family. I am hismother…and I…my heart cried and ached for him every day he had been missing.Every day.”
And there it was, the rough edge of guilt in her words, the haunted look in her eyes. Guilt was a terrible chain to wear around one’s neck, and the duchess seemed to be burdened with the coils around her.
“My son is not the same…and that is why…that is why I might need your help, Dr. Southby. How can he step into the role he is duty and honor bound to fulfill if he is thought of as eccentric and addlepated? My son has very decided and odd mannerisms not fit forhauttonlife. He is the Duke of Wulverton. Heisthehaut ton.”
A bit arrogant to Jules’s way of thinking, but in many respects the duchess was correct.
“Now that my son has been found, he must be presented to the queen and society as a gentleman of sound mind and fortitude. He is to meet the queen’s representative in as little as three weeks at the first ball I will host for the season, then he will eventually visit the Queen at Windsor Castle. There can be no doubt that he is fit.None.”
Three weeks?The desperate fear in the duchess’s voice tugged at a cord inside Jules. She understood that fear. The queen had the power to consign the duke to an insane asylum should she deem him a threat to himself or others. Or if her father declared him to be mentally unfit.
More threatening and problematic, the queen had the power to remove the duke as the heir if the crown did not believe in the duke’s mental stability. There were not many private mental hospitals, and even recently a baron had been committed by the order of the queen to The Bethlehem Hospital for the insane in Moorfields, north of St Pauls, and the City. The scandal of it still lingered in the drawing rooms of society, though it had been months.
Was the duke competent enough to worry about such matters befalling him? Or was this the duchess believing the duke did not fit the current mold of society?
“My father will be able to help,” Jules assured the duchess with calm confidence. “He is considered by many to be a brilliant alienist, Your Grace.”
The duchess pinned her father with a probing stare, the hope and fear naked on her face for them to see.
“I will entrust my hopes to you, Dr. Southby. I have only a few weeks to prepare my son to show the world heisthe Duke of Wulverton. I feel such a goal to beimpossibleand I despair.”
Her father stepped closer. “Your Grace, if you’ll be comfortable with this suggestion, I would like my son to accompany me down to meet the duke and to remain with me for the duration of my assessment.”
Shock and a surge of excitement traveled through Jules, and she worked to present a calm composure. It would be such a privilege and honor to work alongside her father. He was one of the most noted and respected doctors of the mind in Britain, even though their society still struggled with accepting psychology as a valid scientific tool that helped people. The awareness that he wanted her with him on a matter so important filled her with rich pleasure and warmth.
“Father?” Jules had to clear her throat, which had thickened beyond the low pitch she’d achieved over the years. He could take any one of his estimable colleagues, but he wanted her with him.
No, not me—his son.
With an inward, irritated scoff at herself, Jules tried to shrug aside that insidious fear that should her father know his only male child to be a young lady, he would be bitterly disappointed, and her father, in light of the deception, would no longer love, honor, and respect her as he did.
So many nights, Jules had tossed restlessly in bed wondering, should she sit and speak in a forthright manner with her father, what would she discover? Shame and outrage that his Jules was of the female persuasion and his wife had deceived him for twenty-three years? Pain and disgust that his child had joined in that deception years ago when she herself realized the truth of her own circumstances? Would it irreparably break their family as her mother feared?
Or would Jules see knowledge and peace? Had he discovered at some point his child was of the female gender and had maintained the ruse to protect his family’s reputation? If all were to be revealed, would her father expect Jules to shed the only identity she knew to assume the mantle her older sister carried with such pride, but one Jules might never understand or accept?
It took incalculable effort to shut those thoughts out and to concentrate on what was important now.
The duchess leveled her probing gaze on Jules. “Your son is frightfully young and seems quite wet behind the ears. I do not see how Mr. Southby could be of much assistance.”
Jules silently groaned, seeing this exciting opportunity slipping from her grasp.
“Your Grace, my son has been exemplary in his studies and many of his professors wrote to me detailing his performance that has been nothing short of incredible,” her father said solemnly. “If it is your wish, he does not have to interact directly with the duke, but my son will assist me greatly with note-taking and his empathic insight.”
The duchess stared at Jules, and she returned her unflinching regard, breathless with the need to plead to be there.
