She smoothed back his hair. “Does it bother you?”
“Sometimes. I’m not used to . . . letting people close.”
“I noticed,” she said, hiding a smile.
A frown furrowed his brow. “Lisette, I . . . well, it’s just that . . .”
She pressed her fingers to his lips. “You don’t have to say anything.” Although she yearned to hear I love you, too, she wouldn’t rush him.
“It’s just . . . My world has been at sixes and sevens since the day your brother sent me that note. But there’s one thing I’m sure of: I want you as my wife.”
She caught her breath. “For richer or poorer, till death do us part?”
He nodded. “No conditions.”
With a hitch in her throat, she snuggled into him. “That’s good enough for me.” For now.
They lay there companionably another moment. Then he propped himself up on one elbow. “I should go. I should be with Victor.”
His tortured words earlier came into her mind. I meant to stay in that damned room with him tonight, but watching him d-die is just too hard. I can’t . . . I can’t . . .
“No,” she said firmly. “Tristan and the doctor are with him. You need rest. You spent all day fighting for him, and you’re exhausted. If it looks as if Victor really is at the end, Dr. Worth will come fetch us.”
“Another reason I should leave. It’s probably not a good idea for anyone to find us here like this.”
“Because they might force you to marry me?” she quipped.
He smiled. “Good point.”
“Come now,” she said, stroking his face. “Sleep.”
“You’re bossy, do you know that?” he said, but he lay back down.
“That’s what my brothers tell me. But I’m really not. It’s just that men think no one should ever tell them what to do, unless it’s some general brandishing a sword on the battlefield.”
He chuckled. “A pity for Napoleon that he never had you in his army,” he murmured, his eyes drifting shut. “He would have won the war. Or maybe just . . . just . . .”
When he fell silent and his breathing slowed, she smiled and curled back into him. After a while, she too slept.
She didn’t know how long she’d lain there when a knock came at the door. It must have been some time, though, because she could see sunlight through the porthole. When the knock came again, a fraction louder, she sat up.
“Yes?” she called out.
“It’s Dr. Worth,” the physician’s voice said beyond the door.
Her heart froze in her chest. She felt Max tense beside her and knew that he too was awake, but that didn’t stop her from hurrying to the door.
She opened it just enough to see the doctor standing there. “What is it?” she asked, her blood pounding. “What’s happened?”
He smiled broadly. “Mr. Cale has come around. His fever broke a few hours ago, and he slept a real sleep for the first time last night. He’s still very weak, but he’s awake and he’s lucid and it looks as if he will fully recover.”
“Thank the good Lord,” she said hoarsely. “That’s wonderful news!”
“I went to tell the duke but he wasn’t in Bonnaud’s quarters.”
She forced a smile. “I’ll find him and tell him.”
“Thank you. I need to return to my patient.”
Shutting the door, she leaned back against it, then smiled at Max, who was sitting there looking stunned.
“I can’t believe it,” he said hoarsely. “I was so afraid . . .” A smile split his face. “I may actually have a brother.”
“But that means you might not be the duke anymore,” she couldn’t refrain from pointing out.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, his gaze warm. “I have you. Unless you’re planning to throw me over if I prove not to be the duke,” he teased.
She pretended to consider that for a moment. “Well . . . I do hope you get to keep your yacht.”
When he blinked, then laughed, she relaxed. They both knew their lives would never be the same after this moment. But if he didn’t care, she didn’t care.
As long as she had him, as long as she had the hope that one day he could learn to love her, she was content.
20
A SHORT WHILE later, as Maximilian followed Lisette down the narrow passageway to the infirmary, he wondered why he’d balked at telling her he loved her.
Because he did love her. He loved how sweet she could be, and how tart. He loved both the rose and the thorns. He loved that one minute she could coddle him and the next remind him that he’d been damned lucky to be born a duke to two parents who’d loved him, madness or no.
So why hadn’t he said the words to her?
