Page 81 of His Illegitimate Duchess

Elizabeth looked back at Colin. His right arm and shoulder were covered in blood, but the rest of him appeared uninjured. His complexion was sallow, and beads of sweat covered his brow. His hair was wet. He was trembling, and his lips were moving like he was whispering to himself.

“You know my wife?” He asked again, and she squeezed his uninjured hand lightly.

“I do,” she whispered with a tight throat.

“My kitten,” he said dreamily. “I want to live inside her hair.”

That idiot Pratt laughed, and Brandon elbowed him in the stomach, which Elizabeth was very grateful for.

“All right,” Elizabeth said and ran her hand through his hair soothingly.

“But she won’t allow it. I broke her heart, you know. And there. So I said to him. The cord bungled. My father, and she won’t allow me…” He shook his head as he grew increasingly agitated, and then he just went limp.

“What is happening?” Elizabeth, with panic in her voice.

“He lost consciousness,” Doctor Cooper said matter-of-factly, “and it’s good that he did, because now I need to dig the bullet out. Could you please find and thread the needle in my bag while I focus on that?”

Elizabeth hadn’t realised that the kind doctor had given her the task in order to keep her eyes from the unpleasant sight of him rooting around her husband’s flesh for pieces of lead, so she took it seriously.

“Do you need me to do anything else?” She asked when she had finished, and he considered it for a moment.

“We could wait for me to clean up a bit in order to have a better grip on the needle,” he said, lifting his bloody hands, “or you could sew him up?”

Brandon looked like his eyes would pop out of his skull at the suggestion, but it seemed that Doctor Cooper knew something about Lizzie that even she herself didn’t, because she calmly nodded and said, “Of course.”

Doctor Cooper talked her through the process, but ultimately, it was very similar to other needlework she’d done, so the familiar motions actually helped relax her.

“I’m tempted to sew some decorative beads in here,” she muttered angrily, and Pratt laughed again.

“Very neat suture, excellent work, Your Grace, even without the beads,” Doctor Cooper smiled.

“Now all that’s left is to clean him up and put some salve on the wound.

Send your girl here to go get his valet, he will wash and dress him.

From what I was able to see, there should be no permanent damage, but the recovery will be long and tedious, if he survives the next three days,” he concluded in the same jovial tone.

“What… Is there something I should be doing to help him?” Lizzie frowned after nodding at Susan to do what the doctor had asked, confused by the dissonance between the tone and the message.

“Mrs Cooper and I will examine him daily, but you can spoon-feed him willow bark tea, keep his wound clean and dry, and I’ll leave a jar of this salve with you to apply to the wound twice a day.”

Elizabeth nodded and suddenly felt drained.

“For now, I think it’s best not to move him too far. Perhaps best get a bed down here if you can.”

“Of course, I’ll tell someone immediately,” Lizzie said, and it sounded to her like her voice was coming from far away.

She held on to the table. She didn’t know why.

Doctor Cooper frowned slightly as he looked at her. “No need, you sit down here, yes, right there. Pratt will go. You can rest a bit now.”

“I…” Elizabeth couldn’t remember what she had wanted to say. “What happened to the other man?”

The men glanced at each other.

“Why don’t you take a sip of water, Your Grace?” Doctor Cooper put a glass in her hand, and she mindlessly obeyed.

*

Elizabeth and Thunder sat by Talbot’s bed for two days and two nights. She prayed, changed the dressing on her husband’s wound, wet his mouth and forehead with a washcloth (Stevenson bathed and changed him), and she spoon-fed him willowbark tea and broth as they waited for his fever to break.

On the second day, Mrs. Clark came to the Mayfair house with a huge basket and what could only be described as a cauldron of broth. Lizzie hadn’t seen her since she’d left Colin’s London residence.

“It brought you back, it’ll do the same for him,” Mrs Clark said about the broth. “The secret is ginger root.”

Elizabeth had no idea what she was talking about, but even in her exhaustion, she still recognised the gesture for what it was and hugged the woman warmly. “And in the basket are some pastries for you,” the cook said when they broke the hug.

“Oh, I’ve missed you, Mrs. Clark. Thank you.”

Colin’s probably missed her, too , she realised. She and Stevenson were the only members of his staff who travelled to Norwich with him.

Lizzie then remembered the almost identical studies in all of Colin’s homes.

He is so set in his ways; he must have suffered without his food the way he wants it, but he never said a thing.

