Page 6 of The Wolf and the Wildflower
Do not be carried away with the science, she reminded herself harshly, and forced herself to look upon the duchess’s pain and humanize the duke instead of seeing him as an intriguing subject.
“Your Grace,” Jules said gently. “Will you share more with us about His Grace? What is his name?”
A soft look entered her gaze. “My son…he is James Leopold Winters, the Duke of Wulverton, and the Earl of Lydon. This horrendous experience has greatly and undeniably altered him,” she said, her lips trembling before she firmed them.
The duchess stood, walked over to the fireplace, and held her hands over the wavering flames. “I want…I want back the gentle boy who would mend the broken wings of birds, play the pianoforte with me and sing in that beautiful voice of his. I want back my son who allowed me to hold him close and kiss his cheek even when he grew a sight taller than myself. He has not allowed me or anyone to touch him. I…”
The duchess lowered her hands and faced them. “My son is not the same. Ineedhim to be as how he was.”
“The newssheet said he was lost at sea for a number of years?”
A faraway look entered her dark blue eyes. “How wrong they are. My son was almost eighteen years old when he became lost in the Yukon Territory in the Canadian wilds. For ten years and four months he lived in the emptiness of the great mountains of Mount Logan without any other human interaction.”
Her throat worked on a swallow as emotions brimmed in her eyes. “Ten years. We knew he was there…all the experts that were hired to track him when he went missing said itwaspossible. My husband…before he passed, we hired dozens of men to search the area, but all reported on the impossible task we set before them. And I assure you, many tried because we offered thousands of pounds as a reward for James’s return home to us. Even if only a body so we could lay his remains to rest properly and as befitting of the heir to a dukedom.”
The duchess’s steps were agitated as she made her way to the windows overlooking the small garden of their town house. “Mount Logan is the largest and highest mountain in Canada and has a subarctic climate. Do you have any idea what that means, Mr. Southby?”
Jules chose her words carefully even as her heart pounded, and questions swirled in her head. “Yes. He…your son lived in a place characterized by long, cold winters, and incredibly brief periods of warmth. To survive there…”
Jules could not imagine it, to be surrounded by endless miles of trees, hills, mountains capped with snow and bitter coldness with little food to hunt. How had an eighteen-year-old boy done it for years?
“Such a feat would have taken extraordinary resilience.”And luck.“Your son is most incredible.”
The duchess sent her a quick astonished glance. “You sound as if you admire the duke, Mr. Southby, without meeting him.”
“I do, Your Grace.”
Survival of the fittest, an expression coined by psychologist Herbert Spence in his bookPrinciples of Biology,and one she had extensively studiedrose in her thoughts. Jules had devoured that book on many occasions and the pages opened in her mind, the theories on why some survive insurmountable odds while others faltered swarmed through her.
She wanted to meet the duke…now. God, the excitement burning inside her chest felt surreal.
“When…when the trapping team encountered my boy…he had a weapon, a curved-like dagger made from the bones of creatures they claimed he fought. Wolves…bears…” The duchess clasped her gloved hands tightly together. “He still has that weapon. In ourhome.”
The fear in her voice had Jules canting her head. “That weapon was his means of protection in the icy wilderness—perhaps it comforts him to have it now.”
“In our home?” the duchess repeated, incredulity ringing in her voice. “There is no danger there. Only people desperate to welcome him home andlovehim. People he refuses to see or connect with.”
Jules carefully chose her words as she held the duchess’s stare. “Gentlemen of our society carry a weapon, Your Grace. Almost all gentlemen travel around with walking sticks which hide swords, and some even have daggers in their boots. I, too, in some instances travel with a rapier in my walking stick. In some parts of America, it is said men walk openly with guns hitched onto their hips, and fight in the streets at the slightest provocation. The fact the duke holds on to his weapon of bones which aided his survival in his world is normal and not something to fear.”
The duchess’s eyes widened, and her father sent Jules a swift glance of approval.
“I…I never quite thought of it in that manner.” Her Grace frowned. “It is a fearsome thing to behold. I have asked him to discard it and…he has not.”
“Does he say why?” her father asked, reaching for his notebook. He then sat in an armchair, peering at the duchess over the wire-rimmed spectacles perched on his bony nose.
“The duke does not speak. And this is one of the many reasons I require your brand of specialty.”
Her father frowned. “This has been determined to be by choice?”
Her gloved hand fluttered to her chest. The motion delicate, almost ethereal, yet Jules suspected the duchess had a spine of steel.
“I perhaps phrased it incorrectly. The dukebarelyspeaks. Mostly grunts for affirmation and silent stares. I’ve yet to hear a full sentence from his mouth. It is as if…he finds the world around him tedious. He…” The duchess took an audible deep breath. “I cannot begin to describe how my boy is altered but still appears the same.”
“Tell us,” Jules breathed, unable to halt the need blooming through her. “Please, Your Grace. If it is not too difficult to recount.”
“My son had always been slim in youth. Now his build is not that of a gentleman, more of…of a common dockworker, rendering his presence when he stands almost intimidating.”
The duchess moved away from the windows and resumed her pacing, her agitation once again emerging in sharp relief. The vision that leaped to mind was someone with powerful muscles…everywhere. An unexpected image of a naked man delineated with sinews on his shoulders, back, buttocks, thighs and calves flared in her mind.