He sighed. Because after laying bare his fears last night, after showing her how desperately he needed her, he’d felt compelled to keep one part of himself still invulnerable. One part of himself still under his control.
Coward.
Perhaps so. But baring one’s heart was a risk, even with his dear Lisette. He simply wasn’t ready to take that risk.
Though when she gave him a soft smile just as he opened the door to the infirmary, he nearly changed his mind about that.
Then he caught sight of the man he’d wanted to meet all his life, and the moment passed. Because a gaunt and pale Victor Cale, sitting upright and looking decidedly more lucid than before, with his brown hair tousled and his beard quite advanced, was the spitting image of Father in his final days.
Choking down the lump in his throat, Maximilian walked into the room with Lisette at his side. “Mr. Cale,” he managed to say formally, “it’s good to see you looking well.”
Victor turned his gaze from the doctor to Maximilian, curiosity in his hazel eyes. “Who the devil are you?”
This was no time to mince words. “I believe I may be your brother.”
Victor’s face changed, grew even paler, if that were possible. He glanced at Bonnaud. “He’s the ‘family’ we’ve come to see?”
Bonnaud nodded. “And that’s my sister Lisette there with him. I’ve told you about her.”
“Yes,” Victor said, casting Lisette a cursory glance before turning to study Maximilian with an oddly hostile glint. “I always knew that my bastard of a father had another family somewhere. He was always so cagey with Mother about his trip to England that one time.”
“Mother?” Maximilian said hoarsely. “What mother?”
“My mother,” Victor said.
“You never said you had a mother,” Bonnaud put in, startled.
“You never asked. In any case, she died long before I met you.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Victor scanned Maximilian coldly. “And yes, brother, I’m sure you would consider her far beneath our family’s dignity. I can tell just by your clothes that you have quite a bit of it. She was only a tavern maid, and my bloody father never let her forget it. But she loved the bastard until the day he died, and that ought to count for something.”
Maximilian fought to comprehend the strange turn of this conversation. “Are you saying that Nigel Cale not only pretended to be your father, but foisted a pretend mother on you as well?”
It was Victor’s turn to be startled. “There wasn’t anything pretend about my mother, I assure you. And unless she was lying to me, Nigel Cale was my father.”
Maximilian was all out to sea. “No, your real father was Sidney Cale, and your real mother was Tibby Cale. Nigel kidnapped you when you were nearly five.”
“Kidnapped me!” Victor said. “The hell he did. I remember when I was five, and Father had already left the navy to—” He froze. “Peter,” he whispered. “This is about Peter.”
Lisette moved up beside Maximilian. “You’re not Peter?”
“No,” Victor said. “He was my half brother. My father told us that . . . Peter was a by-blow of his whose mother died.” His expression grew bleak. “I should have known that was a lie.”
Grief struck Maximilian so hard he could ha
rdly breathe. Victor wasn’t his brother. Victor wasn’t Peter! Maximilian had been so sure—“But you have Peter’s handkerchief,” he said hoarsely. “I assumed that . . . that . . .”
“You assumed wrong,” Victor said, turning belligerent again. “Peter left it in his bureau when he headed off in a temper to see Father at Gheel.”
“You didn’t live in Gheel?” Lisette asked.
“No,” Victor said tersely. “The three of us—Mother and Peter and I—lived in a cottage in the next village, where Mother made a little money doing laundry to pay for Father’s ‘cure,’ which never came.” He paused to cough a bit. “Peter and I were carpenters’ apprentices . . . but we talked about joining the army and fighting Boney together.”
Maximilian heard all of that as if through a fog. Peter, a duke’s heir, had been forced to work as a carpenter’s apprentice? Holy God, what had Uncle Nigel been thinking, to carry him away from his family for that?
“The day Peter went to Gheel,” Victor continued, “something he’d seen or read had set him off. He said he was going to get the truth out of Father about who his mother was.” Victor wheezed a bit, grief shining in his eyes. “He never came back. Somebody at Gheel later told me that he and Father argued. The general opinion was . . . that one of them knocked over a candle that set fire to the cottage.”
