The sound of retching reached Orley’s ears again, and he narrowed his eyes.
He pointed at the other room. “Ben? Is that my husband?”
Ben glanced away. “I am not to say, Your Grace.”
“You have already done so, Ben.” He sighed and shook his head. “Fetch my dressing gown, Ben, and get my blasted cane from the floor so I don’t fall arse over head, trying to stand. I seem to have overdone it last night.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Ben left the room quickly and returned only seconds later with Orley’s dressing gown. Orley could hear Chester cursing Ben. He grinned at Ben, whose face was turning a dark red. “It is quite a burdensome task to be related to the duchess, is it not, Ben?” “Quite right, Your Grace.” Ben nodded.
Orley patted him on the shoulder, standing when Ben handed him his cane. “Please have the doctor fetched quickly to see to the duchess. That may save you from your brother’s ire.”
Ben sighed. “Thank you, Your Grace.” Ben hurried from the room, and Orley chuckled. Chester was a tiny thing compared to his brother, Ben, who was a very large, broad-shouldered man, though not quite as muscled as Orley. Yet the man was afraid of Chester. Orley wondered if there was a temper lurking inside his sweet, beautiful duchess. He grinned as he thought of the night before. There was definitely a fiery passion buried deep. Orley couldn’t wait to bring it all out into the open.
Stepping into the room where Chester was currently bending over a washbasin with Missy rubbing his back, his hair pulled back, Orley instantly wished he’d stayed where he was. The smell was like the eighth circle of hell from Dante’s Inferno.
“Angel? Are you quite all right?” Orley asked as he walked in a little farther. “You look quite miserable and not at all fit for company. Perhaps I should allow Missy to tend to you?” While he wanted to help his husband—in fact it was all he wanted to do—Orley would be the first to admit as well that the smell in the room was more than he wanted to suffer. He shuddered internally.
Chester turned to glare at him. “How do I appear to be, oh mighty Duke of Whitcomb? Do I look quite the pall as I am? Am I fit for polite company? Perhaps we should invite the king and queen of Tfrance to come and dine with us. One of them can hold my hair, the other can empty the washbasin when I have finished emptying the contents of my stomach into it, and you can wipe my face. Does that please you?” Chester turned and retched again, though it sounded as if he were merely dry heaving at his point.
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Orley covered his mouth and turned his face away. “He does not mean it, Yer Grace. He is merely miserable,” Missy told him.
“D-don’t tell him what I m-mean, Missy,” Chester groaned.
“Is there aught I can do for you, love?” Orley asked.
“You can remove yourself from my presence so I can be sick in private,” Chester cried. “P-please, Orley.”
Orley nodded. “Very well. I shall step into the hall to await the doctor.”
He turned and hurried as quickly as possible from the room into the other bedchamber. After closing the door behind him, he leaned against the wood and exhaled. He would need to send for the maids to burn sage in both rooms to rid them of the smell. He did not think he could countenance the stench.
Shaking his head and shoving away the huge ball of fear that had formed in the pit of his stomach, Orley stepped into the hall to pace the floor.
Chester wanted to die. He really and truly did. He’d had a good life. He’d been born into a good family. Had parents and siblings who loved him. Lived as a maid, then married a duke, and now he’d seen what it meant to be a duchess. His life was a fairy tale. He had, for all intents and purposes, lived a version of the Grimm brothers’ story of Aschenputtel. Though without the evil stepmother, stepsisters, and the gruesome plucking out of their eyes at the end. Chester shuddered as he thought of the tale Lady Lucien had told him about. Why in the world would someone write such a thing? Chester didn’t see it ever becoming a big deal. In a few years people would forget all about “The Little Glass Slipper” and the Grimm brothers.
There was a knock on the door, and Chester pulled up the covers as he glared at the panel. It had better not be Orley seeking entrance. While Missy had gotten rid of the filthy washbasin and burned sage and incense in the room, Chester still had no desire to see his husband. Not while he still felt embarrassed by his body’s betrayal. He was so utterly humiliated.
