A Promise by Daylight

“Perhaps he could look after one of the guests— Attendez!” Bernet was kneeling in front of her trunk with his hands on the latches. She rushed to stop him. “I’ve got half of an apothecary’s shop in there,” she said now. “Very delicate—I shall need to unpack it myself. Truly.”

That seemed to satisfy him. He inclined his head, stood up and backed away.

Now she lifted her chin and summoned a tone she’d heard Philomena use often enough to dismiss servants. “That will be all for now.”

“Très bien,” Bernet said with a bow.

“You may give me a list of any supplies you’ll need for His Grace’s care,” Harris said now. “Otherwise, you have only to ring if you need anything, and Sacks will let you know if His Grace requires your attendance.”

The moment they were gone she dropped to her knees in front of the trunk, jerked the lid open, dug through shirts, waistcoats and pairs of breeches and men’s stockings. Yanked out the shifts she should never have kept. And at the very bottom, a tiny box with a pair of dangling silver earrings, and the two colorful scarves she hadn’t been able to part with. She paused, running her hand over their silken texture, letting her fingers play with the bright blue fringe at the ends, remembering that day at Constantinople’s grand bazaar—she, Katherine, Philomena and India.

The scarves and earrings had been a silly indulgence. She’d never even worn them.

With the shifts and scarves wadded in her hands, she hurried into the bedchamber, threw back the drapery at the back corner of the bed and stuffed them beneath the mattress.

It would do until she could find a better place, which she would have to do before the maid came tomorrow morning to make the bed. She returned to the dressing room

Now what? Would the duke expect her to return to his rooms or wait to be summoned? Would his guests ever leave? And what would happen if they did?

He would be alone, and bored, and may well seek out more company or an impromptu medical examination.

She touched the hilt of the smallsword at her hip. What good fortune that a fashionable man wasn’t dressed without one. But if the duke sought her out at night, perhaps finding his way into her rooms while she was abed and not fully dressed...

That simply could not happen. She would not give up the freedom of her disguise that easily, not even if she had to sleep fully clothed. Still...

She went to the door and turned the latch. But, of course, he would have a key.

She spun on her heel. Surveyed the room: one door led out, another led to her new adjoining bedchamber, where there was yet another door she would need to consider.

Moments later, she dragged a chair over and shoved it against the door that led from the dressing room to the corridor, and then stood back. Tonight, after she’d gone to bed, that might work. But...

She looked suspiciously at the curio cabinet. Some grand houses had secret passageways, or so she’d heard. Furnishings that were merely false fronts. She inspected the edges of the cabinet, running her finger along the seam where it met the wall, finding no discernible space. Muted laughter drifted from the other side. Was not his bed directly opposite? So there couldn’t possibly be any kind of...

Of course there could. The entire house could have a network of secret passageways through which His Grace made surprise visits on unsuspecting guests.

She got another chair, dragged it next to the curio cabinet and climbed up. Reached to the back paneling and tapped—lightly, so she wouldn’t be heard—but could determine nothing. She reached to remove a bronze obstacle but snatched her hand back, seeing now that it was a sculpture of a man with his face buried between a woman’s—

Ugh. Disgusting.

Tap-tap-tap. Did the wall sound hollow?

She moved a benign porcelain horse instead and tried a different section of paneling.

Tap-tap-tap.

Behind her, a man cleared his throat.

She whirled around, losing her balance, grabbing for the cabinet to keep from falling. The duke stood in the doorway to the bedchamber, watching her with amused interest.

“Please,” he said, holding up his hand. “Do not let me interrupt.”

CHAPTER TWO

MR. MILES GERMAIN was apparently debating whether to climb down from the chair.

Yes, Winston had definitely expected someone older. And someone male, which he had a strong suspicion Mr. Germain was not.

Apparently he hadn’t asked Philomena enough questions.

He studied his new medic now—average features, nothing to draw a man’s eye. No hint of breasts. Even lips, plain, straight nose, ordinary rounded chin. Slightly arched brows, thick lashes that weren’t too long, weren’t too short. All of which, set above a modest suit and topped off by an awful bagwig, did little to betray her sex.