Somewhere in the midst of Victor’s recitation, Lisette had taken Maximilian’s hand, and he realized he was squeezing it hard enough to imprint his nails on her palm.
She didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes were filled with tears. For him. Because of him and his loss. “I’m sorry, Max. I’m so sorry.”
Victor began struggling for breath, and Dr. Worth looked at Maximilian. “Could we continue this later?”
“No,” Victor choked out. “I just need . . . a moment. I came all this way . . . to find my family. Now I want to know the truth.”
With concern in his face, Dr. Worth pressed a glass of wine into his hand. Victor swallowed some and his breathing calmed. He then stared up at Maximilian. “So you’re Peter’s brother,” he said in a hollow voice. “Not mine.”
“Yes,” Maximilian managed.
Clear disappointment crossed Victor’s face. “I thought perhaps Father had . . . another legitimate family in England. That I might even have another half brother.” His expression looked as empty as Maximilian felt. “But I have no one.”
“Actually,” Maximilian said, sympathetic to the man’s grief, “since Nigel Cale was my great-uncle, if you’re his legitimate son, then you’re my first cousin, once removed.”
“Am I?” Victor said, a sudden hope in his voice. But then he scowled. “That hardly counts, does it?”
“What do you mean?”
“This has all been about Peter. Finding Peter.” He coughed a few minutes. Then his voice lowered. “No one ever gave a damn about finding me.”
Irritation scraped Maximilian’s nerves raw. “I didn’t even know you existed until now. No one did.”
Victor shook his head. “That investigator must have made a report to your father. Which he ignored. And you ignored.”
“What investigator?” Maximilian asked sharply.
Suspicion lined Victor’s face. “Don’t pretend you don’t know about him. He showed up in our village a month or so after the fire.” Victor breathed heavily a moment, then pressed on. “He came to question Mother and me about Father. When Mother asked . . . if we had any relations, the man said he didn’t think so, but he’d let us know.”
Victor’s voice hardened. “About six months passed, and the man showed up while I was out working. He talked to Mother. Told her that she was due some money . . . Father’s inheritance.” He wheezed a moment. “That she’d get it all as long as she agreed to sign some paper. She couldn’t read English, so she didn’t know what the paper said, but she signed it. Anything to get us money.”
A muscle ticked in Victor’s jaw. “That was the last time we saw the fellow. And I never found out what that damned paper said, either.”
It took him a moment, but when the truth dawned on Maximilian, anger roared up in him. “Damn him. Damn him to hell.”
At the virulence in Maximilian’s voice, Lisette and Bonnaud exchanged glances. But Victor merely narrowed his gaze. “Who?”
“My bloody father. He knew. He had to have known. That investigator—Father paid the man to find out what had happened to Peter. If that investigator talked to your mother, then he knew Uncle had a family. And he had to have told Father. Father just didn’t want me to know.”
“Why the devil not?” Bonnaud asked.
Maximilian’s gaze locked with Lisette’s. “Because Victor would be next in line for the dukedom.”
Victor gaped at him. “Wait a minute. My father was related to a duke?”
“Your father was the youngest son of the sixth Duke of Lyons,” Maximilian said dully. “And thus brother to the seventh duke and uncle to the eighth.” He paused to stare at Victor. “He was also great-uncle to the ninth duke. Me.”
“Bloody hell,” Victor muttered. He eyed Maximilian warily. “I’m your heir?”
“Not directly. That’s not how it works. But you and I are presently the only male descendants of my—our—great-grandfather, the sixth Duke of Lyons. If I die without a male heir, you inherit the dukedom.” Maximilian curled his hands into fists. “And clearly Father despised the idea of his uncle’s progeny ever having a chance at inheriting the dukedom. Not after what Uncle Nigel did.”
“That’s why your father burned the records,” Lisette said softly.
A cold chill swept down Maximilian’s spine. “He did it deliberately, because he didn’t want anyone to ever know of Victor’s existence. I thought it was done in a fit of madness, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Madness?” Victor said. “Your father went mad, too?”
