Page 28 of Dukes All Night Long

He returned her invitation with a lip smile and a glint of what Sibyl thought was admiration in his eyes. He stood. “Tomorrow.”

*

Archie convinced Mrs. Coney to give him the first four oat scones off her stovetop, a morsel of butter, cream, jam, and another thermos of coffee.

When she asked, he told her he was taking it to a friend.

Given he was bundled up to leave the house through the kitchen exit, Mrs. Coney folded her ample arms and ordered the kitchen maid to add two rashers of bacon and two hardboiled eggs.

He thanked Mrs. Coney profusely, realizing that the staff might know that Sibby was still on grounds. And that made him wonder if Feltenbrough knew his sister was here as well. But, how could he let her live like that if he knew?

The young kitchen maid parceled the foodstuffs into a basket and thrust it into his arms. There was something so disdainful about her actions that made Archie realize he had passed into the realm of “old man.” It was humbling to know that his days of seducing kitchen maids were over, but also, it was a relief.

He was tired of games of seduction, which sounded ridiculous, even in his own head.

He headed out into the early morning chill.

The water from last night’s rain, combined with the dew, wetted his trousers, and he regretted not wearing wellies.

Despite the cold seeping into his feet, he trudged on, surprised to find how eager he was to be in Sibby’s company.

She was fun to talk with, and even despite her clear malnourishment, she was still beautiful.

Those large gray eyes, her rose petal lips, and how he delighted in the twists and turns of her active mind.

Normally, he would have dreaded a promise to discuss his own life, as he kept that out of any seduction, but with Sibby, he was almost anxious to lay it out in front of her.

As if she might sit with him and puzzle it, try to see another way he could have made his life work.

And because this was not a seduction. He’d promised to never touch her, and his honor was the only thing he had.

Not for the first time, he wished he had not been such a good friend to Feltonbrough, and stayed in London and married Sibby.

They would have had to live off her dowry, which Feltonbrough would have disdained, he knew, but perhaps the dowry could have been a seed with which to make the investments he needed to rebuild his ancestral home.

And damn it all, he would have had Sibby by his side the entire time, and that was worth more than her dowry.

Her wit, her advice, her calm temperament.

He sighed. Her love. A hole that he never acknowledged grew inside of him.

The hole that sucked in more and more as the years went by, reminding him that he was alone in the world.

That if he were sick or injured, there would be no one to check on him.

No one to fetch a physician or medicines.

He would rot alone in a boarding house until the rent ran out and the landlord came to investigate.

Then he saw her ambling through the woods, carrying a basket and wearing a man’s much-too-large woolen overcoat. The hem of her dress was as wet as his trousers, but at least she was wearing wellies.

“Hullo there,” he called, not wanting to startle her. She jumped anyway, her large eyes turning on him, as if she were a deer. Once she recognized him, however, her face split into a toothy smile, and it did something to him. Something that seared the edges of that hole in a way that hurt.

“Archie,” she said, and her voice was full of…warmth, he would say. He didn’t want to have any expectations. His life was full of tempering his expectations, and that was the only way he could visit with Sibby.

“At least you’ve stopped calling me ‘Eyeball,’” he murmured to himself.

“What’s that?” she asked as she approached through the long grass.

“You’re out early,” he said.

She pointed to his basket. “Baked goods?”

He nodded, blinking slowly to mark the affirmative. “And then some.” He pointed to her much smaller basket. “What do you have?”

“Some wild onion, mushrooms, and thyme.”

“Foraging expert is being added to your list of accomplishments?” he asked as they turned toward the hermitage.

“Out of necessity,” she said. “I wish I were better at it, honestly. I can set the snares for the rabbits and such, but Bernard has to do the actual field dressing.”

“Soft hearted?” That surprised Archie, since Sibby ruled everything with her iron intellect.

“More like if I dissect it, it’s no longer food, and I cannot bring myself to eat it. I know it’s strange, but I come by it honestly. It’s those years in medical school, and I—”

“Your what?” Surely he misheard.

Her rosy cheeks deepened a shade. “You did not hear the tales of my failed attempt at becoming a physician?”