But he’d been a breath away from too many graceful female necks not to have noticed the smooth, curving throat when his new medic had adjusted his sling.

And there was the matter of Mr. Germain’s ear.

It was a small ear. Delicate. Dainty, really, with a tiny, almost imperceptible hole in the lobe, which didn’t mean anything—Sir William Jaxbury and his gold hoops were proof of that—but that was no male ear.

“I once had a cabinet fall,” Mr. Germain said now, as if it were the complete truth. “Toppled to the ground. Very dangerous.” He—almost certainly she—even looked Winston in the eye when she said it.

Interesting.

Winston glanced at another chair that had been shoved against the dressing room door in an apparent attempt to keep someone out—that someone, he assumed, being himself. “You’ve also had trouble with doors flying open, I see.”

“Occasionally.”

It explained why he’d had to come in through the bedchamber. “Perhaps, to put your mind at ease, you’d like me to call a carpenter.”

“That won’t be necessary.” A small crease appeared above her upper lip—a lip that, on closer inspection, was a bit too full to appropriately frame the mouth of an average male medic.

“I want you to feel entirely safe here, Mr. Germain,” he said.

“I can’t think why I wouldn’t,” she said evenly, finally climbing down from the chair. It was too bad her coat prevented any view of her arse, or his suspicions would certainly be proved.

“If it’s my guests that concern you, a simple turn of the key will deter any unwanted visitors.”

“At the moment, Your Grace, my only concern is for your health. I can’t believe standing is good for your condition. I would advise a hasty return to your bed.”

“I’m hardly an invalid.”

“Obviously.”

He’d irritated her. How intriguing. Although now that he was standing here, he wished he weren’t. The gash on his thigh throbbed, and it hurt like the devil to put his weight on that leg, and his back felt as if someone had taken a knife to it.

“When do you expect we shall depart for Greece?” she asked now.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, and leaned against the doorjamb to take some weight off his left leg. “I’m in no particular hurry. I suppose it will depend partly on your assessment of my fitness for travel.”

“Mobile as you are, I expect you will be fit very soon,” she said almost immediately.

He raised a brow. “One might almost think you were anxious to be under way. Are you not enjoying Paris, then? If you like, I could make some suggestions for your entertainment while we’re still here.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Are you sure? There are any number of pleasurable hideaways that should not be missed. I suspect you enjoy a good debauch now and then, isn’t that right, Mr. Germain?”

That little line appeared again on the left side of her upper lip, and she gave him a look of grave reproof. “I am in the business of staying free from disease, Your Grace.”

He laughed. “I can think of several ways to do that. One has only to take precautions. Surely a man of your age is well versed in that subject.”

That line above her lip deepened.

“I shall have plenty to keep me occupied looking after Your Grace’s health. I understand that Your Grace is extremely fortunate not to have been more seriously injured.”

He thought of the accident, and a quick, sucking sensation grabbed his chest. “Indeed. Very fortunate.” Thoughts forced their way in—images of the man who’d not been so fortunate, who had died mere feet away from Winston, whose blood had pooled around Winston’s fingers as they both lay on the street.

Her brows dove. “Is something the matter?”

“Not at all.” Nothing except the fact that he did not wish to discuss anything about the accident. “Unless you consider that I’ve lost use of my arm, and my shoulder aches like the devil, and I have a number of nasty cuts. Of course, you’ll be able to determine all the facts upon examination.” An examination that, if her manner in his bedchamber were any indication, she would not hesitate to perform.

And wasn’t that going to be an interesting opportunity.

“Of course,” she agreed.

And he couldn’t help himself. He gestured with his good arm toward a chair by the window. “Perhaps you’d like to perform it now?”

A spark of objection came into her eyes. “I haven’t yet unpacked all of my instruments.”

“Good God. I should hope you won’t need any instruments to perform a simple examination.”

“Mmm, yes,” she said doubtfully. “One would hope. But I have no idea what I might find. I shall want my scissors and probe at the ready, and my incision knife, certainly—”

“Incision knife.”