“Yer Grace? It is the doctor,” Missy said.
Chester sat up and gestured. “Please let him come in.”
Chester flushed when a tall, broad-shouldered female man walked into the room. He opened his mouth to apologize for his error that the doctor would be a male, when the man brushed off his words.
“Do not concern yourself, Your Grace. Now what seems to be ze problem?”
Chester cleared his throat. “I awoke this morn and was ill for what felt like hours with no rest.”
The doctor nodded. “And have zere been any other symptoms?”
Chester frowned. “Symptoms? Like what?”
“Weird food cravings. Lack of appetite. Sensitive nipples. More emotional than normal?”
Chester gasped. “Certainly not!”
Missy made a noise on the other side of the room, and the doctor turned to look at her. “You disagree with Her Grace?”
Missy glanced at Chester, and he glared at her. “Beggin’ yer pardon, Yer Grace, but you haven’t been eatin’ as much in the mornin,’ but when you do eat, yer’ always askin’ for fish and custard on top.”
Chester looked between the doctor and Missy as the two of them made a face. “What is wrong with that? I like fish and custard.”
“But you want them together, on top of everything, Yer Grace.”
Chester shook his head again, still not understanding. “And that is not the norm?”
“Most assuredly not, Your Grace,” the doctor answered with a tiny shudder. She smiled at Chester. “Now, when was your last turnting?”
Chester realized then what the doctor was trying to hint at, and he wanted to laugh. Why there was absolutely no way he could be with child! He would know. His mother had always told him that a woman knew when they were carrying a babe within them. It wasn’t as if he were walking around, carrying on as if he were devoid of life within him.
He thought back. He had experienced a turnting at Southerby Manor. That had been horrific—Orley had seen him in pain and in a manner most unbecoming. Chester blushed as he remembered it. He walked forward in his memory bank. He and Orley had gone to Gretna Green shortly thereafter, and then they had been in Tscotland where they had hired Missy. Then the fortnight heading to the ship. There was the week and a half on the ship and now here in Tfrance….
Chester gasped and covered his mouth.
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The doctor nodded. “As I suspected. Please lie back, Your Grace, and lift your nightshift until your stomach is exposed.”
Chester’s heart was racing, and suddenly he didn’t want Orley relegated to the hall. He turned to Missy. “Missy, can you please go and fetch His Grace?”
The door opened, and Orley stepped inside. “You rang, my dear?”
Chester held out his hand, breathing a sigh of relief when Orley walked over to take it.
“Your Grace,” the doctor bowed.
“Doctor.” Orley nodded back. Chester watched as the doctor pulled out a long, black, cylindrical tube. She slid out a white handkerchief, which she used to wipe around the bottom and along the top of the stographer. Chester had heard all about the medical instrument used to listen to heartbeats, babies, and the like, but no one had ever told him if it hurt or not. He clenched Orley’s hand tighter and looked up at his husband fearfully.
“Fret not, Angel. This will be painless, will it not, Doctor?”
The doctor looked up from her black bag, where she was lifting up different bottles and peered at Chester. “Hmm?” S
he flapped her hand. “Oh. Oui, oui. It will not hurt at all. You Anglish and your pain.” She rolled her eyes. “We Tfrench can endure much more zan a simple examination. We get ze guillotine, you see?” She slid her hand across her throat. “But we endure it wit’ ze class and sophistication. We hold our head up high! Like ze proud Tfrenchmen zat we are! We do not whimper about ze stographer like ze Anglish. Pheh.” The doctor shook her head.
Chester glared at the doctor and pointed his finger at the man. “Let me tell you something, Doctor.”
“Zere! You see? I get you angry, and you don’t even notice the stographer on your belly.” The doctor grinned.
Chester looked down and sure enough, the doctor had placed the stographer on his stomach, surrounded by its base. There was a liquid on his stomach as well that smelled a little like spices, and he looked up at the doctor with a quirked eyebrow.
