“Six months,” he murmured. “That is a quick engagement.”
Thankfully he could not see her face. She was certain it bloomed a fiery red at the enormity of such a lie. “Yes,” she murmured, her voice surprisingly even. She was not about to confess to him, of all people, that she was not the duke’s fiancée—that she was merely a humble shopgirl. He hardly struck her as the understanding sort. He’d denounce her as a fraud.
She would straighten this mess out later—after the physician arrived. There was no telling what Mackenzie would do to her. She already knew he possessed a propensity to violence. He could very well strike her. Or he could send for the Watch and have her thrown into prison. She couldn’t risk that kind of trouble. If something happened to her, no one would be there to take care of Bryony.
“Yes, it was quick,” she agreed. “Love is like that.” Or so she’d been told. Papa ran away with her mother after a fortnight and her mother had left everything behind—her life of privilege, fancy dresses and parties—all for him.
“You must have really swept him off his feet.”
She risked an uneasy look at him again, trying to gauge his sincerity. “I don’t know about that,” she hedged.
He closed the last few inches separating them, his moss green eyes gleaming with a mocking light, and she knew he doubted her. Naturally. He did not consider her capable of evoking that level of passion in a man. She herself doubted it. Edmond’s rejection stood as proof of that.
“Or was it the other way around, then? My dear brother swept you off your feet? He just couldn’t resist you, is that it?” He was definitely smirking at her now. And she wanted to slap him.
He wasn’t saying it, but he might as well have been.
He didn’t think Autenberry would have anything to do with someone like her. He was a duke. She was Poppy Fairchurch late of Toadston-on-Mersey, a plain, impoverished shopgirl who could scarcely afford to feed herself and her sister.
And she was a fool for fantasizing that he might think she was The One.
A fool for believing in impossible dreams.
Anger flashed through her. “Is it so very hard to believe—”
“That he fell in love with you?” Again with the smirk.
Righteous anger burned through her. “That does happen, you know.” Just not to her. Not yet at least. “People meet. They have feelings . . . they fall in love.” She waved her hand in a little circle as if that somehow illustrated her point. “Is love a sentiment you’ve never felt before?” She flicked her gaze over him. He was handsome as sin, for certain, but he did not strike her as the lovable sort. “Never mind.”
He arched an eyebrow several shades darker than his golden hair. “What?”
“It’s not so shocking, I suppose, that you haven’t any experience with that sentiment.”
His gaze raked her in turn, and she knew he was thinking something ugly and best left unsaid. In fact, she was beginning to think that ugliness was the only thing that existed inside this man. “And you do, then, Miss Fairchurch? Have a great deal of experience?”
She did not mistake the insult. He was implying that she was no better than a strumpet—that she had enticed the duke. Seduced him. That she was a woman with loose morals.
She inhaled thinly through her nose. She didn’t know what was stronger—her sense of indignation or the flutter of gratification in her chest. He might not think her capable of winning the duke’s heart but he thought her capable of seducing him. That was . . . something.
She was no great beauty. Did he actually think her alluring enough to trap a man like the duke into marriage? Her throat tightened. No, he likely thought Autenberry’s sense of honor was at work here.
Fortunately, the physician chose that moment to arrive and she was saved from further conversation with the boorish man.
Mrs. Wakefield followed close on his heels. Brief introductions were made. Poppy winced at hearing herself introduced as his fiancée and opened her mouth, prepared to finally correct that misapprehension, but then Dr. Mercer swiftly turned his focus on the duke—as he rightly should. It did not feel right to distract him from his task, so she drifted away from the bed, permitting him to conduct an examination in relative peace. She did not want to break his concentration.
Mackenzie withdrew alongside of her. Mrs. Wakefield stayed close to the bed, ready to assist if needed.
“You were saying how you met Autenberry, Miss Fairchurch.”
“No. I wasn’t,” she replied crisply, still gazing at the bed and ignoring the way his stare felt like an itching rash crawling over the side of her face.