She looked at him as though he were a child. “I must be prepared to immediately address whatever I might find. Which is why I shall need to wait for the basic supply of lints, plasters and bandages I asked Harris to send for, in case any kind of procedure is required—and even if it isn’t, as Your Grace’s wounds will almost certainly require fresh dressings, if for no other reason than to apply a medicine more appropriate than oil of turpentine.”

“How very...thorough.”

“Your Grace, if you were struck by mortar and stone, there’s no telling what manner of grit could have escaped the eye of the surgeon who first attended you. Given your mobility, and the fact that you don’t appear to be feverish at the moment, I’m inclined to think that all is as it should be. But only when I’ve had a chance to see exactly where the stones struck you and precisely what damage occurred shall I be able to fully—”

“I understand your point, Mr. Germain.” And he’d had more than enough of it. He pushed away from the door frame, and an arrow of pain shot from his shoulder to his left buttock.

“By all means, let us delay the examination.” He bowed. “Until later, then.”

* * *

HIS ENTIRE BODY ached as he returned to his rooms. It was tempting to toss everyone out and go to sleep.

He eased himself back onto his bed and replied to a ridiculous political assertion Favreau was making, laughed at a joke Perry tossed out from the card table, called to Seville in the other room to inquire whether Linton had arrived in Paris yet.

“Doctor’s a right young piece of stuff, isn’t he?” Perry said, wandering over from the card table. “You know who’d like him...Kern. Always did enjoy that sort of thing.”

“If Kern tries to distract my medic, he’ll answer to me.” And he would be very disappointed once he discovered that the protrusion at the front of Mr. Germain’s breeches was just for show. He smiled to himself, thinking of it now.

His woman doctor may not have any discernible breasts, but she was bloody well hung.

Just then, Harris came in and leaned close to his ear. “She has been found, Your Grace.”

The room seemed to fade, and Winston fixed his full attention on Harris. “Where?”

“A small house at the edge of town.” Harris hesitated. “It is my understanding that there are five children.”

Bloody hell. “You’re certain?”

“It’s been confirmed.”

Five children and a widow. Winston rubbed the back of his neck. “See that they receive a hundred pounds,” he murmured. “No. Five hundred.”

“Very good, Your Grace. I’ll see to it straightaway.”

Winston exhaled, leaned his head back and closed his eyes, but that only made the problem worse. That face was always there—those sightless eyes staring at him while the man lay lifeless, his head cracked open by a piece of masonry that could just as easily have struck Winston. He could hear the screaming, the chaos of those crazed moments.

Now, a female hand smoothed over his chest. “Ça va?”

For a moment the courtesan’s perfume cloyed nauseatingly in his nostrils, but then he opened his eyes, drew his finger lazily across the top of her bosom. “Oui.”

She smiled and eased a hip onto the bed next to him.

Everything was fine. Or it would be, as soon as they were under way to Greece. He imagined the heady taste of Mediterranean wine, the even more intoxicating distraction of Grecian women and the exotic fantasies they would bring to life.

You vowed to put an end to all that.

Indeed. That was the other part of this entire debacle that would not let him alone: his private vow to reform. By God, I’ll be the man Edward wants me to be. The vow had exploded through his mind as he lay there in fiery pain, while people ran frantically around him, and even more masonry broke loose from that blasted building, crashing to the ground.

As long as he lived, he would never forget the sound of stone hitting the street inches from his head.

He forced himself to smile when Hélène joined Marie on the edge of his bed, exchanged a few loaded remarks with the two of them, considered several possibilities for other ways they could entertain him.

Instead, he told them his side hurt. Told everyone he needed to rest. Instructed Harris to turn away any new visitors.

Ten minutes later, his rooms were empty. And now he lay there, irritated, wishing everyone back.

This was ridiculous. It was a freak accident—anyone could have been passing by that building when the facade fell. That falling masonry was not a sign from above. It was not a heavenly indictment of Winston’s life. The danger of those moments had gotten the better of him, that was all.

He’d made the kind of vow sailors made in a hurricane. The kind soldiers made on the battlefield.

