My Darling Duke

She nodded guiltily, her color deepening. “Yes.”

“Ophelia, what have you been doing?” Maryann cried.

Shock blasted through Kitty anew. “For what purpose?” she asked in a dramatically low voice. An indecipherable emotion flashed in her friend’s eyes before it was shuttered, and Kitty realized with a good deal of alarm that she was not the only one acting in a wicked and ruinous manner.

“Did we not all promise to be wicked, bold, and unflinching in our desire to secure our happiness?” Ophelia demanded. Yet her voice cracked, and in her eyes, Kitty saw an uncertainty she would not have thought possible in the most daring of her friends.

“We did,” Kitty said softly, taking Ophelia’s gloved hands between her own.

How marvelous if we should all be guilty of doing something wicked, just for once? It felt like she had asked this question of her friends a lifetime ago. And yet here she was giving up on the promise of a forever kind of love, the kind she had to show Alexander was worth any risk.

“Do you believe she would teach me?”

Ophelia smiled and said obligingly, “If you have the courage to ask, my dear Cosima will tell you whatever you wish to know.”

“And am I assured of her discretion?”

“I have been meeting with her for more than two months. No one is aware of our friendship.”

Kitty took a steadying breath. “Please introduce me to her. I shall be excessively thankful if you would.”

…

Alexander closed the book he’d been reading and exited his library. He called for Hoyt, who assisted him to his chamber, another loss of dignity he now accepted he must suffer. Years ago, he had converted a room downstairs to a chamber, finding it arduous to get a bath chair up those stairs, finding it humiliating to be lifted about by his manservant. That had been one of the reasons that had driven him to leave the chair, and he had learned to conquer those damnable stairs on his own terms and had ordered his chamber to be set back upstairs. Once again, now he could not make the stairs without help.

“I am here, Your Grace,” Hoyt murmured, appearing by his side. “Let me carry you up.” A suggestion he made each time Alexander would ascend.

“No.” A reply he would always make.

With a grunt, he heaved himself from the chair. Hoyt hooked one of his shoulders under his arm, and they slowly made the climb. A footman lifted the bath chair and plodded patiently behind them until they reached the landing of the upper floor. Once there, he settled into the chair, glanced at them, and nodded his thanks. Very much used to the ritual and his peculiarities, the footman bowed and returned belowstairs.

Hoyt wheeled Alexander to his room without speaking. A fireplace crackled merrily in the spacious room, and though Katherine had never entered his private chambers, he scented her lovely and alluring fragrance in the air. His manservant assisted him from the chair and removed his boots, trousers, waistcoat, jacket, and unmentionables before aiding him to slip on a dark blue silk banyan.

He stood by the windows, staring across the vast lands. The sun was down now, and deep purple twilight blanketed the mountains and valleys in stunning splendor.

“Shall I escort you to the bed or the chaise, Your Grace?”

Alexander shifted and faced his manservant. “Leave me with my stick, and I shall make it there tonight.”

Hoyt hesitated briefly, then complied. Alexander grasped the walking stick, placing most of his weight on it, and propped his left shoulder on the wall by the windows.

“Shall I ring for a bath?”

“I had one only a few hours past,” he murmured drily.

“A brandy, then? Or whiskey?”

Alexander considered his manservant critically. “What are you worried about that you must hover so like a nanny?”

Hoyt’s craggy face creased into a scowl. “A nanny, Your Grace?”

“Yes.”

His manservant took a steadying breath. “You seem different tonight. You did not eat supper again, and Cook is a mite worried. Shall I tell her to send up a tray?”

“I’ll eat a hearty breakfast.”

Hoyt nodded, glancing around the space before resting his gaze back to Alexander. “The room smells pleasant.”