The Duke she Desires Read online

  “I am afraid there is not much to be done about that, Your Grace. Lady Magdalene is here, and I do not think she will leave until she sees you. You know how persistent your betrothed can be,” Stevens said, not even out of breath despite carrying a ten-stone duke in his arms.

  Peter envied his butler his strength, though he had lost a few stone in the last few weeks, so Stevens’s job was considerably easier than it would have been before he returned home. Of course, back then, he didn’t need to be carried. He was perfectly capable of moving his own body about the house.

  Ah, those were the days.

  They entered the garden to find Lady Magdalene already settled in one of the iron chaise lounges that populated the brick-covered patio bordering the back of the manse. To one side were tall oak trees bursting with autumnal colors, and to the other there was a small hedgerow that served as a border between the duke’s estate and that of another member of the ton next door, Horatio Hodge, Earl of Lifton.

  “Peter!” Lady Magdalene exclaimed as Stevens gingerly deposited Peter in the lounge directly next to Lady Magdalene. She jumped out of her seat and came over to him, kissing him chastely on the cheek and taking his hand in hers. Her palm was warm and smooth and her movements gave off the faintest whiff of lilac, a scent that Peter associated particularly with Lady Magdalene.

  “Peter! It is so lovely to see you outside. You look so well in the sunshine,” she continued, brushing her hand across his jaw before crouching down next to him, her dress skirting the bricks below them, which were still wet from the previous night’s rain. He wanted to tell her to get up and go back to her lounge rather than risk ruining her dress, but he knew she would brush off the suggestion with some comment about how her dress was of no importance compared to her love.

  As Lady Magdalene ran her hand up and down the rough whiskers of his jaw, Peter tried not to shrink back from her touch. Such sentiments never failed to make Peter feel a bit queasy. He generally liked Lady Magdalene’s effusive nature, but he detested when she doted on him. It made him feel even weaker, even less capable than he already felt.

  The war had changed many things about him, but excepting his legs, the most marked change was his aversion to touch. He hated having his bare skin touched, especially by Lady Magdalene, who seemed to do it with alarming frequency, as though she thought it would calm him. It served to do the exact opposite, but of course he could not tell her this.

  He still hadn’t forgotten the tears she had wept that first day she visited him after he had returned home. She had tried to smooth his brow, and Peter had barked at her to get away. She had burst into tears and had been inconsolable for a good hour.

  “If I may be so bold, Your Grace, might I suggest refraining from such outbursts? Lady Magdalene is a sensitive creature, and I suspect she will not understand your aversions to touch, no matter how you try to explain it,” Stevens had suggested.

  Since then, Peter had perfected the grateful smile in return for Lady Magdalene’s caresses and touches, a smile that came with an inward cringe so forceful Peter could feel it curling his stomach into a knot each time it occurred.

  Still, he smiled at the lady in front of him, who was staring into his eyes with the same affection and devotion with which she had shown the night he proposed what felt like years ago. It had, in fact, only been four months ago, but Peter had been so changed, so affected, that it felt like a lifetime since he had been excited to wed himself to this lady.

  Nothing excited him anymore, least of all the idea of tying himself to Lady Magdalene Stewart for all eternity. She deserved better than him. He could never be the husband she deserved now, and he wished every single time she visited that this would be the day that she realized he would never return to his old self. He would remain a miserable, self-pitying sod for the rest of his life, and there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it.

  “It’s good to see you, my love,” he said to Lady Magdalene, squeezing her hand. “But please, sit,” he implored, gesturing toward the lounge.

  Lady Magdalene rolled her eyes and harrumphed, but did so, climbing back into her lounge but keeping her fingers intertwined with Peter’s.

  For a while, both of them sat in silence, admiring the autumnal foliage to their left, the leaves sparkling under the sunshine of an unusually cloudless day.

  Peter’s nerves, which were always heightened when Lady Magdalene was around, were just beginning to settle when she spoke. And her words shattered whatever calm he had within him.

  “I have another physician for you to see, dear, and I do think this one will do the trick. Hatty Featherington told me her brother’s best friend’s cousin used him to heal the nervous condition she developed after the birth of her fourth child. He’s said to work absolute miracles. I’ve sent off a letter to him and I expect I should receive word back soon,” she said, looking over and giving Peter a smile that said, “See? Look what a good wife I am to you already, for all that we are not yet married.”

  Peter, for his part, barely restrained a grimace. This was the fifteenth physician he had seen since returning home to England. Nearly all the physicians had been sent for by Lady Magdalene, who was convinced that Peter was “fixable.” And that once he was fixed, he would return to his old self, and they could be married. Peter had known after seeing the second physician, the one who had diagnosed a nervous condition, that he would find no answers from medical professionals. His injuries were a mystery to one and all, and could not be cured.

  But Lady Magdalene disagreed. Whereas charities and sewing circles had occupied the majority of her time before his injury, searching for and contacting physicians now took up the whole of her time not spent at balls. She was steadfast in her belief in Peter’s ability to be fixed, and she would not abandon her cause.

  It was the main source of tension between them, the base for the few rows they had as an affianced couple.

