Louisa nodded jerkily, blinking rapidly so that the moisture blurring her vision did not roll down her face.
Mrs. Marni regarded her more sympathetically, even reaching out to squeeze her hand. “He’ll be all right. Just follow my instructions to the letter, y’hear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“All right then. Yer father is asking for you.”
The herb-woman then turned to the Dowager Duchess and removed a pouch from her bag. “If you drink this in your tea every morning, you’ll start to feel better soon,” she said handing it to her.
Her Grace looked flummoxed but reached out slowly to take the package. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Marni nodded once before striding out of the house. The Dowager Duchess looked up at Gilbert. “Make sure she gets home safe.”
Gilbert bowed. “Yes, Your Grace,” he said before leaving the room. Louisa hesitated for a moment, gave the Dowager Duchess an awkward smile, before going in to see her father.
He was lying propped up by pillows, his face lined with pain and exhaustion. Louisa paused at the doorway, swallowing a lump in her throat.
“Papa,” she whispered.
He turned and saw her, trying to sit up. She hurried forward to stop him. “Oh, no you don’t!” she scolded, “Mrs. Marni said not to move.”
“I am sorry about this,” he actually had the audacity to look embarrassed.
“What are you sorry for Father?” she tucked in his blankets and fluffed his pillows, just for something to do with her hands.
“Being weak.”
Louisa bit back a sob. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not weak. You’re ill. As far as I know, you did not make yourself this way, so there is no need to apologize. I am sorry.”
He stared at her incredulously, “Why are you sorry?”
“I should have been here.” She covered her eyes, not wanting him to see the tears she could not stop.
He snorted. “Don’t be silly, Louisa. You could not have done anything.”
“If Uncle Gilbert hadn’t found you…” she choked, turning away.
“Fine, so we’re both being ridic-” he stopped, startled as the door burst open.
“Miss Notley! Are you all right?” the Duke asked, swaying from side to side, his eyes unable to focus.
Chapter 21
Inebriation
Jeremy was by no means inebriated. He was feeling no pain but his mind was perfectly clear. So when he overheard two bar patrons talking about the Munboro coach coming to whisk the herb-woman back to the manor house and speculating on who might be ill…he perked up and paid attention. He had no personal knowledge of any of the Munboro coaches on such an assignment. Which means that either the steward or his mother had sent for the herb-woman.
He got swayingly to his feet and informed Shearcaster that it was time for them to leave.
“But the fun is just beginning, wot?” he protested.
“I think something is wrong at home, Daniel. Time to go!”
It was his tone, more than his words he knew, that spurred the Earl to move the buxom wench sitting in his lap to the adjoining chair and get to his feet with a sigh.
“All right then. Let’s go.”
Jeremy nodded carefully and stumbled to the door, marveling at how unsteady he felt. He didn’t think that he had drunk that much. Apparently, he was wrong about that. As he stepped outside, he wondered vaguely if he had paid the bill but dismissed it for now. If he had not, the barkeep knew where to find him.
Still, he was surprised that they managed to arrive at the manor house with no mishaps. As soon as the horse came to a stop in the courtyard, he leapt off, confident that a groom would take care of the horse. He hurried into the house, calling for the butler.
“Miles!”
The man appeared as if by magic and Jeremy grabbed his lapels, blinking rapidly in order to bring him into focus. “Who is ill?”
“Uh, well, Mr. Americus Notley had collapsed earlier I believe. Mr. Gilbert Notley and Her Grace sent for his daughter and a herb-woman.”
Jeremy blinked a few more times, trying to assimilate this information. “He collapsed?”
“Yes, Your Grace, he did.”
“A-and Miss Notley wasn’t with him?”
“No. I believe she had gone out.”
“But…she’s here now?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“W-where did she go?” the specter of Mr. Jones reared its ugly head and Jeremy was ashamed that his jealousy led him to want to know that she had not been with him.
“I believe she went to the village.”
“Oh…” Jeremy thought about that for a moment. “I was in the village. I didn’t see her.”
Miles simply watched him as if waiting for something more.
“Where are they now?”
“In the dower house.”
Jeremy lurched away, completely forgetting about Daniel in his haste to get to Louisa. He hurried out, seeing a few footmen milling about outside the door, ready to run errands. His heart pounded faster in his chest, as he wondered just how bad it was. He burst into the cottage, catching sight of his mother sitting quietly head bent.
Is he dead?
“Mother? Where’s Miss Notley?”
She pointed absently down the hall and he hurried to the room, wondering if Louisa was alone with her father’s body. He burst in without knocking already speaking before he could really register who or what was in the room.
