The blond woman’s smile slipped. “The marquess and I are not discussing such a matter at present, Hugo.”
“That’s my sister-in-law,” Hugo told Georgette. “Which you doubtless gathered from our use of Christian names.”
“And the fact that he was remarkably indiscreet,” added the marchioness.
“Pleased to meet you, my lady,” Georgette said. “I have no medical training myself.” She looked at her gown. “Nor do I have a fashionable modiste.”
“Not at all, not at all,” hastened the marchioness. “I was merely curious about—that is, one meets such a lot of different people in London.”
“And how,” the duchess broke in, “did you meet my son, Miss Frost, if not in the course of his medical studies?”
“When he came to my family’s bookshop. Frost’s?”
“I have never been there,” the duchess said, “but the name is not unfamiliar.”
“It’s a small place,” Georgette admitted. “As much a sleuthing agency as a bookshop. My cousins, as did my parents before them, pride themselves on researching and locating any desired book or manuscript.” And if no one had tasked them with a mission, her parents indulged their own scholarly curiosity.
“Hugo, what was it you wanted the bookshop to find?” The duchess sounded curious.
“I don’t recall.” Hugo looked as if he wanted to be anywhere else in the world.
Though Georgette still felt too plain for comfort, the determined politeness of the duchess and her callers was reassuring. No, she didn’t belong here, but they’d surely wait until she had left the room before picking her apart.
So, she might as well enjoy herself. “You don’t recall, Lord Hugo? Yet the day you first walked into the shop was one of the finest of my life.” Georgette warmed to her story, rocking on her toes. “Your Grace, when Lord Hugo opened the door, the bell was like the call of an angel’s trumpet. When he asked whether I could help him locate a folio copy of De humani corporis fabrica, I thought my heart would pound out of my body, like the woodcut dissections in the book.”
At her side, Hugo kicked at a fat red rose in the carpet pattern. “Miss Frost, you are reaching new heights of absurdity.”
The duchess’s brow puckered. “Is that not true, Miss Frost? I could wish everyone thought so well of my youngest.”
Oh, dear. She had touched on a mother’s finer feelings—feelings with which she was wholly unfamiliar. Carefully, she formed her reply. “My words were overblown, Your Grace, but not dishonest. Your son has been most kind to me. And he did request a copy of the Vesalius, which my cousin purchased on his behalf within the month.”
Hugo made an impatient noise. “Enough of all this. I haven’t been kind, I’ve been sensible. And Mother, you’re going to embarrass the girl.”
“I’ll probably embarrass myself,” said Georgette. “Her Grace need not go to any special effort on my account.”
Her Grace’s expression turned considering. “Would you two care to join us for tea? Hugo, here are your favorite ginger cakes.”
“That is thoughtful of you, Mother, but time is short and my business is urgent. Miss Frost is of an adventurous nature, so will you keep her shackled while I write to her brother? Then I need to speak to the duke, and we’ll be off.”
The duchess lifted a sculpted brow, a look of skepticism that reminded Georgette very much of her son’s. “You wish to speak to the duke? Your words are like the call of an angel’s trumpet.”
Georgette swallowed a laugh.
“Shackling one’s guest is not the done thing this season,” Her Grace added. “But if you will allow me to propose an alternative, Benton can show her to a guest chamber where she might freshen up.”
“A guest chamber?” Georgette frowned at Hugo, hoping he would interpret the expression as I have told you time and again that I want to be on my way to Derbyshire. “I am sure that will not be necessary. And Lord Hugo, what do you intend to write to my brother?”
“The truth, God help you,” Hugo said. “For now, go with the butler.” That silent figure—Benton, apparently—gave a bow from the doorway.
As they made their way toward him, the duchess called after them, “Come back if you wish for a ginger cake, Hugo.” A pause. “Or ring for them, of course. You—needn’t come back down.”
Georgette looked back, made curious by the halt in the duchess’s speech. The noblewoman was twisting her hands together in the tassels of her shawl, looking fluttery again as conversation at once began to ripple through the room.