  “My dear, you know what I am going to say,” Peter told Lady Magdalene gently. “I do not think it will work. The last three physicians—”

  “Were pig-headed, know-nothing charlatans. Their reputations were obviously the work of fiction, but this one is different, Peter. I have a good feeling about him. I just know he can cure you, and then we can finally start to plan the wedding. I already have the flowers all picked out, and Madame Baptiste is awaiting my letter to start the dress,” she said, her voice full of child-like hope.

  Peter swallowed his retort, knowing that nothing he could say would dissuade his love. Lady Magdalene’s omnipresent happiness was what had first drawn Peter to her. She was always so cheerful, so full of smiles and sunshine. That she was also well-born, the daughter of a marquess and a marchioness with connections to the Prince Regent on her mother’s side, was simply a boon.

  She was also beautiful, with cascading black curls, large brown eyes, and lips that begged to be kissed.

  She was the perfect wife, Peter knew. She just wasn’t his perfect wife anymore.

  Peter wished she would leave him. She deserved so much better than him, but she stuck by his side like a conker on a wool coat, and Peter had not quite figured out yet how to remove her without damaging the delicate… nut within.

  Bad metaphor; ladies are not like horse chestnuts.

  “Peter? You look like you’ve drifted off into another world! Come, tell me how you have been occupying yourself these last few days. I am so sorry I left you all alone. The trip to Dorset simply could not be avoided, but I am back now, and I promise to spend every moment I can with you. I am sure that you have missed me just as much as I have missed you,” she said, giving her widest smile.

  Knowing that Lady Magdalene would not be impressed with his progress on the history of the Roman empire, nor with his having trounced Stevens in chess four days in a row, he decided to dodge the question entirely, asking her, “Tell me all about your trip. How is your father? Is his health improving? Colds are always deuced annoyances this time of year, but I trust with your
careful ministrations, he is on the mend.”

  This had the predicted result of sending Lady Magdalene off on an anecdote about her father and his horses, which he loved above all else except his two daughters. Peter kept his eyes on Lady Magdalene’s beautiful mouth, but allowed his mind to wander.

  He wondered how in the world he was going to get this lady to leave him.

  Things cannot go on as they were, he knew. This physician would be no different from the others, and his conclusions about Peter’s condition would only serve to spur Lady Magdalene to further searching. He knew he was a lost cause, and he very much wished that she would realize the same.

  It was time to put an end to all this. To release her from his hold. To allow her to go and find someone who truly deserved her. He wanted her to go off and find the suitor she deserved, one with two working legs and an outlook on life that did not resemble the fatalist writings of Cicero’s Idle Argument.

  As Lady Magdalene prattled on, Peter’s mind began to turn, to plan. He would have to be horrid, which pained him, though being a horrible brute was not so far out of reach these days, with his temper being what it was. Sitting idle for so long agitated a gentleman far more than anything else, and Peter was certain he could draw on such agitation when the time came, and shock Lady Magdalene into action. She would hate him, and she would leave.

  And then he would finally be free. Free to spend the rest of his life alone, in solitude, wasting away. As was his due.

  “Peter? Peter, my love, did you hear me? I was just talking about the trees back home. They really are nothing in comparison to the ones here. So beautiful! You are so lucky to have such nature within your reach,” she said now, nodding back toward the trees which had first provoked this outing to the garden.

  Peter looked at the oak tree again, standing so tall and looking like it could last centuries more. Its leaves were so vibrant and full of life. It was in its prime, that tree.

  Plant life seemed so much less vulnerable to the vicissitudes of fate.

  Dear God, you’re jealous of a tree. You really are quite low.

  Chapter Two

  While Peter was feeling envious of oak trees, on the other side of the street sat Lavinia Bell, taking diligent notes from a medical text open on the desk in front of her.

  Though she already knew rather a lot when it came to dressing and healing wounds of various origins, her father had procured from a colleague The Domestic Medical Guide: In Two Parts for her perusal, insisting that she read and memorize the chapter on animal poisons.

  Lavinia was fairly certain that in the nearly thirty years her father had practiced medicine, he had never once treated a patient who had succumbed to such a condition. Mosquitoes, rabid dogs, and the like were not so common in London, not even in the poorer areas where she and her father often worked. Lavinia was fairly certain a person was more likely to be bitten by a person than a dog, but there was no use telling this to her father. The physician Robert Bell was a man who brokered no arguments. When he told Lavinia to do something, he expected it done, and in a timely manner.

  And so it was that Lavinia was spending her Tuesday afternoon reading what was perhaps the most boring medical text she had ever encountered, and that included the three books, written entirely in High German, she had been forced to read last month on birth, pregnancy, and how to treat infant rashes.

  Thankfully, she knew that once the notes were taken and a quiz had been administered by her fastidious father, she could sneak out of the house and go for a walk while her father engaged in his daily afternoon rest. She and the house maid, Margaret, had a deal. Lavinia bought Margaret speculaas cookies from the Dutch bakery in East London every time she went there for a patient, and in return, Margaret made certain the physician never knew of his daughter’s illicit and un-chaperoned walks about the park. It was an arrangement that suited them both.