“Well, then do share. How did you meet?” There was that tinge of skepticism in his voice again.
She sighed. How she longed to tell him they met at some grand ball or Almack’s. That would certainly take the wind out of his sails and kill the smug way he looked at her and acted toward her. She’d love to be able to tell him she did, in fact, travel in the duke’s exalted circles.
In the end, she knew sticking as close to the truth was the wisest course. “At Barclay’s Flowers.”
He was quiet for a long moment, his square-cut jaw locked in contemplation. Clearly he was not expecting that. “A flower shop?” he queried as though needing verification.
“Yes.” She inhaled. “I’m employed there.”
“You work in service?”
“I’m a florist.” She straightened her spine, arms crossed snugly before her.
“Interesting.”
She spun to glare at him. “And what, pray, is so interesting about that?”
“I did not realize my half brother so forward thinking as to consider courting a female far below his social station.”
She blinked, wanting to demand an apology from him, but she could not fault him for his honesty, even if he was more blunt than she would have liked. “Perhaps he believes in following his heart over the mores of class and society.”
Mackenzie leaned against the wood-paneled wall, a hint of a smile hugging his lips. He really was handsome . . . if one liked the brooding, stern type. “You’re describing Autenberry, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Then it appears I don’t know him in the least.”
She didn’t know him either, but she did not point that out. She was allegedly his betrothed. At any rate, she suspected Mackenzie was correct and he did not know the duke well. Autenberry’s housekeeper had never met Mackenzie before, after all. The duke himself had struck a blow to him in the street. It stood to reason the two men were not on kindly terms.
“No,” she replied, fairly confident that she could say almost anything about the Duke of Autenberry and he could not contradict her with any assurance. She was wagering everything on that fact. “You do not.”
“But you do,” he said unnecessarily, and the censorious gleam in his eyes yet again seemed to shout: fraud! liar!
The physician cleared his throat. The sound rattled in the spacious chamber. He stepped back from the bed, looking to each of them with a grim expression.
Poppy stepped forward, eager for his prognosis of the duke’s condition. Mackenzie pushed off the wall, his expression somber even for him.
“When will he wake?” Poppy asked, unable to hold the question at bay any longer.
“There is no way to know. He’s sustained a serious injury to the head.”
“Oh!” The housekeeper brought her hands to her mouth. “Will he die?”
“He’s in a false sleep . . . otherwise known as a coma.” His voice faded away and he glanced back at the unconscious duke with a dejected expression that did not bode well. “The longer he sleeps . . . well, it is not promising, I’m afraid.”
“But he still lives,” Mackenzie interjected. He waved at his brother. “He still breathes.”
The physician nodded. “The body can linger long after life is viable.”
“Are you saying he’s essentially gone?” Poppy demanded, her throat closing up in horror.<
br />
The physician grimaced, glancing at each of them before looking back down at the wan duke asleep in his bed. Only he wasn’t asleep. No amount of calling his name or shaking would rouse him.
She blinked suddenly stinging eyes in the thick atmosphere of the chamber. He couldn’t be gone. She refused to accept that.
Chapter 5
The silence was shattered when the doors flung open and a boisterous crowd spilled into the chamber. There were several of them—mostly female and as loud as a steam engine complete with a shrieking whistle. Poppy attempted to count them but they were moving so quickly they made her dizzy. Overwhelmed at their arrival, she actually took a step closer to Mackenzie.
A lovely woman led the way at the front of the group. She was unlike any woman Poppy had ever seen. Tall and regal with dark hair and eyes, her skin was a delectable golden hue that made Poppy think of warm beaches. Not that she’d ever visited a warm beach but Poppy had read about them in Robinson Crusoe. Dressed luxuriously in a crimson traveling dress, jewels dripped off her. If ever there was a woman created to wear jewels, this exotic creature was she.
