Roses and Flames

Chapter 41

Patrick neglected the afternoon examination of the patient, instead sending Ambrose, telling her to do whatever she felt necessary to help, shortly after their conversation whatever she felt necessary to help her with throat. She had returned to Samuel, shortly after their conversation, taking her lunch with her so that she might share a meal with him. Patrick had eaten alone, in silence, wondering how long it would be until he could make a graceful exit from the house and the lives of the happy couple. When he next so they do, it was well past supper. The man’s condition all but answered the question.

“Doctor Hastings,” the Duke said with a smile, sitting up further in bed so that they might talk eye to eye. “How long do you mean to keep me here, now that I’m recovering?” His voice was stronger and his color was better.

“Another week, at most,” Patrick said. “We must be sure that the last trace of illness is gone before you resume your regular duties.”

“I think I shall go mad, with another seven days of inactivity,” he said with a smile.

“You shall have the Fair Lady ambrosia to keep you company,” Patrick said, managing an ironic smile. “But if you need to descend into mania, I will leave the name of another physician who might help. A school friend of mine is now a keeper at Bedlam. I'm sure he will be glad of the change.”

“You are leaving?” The Duke raised his eyebrows. “Are you trying to escape me again? I did not presume that this illness would convince you to accept my offer. But there is no need to run off to avoid me.”

“I’m returning to the sea,” Patrick said. He was not sure yet if it was true. But neither did he care. His future did not really matter now, now that he knew that he was not going to share it with Ambrose.

“Don’t be an idiot.” The Duke was grinning at him as if his life plans were some of an enormous joke.

Patrick kept his voice level. “I understand the difference in our rank, your grace---- but I will not allow you to address me in this manner.”

The smile disappeared. “Devil take the difference in our ranks, Patrick. For a moment, do me the kindness of remembering that we share a father, and that I’m your elder by months and leave it at that. And I say you are an i***t if you start from this place.”

 Patrick sighed and settled back in the chair at the bedside. “If it will prevent you from agitating yourself then very well, Samuel.” The name felt odd in his tongue but he forced to say it out. “Say your piece.”

“We both know the reason you are leaving. It is Ambrosia, is it not?”

 And now the Duke pinned him to the spot with a glare. He had not seen the man used his rank in such a way. It was quite effective. Patrick weighed the possibility of lying, but only briefly. It seemed the Duke of Mayburry would not stand for prevarication. And if they were truly brothers, there ought to be some truth between them.

“Yes,” he said. “It is because of Ambrosia.”

“The solution is very simple, then. I will retract my offer.”

“The hell you will.”

 He hoped that the new duke liked the change in his demeanor. At the moment, he did not care that one must not dictate to do. “Are you overcome with the idea that you can claim me as family? Biology does not give you the right to order my life for me. Or are you merely so caught up in your own rank that you think you can move people like you move about furniture? The honour of a lady is at stake and you will do nothing to compromise it.”

The Duke laughed. “I do not think the usual rules apply in this case. By giving her up, I would be doing her a service. She is staying with me out of pity. If there was a slightest chance of her heart breaking, you would be there to pick up the pieces, quick enough.”

“She would not have me.” Saying the words was like plunging into an ice bath. It was brutal counter shock to the numbness he had been feeling all afternoon. But he took some of the guilt away, so he continued, “I tried. Heaven help me. I tried to take her from you. But she will not go. The bridge between us is too great. I waited too long. And I have lost her trust. I am sorry.”

Samuel settled back into the pillows again, looking as though he were the physician and Patrick was the patient. “Don’t be. She will forget me full, once I’m gone.”

“She belongs with you,” the Duke reminded him, his voice patient and low.

“But she is better off with you.” Patrick squared his shoulders and fiddled with the instruments on the table at his side, dropping them one by one onto the back on the floor. “She will be a good Wife and excellent Duchess. I wish you well. But you must understand I do not stay for the wedding.”

“And this is how it must end, with all three of us being unhappy?”

“You? Unhappy?” Patrick laughed, bitterly. “The least you could do is take pleasure in your victory over me.”

“It was never my goal to be anyone’s rival,” the Duke said, with a shake of his head. “I will do nothing to make Ambrosia unhappy, for she is a sweet girl, and we could have done well together. But to find that I have family, only to lose it again? He sighed. I cannot break with her and be an honorable man. And I cannot manage to keep both of you.”

“That is the gist of it,” Patrick agreed. “At least, when you were at your weakest, I did not kill you. The thought crossed my mind. But I expect you know that.”

“I suppose that I’m glad you resisted,” the Duke replied. “Although it might have been more of a mercy to finish me. If I am not to have an heir, there is little point in continuing.”

“Do not talk nonsense,” Patrick said firmly, being a doctor again. “You have many years ahead of you. And I make no guarantees either for or against your chances of siring children.”

Considering the extent of illness, he was not optimistic. But anything was possible.

The Duke gave him a sympathetic smile again, as though he was the one to be offering comfort. “You do not understand. I do not expect you to.”

 He lifted the sheet and glanced down at his still swollen body poster then he winced and dropped it again.

“It is better than it was yesterday,” Patrick reminded him. “Your healing. And it could have been worse,” he said and as encouragingly as possible. “Men have died from this. Or being different. Or disfigured.”

“And I have been rendered impotent,” the Duke snapped. “We cannot be sure.”

“Until I have tried for years without success?” He said, sounding every bit bitter as Patrick felt. “As everyone continues to remind me, I am a young man, with a long life ahead.”

“You are,” the doctor agreed. “But again to what purpose is this long life if I am to have? I might work for a lifetime, caring for my people and my land, only to leave it to no one? When I die, it will fall all to ruin.”

“You cannot know that.”

“This not knowing is likely to drive me mad,” his brother said, stroking his hair with his hand. “I will live. But Mayburry is as good as dead. And I’m must watch all that my family has built, in the end of its days.”

“Our family, Patrick said, feeling the fleeting sense of kinship again.

“But in this you cannot help me,” the Duke said, staring at the wall across the room. “I am alone.”

“You have Ambrosia.” Patrick did his best to make his voice encouraging.

“God help her. This cannot be what she wished for.”

“You are a Duke,” Patrick reminded him.

“And less of a man than you,” Samuel stared back at him.

“She loves you. Would you want to know that your wife will spend every moment of your marriage dreaming of another man?”

It was Patrick turn to look away. “Do not bother to lie about it. If this is a day for difficult truths, what is more than one? Will you have the courtesy to admit it?”

“What I want doesn’t matter,” Patrick said firmly. “It is what she wants that matters. I never should have forgotten that. I handled things badly. Now, she has made her decision. She chose you.”

“Does she know the extent of my illness?”

“She read the medical books herself. It is the reason she will stay with you. She would not have you be alone.” Apparently, it did not matter how lonely Patrick might be. “If you break her heart over this, or disgrace her in any way, I will come back and take the life I have just say.”

“Then God help us all,” Samuel said, collapsing back on the pillows.

“If this is an example of his mercy, I would prefer to do without it,” Patrick said, dropping the last of his tools into his bag and closing it. “And now, Samuel, if you will excuse me? I think I shall go down to the port and wait for the high tide and fresh wind.”