Georgette could not put a word to the emotion traced upon the older woman’s features before the ornate painted-wood door closed her into the drawing room. Then the butler led her to a twirling staircase, all wide marble treads and lacy ironwork, and Hugo gave her a little wave and headed in a different direction altogether.
For a moment, she hesitated between them, caught between the familiar and the unknown. She did not want to see Hugo go; she did not want to climb the stairs.
Yet climb them she must. And they were beautiful stairs, of the sort one only had the opportunity to ascend when one was fortunate in one’s friendships.
She followed the butler, step by step—and soon enough, Georgette realized which emotion had crossed the duchess’s proud face. It was the same one that clutched at her own heart, more tightly with each step.
As soon as others turned away, she was lonely.
* * *
The duke was not in his study. The duke was not in the library. The duke was not in the music room, or the yellow parlor, or the rose room, or any of the other usual places one might find a duke in late-afternoon.
While in the rose room, Hugo stripped off his troublesome coat and hung it over a chair at a writing desk, then scribbled what he hoped would be a reassuring note to Benedict. Sister retrieved, staying with duchess. Et cetera. Once he sealed it and gave it to a servant for posting, he resumed his search.
Hugo finally happened upon his father in the ballroom on the mansion’s second floor. The draperies were flung open, letting the late-afternoon sunlight flood the great space. The floor shone with wax and lemon oil, the fragrance of citrus mixing with the musty odor that crept into a long-unused room. It was empty now, save for a headless, armless figure hanging from a pole, and for the Duke of Willingham, who was stabbing it with a foil.
So. His father was fencing with a tailor’s dummy.
When the duke saw Hugo, he let the foil fall with a clatter, where it rolled to bump another like it. Heedless of his white fencing jacket, he used a forearm to shove back his disarranged hair—now more gray than black—and crossed the distance between them.
The Duke of Willingham had always been a sturdy barrel of a man, but he had used to be a much smaller barrel. The years had made him stout and slow. Slow to change, that is. Quick as ever to judge.
Breathing hard from exertion, he flicked an icy gaze over Hugo. “No coat? What is this disrespect?”
“Believe me, it would have been worse if I’d worn it,” Hugo said. “I’ll find another coat sometime, but until then, the world will continue turning.”
The duke grunted—then stepped back, heavy on his feet, to stand beside the foils again. “I thought we weren’t speaking to each other anymore. So you told me—what was it, fifteen months ago?”
It was a small triumph that his father had been the one to speak first, even if it had been about the cursed coat. Hugo gestured toward the dummy. “For that matter, I thought one fenced with another human if one wanted to gain skill.”
“Sometimes one just wants to stab things.”
“In that case, give me the foil for a few minutes.”
The duke made a be my guest gesture, and Hugo crossed to the weapon and picked it up. It was light in his hand, but an unfamiliar form. Hugo had never bothered with pugilism or swordplay, the aggressive arts that so fascinated many of his peers. He had always preferred to take his exercise outdoors, climbing trees to observe animals or
picking his way up tor after tor to collect geological samples. If he were ever called upon to defend himself, he had a perfectly good pair of fists at his disposal.
But there was something to be said for a sword in one’s hand, for the pleasant swish of honed metal through sluggish air. Whipping the foil forward, Hugo sank its buttonless tip into the figure of cloth and batting. Pfsss.
“You are right.” He drew the foil free. “Sometimes one needs to stab a tailor’s dummy.”
“It’s not the most satisfying thing to stab, but it has the advantage of being legal.”
Hugo gave the foil a little toss from his right hand to his left, then offered it back to the duke. “What has you feeling so stabby today?”
The duke waved it off, picking up the second foil from the floor. “Fifteen months ago, one of my sons said he wouldn’t talk to me.”
“Good attempt, Duke, but I don’t believe you for a moment. What was it really?”