When she opened her mouth to speak, an equally exotic accent spilled forth: “Mrs. Wakefield! What is going on here? Giles just informed me that Marcus is injured.” Her gaze locked on Autenberry prostrate on the bed. She released a sharp gasp followed by a litany of Spanish—one of the languages Poppy did not speak. Had it been French or German, she could have followed her.
Too young to be his mother, but not in the first blush of youth either, she charged forward with her dark eyes snapping fire, ready to tear someone apart. The lady launched herself into the chair that Poppy had vacated moments before. She picked up the duke’s lifeless hand between her own. “Marcus, mío. What ails you?”
Poppy shifted uneasily. Oh, dear. Her chest squeezed. In any case, all would soon be revealed now. This woman was obviously close to him. She would know Poppy wasn’t his fiancée. She could very well be one of the women the duke was always sending flowers to? Perhaps Autenberry loved her.
“Your Grace,” Mrs. Wakefield murmured, stepping closer and brushing a hand against the woman’s shoulder. “You must calm yourself.”
Poppy started at the form of address. She was a duchess? How could that be? She was quite certain that the duke wasn’t married and it wasn’t as though there were a surfeit of duchesses about Town.
“He’s like a ghost,” the duchess muttered, shaking her head. “My sweet stepson . . . thank the heavens his beloved father is not here to see him like this.”
Ah. She was his stepmother, then? The dowager duchess. She scarcely looked older than the duke though. If Poppy hazarded a guess, she would place her a few years over thirty.
“Oh, Mama!” A young girl close to Bryony’s age sidled close to where the dowager duchess sat. She was the very image of her mother with dark hair and eyes. “He will be well, won’t he?”
The dowager nodded as though convinced, and yet doubt lurked in her dark eyes. “He’s young and strong. Of course he will mend.”
“How did such a thing happen?” another woman asked. She, too, had dark hair, but she wasn’t the least bit exotic. She was as English as they come with milk-pale skin, gray eyes and a fine, narrow nose. Her clothing was finely made, but not nearly as bold or stylish as that of the duchess. It was difficult to determine her age with her rather stern expression.
Somehow, miraculously, Poppy’s voice surfaced in that moment to answer the question. “He fell and struck his head,” she explained from where she hovered. All gazes swung to her as though she possessed two heads.
The stoic-faced lady pinned Poppy with her gaze. “And how, pray, did that happen?”
“He . . .” Poppy hesitated, reluctant to betray the man standing beside her. Mackenzie did save her life. She supposed she owed him for that . . . and despite what she had accused him of to his face, she knew he did not mean for the duke to injure himself so seriously. “He and . . . another man were fighting.”
“A fight!” his stepmother exclaimed in her rolling accents, pushing back up from her seat and shaking her head. “Fisticuffs! With whom?”
“With me.” Mackenzie stepped forward, looking appropriately grim as he admitted this.
The dowager released a little squeak and took a hasty step back, clutching her young daughter close as though Mackenzie might turn his fists on them next.
“You?” Hot color flooded the other lady’s face, enlivening her and suddenly making her appear not so stern and stoic. “Who are you?” she demanded in outrage, not shrinking away.
He opened his mouth to answer and then paused. Angling his head, he looked at the lady strangely, as though seeing something within the tight lines of her face.
Mrs. Wakefield stepped forward and lightly squeezed her arm. “Lady Enid, it’s him. You recognize him, don’t you?”
Understanding passed over Lady Enid’s face as she gazed at Mackenzie. “Ah, of course.” Her voice dropped a notch softer. “I was wondering when we would meet.”
“Aye,” he said rather gruffly. “I’m Struan Mackenzie.”
Struan. Poppy rolled the sound of his name around in her head. Strew-an. In her head, she heard the vibrating rumble of his brogue, especially in the first syllables, even though she doubted she could pronounce it thusly herself.
“How good to meet you,” the lady replied. “This is long overdue. I’m Enid. Your sister.”
His sister? And they’d never met before?
Enid turned her gaze from her brother and gave her head a slight shake as if returning to the moment. She frowned down at the duke on the bed. “Let me hazard a guess,” she continued. “Marcus wasn’t pleased to see you and—” She broke off with a shrug. “Well, let’s just say that he said regrettable things.”
