The Worst Duke in the World

by Lisa Berne

  He had opened up to her again, just a little.

  And she wondered—with both a giddy rush of anticipation and a cold uneasy sensation slithering up her spine—just how long it would last.

  Chapter 15

  Dr. Fotherham came promptly, and Mr. Rowland gracefully ceded further care of Wakefield to him, especially as he was to spend the day doing extractions and providing other tooth-related services for various people on the estate before returning to Bath later in the afternoon. Although Wakefield bore no grudge toward the kindly Mr. Rowland for inflicting misery and suffering upon him, he had known Dr. Fotherham all his life and found comfort in his familiar face and brisk, no-nonsense manner.

  Judicious doses of laudanum were recommended, as well as saline draughts for fever and cool lavender compresses. Dr. Fotherham privately told Anthony that he was in no way alarmed, but that they should expect Wakefield to be cranky and restless for a day or two.

  “Where’s Lady Margaret?” he said, glancing down the empty hallway. “Usually she’s a burr in my side, after me to bleed people and otherwise tell me my business. Not sick with one of her headaches, is she?”

  “Actually,” said Anthony, “I don’t really know.”

  Dr. Fotherham looked a little surprised for a moment, but didn’t comment further, only saying he would go downstairs to inquire, and Anthony went back into Wakefield’s room. Jane, dressed in her pink gown again and her hair smoothed into a tidy knot at her nape, was sitting in the chair next to the bed sipping her coffee and telling Wakefield jokes.

  Here in the bright sunlight of morning, with Dr. Fotherham’s reassuring assessment, and two cups of hot fresh coffee in him, and Jane looking so lovely and composed, Anthony felt less awkward than he thought he would with the memory of last night—with its pleasures and temptations, its discoveries and revelations—so searingly vivid still, and with her bite-mark on his neck covered up by his neckcloth but exquisitely sensitive nonetheless.

  He had wondered if Jane would be all cold and stiff this morning, or haughty and offended, or distant and angry, but she wasn’t. She was pleasant and steady. Which was good, wasn’t it?

  “—so the man in the restaurant calls over the waiter, very upset, and he says, ‘See here, my man, there’s a caterpillar in my salad!’ And the waiter says, ‘Oh, don’t worry, sir, there’s no extra charge.’”

  Wakefield, reinforced with laudanum and already more comfortable, laughed. “That’s a good one, Jane.”

  “Another?” she asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  “There’s a man in a restaurant, absolutely furious, and he summons the waiter. ‘Look!’ he says, pointing at his salad. ‘Do you see that? There’s a small slug in there!’ So the waiter says, ‘I’m very sorry, sir, would you like me to get a bigger one?’”

  Wakefield laughed again, and Jane sipped at her coffee, then said:

  “Do you like riddles? I know a few of those, too.”

  “Oh yes, I do like riddles. Can you tell me some?”

  “Of course. What animal do you look like when you take a bath?”

  Wakefield thought. “I don’t know.”

  “A little bear.”

  He took this in, then laughed. “A little bare. That’s funny, Jane! Tell me another one.”

  “How do sailors get their clothes clean?”

  “How?”

  “They throw them overboard and then they’re washed ashore.”

  Wakefield laughed again, and Jane said, “One more for now. If one horse is shut up in a stable, and another one is running loose down the road, which horse is singing ‘Don’t fence me in’?”

  “The one running down the road.”

  “No, neither. Horses can’t sing.”

  Wakefield grinned. “I say, Jane, that’s clever.”

  Standing and watching them, and also noticing how Jane’s pale wavy hair shone in the sunlight, and that her eyes were twinkling with humor in that very charming way she had, Anthony wondered if, perhaps, some puns weren’t awful, when shared under certain circumstances, and maybe, just maybe, riddles weren’t as ghastly as he always thought they were. Maybe he could even try telling a joke. Impulsively he said:

  “Do either of you know the one about the student asking about yolk of eggs?”

  Jane shook her head and Wakefield answered, “No. How does it go, Father?”