“A lady physician? Is there such a thing?” He had never heard of one. Midwives, yes, of course, but that was for woman business, which only made sense.

She looked at him like he was utterly stupid, and that made him think he was not nearly as worldly as he supposed.

“So there is such a thing,” he guessed.

“Indeed,” she said, her tone flat and wry. “I had hoped to join their ranks. I knew of some women in Edinburgh going through the medical school, so I moved up there to join them. And while the courses were fascinating, and I tested very well, I could not quite seem to make it, as it were.”

Archie frowned. That didn’t sound like her at all. “You were intelligent enough, and you were diligent at your work?”

She looked at him with utter disgust. He was just confirming. “My apologies, but I’m not as quick as you. You’ll have to spell it out for me.”

“You honestly know nothing about it?” Her mouth was a thin, down-turned line.

His dumbfounded look must have convinced her of his ignorance.

“It was all over the newspapers, what an affront we were, daring to learn about human bodies. The heckling was one thing. Even the rotten vegetables, that I could get over, despite ruining several very decent dresses—”

He held up his hand. “I beg your pardon. Heckling? From whom? Where? And what on earth about rotten vegetables?”

“It was everywhere, from walking down streets, coming out of the classrooms, even at our boarding houses. Random men sometimes, but there were a few particular medical students who were whole-heartedly devoted to our harassment. They’d follow me home from classes—which, by the way, we had to arrange for ourselves, since we weren’t allowed to attend the regular classes.

Too distracting, you know. That’s where a good bit of my pin money went. ”

He shook his head, not comprehending. “Wait. Your pin money? Did your brother not pay tuition?”

She waved at him as if he, again, wasn’t intelligent enough to keep up.

“Long story. Everything was set up for us to fail, from the instructors to those awful fellows. But then the newspaper managed to get the drunks of Edinburgh to throw rotten vegetables, garbage, sewage, whatever they had on hand, at us. And all that I could stomach, truly, I could—”

Archie was horrified. “You could? Why? Why would you continue?”

She leveled that granite look at him. “Because I was not going to let some two-bit haberdasher’s son run me off. At least, until the bombs started.”

“The what?” He nearly shouted. In his life, he’d made some very questionable decisions and had been considered the villain in a number of cases, but he’d never been subject to a bombing.

He gripped the basket hard enough to make the straw squeak in protest. He had a mind to run to Edinburgh and find these bastards.

“They were little bombs, and I shouldn’t have let them scare me, but—”

“Yes. Yes, you should have let them scare you. Sibby—” his throat closed up, and all he could do was close his eyes to relax himself.

The idea of her being so abused did something awful to him.

And he hadn’t known about it. Hadn’t been there to protect her.

Hadn’t been there to fight for her when she needed someone.

“Well, I came home, didn’t I? Except then my brother said that my education was over, I was a duchess, after all, and I needed to get on with the business of having a family. The only problem being, of course, you.”

After the surprise wore off, the words stung. “Me? What does this have to do with me?”

She gave him a small smile, which felt like a treasure. This conversation was turning ugly, and he didn’t even know where they were headed. “And where are those baked goods?”

He raised his beleaguered basket. “Here, at the ready.”

They were at the door to the hermitage. She let them in.

“There was always rumors being circulated that we had children—”

“You and I?” he asked, incredulous. He was extremely particular about where he spent himself. There was no possibility he could afford bastards, and aside from that, he had never done that with Sibby. He would remember. And he would make sure she had the night burned into her very soul.

She entered the dark hermitage and put down her basket on the tiny table that seemed to serve as her dining area.

She waved her hands as his eyes adjusted to the dim light.

“No, no, the women medical students. They would circulate a list of our prices, and then allege that we had our illegitimate children stashed all over the city.”

He had no idea that people could be this cruel. Saying these things, yes, circulating gossip, yes, but following women down the streets? Yelling at them, heckling them, doing their absolute best to destroy them? He shuddered.

“So that idea, coupled with our childhood connection, and—” She stopped suddenly, spinning around to face him. There was no space between them. She bit her lip, her gray eyes staring up at him.

A wave of desire hit him. He wanted to scoop her up, protect her, breathe her same breath, kiss her long enough to make her forget the world outside.