The duke adopted what Hugo supposed was a fencing stance, legs bent and left hand held up fussily. “What is it not?” With a smooth gesture, he struck out—not quite at the dummy, not quite at Hugo. “Parliament is a mess, the servants are neglecting their duties and wearing your mother to a thread, and your eldest brother has asked for funds to repair his town house now that his wife is expecting their fourth child.”
“I thought she was,” Hugo said. “Tess didn’t seem to want to talk about it, though.” Four children already; good Lord. She and Loftus had only been wed six years earlier.
“And,” the duke added, “my gout has been dreadful of late. Though not today, which is why I seized the chance to stab.”
“Drink lemon juice. It might help with the pain.” Even Bone-box knew that much, a thought that made Hugo smile.
Only for a second, though. The duke gave the foil a swish, a flick of impatience. “I see what’s about. You’re here to discuss your ridiculous scheme of a hospital again. I won’t fund it, Hugo. It’s too impractical.”
This wasn’t the most opportune time to approach Willingham, clearly, but it had to be done. “I’m not asking you for that.”
The duke stepped back. Turning toward the dummy, he took up a fencing stance. “So this is not about the hospital?”
Poor dummy. About to be stabbed again. “Well . . . it is, yes. But,” he rushed on, “I’m not asking you to contribute anything from your pocket. Not so much as a farthing.”
“Oh?”
“Only send a note stating your approval of the plan to the Royal Society, and I believe that institution will support it.”
“Out of the question.” Lunge. Stab.
“No, it’s not. I could even write it for you. You’d only need to sign and seal it.”
The duke turned his foil toward Hugo, pointing it at him. “A man’s good name is worth even more than his purse. I would be more likely to give you the money anonymously than attach my name to such a wild project.”
Each word was punctuated with a flick of the foil. Out of reflex, Hugo lifted his own in a tight grip, ready to parry. “I’ve no objection to that. Give me the money anonymously, then.”
“I don’t want to support such a scheme. The spectacle of it bothers me.”
The duke’s face had gone ruddy—with exertion, maybe, and with irritation. “If you would be considerate of this family for once.” He swung his foil in a wild arc, clashing with the sword in Hugo’s hand. The blow reverberated up Hugo’s arm. “Think of the notoriety you take upon yourself in caring for the dregs of society.”
Feet planted, Hugo let his fencing weapon fall to the floor. It was a fine sword, but he didn’t want it. “Why?”
That one word, one syllable, was the essential difference between father and son. Willingham had not yet accepted that Hugo always had, did still, and always would ask this question. That he had long ago stopped accepting that what others said was right was, in fact, so.
“Pick up your foil.” The duke was breathing hard, an enraged bull. “Let’s have this out.”
Hugo laughed. “Not like this. I’d be a fool to fight on another man’s terms, with another man’s weapons.”
The duke’s foil slashed raggedly across the cotton torso of the dummy, thin blade winking in the slanting afternoon light. “You ought to have gone into the clergy. Yet I accepted your wish to become a physician because I thought it respectable. I even tolerated your pursuit of education in Edinburgh, though it falls at the far edge of civilization.”
“I liked it there,” Hugo said. “The accents were instructive.”
From an uncle, he had been deeded a cottage in Edinburgh; that was his excuse for studying so far north. But in all honesty, he wanted to get away from London, from England entirely. To learn in a place that had not been sullied by loss.
Slash. “Edinburgh,” the duke bit off, “gave you ideas. Not satisfied with helping your peers, you must dirty your hands with the blood and gore of surgeries, with treating the unwashed.”
“I always had ideas.” Hugo followed the pour of sunlight across the glossy floors, lining up the toes of his boots against one sunbeam. “And who is peer to a duke’s son?”
“What?” Willingham wiped at his forehead again with the sleeve of his jacket. “What are you getting at?”
“I remember my station. But that doesn’t mean I’m defined by it. If I only dealt with people like me—”
“Are there more people like you? God help us.”