  “Well, there’s a student and a teacher, you see, and the student says to the teacher, ‘Do you say “Yolk of eggs is white” or “Yolk of eggs are white”?’ And the teacher says, “Yolks of eggs are white,” and “Yolk of eggs is white.” And then the student says . . .” Anthony paused. “Hold on a moment. I just had the clincher in my mind. And then the student says to the teacher, ‘I’d say “Yolk of eggs are white.” No, wait—that’s not right. Damn it, I’ve forgotten it.” He ran a hand through his hair, and saw that both Jane and Wakefield were looking up at him very kindly.

  “Father, yolks of eggs aren’t white, they’re yellow.”

  “Yes, of course. Right you are, my boy. I’ve got it now. So the student says, ‘I’d say “Yolk of egg is yellow.”’

  “That’s very good, Father,” said Wakefield indulgently, and Jane’s eyes twinkled more than ever.

  “In my defense, I heard this joke when I was just about your age,” Anthony said, without resentment at the fact that his eight-year-old son was patronizing him. “So really it’s a miracle I remembered it at all.”

  “Higson told me a good one the other day,” Wakefield said. “A man sends for the doctor, and when the doctor gets there, he sees that the man’s ear is all torn and bloody. And the doctor says, ‘What happened?’ ‘I bit myself,’ the man says. And the doctor says, ‘That’s impossible! How could anyone bite themselves in the ear?’ And the man says, ‘I was standing on a chair.’”

  He laughed, and so did Jane, and Anthony, who was filled with admiration for Wakefield’s ability to tell a joke straight through from start to finish, did too. Also, he noticed with surprise and pleasure, he was filled with happiness, too, and that same rather shocking sense of naturalness. Of comfort and familiarity. The three of them hanging about together and having fun. Jane and Wakefield and himself . . .

  “I’ll have to tell it to Dr. Fotherham,” said Wakefield, then suddenly yawned. “I say, I’m sleepy again.”

  He slid down low on his pillows again and dozed for a while, and Jane went downstairs for breakfast, and Anthony read some Dinkle but mostly thought about Jane and also his curious dream of being the Duke of Oyster, swanning about in the ocean. Then Jane came back upstairs and he went down for breakfast and ate a great deal and contentedly read the newspapers and didn’t miss Margaret one iota, and after that he went to find Nurse, who was weeping in her rocking chair in the nursery, and he discovered through patient questioning that she had only been staying on because Margaret had been insisting, and that what she really wanted to do was to receive her pension and go live with her son George and his family in Riverton and have a little garden and play with her seven grandchildren and sit in the sun whenever she could. Thus they parted on excellent terms, and Anthony, hoping against hope that Nurse wouldn’t force castor oil on her unsuspecting grandchildren, went back to Wakefield’s room and found that Wakefield was awake and grumpy and rejecting the cool compress Jane was offering and in general was angry at the world again.

  “His fever is up a bit, but not much,” Jane told him, and turned to Wakefield. “Are you sure you won’t let me put this on your forehead? It will feel quite soothing, I think.”

  “No,” said Wakefield sulkily.

  “Do you want me to tell you some more riddles and jokes?”

  “No.”

  “Shall I read to you?”

  “No.”

  “Would you like something to drink? Or a nice jelly?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, poor Wakefield,” said Jane, with such kindness and compassion that Wakefield burst into tears, and then let Ja
ne sit next to him on the bed and hold him for a while, and finally agreed to let her smooth the compress on his forehead which he shortly admitted did feel rather nice. Then he asked Anthony to read some more from The Merchant of Venice, but got very upset at how Shylock was being treated, even though he had, of course, been wrong to ask for a pound of flesh, and said that Portia was a bully, lawyers were terrible, Antonio and Bassanio were stupid, and that it was the saddest and worst play ever written.

  Anthony set aside Tales from Shakespeare and Jane began to tell them about the book she had been reading, which was called Pride and Prejudice, but Wakefield interrupted her to say that love stories were boring and also stupid, after which Anthony offered to play backgammon with him, a game which lasted only five minutes before Wakefield swept the counters off the board and cried again.