  Lavinia was dreaming of her walk now, of the bracing autumnal air filling her lungs, the crunch of grass underfoot, as she dotted a full stop at the end of her sentence. She was just about to lay her quill down when her father threw open the door to the study.

  “Tell me the most effective cure for animal poison of any kind!” he shouted as he strode into the room.

  Robert Bell was a tall, lean man of five-and-fifty with a thick grey hair, spectacles, and a carefully tended-to mustache that Lavinia suspected he loved a little more than he loved her. This did not bother her. She would much rather he dote on his facial hair than on her person. Fathers who doted on their daughters also tended to treat them like china dolls, whereas Robert Bell treated his daughter like any other physician in his field.

  Though Lavinia was female, and therefore unable to become a professional physician, she had been brought up in her father’s image. As physician to the Duke of Kingwood and his household, her father was constantly attending to the aristocracy, but he also operated a practice out of their home, offering services to the poorest of London neighborhoods at no cost.

  Lavinia and he traded off going to visit these neighborhoods. Lavinia had, in the past seven months, delivered six babies, treated three cases of influenza, two of consumption, and had created her own emollient for a particularly vicious case of chicken pox. Though not formally trained, textbooks and frequent lessons by her father meant she had nearly the same level of medical knowledge as he, and therefore was eminently able to act in his stead.

  Of course, in order to ensure that she maintained this level of professionalism, her father made her read all the textbooks he could get his hands on, and then tested her on them. It was tedious and, often, extremely jarring, considering the tests often started as they did now, with a door thrown open and a shout emitted across the room, but Lavinia was used to this. Her father was a strange man, and she had long ago grown used to his eccentricities.

  “The most effective way to cure animal poison,” she said, setting down her quill and removing her glasses. “Is to cut away the infected site. All other forms of care are palliative, but cannot be guaranteed to completely remove risk of infection.”

  “Excellent. And what is the efficacy of sea bathing on animal poison?” he continued, taking the seat across from Lavinia’s desk and reaching for the cup of tea that Margaret had placed on the desk not ten minutes ago. Mr. Bell liked his tea cold, and therefore Margaret was constantly placing steaming hot cups of tea around the house in areas he might eventually go to, so that the physician would have his cold tea waiting for him.

  “There is little evidence that sea bathing has any positive effects on poisonous wounds inflicted by animals,” Lavinia replied, watching as her father gulped down his tea in three swallows. Droplets of it remained on his mustache when he put the cup down, but before she could remark on this, her father was already reaching up and smoothing his mustache down with his hand, removing the droplets from the grey and black hair that festooned his upper lip.

  Lavinia had always found it odd how different she and her father looked. While he had black hair, dark brown eyes, and skin that immediately darkened when it came into contact with the sun, she was fair, with white-blonde hair, honey brown eyes, and freckles everywhere.

  Lavinia assumed she must have gotten her fairness from her mother, who had deep auburn hair, green eyes, and similarly pale and freckled skin. However, her knowledge of hereditary traits, learned from the medieval Spanish physician Judah Halevi, made her think that perhaps the situation was more complicated.

  Since reading Halevi’s The Kuzari after being gifted it on her sixteenth birthday, Lavinia had wondered whether her father, the man who had raised her, clothed her, and taught her everything he knew, might not be the man whose relationship with her mother had resulted in her birth.

  Lavinia had even wondered whether his gifting her The Kuzari was in fact meant to lead her to this conclusion, thereby avoiding what would have been an extremely awkward conversation about her origins.

  However, in truth, it didn’t matter. Lavinia was her fa
ther’s, if not by blood, then certainly by brain. Their way of thinking was so similar that sometimes they both voiced the same thought at the same time. It was a frightening phenomenon that had agitated Margaret more than once, who often suggested after its occurrence that, “Perhaps you two spend too much time together.”

  Lavinia could not dispute this, of course. Other than Margaret, she had no friends. She spent all her time either with her father, or with patients. It was a solitary life, hers, and she did not mind it, not one bit. Yet another way she was like her father. After her mother died giving birth to her, Robert Bell had thrown himself into his work, ceasing to attend any social engagements excepting lectures at the Royal College of Physicians or other academic lectures that pertained to his fields of interest.

  They were two peas in a pod, and while Lavinia knew that hers was not the usual life of a woman of reasonable means in England in the year of 1812, she could not help feeling extremely lucky because her father did not treat her like a woman. He treated her like a person. Like someone with opinions, and thoughts, and intelligence.

  She just wished such treatment didn’t include quite so many spur-of-the-moment quizzes.

  Her father cleared his throat now, signalling that a relaying of the afternoon’s schedule was imminent. Sitting up straight and preparing herself to listen closely, for her father never repeated things twice, Lavinia folded her hands and waited.

  “I have to go visit Mrs. Thompson and her new baby in East London, and then the Murrays need my assistance in Jacob’s Island. Mr. Murray’s wife has still not recovered from her cough. I will therefore need you to attend to Miss Garcia and Mr. Hammadi in Bethnal Green. Both are suffering from consumption, by the sounds of it.”

  Lavinia was already calculating the best route to Bethnal Green when a thought came to her.