“I have studied ze papers of microbiologists such as Francesco Redi, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, and Nicolas Andry, even ze botanist Richard Bradley, and believe such as zem zat ze miasma, or ze unpleasantness which makes you sicker, is not just in the air, but is all around. It can even be on ze skin.” She nodded. “So zat is a mixture of thyme oil, sage, rosemary, and lavender.”
“I have never heard of that before,” Orley stated.
The doctor waved her hand. “Of course not. Ze Anglish, they are delayed in the medicine, no? Now. To hear ze babe.” She put her ear against the top of the stographer and Chester looked up at Orley anxiously. Was he supposed to hold his breath or something?
“Non!” The doctor patted his leg. “You breathe.” She chuckled and lifted her head to stare at him. “Just do not talk, oui?”
Chester nodded. “Yes.”
The doctor lowered her head again. She was the weirdest man Chester had ever met in his life, and he had come into contact with quite a few men. After a few moments, she raised her head and smiled at him. She removed the stographer and its base, then set about wiping off Chester’s stomach, cleaning him thoroughly. She gestured to him to pull down his nightshift, which he did hastily.
“Doctor?” Orley asked after long moments.
The doctor ignored him and walked toward the washbasin and stopped. She turned toward them and inclined her head.
“Do not concern yourselves, Your Graces. I am sure ze babe will be healthy.” She chuckled.
Chester covered his mouth and promptly burst into tears.
A baby.
He was going to be a father.
Bloody hell.
How did that happen?
Orley allowed his gaze to drift over to Chester who lay on the opposite seat in the carriage as they made their way to Titaly. After a few more days in Tfrance, waiting for Chester to feel well enough to travel and for Chester’s trousseau to arrive, they were finally on their way. Orley wasn’t sure how he felt about the turn his life had taken. He’d known he wanted to marry Chester, but he had never truly considered the reality of children. What if he turned into his father?
You are a disgrace to the Whitcomb name, Orley!
He shook his head and sighed. Memories assaulted him at every turn. Long days spent in the nursery with his governess only for his father to come and drag him out for more lessons on how to be a “proper” duke. Orley shuddered as he considered the possibility of becoming his predecessor. Would his own children grow to detest him? Welcome his demise?
Chester moaned in his sleep, and Orley reached across to smooth a hand along his husband’s calf. Was it selfish of him to only want Chester and never to desire any heirs? And what about what Chester desired? Did not the duchess’s wants come into play?
Orley ran a hand over his face and exhaled deeply. His mind was awash in tumultuous thoughts and feelings. He was unsure of the direction he should take or the way he should behave. He was, after all, the man in this relationship; how exactly should he lead Chester and his family when he was so uncertain himself?
“I can hear your thoughts from here, Orley,” Chester’s voice drifted to him from the darkness, and Orley startled. “What has my lord in such a quandary?”
Orley chuckled. “Nothing of which you need to concern yourself, I assure you, my dear.”
Chester groaned as he sat up. He smoothed his hair as best he could and observed Orley in the stillness. Orley grew uncomfortable in the hazel-eyed gaze that rested on him, and he shifted in his seat.
“Orley,” Chester blew out an exhausted breath. “I too find myself fearing the arrival of our babe, but we must speak to each other about these things. We cannot shut each other out. Will you not speak to me?”
Orley ran his fingers through his hair and looked toward the window of the carriage, his mind moving to his capture in Badajoz. Without thought, he began to speak, hoping that as he did, he would be able to make sense of his fright.
“When I agreed to my superior’s plan during the war, I had nothing to live for. I also knew I was my father’s only living heir. There was no one else. No cousins, no uncles. The dukedom would die when I did. Perhaps that was why I did it. I didn’t expect to live. I didn’t expect to survive what they did to me. I didn’t want to….”
Orley climbed off his horse and tethered it to a tree, soothing the animal when it became agitated. He couldn’t allow it to give him away. Not yet. He smoothed his hands down the front of his trousers and breathed to still his pounding heart. His throat was dry, and his head was spinning. He wasn’t sure if it was from excitement or from being scared out of his mind, but he wouldn’t examine that too closely right at that moment. He had a duty to country and Crown. He would see it fulfilled.