“—then my circle of acquaintance would be tiny and dull. And I don’t seek out blood and gore. But if I must be bloodied to help someone in pain, so I shall be.” It was an old, deep argument; a heart-deep feeling. He had to laugh, hollowly, to soothe the pain of it. “Getting a little blood on my hands feels like the opposite, in truth. Like I’m making up for harm done.”
“For the harm I did, you mean. You think the blood is on my hands.”
The duke’s voice was so raw that Hugo flinched, stepping away from the hopeful sunbeam. “You said it. Not I.”
“I only said what has lain between us for years.”
This was true. Since Matthew died, this resentment had distanced them. Unspoken, a wound unlanced, it poisoned their every interaction.
“You could never forgive me after Matthew died, yet I did everything possible to save him. I hired the best physician money could arrange.” The duke’s tone was bitter.
“He was the most expensive. He wasn’t the best. Just because he bled my brother into a silver bowl doesn’t mean bleeding was the right treatment.”
“For poisoning of the blood, it was surely right.”
“But where did the poison come from?” Why was the question. His father never asked why, and so Matthew had died. “Treating the cause could have helped. Bleeding him only made him weaker.”
Hugo remembered every detail of those waning days. The fever, the cough that worsened hour upon hour. His brother’s nails and lips tinged with blue as he fought for every breath. The only treatment that brought Matthew relief was when the housekeeper dosed him with a tea of mullein and honey.
For which the woman had lost her position for interfering with the medical treatment of a duke’s son.
“We’ve talked about this time and again.” The duke circled the dummy, as though looking for a spot he hadn’t yet slashed. “It was fourteen years ago, Hugo. He’s been dead almost as long as he was alive. When are you going to forgive?”
The sharpness of the duke’s tone brought out the same from Hugo. “After fourteen years, you can’t look at me when you ask that? When will you forgive me for having his face?”
After Matthew’s death, neither his father nor mother had wanted to look at the copy of the son they had lost. Hugo’s very existence was a reminder, refreshing their grief anew.
“I’m not speaking of him.” Fierce and sudden, the duke hacked at the side of the figure of batting. “I am asking you to consider reputation, Hugo.”
Words coming tersely between labored breaths,
he added, “Think of how your behavior reflects on this family. What would you have to sacrifice to bring your plan to fruition? And is it worth the sacrifice?”
Back where they began, then. As ever. “What more could I sacrifice than what I already have, Your Grace? I lost my twin, the other half of myself.”
Willingham turned toward the slow-slanting sun, his back to Hugo. His hand gripped the weapon fiercely—a sword that looked far too small to have caused such damage. The tailor’s dummy was all flayed cloth and oozing batting.
Slowly, Hugo shook his head. “You may cut that figure to ribbons,” he said. “But you’ll never win your fight.”
The duke walked away, standing framed before one of the tall windows. The streets in which dwelled London’s elite embraced him; the heart of the ton beat around him. That was the closeness he most desired.
Since there was nothing more to say, Hugo nudged the fallen foil with his foot, sending it spinning toward the duke. Then he left the ballroom.
To look for Georgette.
He found her standing in the corridor of the guest wing. She looked soft and faded, studying an old portrait his parents had hung up here so they wouldn’t have to look at it.
She was bound to find out about Matthew sooner or later. He tried not to sound too grumpy as he spoke. “It was too much to ask, I suppose, that you would stay in your chamber like a docile houseguest.”
“It was,” she said. “I’ve never been in a mansion before. I wanted to look about.”
She pointed to the portrait: one of the ducal family, made about fifteen years before. “You were painted twice here. I can tell it’s you because of the nose.”
“The Willingham nose. God help me.”
“Why is that? I know your brothers from the society papers. They look much the same now as well. Here is the marquess—Loftus? And here your second brother.”
“Lord Hilary, yes. I always considered myself fortunate not to have had that name foisted on me.”
“Haven’t you an embarrassing middle name?”
“No, my parents were less creative by the time I was born. I’m a plain lord with a plain name.” He gestured toward the painting, less a wave of the hand than a shove of a shoulder toward the face that matched his own. “So was Matthew.”
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