Page 108 of Seduced by an Irresistible Lady

Is it because your father is almost dead, and I’m late, or because your father is almost dead, and I might just save him?

“Well, here goes nothing,” Dr Frederick said under his breath.

He pushed the syringe gently into the Duke’s chest and injected in the adrenaline. He had used two vials because the Duke surely had more mass and required more of it than the monkeys. But he had been scared of the effects.

Three might be an overdose, a lethal one.

He easily removed the syringe. There was no effect, at first. The Duke’s chest didn’t spasm or shake.

“It didn’t work,” Dr Frederick had been about to say.

Then the Duke started gasping. His chest heaved up and down violently, and Dr Frederick had to hold him down. He heard the Duchess gasp. He saw her shaking her fingers rapidly out of the edge of his eyes. Moments later, the Duke stopped shaking, but his breath still came in hoarse gasps. Dr Frederick placed his tube listener on the Duke’s chest. The heartbeats were rapid and strong.

It worked.

Dr Frederick pursed his lips for fear of releasing an unmanly, excited shout. He placed his thumb on the Duke’s wrist to check his pulse again. It was strong and steady. Dr Frederick placed his ear to the Duke’s nose and heard his breath. It wasn’t the best, but it was better, clearer. Dr Frederick raised the Duke’s eyelids up and noted that his eyes were dilated.

Even more dilated than they had been at first.

The Duke seemed to have fallen asleep now.

It’s better this way. It is better he recovers from sleep.

“How is he?” Duchess Mona asked.

“I think he has recovered. I’m not sure, Your Grace, but the initial crisis has passed. He has fallen asleep. I need to observe him for a bit then we know what to do from there,” Dr Frederick said.

The Duchess crept closer to her husband, taking one tentative step after another like a baby just learning to walk. She stood with her hands by her side in front of the sleeping Duke, and then gently bent with her ears to his chest. The smile that enveloped her face reminded Dr Frederick of the beauty he had seen in her the first time he laid his eyes on her. She beat her lap excitedly and moved her head upwards to his face. After a few moments, the smile became a laugh. The Duchess threw herself on Dr Frederick, holding tight to his neck and pattering his cheeks with kisses. Dr Frederick was embarrassed. He hadn’t fathomed that a Duchess could be so careless and effusive in showing her emotions.

After the initial excited squeal and laughter, the Duchess, even with her arms around Dr Frederick’s neck, started crying. Dr Frederick felt warm water falling from her cheeks to his neck, wetting his skin and his collar. Her body quaked as she cried, and her moans irritated Dr Frederick’s left ear. Dr Frederick was confused. He didn’t feel it right to wrap his hands around the Duchess to comfort her, neither could he push her away.

“Mother, that’s enough,” Lord Jeffrey said behind them.

Lord Jeffrey walked to Dr Frederick and wrested his mother away from him. The crying woman wrapped her arms around her son’s waist and continued her crying. Dr Frederick took a few steps away from them for fear of the woman wanting to come to him for more consolation. The door behind him opened, and Dr Frederick looked back.

“Dr Frederick,” Mister Frank said looking flushed as he came in. Roman walked in behind him.

Mister Frank walked to his master, standing beside him.

“Was he dead already when you got here?” Mister Frank asked.

Dead?

Dr Frederick looked at his dresser and was about to ask why he would think that when he realised it himself. The Duchess was weeping.

Why wouldn’t he think the Duke had died?

“He didn’t die, Frank. We saved him just in time. The hormone worked,” Dr Frederick said.

“It did?” Mister Frank said.

“Yes,” Dr Frederick replied.

“Yikes, this is good news. Aren’t you meant to document this?”

Dr Frederick nodded. Mister Frank was right. His only reservation was that he couldn’t report to the English Council of Physicians that he had tried it on a human. Regardless of the result, he would be viewed as endangering the sacrosanct life of a patient for the progress of his scientific research.

“I know what you are thinking, sir,” Mister Frank said.