They weren’t the kind of promises a man was meant to keep.

He was being superstitious. His best friend had been admonishing him since school days. Little surprise there, given that Edward was a vicar and couldn’t be expected to know about real life—the pleasures to be had that were just pleasures, nothing more, but made life worth living.

Consider your ways, Winston. That’s what Edward had always said. For God’s sake, what did that even mean?

Only a saint could live up to Edward’s standards.

He ought to have Harris summon his company back. Now, before he could change his mind again.

Instead, he called Sacks. “Bring Mr. Germain,” he said irritably. “I want my bandages checked.”

He thought of those pursed lips and almost smiled. Perhaps there was entertainment to be had, after all.

* * *

BY THE TIME the duke’s valet came to tell her that His Grace required her assistance, Millie had decided that if the mere mention of an incision knife was all it took to make the duke recoil, it would be a simple matter to keep the advantage over him for the remainder of her employment.

Mr. Sacks, the valet, was a short, brawny man with giant hands and dark bushy brows, and he stood expressionless as he waited in the doorway. Millie gathered up her medical bag and followed him to the duke’s rooms.

Where—unbelievably—the duke was alone.

Wearing nothing but his shirt.

“Mr. Germain, Your Grace,” Mr. Sacks announced unnecessarily.

“Excellent.” Reclining against his pillows, with a glass of liquor in his hand and the tails of his shirt covering him only to midthigh, the duke smiled. “That will be all.”

Mr. Sacks withdrew, and Millie plunked her medical bag on the card table by the window and reminded herself that the duke was just a man like any of the sailors she’d doctored aboard the Possession—no more, no less.

“A number of cuts and an immobilized arm that isn’t broken,” she recounted briskly from their earlier conversation as she dug through her bag for heaven knew what except a few moments to delay the inevitable. “Is that the complete list of your complaints?”

“Hardly,” came his cognac-roughened voice from the bed. “Among other things, there isn’t a single comfortable method of copulation.”

She paused for only a second. And, for that, she deserved a medal.

“I shouldn’t think there would be a single comfortable method of eating, sleeping, defecating or any of the body’s other natural functions, either, in your condition,” she said matter-of-factly. If he thought the young Miles Germain would be startled by the duke’s excesses, he would soon learn otherwise. “But I was asking about your injuries, Your Grace.”

“Forgive me—when you said complaints, it was my most pressing grievance that came to mind.”

“As well it should.” She turned from the card table. Hardly a surprise that he considered slaking his lust a more serious issue than an immobilized arm.

“Bad enough that a woman has two breasts while I only have one good hand,” he complained.

She smiled, tight-lipped, because a man would smile at such an idiotic statement. And she approached the bed, hoping that if she didn’t encourage him further they could be finished with talk of copulation and breasts.

One of his legs was severely bruised—black and purpling, wrapped in two places with bandages.

Without all his clothing, she would have thought he’d seem smaller.

“Of course,” he mused, raising his glass to his lips, “there is much one can do with a breast and one’s mouth.”

And no, of course they weren’t finished with lewd talk. Because they were supposedly two men, and men were never finished with lewd talk.

“What a miracle that your injuries have not entirely kept you from enjoying your company,” she said in her blandest tone.

“But they have kept me from enjoying it in an entirely satisfactory way, if you understand my meaning, Mr. Germain.”

“Perfectly, Your Grace. But you needn’t fabricate the situation to me.”

“Was I fabricating?”

“The body is less able to respond to stimulus when it is putting its efforts into healing itself. But rest assured that as the healing process continues, you’ll find yourself once again able to copulate to your full ability.”

“Oh, but you misunderstand, Mr. Germain. I don’t have a complaint of ability.”

She let her brows edge upward, as if just comprehending something new. “Oh. I see.”

“Good.”

“In that case, I shall prepare a concoction straightaway. We should foment the organ very often—perhaps even apply a poultice in a suspensory bandage—and with a strict regimen, things should clear up for you eventually—”

“Mr. Germain, that is not the issue.”