“Miss Notley! Are you all right?”
He looked up to see Louisa gawping at him and her father – very much alive – doing the same. He swayed slowly from side to side as he tried to assimilate this new reality.
“Oh…” he murmured.
Louisa came closer. “Your Grace, are you quite all right?” she raised her hand and for a moment, Jeremy thought she might clutch his arm. She dropped the arm however, without touching him.
“I…” he said, at loss to explain bursting in like that. “I heard about your father’s collapse. I was…concerned.”
“That is very kind of you, Your Grace,” Mr. Notley said.
No, it isn’t.
Jeremy’s eyes went to Louisa and found her looking back. In his inebriation, he was quite unable to hide the emotion that was swimming around inside. She watched him in sad understanding, but didn’t say another word.
“I shall wait outside…with my mother,” he said at last, stumbling backward to clutch at the door and swing it closed behind him as he left. He took a deep breath and walked slowly back to the parlor, trying to sober up.
“Mother? Are you all right?” It occurred to him then that it was rather strange that the Dowager Duchess was here, sitting in the parlor, staring at her fingers.
“What? Ye-yes I’m fine.” She held up a little pouch, “The herb-woman gave me this. She told me to drink it in my tea.”
Jeremy looked down at it with a frown. “What is it?”
“I don’t know.” She put it to her nose and breathed in. “I think it’s several different herbs. I definitely smell lavender. But I cannot tell what the others are.”
“Hmm. Did you ask her for it?”
Her Grace shook her head.
“Well…that is strange.” Jeremy straightened up from the wall on which he was leaning, “Come, Mother, let me get you to bed.”
“All right.” She got to her feet and let him lead her back to the manor house, all the while staring absently at the pouch. Jeremy handed her over to her lady’s maid, with instructions to make sure she got a hot bath and maybe the girl could rub some mint oil into her back to relax her?
The lady’s maid nodded in assent and led the unprotesting Duchess up the staircase to her room.
“Everything all right?” Jeremy jumped, turning to see his friend, Daniel at the end of the corridor, watching them with folded arms. He had completely forgotten about him.
“Painter is ill,” he said shortly, turning to go to his study. He knew that Dani
el would follow him.
“Oh. Is it bad?”
“I suppose so. His daughter certainly seemed upset.”
“His daughter…is she the reason you’re so uninterested in the bar wenches?”
“No!” Jeremy said a little too quickly. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you tore out of there like a bat out of hell when those people said the herb-woman had been called to the manor. Your mother has her own physician so you would not have thought that the herb-woman came for her. Which leads us back to…the painter’s daughter.” Daniel spread out his arms as if he had accomplished a great feat. Then he smirked. “Unless you have developed a tendresse for the painter himself…? You know I would not judge you if you have, Munboro.”
Jeremy snorted, pouring out a whisky and handing it to Daniel. “Drink up and stop spouting nonsense.”
Daniel took the proffered drink but did not stop looking speculatively. “You know you’re the Duke who went off to sea instead of partying with the ton and hobnobbing with your peers. I don’t think anybody will bat an eyelash if you marry a painter’s daughter.”
Jeremy gave him a sharp look. “What makes you think I want to do that?”
Daniel shrugged, looking uncharacteristically sincere. “I know you. And I want you to be happy. You have no need of an advantageous marriage. If this maiden makes you happy well then, go ahead and get leg-shackled with my blessings.”
“Why, thank you. That means a lot.” Jeremy tried to pass it off as a joke but he found that it did indeed warm his heart that his good friend would support him should he decide to make an offer for Louisa.
The question is, would Louisa accept me?
Recalling the strange conversation, they’d had before he went to bury himself in a bottle, he was not at all sure that he was what she wanted.
But is she what you want? The voice that sounded like Daniel asked and for a moment, he was not sure if his friend had spoken aloud.
I am still drunk.
He reached in his pockets for his pouch of money and froze when he could not feel it there. He plunged his hand back into his pockets, searching in earnest.
“What is it?” Daniel asked.
“I seem to have misplaced my purse.”
“What? When?”
Jeremy was beginning to have a creeping suspicion that he had been robbed. Now that he thought about it, there was simply no way he should be as drunk as he was. Not with how much liquor he drank. Those wenches had likely slipped some elixir into their tankards. Into his tankard. Daniel did not seem too worse for wear.
“I think your friends have robbed me,” he said to his friend.
Daniel lifted an eyebrow. “My friends? You mean…?” he frowned as if trying to think which friends of his they could possibly have met.
“The bar wenches, you fool.” Jeremy said with exasperated affection. Maybe they had adulterated Daniel’s drink too.
