“But no more,” Kat added lightly. “He is become an old sobersides in his dotage.”
“I suppose I’d best hire some footmen to carry me about in a sedan chair, and begin taking the cure for my gout,” Alec returned with a mock sigh. “Do you see what abuse I am forced to take from them, my dear?”
Juliet colored at the endearment though it was innocent enough. “I hope you will both leave off calling me Lady Deveril and continue calling me Juliet. We are still friends, after all.”
“Of course,” said Kat warmly, squeezing her hand.
“We are truly pleased to welcome you to our home,” Lydia said, her eyes crinkling at the corners in just the same manner that her brother’s did. “Already I can see that you’ve managed to lighten Alec’s mood. He’s been so serious since our father—”
But Alec broke in before she could complete her thought. “Warm though your welcome has been, it was a long trip home from Gretna and I for one am exhausted.”
“Of course!” Katherine said with a guilty start. “We hadn’t meant to keep you here chattering in the entryway! I am so sorry, Juliet. What beasts you must think us!”
“I’ll have cook send something up for you both at once. We have already dined, and we have that…”—Lydia paused as if searching for a word—“that thing that we were doing. Don’t we, Kat?”
“Huh?” Katherine asked, looking askance at her sister. “What thing? What are you…?”
Juliet saw Lydia’s elbow make contact with her sister’s ribs. “The thing…” she said meaningfully.
Catching the slight nod in Alec and Juliet’s direction, realization dawned on Kat’s face. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “The thing! Of course, how could I have forgotten it?”
Both sisters grinned at their brother and his new bride.
“We’ll just leave you to it then,” Alec said with a slight roll of his eyes. “I’ll show you to your rooms, my dear.”
As she allowed him to lead her toward the staircase, Juliet heard giggles behind them. “I believe they haven’t got a thing to do at all,” she said with a shake of her head.
“Of course they haven’t,” her husband replied, with a laugh. “That was their oh-so-subtle way of excusing themselves so that we might be alone together.”
“Because we are newly wed?” Juliet asked, with a frown. “Or because we are just returned from a long trip?”
“Both, I would imagine,” he replied thoughtfully. “Since they are not long out of the schoolroom, I don’t suppose they know exactly what married couples do with one another. At least I certainly hope they don’t.”
“I don’t know,” Juliet said with a grin. “Cecily and Madeline and I had some very informative discussions about it. Maddie even found a book that—” She broke off. “Well, let us just say that it cleared up some misunderstandings we’d had.”
“About what?” Alec asked, as they reached the second landing, his gaze fascinated.
Juliet felt herself turning red, and refused to meet his eyes. “I’d rather not say.”
“Oh, that is no fair at all,” Alec said, pulling her along toward what she supposed were the master and mistress’s rooms. “You can’t tease me like that and then refuse to tell the whole story.”
Juliet looked one way, then the other, to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard. “If you must know, I was not convinced that the … er … male part could grow to such a prodigious size.”
“Prodigious, eh? So this book convinced you of it?”
“Well, no, it was only after Cecily and Winterson married that we had confirmation.”
Alec bit back a howl of laughter. “Does Winterson know Cecily told you two about the size of his … part?”
Juliet gasped. “Dear Lord, I hope not! I don’t think I’d ever be able to be in the same room with him again!”
She shook her head in horror at the thought, then continued, following her new husband into the sitting room adjoining their bedchambers. “And of course I had my own confirmation of it on our wedding day.”
Shutting the door firmly behind them, Alec pulled her against him and nuzzled her ear. “Did you indeed?” he asked, his voice still tinged with amusement. “And was it as prodigious as you expected?”
Juliet closed her eyes as he tugged on her earlobe with his teeth. “Oh, yes,” she said on a sigh. “Very impressive, indeed.”
“Dashed right,” Alec murmured against her neck just before he reached down and lifted her into his arms.
She gave a startled laugh. “What are you doing, you madman?”