“You needn’t be embarrassed. And rest assured that should there be anything present that requires lancing, I will use my knife most delicately.”

“You will not come near my privates with a knife, Mr. Germain. Is that clear?”

She almost smiled. “Certainly.”

“And there is nothing in need of clearing up. Or...lancing.”

“I trust your word completely, Your Grace. And you may trust me not to reveal this conversation to a single soul. We shall simply pretend nothing was ever said about it.”

“Nothing was said about it,” he said with a hint of frustration.

“Exactly.” She continued her cursory examination, close enough now to detect a spicy kind of musk on his skin and feel the whisper of breath on her cheek as she leaned forward to check his sling once more. And there was that sensation again—a quiet response to him, stirring in a deep, intimate place. She inhaled to cleanse it away, only managing to breathe in more of him.

“It’s a miracle no bones were broken,” she said, focusing intently on his shoulder.

She could sense him debating whether to press the point about the state of his manhood, but instead, “Indeed,” he said shortly.

“I shall need to see the wounds.” She backed away from the bed. He would have to sit up to remove his shirt.

When he did, he would be nude.

One male body is the same as the next. God knew she’d tended enough of them aboard the Possession.

He reached to set his glass on the bedside table, and his shirttails edged upward on one powerful thigh. A sudden frisson of anticipation had her turning toward her medical bag. But then, before she realized what he intended, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. Turned his back to her. Grabbed his shirt with his good hand and pulled upward, revealing a solid pair of buttocks.

“Mr. Germain...”

“Of course,” she said quickly, tearing her eyes away from where they should not have strayed, helping him off with his shirt, seeing now that his other physician had dressed a handful of wounds down the left half of his back and his left thigh. Much of his torso was wrapped completely around with bandages and plasters to keep the compresses in place, and where the skin wasn’t covered, it was badly bruised.

Dear God.

She lifted the edge of a bandage on his back and sucked in a breath at the ragged wound beneath. He had to be in considerable pain. Gently she checked the others, found thankfully that the first was the most serious. “What a miracle none of the pieces struck you on the head or neck,” she said, more sincerely than she’d intended, and felt him tense.

She touched his skin, lightly, and heard him hiss. “How long before I’m fully recovered?” he asked.

“Weeks, certainly.”

“Weeks. What can you give me to hasten the process?”

“Only the natural course of time and healing will do that, I’m afraid.” Assuming the wounds didn’t fester and bring on a new fever.

Holding up his shirt like a shield in one hand, she moved around him and reached up to press the back of her fingers to his forehead. “Have you felt warm? Any sign that the fever is returning?”

“No warmer than usual,” he said.

She let her hand fall. And now she became too aware of his bare chest, the dark hair dusted across it, the bare hips visible on either side of the shirt hanging limply from her fist.

She looked him in the eye. “When was the last time you were bled?”

“Good God. Yesterday.”

“Hmm.” Perhaps she ought to bleed him again, just to be safe. But if it had only been yesterday...

She moved behind him again, leaned close to sniff the poultices. Yes, definitely turpentine. “I’d like to re-dress the wounds, as I suggested earlier. But I’ll need to prepare the dressings first. It shouldn’t take long.” She ran her fingers along a length of gauze that stretched across his lower back and heard him inhale sharply.

She pulled her hand away, and a warm sensation skittered up her arm.

His hand reached back. “My shirt.”

She gave it to him. Had to help him again, because he could not put it back on one-handed. He walked a few steps to the bedside table, keeping his back to her, and picked up his drink.

“Prepare the dressings,” he said a bit shortly. “I shall be ready.”

* * *

AND WHEN SHE RETURNED, Winston thought as she left, his body would have stopped responding to her touch and begun responding to the liquor he would need in order to bear the pain when she changed the bandages.

He glanced down at his tented shirttails and knocked back a swallow of liquor, a little disgusted with himself. He’d sent away all the beauties, so his anatomy was making do with what was available.

And what was available was a medic whose cheeks had pinkened during the examination, who had inspected him with eyes averted from his crotch, and whose small, capable fingers were too easy to imagine wrapped around his cock.