  This time he let Anthony hold him, stopped crying to laugh when Snuffles tried to eat one of the counters, then cried some more and Jane picked up all the counters and put them away with the board.

  With perfect timing Bunch came upstairs just then and mentioned, as if offhandedly, that Cook had made a cool, creamy, vanilla-flavored pudding which had set up to perfection, if anybody would care for some, and Jane said she’d love a dish, with whipped cream if there was any, and then Wakefield said he would too.

  So he ate some of that, admitted that it tasted very good, found it just a little bit amusing when Jane got whipped cream on her nose, and nobody said anything when he let Snuffles lick his dish clean, even though it was strictly against the rules, and Anthony secretly thought that he would have liked to lick the whipped cream off Jane’s nose, and, while he was at it, taste again the irresistible sweetness of her mouth.

  It was early afternoon when Martha Lawley, a stocky, pleasant-faced young woman in her early twenties, came to the doorway of Wakefield’s room where she dipped a little curtsy and said that Mr. Bunch had sent her to ask if she might sit with Master Wakefield for a little while, so that His Grace and Miss Kent could go downstairs and have their luncheon which would be ready in just a few minutes.

  Wakefield was inclined to be resistant and surly about this plan, but softened when he saw how glad Snuffles was to see Martha, and that Martha not only had a treat for Snuffles in her pocket, she had also brought some lengths of string and offered to show him how to make a Jacob’s Ladder, Kitty Whiskers, and a Cup and Saucer, a prospect so enchanting that he accepted at once, and even let her persuade him to have a nice long drink of saline draught.

  Jane and the Duke therefore had a peaceful (and delicious) luncheon together in the dining-parlor, the one with the truly hideous dark-red wallpaper which she preferred to ignore, and he asked her a lot of questions about Nantwich and what it was like to grow up there and how it happened that a few years ago she ended up all alone with only a sick great-grandmother and what had inspired her to travel all the way here to Somerset, and after she had answered his questions he said, with unmistakable sincerity, that he was very impressed by her bravery, a compliment which Jane wasn’t quite sure she deserved, but she appreciated it regardless, and after that they talked about astronomy and what the stars might be made of and how constellations got their names and why exactly it was that shooting stars were so captivating.

  As they ate and talked, Jane could see that the Duke was definitely open to her again.

  He was animated, there was light in his deep-blue eyes, he smiled, and was altogether so cheerful and engaging and fun to talk with that Jane had to forcefully remind herself again to be wary, just like the Nantwich girl she had been and obviously still was in many ways although considerably cleaner and better-dressed. And when the Duke proposed a walk when luncheon was over, but perhaps inside the house as there was a hideously cold ferocious wind whipping about today, Jane thought about saying no but found herself saying yes anyway, and was glad when he suggested they stroll up and down the portrait gallery rather than going again to the ballroom where she feared the temptation might be too great for her, because it was an undeniable fact that she was very much enjoying the Duke’s company and was, despite all her best efforts, falling prey again to his dangerous attractiveness.

  As they walked along the lengthy gallery, they paused before several of the paintings that most interested her.

  Here was the Duke as a little boy, thin, solemn, his blue eyes enormous in his slender face and his abundant light-brown hair looking as if it had been violently combed into submission.

  Here were his parents, the late Duke and Duchess, stiff, regal, proud, handsome, and richly dressed in gleaming silks, satins, and velvets.

  And here was another boy, older, taller, broader, with darker hair and paler eyes, but with the same haughty air of the Duke and Duchess.

  “That’s Terence,” explained the Duke. “My older brother. Should’ve gotten the title, you know, not me. He had all the requisite airs and graces.”

  “There’s more to a duke than that, I hope.”

  The Duke shrugged, and Jane said:

  “What happened to him?”

  “He was attending the first annual cricket match between Eton and Harrow, and during the second inning he got so angry at Eton’s wicket-keeper that he swore he was going to throttle him, then ran out onto the field and was hit in the head by a ball. Never regained consciousness.”

  “How terrible. I’m so sorry.”

