Page 41 of A Bluestocking for the Wicked Duke

“Who’s there?” William heard someone say.

That’s mother’s voice.

He heard someone reply his mother but the voice was at a lower volume and he couldn’t make out the words.

“It’s William,” William replied.

“Come on in son,” his mother said.

William turned the knob and walked into the room. His mother’s presence could be felt in the new scent the room had acquired. She had aired the room and brought in fresh flowers from their garden. The room smelt like the vase of flowers in the doorway to their house. William saw his mother, sitting beside his father, who was sitting up on his bed.

The Duke was bare-chested; his stomach was a tidy arrangement of white folding skin. William noticed that the Duke was starting to gain weight again. His cheeks didn’t seem so deep anymore. His eyes were not as sallow as they had been a week ago. His skin looked brighter and taut. The deep cough that haunted his days was long gone. William was happy his father was coming back to full health.

The Duke was smiling when William looked at his face.

“Is there a celebration?” William asked.

The Duchess raised a brow.

“Celebration? Why do you think so?” she asked.

William walked to his father’s bed and sat at the edge of the bed. He was trying not to provide any form of inconvenience to his father’s stretched legs.

“There are smiles everywhere. I was wondering what I missed,” William replied.

His father moved his leg back and gestured to his son to move inwards. William saw him but looked away.

“Shift to the centre of the bed son. There is no reason why you should be at the edge of the bed when there’s so much space to sit on,” his father said.

“I don’t want to inconvenience you,” William replied.

“My legs can still bend son, I’m not dead,” the Duke replied.

The Duchess nudged William to move in which he did.

“So how do you feel now?” William asked his father.

“The headache is gone, the only thing I regularly feel that I don’t like is weakness. Sometimes I just feel weak but the sessions are getting few and far between.”

William nodded his head. He was delighted with his father’s responses.

“So when will you be ready to lose again at our regular horse races?” William asked him.

The Duke sneered at William’s words. He laughed lightly and shook his head.

“You know you cannot match my speed son. I and horses have an understanding you cannot begin to phantom,” the Duke replied.

William laughed when he heard his father’s response. The Duke did have a way with horses. Horses behaving erratic calmed down anytime he worked with them, he had a way of racing with horses of ordinary build that made them as quick as stronger horses. But for a few months before he fell sick, William had beating him consistently in their regular horse racing. William attributed it to his father getting older but when his father fell sick he decided the horses had seen the illness in the man even before the man felt it.

“So how come I beat you so many times the last times we raced?” William said.

“You beat an ailing, old man. Do you have no shame?” the Duke replied, his comment drawing wry smiles from his wife.

“I prefer to interpret it as beating the Duke of Wellington,” William said.

“Interpret it how you want son, you can never beat me again,” the Duke replied.

William laughed at his father’s banter. They always had something to talk about. That was what he had missed most about the man.