“I am carrying my bride to bed,” he said firmly.
“It’s the middle of the afternoon!” she protested, bending her knees so that they could make it through the door into his bedchamber.
“I thought we’d settled that in Gretna. It’s perfectly normal for married people to engage in—”
He stopped upon seeing his valet in his room, engaged in unpacking his traveling things.
One look from Deveril was enough to make the man drop the task at hand and leave with a murmured apology.
“Deveril, you frightened the poor man to death,” Juliet protested, blushing.
“I am sure Thompson will recover,” her husband said, depositing her upon his very large bed. “Now, where were we?”
Juliet had no trouble at all reminding him where they’d left off. She’d always been a quick study.
* * *
The next morning, after a long visit with Baby Alice—who seemed perfectly content in the Deveril nurseries—Juliet had the carriage brought round so that she might visit Herr Bock’s establishment in Bloomsbury. She had waited until Alec left for his club to do so because though she had told him her secret, she still was reluctant to discuss the day-to-day aspects of life as an amputee. Perhaps it was silly for her to be so circumspect considering the intimacies she’d allowed him, but she had no wish to see him turn from passionate lover to pitying husband. In fact, she could think of nothing she feared more.
The trip to Herr Bock’s was necessitated by her elevated status. She had no wish to shame Alec by appearing in public as his viscountess in anything less than her most fashionable ensembles. And that meant she would need new slippers as well as new gowns. The shoes she’d worn during her days attempting to blend into the background would simply not do.
Like many Harley Street physicians, Herr Bock saw patients in a small office attached to his home. Though he would never presume to make the comparison himself, he also was just as professional and meticulous as a physician, always ensuring that his patients were well cared for.
“Good morning, miss,” Mr. Stephens, Bock’s assistant greeted her, taking her coat and hat. “Mr. Bock is waiting for you.”
From the moment he’d arrived in England three years ago with Lord Shelby’s other staff, the craftsman had insisted on taking on the customs and mannerisms of his new home. And when barely a year into his time there, he’d insisted upon setting up an establishment for himself. “For it seems to me, Miss Shelby,” he’d said, “that there are others here who might need my help learning to walk again.”
And though Lady Shelby had been livid, her husband had reminded her that the man was hardly an indentured servant and was free to come and go as he wished. Even in the face of a promise to increase his fees exponentially, Bock had stood firm. A few weeks later he’d found this little house in Bloomsbury and to Juliet’s delight had set about bringing his skill to those who needed it.
“Miss Shelby,” the burly German said, opening his arms wide as he welcomed her into his examining room. “How good it is to see you. You are having no trouble with the leg, I hope?”
Basking in the friendship she’d shared with this man who had saved her from life at the margins of society, where she would be kept completely out of sight, Juliet took his outstretched hands. “No,” she assured him. “No trouble at all. Indeed I am here because of a happy occasion. I’ve married.”
“Married! But you ar
e not old enough for such a thing, surely?”
“I certainly am,” Juliet said with a grin. “And I am no longer Miss Shelby but the Viscountess Deveril.”
If he was surprised to learn she’d married so well, Herr Bock did not show it. He simply took her in a bear hug and wished her happy.
“Now,” he said when they’d chatted a bit about her new circumstances, “you did not come here to tell me your news. Let me guess. You have need of the new slippers and shoes, yes?”
Though most amputees made do with a single prosthesis onto which they fitted shoes themselves, in order to keep her infirmity a secret, Juliet’s mother had insisted from the start that Herr Bock make her as many legs as she had slippers. Which Juliet and Herr Bock had sensibly decided to limit to four. One with a half-boot, one with a dancing slipper, one with a riding boot, and one with a sturdy walking boot. Because it was nearly impossible to keep a shoe on her prosthetic foot without some sort of lacing or adhesive, Juliet would send the left shoe to Herr Bock and he would affix the shoe with glue. This allowed him to adjust the balance of the socket, which fitted around her calf, so that if there were a hill Juliet would not be pitched forward or backward by the change in angle.