Besides, he was honor-bound to make sure his father never got what he wanted. Orley would never marry someone suitable, never be a respectable duke, and never have children, not while the old codger was still alive.
Taking a few steps deeper into the woods, Orley listened for the sounds of the enemy. He heard them speaking Tfrench and froze. Pulling out a sheaf of paper he began writing down what they were saying. Their plans, strategies, formations. He grinned. It was so easy to get everything.
Too easy.
He moved for his sword a second too late, as he was already surrounded. Looking around he counted no less than six enemy soldiers. Realizing they were going to either kill him or take him prisoner, he whistled for his horse to run and return to camp, glad he had only loosely tied the animal to the tree. He heard the horse galloping away and chuckled. It was a sound that was abruptly cut off with the first punch to his gut.
The hits did not stop until they let him pull out his sword. The Tfrench were gentlemen at least. Allowing him the chance to defend himself. After that they made slice after slice to his body before they dragged him, weak with blood loss, into their camp where he passed out. His last thought was that at least his father would lose his heir.
“Is that why you married me?” Chester asked softly.
Orley blinked. “What?” he asked in confusion.
Chester sniffled and wiped his nose with a lace handkerchief from his reticule. “Did you marry me because you wanted to slight your father in his grave? A last chance to thumb your nose at him? ‘Look father, I’m marrying the maid, the son of a former Tafrican slave and an Anglish butler, because I’m going to make sure everyone catches us having sex in another duke’s office in the middle of a country-house party. Oh now, look, father. I’m not even going to have a wedding. We’re going off to Gretna Green, and we’re going to elope. And look father, we’re going to have a baby!’ That will really show him. Won’t it?”
Chester’s voice was so mocking, so filled with despair and trembling with horror, that for a moment it shocked Orley into silence. That wasn’t what he had been doing was it? Had his entire life and all of his dealings with Chester been about his father?
As he looked at Chester, however, his heart gave that funny clench and leap again in his chest, and he knew it had nothing to do with his sire. He moved across the carriage quickly and pulled Che
ster into his arms, resisting the young woman’s squirming.
“No! My love, I swear it. My choosing you, my feelings for you, have naught to do with my father. Why, I haven’t even thought of the man until recently. I married you because you are beautiful, sweet, kind, and smart. Because there is a fierceness inside of you that only I seem to be able to see. I chose you because you allow me to be myself. You don’t expect me to be the Duke of Whitcomb. You allow me to be Orley Garrick.” He kissed the side of Chester’s head. “I chose you because you are Chester, not because you were the maid. On this I pledge my troth.”
Chester stilled and looked up at him and stared into his eyes. “Do you swear on your life, Orley?”
Orley nodded. “I swear on my life and on the life of our unborn child that I chose you for no other reason than for those I have given.”
Chester sighed. “Then I shall put my trust in you.”
Orley could only hope that trust was not misplaced. He would never forgive himself if something happened to their child and his oath was the one to blame.
They stopped to rest at an inn hours later, and Orley decided they would stay for a few days. When Chester awoke in bed alone, he was thankful, especially when he was violently ill for hours on end. He sent Missy out to ask the innkeeper if they kept gingerroot in the larder and almost wept with joy when the maid came back with some. He sipped his tea and allowed the curing properties to settle his stomach.
He would post a letter to Lady Lucien and his mother posthaste and tell them both he understood the malady they experienced as they were increasing. Though he wasn’t sure his mother would want to hear from him. She had yet to respond to any of his letters. His maldy had responded to each of his letters, telling him of the goings-on at Southerby Manor and even telling him that his mother sent her love, though Chester was sure his mother’s lips had ceased to form the words.
Ben also had received letters from their mother, and yet Chester’s hands had remained devoid of one line of love, goodwill, or even chastisement from Wilhelmina. He hadn’t mentioned anything to Orley, for he was sure his husband would cut their trip short and return them to Southerby, but being estranged from his mother was ripping a hole in Chester’s heart the likes of which he had never experienced before.
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