“The bar wenches? Why would they do that?”
“Check your pockets.”
Daniel fumbled with his clothes, being just as clumsy as Jeremy had been. He could not seem to be able to find his pockets. “Wha…?” he said before he keeled over and fell to the ground.
Jeremy stared at him in shock.
“Daniel?” he called.
His friend did not answer.
* * *
Louisa was torn between amusement and annoyance that the Duke had barged drunkenly into her father’s room like that. She was also grateful to him for doing it because it gave her something else to focus on, rather than her father’s health.
She got up from his bedside, to fetch him some water.
When she returned, she found that he had fallen asleep. She sighed, placing the cup by his bedside and sitting back down in the rocking chair she had dragged into his room.
Sighing wistfully again, she closed her eyes, her mind immediately jumping to Jeremy. She had seen the concern in his eyes when he had barged in earlier…and something else she was reluctant to name.
Something reminiscent of the look in his eye when he had kissed her. She tried to push away the thought of his lips hot on hers, but she could not. Sometimes when she closed her eyes, she was back in his strong arms, her knees weak as she held on to his hard chest. She had felt invaded by him, overcome by his immediacy. It had taken days to even feel like herself again. Something inside her was still shaking.
This dance they were doing with each other would be the death of her.
And then there was Mr. Jones. What exactly had her father been thinking with that? She tried to think if she had ever in her life expressed an interest in being a barrister’s wife. She could not think of any clue. Her eyes traveled up her father’s body, noting the awkward angle in which he was lying, the slight shake in his hands even in sleep. He was very ill. It was likely that he would never be better than this.
She understood that he worried for her, but she felt that he should be able to see that she could take care of herself. She could take care of them both.
“Damn you for a worry wart anyway. I shall not marry the prince you chose for me, you hear me father? We will be all right.”
Americus didn’t stir.
There was a slight knock at the door before it opened and Uncle Gilbert came in. “I just came back from taking the herb-woman back home,” he said as he pulled up a chair, “how is he?”
“Asleep.”
Uncle Gilbert nodded. “He will be all right; you know that don’t you?”
Louisa shook her head. “We don’t really know that. We hope it. We pray for it. But we don’t know it.”
Her uncle sighed, “I suppose you’re right.” He studied his brother pensively. “He’s always been the good one, you know? The moral center of the family. He tried to keep me on the straight and narrow after we were orphaned. Didn’t always succeed.” Gilbert laughed ruefully, casting her a glance.
She nodded, smiling slightly, commiserating. This was the most open she had seen her uncle in living memory. “That is truly who he is. I suppose we both need him for that.”
“Mmm. I cannot imagine life if he was not there to look reprovingly at me.”
Louisa let out a surprised laugh. “Me neither,” she murmured.
“Well…” Uncle Gilbert rose to his feet. “I need to report to the Duke before I can retire, so I will see you in the morning.”
“All right Uncle Gilbert. Good night.”
“Good night, my dear.”
* * *
Jeremy was struggling to lift his friend off the floor when there was a soft knock on the door.
“Who is it?”
“Gilbert Notley, Your Grace.”
Jeremy sighed in relief. “Come in here and help me,” he called.
Gilbert opened the door his eyes widening in surprise when he saw Daniel on the floor. “What happened?” he asked coming forward to help lift the Earl to the sofa.
“I do not know,” Jeremy said evasively. “Fetch me some water, please.”
Gilbert ran to the corridor and immediately ran into Miles. “His Grace requires some water for his friend.” Jeremy heard him say before the steward returned to the study.
“Do you need further assistance?” he asked.
“No, I do not think so.” Jeremy said coldly, not knowing why this man annoyed him so much.
Gilbert nodded, started for the door and then stopped. “I can fetch the herb-woman again. Mayhaps she has some draught that will help the Earl.”
Jeremy was about to reject the suggestion outright but then he hesitated. The herb-woman had helped Louisa’s father. She might help Daniel too.
But he is just drunk. Jeremy looked down at his friend, wondering if it was only that or if there was something more afoot here.
“Yes, all right. Have her brought to us.” He said without looking at Gilbert.
The steward hurried off even as Miles returned with water. Jeremy held up Daniel’s head while the butler tried his best to
get the water into the Earl’s mouth and down his throat. They got him to swallow a little but when he began to choke, they stopped, laying him back down on the pillows. Miles brought a blanket and they covered him with it, taking off his shoes and his cravat as well as loosening his coat. Jeremy watched him worriedly.
Tempting The Ruined Duke (Steamy Historical Regency Romance) Page 18