When they had discussed her need for two more legs to go with her newer gowns, Herr Bock left the room so that Juliet might change into the short breeches she wore only to these fittings. Since even physicians thought it unseemly to see their female patients unclothed, it was highly irregular for Herr Bock to see Juliet in such attire, but she had long since become desensitized to their interactions. It was simply a necessary part of her life now, and she’d long ago become inured to the multiple ways in which someone with her particular injury had to give up any pretense of modesty. And besides that, her maid, Weston, was with her, so there was no real danger.
Quickly, she let Weston help her remove her gown and donned the short breeches and the shirtwaist that she wore on such occasions. Her legs were bare, and taking a seat on the stiff-backed chair put there for her use, she began to unlace the tightly tied corset that wrapped around her calf.
When she’d first seen the contraption four years ago, when Herr Bock had persuaded one of his other patients to demonstrate how it worked, Juliet had been astonished. It had only been a few months since the accident that had taken her leg mid-calf, and she was deep in the depression that the trauma had left in its wake. It had been her mother’s insistence, one of the only times in Juliet’s life when her mother had acted in a manner that met both their interests, that had brought Herr Bock to them. Lord Shelby had been posted to the conference of Vienna, and Herr Bock had come highly recommended by the war office. And watching that young woman, who had lost her leg in a carriage accident, walk about the room on her wooden prosthesis, Juliet had thought for the first time since her own accident that there might be some hope for her yet, and she had been grateful for once for her mother’s domineering nature. Only later that evening had she realized that Lady Shelby’s plan had been less about seeing that Juliet could lead a normal life than ensuring that Lady Shelby would not be embarrassed for the rest of society to know she had a crippled daughter. Still, motives aside, her mother’s shame had brought Juliet into contact with Herr Bock, and that at least was something to celebrate.
The leg itself was simple enough. To put it on, Juliet would don the mechanism like a stocking, placing the stump of her calf through the unlaced corset, and down to rest on top of the wooden lower leg and foot, which had been padded for her comfort.
When Herr Bock returned, he knelt before her and examined her residual limb, ensuring that there were no skin abrasions or irritations that would indicate the prosthesis was not fitting properly. Then he asked Juliet to don the prosthesis, and when that was done, he directed her to the parallel bars in the next room, where he could watch her gait. Back and forth she walked as he instructed her to speed up, slow down, and try kneeling. She’d just reached the end of the bars when the toe of her false foot caught on the edge of the bar and she pitched forward.
Sixteen
When he’d finished his meeting with his man of business, where he made provisions for Juliet in the event that something should happen to him, Alec had asked his coachman to take him to White’s so that he could seek out Winterson for advice on the matter of Mrs. Turner and Il Maestro.
As his carriage drove through the city, he spied a familiar-looking figure descending from a hack and hurrying up the steps, walking stick in hand, of an unremarkable row house. Who the devil was she going to meet in this part of town? he wondered, rapping on the ceiling to indicate that he wanted to stop.
Leaping down from the carriage, he doubled back to the door he’d seen his wife disappear through a few moments before. A small plaque next to the door simply read Otto Bock. No explanation of what type of service the man offered.
Frowning, Alec raised the knocker and gave a couple of sharp raps, which were answered by a clean-cut young servant. A footman of some sort, he assumed.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the man said with a frown. “You’re early. Mr. Bock is in with a patient still.”
He opened the door and indicated that Alec should follow him. “If you’ll just wait here it will be some time before he can see you.”
A patient? A frisson of alarm ran through him. Was Juliet still suffering from the aftereffects of her accident? He remembered what she’d told him on their wedding night about the accident that had taken her foot and nearly taken her life. “I rarely even have phantom pain anymore,” she’d told him. Could their journey to and from Scotland in such a brief period of time have aggravated her wound? Worse, could she be suffering from some other ailment in addition to her infirmity?