The dowager stepped forward again, fisting her linen handkerchief. Poppy tensed, wondering if she would strike him. She was well within her rights. “Marcus does have a temper, but he is not given to violence. Did you do this to him?” she demanded, waving her handkerchief.
“No,” Poppy heard herself quickly defend, not even stopping to wonder why she was defending him. All attention turned to her. “It was an accident.”
The exotic beauty nodded, looking relieved. Then, to Poppy’s great shock, she stepped forward and embraced Mackenzie. “Mr. Mackenzie . . . Struan, I’ve longed to meet you. We are family. Marcus has struggled to accept your existence. You can understand, I am certain. He was suspicious . . . afraid that you wanted to hurt us.”
Mackenzie stood utterly still—clearly stunned as she hugged him. He lifted a hand and awkwardly patted her slender back.
Without fully releasing him, she pulled back enough to look him in the face. She clucked and touched his cheek. “You look very much like your father. I see it so clearly.”
Struan’s expression tightened at this, but he managed to nod in acknowledgment of what must be a compliment. Looking at the two brothers, the late duke must have been a beautiful man.
The dowager continued, “Marcus must have seen the resemblance, too. He wanted to believe it wasn’t true, but he had to know.” She shook her head forlornly. “It was difficult for him to accept that his father had been unfaithful. He knew his parents weren’t a love match, but it’s another thing to accept . . . well, you.” Smiling wistfully, the dowager dropped her hand from his cheek and stepped back from Mackenzie.
A brief stretch of silence fell over the chamber. Everyone looked at the duke, still as death on the bed, willing him to wake.
With a sigh, the dowager did the inevitable and turned her gaze to Poppy. “You really saved our Marcus?”
Poppy cleared her throat. She felt uncomfortable claiming responsibility. It made her sound overly noble, so she attempted to explain it in a way that made her actions appear utterly normal. “His Grace was in the middle of the road and a carriage was bearing down on him—”
“And she saved him! Pushed him out of the way, she did.”
Mrs. Wakefield dove into the conversation.
“You pushed him out of the way?” the dowager breathed, her lashes blinking over her liquid-dark eyes.
Poppy shrugged and nodded awkwardly. “Y-yes.”
The dowager clasped her beringed fingers together in front of her as though in prayer. Poppy tensed, uncertain what to expect. It certainly wasn’t what happened next.
Apparently deciding it was her turn now, Lady Autenberry seized Poppy’s shoulders and pulled her into a suffocating embrace. “You saved his life.” Astonishingly, she started to weep. “We can never repay you for saving him, but we shall try.” The shoulder of Poppy’s pinafore was soon damp from her tears. Unaccustomed to such public emotion, especially from the likes of a duchess, Poppy patted her back clumsily.
“I advise you not to hold out too much hope, Your Grace,” Dr. Mercer interrupted, shifting uncomfortably. “The duke’s life, I’m afraid to say, may yet be lost.”
Still sniffling, the dowager pulled away from Poppy to face the physician. “What are you saying?” A linen handkerchief appeared out of nowhere for her to dab at her eyes.
Poppy winced. She thought the man had been perfectly clear.
The physician sent a pained glance in the direction of Autenberry. “He’s in a false sleep . . . a coma, as it were. Now while there are the rare cases of individuals who wake up after weeks in a coma, you must prepare yourselves. He may never wake again.”
The dowager started bawling, dropping her face into her hands. Even her young daughter succumbed to tears. Only the stern Lady Enid maintained her composure, although her bottom lip quivered.
Struan Mackenzie didn’t bat an eye, of course. His gaze was bone dry as he stared ahead.
“Is there nothing we can do?” Lady Enid asked, her voice the height of practicality. “Please? There must be something.”
“Tend to him. Keep him warm and comfortable. Try to get him to take as much nourishment as you can. You don’t want him to grow too weak.”
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