Swallowing hard, Maximilian said, “Afraid so. It’s the family curse.”
Victor’s expression hardened. “Do you happen to know if your father ever had syphilis?”
Maximilian froze. “As a matter of fact, he did. What has that got to do with anything?”
“My father had it, too. One of the physicians at Gheel believed that syphilis can cause madness later in life, even if you banish the disease early.”
“I’ve noticed that as well,” Dr. Worth put in. “I’ve seen a number of cases of insanity where the sufferer had contracted syphilis at some point in his life.”
“So the madness might be a result of the disease?” Lisette asked in an excited voice. “It might have nothing to do with anything but that?”
Maximilian held his breath, a sudden ray of hope opening in his dark future.
“Possibly,” Dr. Worth said. “Look at how ‘mad’ the pneumonia made Victor. It is my firm belief that disease works on the mind as well as the body. And syphilis is a virulent disease.”
His blood pounding fiercely through his veins, Maximilian seized Lisette’s hand. She beamed at him as she clearly grasped the direction of his thoughts.
If the madness had been a result of the syphilis . . . Holy God, he might actually have a hope of a life!
Bonnaud was frowning. “It’s rather an odd coincidence that both the duke’s father and great-uncle should contract syphilis, don’t you think?”
“Not necessarily,” Maximilian said. “They used to go drinking together.”
“Drinking is a far cry from whoring,” Bonnaud said. “And you’d expect the duke at least to be more careful about such things.”
Maximilian nodded. “I know—I always thought it was odd myself that Father would have gone to a whore. He never seemed the type.”
“Perhaps he didn’t get the syphilis from a whore,” Victor said coldly.
“He didn’t have a mistress, either,” Maximilian put in, not sure why it mattered how Father had gotten syphilis. “He was wild for my mother. Of course, that all happened before he married her.”
“You know that for a fact?
” Victor coughed some, then went on relentlessly. “You know for certain he got sick before he met your mother?”
Something in Victor’s hard tone was beginning to irritate Maximilian. “No, the doctor told me of it after he went mad. But I’m sure—”
“Because there’s another possibility.” Victor’s gaze bore into Maximilian’s. “Perhaps my father got it and gave it to a woman that he and your father were both intimate with.”
“But who would that—” Maximilian tensed as his father’s final words came to mind. So I only have the one son, then?
Holy God. Oh bloody, bloody hell. That was what Victor was getting at?
“No. The very idea is revolting,” Maximilian said sharply. “It’s impossible.”
Victor scowled at him. “My father always claimed that Peter was his son, even during his mad ravings, even when he was out of his mind. Peter was his son. He never deviated from that, never spoke of a kidnapping, never mentioned a nephew.”
“I don’t give a damn what he spoke of!” Maximilian cried. “He was lying, the damned bastard! He kidnapped my brother!”
“Why would he do that?” Victor asked. “What reason could he possibly have had to do such a thing if Peter wasn’t his son?”
The question had haunted Maximilian and his parents for years. But this . . . this was not the answer.
“He was mad,” Maximilian gritted out. “You said so yourself.”
“Don’t get me wrong—Father was an arse, but he didn’t go mad until I was nearly fourteen, long after he brought Peter home.” Victor struggled for breath. “By the time he lost his mind, he’d been in the army as an enlisted man for years . . . fighting for his country and moving us all over the Continent. He was lucid enough to keep hold of his position as a soldier . . . until the day he . . . tried to strangle Mother. Which is when we brought him to Gheel.”
Victor glanced away, his face darkening, and Maximilian felt a moment’s sympathy for the man who’d shared his own hell. But his sympathy vanished when he remembered what the man was trying to claim about Mother.
“You’re wrong,” Maximilian hissed. “My mother was a saint, I tell you. She would never have had an affair with her husband’s uncle. Even the thought of it is appalling!”
The Duke's Men [1] What the Duke Desires Page 25