“Why can’t you choose between being wonderful and horrible?” She later asked her unconscious, shirtless husband.

They kept his torso exposed in order to keep the wound accessible and dry, and Elizabeth often touched his chest and shoulders. Out of necessity, she told herself.

She fondly smiled at the tiny, C-shaped chest hairs she kept finding on the white sheets. She’d always laughed whenever she found one back when they used to share a bed; C for Colin, she used to tell him in a singsong voice.

“What smells so delicious in here?” a now-visibly pregnant Mary asked from the doorway.

“My husband,” Lizzie replied seriously.

“What?” Mary frowned.

“It’s the salve Mrs Cooper gave me, it’s garlic and ginger and wild marjoram.”

Mary winced. “I’m going downstairs to eat something.”

“Mrs. Clark brought a basket of pastries, save me one,” Lizzie told her without turning.

At night, she’d allow herself to gently curl up on Colin’s uninjured side. The first time she’d done it, she was surprised by how much she’d missed him and their closeness, and by how natural it felt to be with him like this.

Now that her anger had been deflated by his helpless state, she could see her feelings of the last months for what they really were – hurt and fear.

Colin had taken some of the hurt away through his steadfast dedication and change in behaviour (to her, yes, but more importantly, to others as well!), but the fear was still intact.

She no longer trusted him with her heart; she no longer found safety in him, and since she knew that she wouldn’t be able to survive another betrayal, she didn’t dare take any risks.

The Coopers came over every day to examine the Duke and to clean his wound more thoroughly. On the second day, Mrs Cooper told her more details about the duel.

“The other man’s name is Mister Timothy Williams, and he is a gentleman from Shropshire who is here for his daughter’s third Season.”

Then Mrs Cooper looked at her as if waiting for her to understand something, but Lizzie stared back in confusion, “What?”

“Williams, from Shropshire,” Mrs Cooper said with more urgency, “like your mother.”

Elizabeth clutched the armrest since the room suddenly tilted. Her eyes widened in shock. A relative?

“Is he…?” She started saying in a shaky voice, but couldn’t finish. She took several deep breaths. “How close of a relation is he?”

“His father and your mother’s father were brothers. He was apparently denied a living he’d been promised, after the Marquess of Sefton cut off your mother’s branch of his family.”

Elizabeth frowned, having only a vague memory of Isolde mentioning the relation between Lady Georgiana’s late husband and her mother’s people.

“So he hates us because of the living he was denied, what, twenty years ago?”

Mrs. Cooper sighed. “I’ve known men like him. He blames someone else for all his problems. Yes, he blames your mother for the living, but he also blames you for marrying well when his daughter was unable to secure a husband for the last three years.”

Elizabeth was both disappointed and enraged.

Could the man who had so hatefully spat those words at her at Almack’s be this Timothy Williams, who was related to her?

His social standing had clearly been good enough to be admitted into those exclusive ballrooms. And if that same man was, indeed, her cousin who had duelled Colin, he was also well off enough to be able to give his daughter three Seasons in London, so surely, such venom was unwarranted?

Especially towards her, who had done nothing wrong!

“Did Colin… Is my cousin alive?”

“He’s alive for now,” was all Mrs. Cooper said, and Lizzie nodded.

When Lady Burnham learned of the duel, she didn’t have the reaction Elizabeth had been expecting from her.

“Real men always used to duel for a lady’s honour,” she said with approval and something suspiciously resembling wistfulness in her voice.

Elizabeth shook her head with a smile. “It’s a grand gesture, but I’m not certain it is wise.”

“Do you really expect wisdom in love?” Lady Burnham asked, and Elizabeth was too stunned to respond, so she changed the subject as soon as she regained the power of speech.

On the third day, Colin woke up. Elizabeth had been reading by his bedside, and she suddenly got the feeling that she was being watched. She looked up and was met with his sleepy smile.

“Hello, wife.”

“Hello,” she replied, confused by her own joy. “How are you feeling?”

“My arm hurts, but other than that, all right.”

“Well, the arm is your own fault,” she told him, and he nodded with a small smile. “Let me ring for Stevenson, then we’ll get Doctor Cooper in here to look at you.”

In the following days, Elizabeth’s husband slowly started eating more, sitting up more, but there were still some things he needed a lot of assistance with, and somehow, it was always she who had to run to his aid in order to help him sit up, get dressed, or just sit and read to him.

Elizabeth secretly cherished these opportunities because they allowed her to touch him, to reassure herself that he was alive and here with her.