  “Only a month before his wedding, too. So a few weeks after the funeral, when I turned twenty-one, I was betrothed to his fiancée Lady Selina.”

  Jane felt her eyes getting all round again. “You were betrothed to your dead brother’s fiancée?”

  “Yes. Here she is.”

  They paused before an enormous portrait of the Duke as a very young man, tall and straight, and a young woman in shimmering cloth-of-gold, seated stiff and upright in a gilded chair next to him. Her hair was brown with glints of gold in it, her eyes were brown, her complexion like porcelain, and she was remarkably pretty, though her expression, Jane mused secretly to herself, was off-putting, for she was gazing directly at the viewer as if she found what she saw entirely beneath her notice, or, possibly, repugnant.

  “She’s very beautiful,” Jane said, truthfully.

  The Duke didn’t respond, only moved on to another painting. “And here’s Wake as a baby.”

  Once again the Duke, a few years older, was standing, and the Duchess was sitting and looking at the viewer; adorable little Wakefield, held rather carelessly with one arm by the Duchess, was looking up at the Duke. And the Duke was looking down at his son, a faint smile curling his attractive mouth.

  “Here’s Margaret and Terence.”

  Enclosed by a heavy, elaborate frame, Lady Margaret and Terence, both very handsome and proud and appearing to be on the cusp of early adulthood, were standing outdoors, side by side, with the Hastings lake and Greek temple in the background.

  “Why aren’t you in the painting?” Jane asked.

  “Oh, I was in bed then, because of my back, so they went ahead without me.”

  “That seems unfair.”

  “Even if I had been well, the prospect of untold hours in their company posing for a painting would have been highly unappealing.”

  “Oh. You didn’t get along?”

  “No, I was rather the odd man out, I suppose you could say. Very different in temperament, interests, and so on. Terence used to call me a changeling baby, and my father always said that it was only my strong resemblance to himself that kept him from accusing my mother of adultery and actually sending her off to a nunnery even though we’re not Roman Catholics, and me to a distant relative of theirs in Wales somewhere. Although I might, in fact, have been happier there.”

  “Well, that’s just awful.” Jane saw that although the Duke was being stoic and matter-of-fact and not the least bit self-pitying, still her heart ached for him and without taking any time at all to consider the consequences, implications, or ramifications, rashly she reached up to put her arms around him, ju
st as she had wanted to do that day after church when he had looked so sad talking about having to be in bed for all those painful years, and the next thing she knew he was saying “Jane,” with wonderment and awe in his voice, and the next thing she knew after that was that they were kissing each other and she had completely forgotten about being careful or wary and instead was having a marvelous time with her mouth crushed against the Duke’s in a highly delightful way and their bodies pressed so tightly together that she was sure he could feel every curve and plane of her body, because she certainly could feel his and they were, each and every one, delicious, except for the fact that their clothing was really getting in the way of full and utter deliciousness.

  They broke apart only when they heard a distant footfall, which turned out to be a servant on the backstairs, but it did inspire fresh caution, and so, with a final shared smile, which made it abundantly clear to Jane that not only was the Duke open to her, she was equally (and recklessly) open to him, they made their way back to Wakefield’s room and found him awake, but ready for more laudanum, and Martha sitting at his bedside with Snuffles on her lap, a clear sign of Wakefield’s enthusiastic approval.

  Accordingly Anthony gave Wakefield another dose of laudanum, and when he had swallowed it Wakefield announced:

  “Martha says she doesn’t believe in giving children castor oil.”

  Everyone looked at Martha, who reddened a little but said, “In my family we use it for a compress, or if our hands get all dried out, but we’d never take it off a spoon or nothing. Because it hurts your stomach something awful. Your Grace. Ma’am.”

  “Well then, Martha, you’re obviously going to fit right in,” answered the Duke, and Wakefield said triumphantly to her:

  “I told you Father wouldn’t mind.”

  A footman arrived and stood just past the open door. Mrs. Henrietta Penhallow had called, and could Miss Kent please come downstairs to the drawing-room as soon as was convenient?