“I don’t think you understand,” he told the young man, pushing past him. “That patient your master is with now is my wife. I’ll just step in and—”
He brushed past the servant and hurried forward to the door the young man had indicated with a nod when he’d informed Alec that Mr. Bock was with another patient.
“Wait!” the man said, trying to grasp Alec’s arm and prevent him from interrupting his employer. “Sir, you can’t go in there! Sir!”
But it was too late. Alec had turned the knob and stepped into the examining room. And what he saw made his jaw and fists clench with fury. Juliet was on the floor, and a man he didn’t recognize was on the floor next to her, his hands caressing her exposed limbs.
“Get the hell off my wife!” he shouted, taking Juliet’s assailant by the collar, and, despite the awkwardness of their location at the end of some strange railed contraption, tossing him to the side. “My God, Juliet! Are you all right?”
He didn’t for a moment think that she welcomed the man’s caress. There was no way that she would have left his bed earlier that morning and gone straight to another man. He’d heard of some unscrupulous physicians who had no qualms about taking advantage of their female patients, and he assumed this must be one of them.
But while she might not have intentionally sought out the other man, his wife was not pleased with her husband’s interference. He reached down to help her up, but she slapped his hand away.
“Alec!” his wife asked, not in the least grateful for his intervention. “What are you doing here? And what have you done with Herr Bock?”
To his surprise, she used the rails to pull herself to her feet and moved quickly to her assailant’s side. “Mr. Bock! Are you all right?”
“I am well, Miss … that is, Lady Deveril,” the blackguard told her, straightening his spectacles. “I believe I have the pleasure of meeting your new husband, yes?”
“Yes,” she said sourly, shaking her head in exasperation at her husband. “Though at this particular moment I am unsure why I consented to the match.”
“I tried to keep him out, Mr. Bock,” the man who had answered the door said apologetically, moving forward as if to remove Alec from the room.
“It is all right, William,” Mr. Bock told his serva
nt. “This is Miss Shelby’s new husband. I believe he misunderstood the situation.”
Looking from Juliet, to Bock, to his servant, Alec felt the ire that had propelled him through the door of the little room seep out of him. For the first time he took in his surroundings. It was a simply furnished room, with a couple of upholstered chairs, but what sent his finger to pull on his suddenly too tight cravat was the set of shelves set against the wall. On each shelf there sat a perfectly crafted, artfully realistic artificial limb.
He closed his eyes at his stupidity.
“Oh,” he said with a grimace.
“Yes,” Juliet said, annoyance in her tone, “oh.”
“So, this is the man who makes your feet?”
“If he will continue to do so after being so thoroughly insulted by my husband!” she said, hands on hips.
“Of course I will, Miss Shelby,” Mr. Bock said with a broad grin. He gave a slight bow toward Alec. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Lord Deveril,” he said.
Alec shook his head at his own stupidity, but returned the other man’s bow. “I hope you will forgive me, Mr. Bock,” he said sheepishly. “I’m afraid I saw Juliet on the floor and jumped to the wrong conclusion.”
“It is of no consequence, my lord,” Bock said. “If I were to see my Frauke in such a position I too would jump to the wrong conclusion. Your jealousy over your pretty young wife does you credit. I have waited these many years for some fellow to notice Miss Shelby’s … that is, Lady Deveril’s beauty.”
“I am lucky they did not,” Alec said with a grin. “Otherwise I would not have been able to snap her up.”
Juliet looked from one to the other of them and frowned. “If you two are finished speaking of me as if I were a valuable objet d’art, I would like to continue with my fitting, please.”
Looking slightly abashed, Alec nodded. He was relieved to his core that she was safe, and that she did not have to endure the trauma of an assault in addition to her leg injury. He would have liked to stay and watch the fitting process, but assumed since he was now in her black books that she would prefer him to wait outside.
How to Romance a Rake Page 21