Twenty
She was in the wind again.
A week. He’d not seen her since that garden party. A damned week she’d been hiding from him, and he’d had enough. He’d known something was amiss the moment they’d encountered Forsyth. He’d felt the change in Aurora, and for the rest of the evening, she hadn’t been the same. She’d been brilliant during her speech, as he knew she would. She’d dazzled the charity-minded guests and they’d opened their purses. She’d almost been charming, in that scowling way of hers. But the moment she’d finished, she’d made excuses, claiming she’d received a message about a patient going into labor, and left in a flurry.
That night, she hadn’t come to him in his rooms, then the next day, she’d sent him back his key with a note letting him know she couldn’t see him anymore and warning him that his aunt should be careful about Forsyth. He’d sent the key back with a note saying they’d made a deal and he intended to make her keep her end of it. A one-word reply came back. A lovely written Cabrón with an inspired little curl on the accent mark.
At least she’d kept the key.
She’d also allowed Jean-Louis to continue to escort her on the evening visits to patients, as he’d asked. But it seemed she’d sworn the man to some kind of secrecy pact. Clearly, Jean-Louis’s loyalties had changed while in service of Aurora Montalban. So far, Apollo was yet to extract a word out of him about what she’d been up to. As far as Philip Carlyle, Lord Forsyth, was concerned, he’d sent one of his men to dig up information on him.
He’d attempted to speak with his aunt regarding his doubts, but she was adamant Forsyth was instrumental in Apollo’s entry into the ton. He doubted that highly and was now convinced the man was up to some grift involving her. He’d asked her if she’d given him money, but so far, she’d denied it. But he also knew his aunt was stubborn and didn’t like to appear foolish. She would never admit to judging Forsyth incorrectly unless she was forced to. He could have the bastard killed, but that would upset his aunt, and he had enough women in his life angry at him.
“Come in,” he called, at a knock on the door, while he examined plans for the building he’d just purchased. The building he had yet to show to its new owner, since she refused to see him.
“Don Duc,” Jean-Louis announced himself with that greeting that set his teeth on edge. It didn’t matter how many times Apollo told him duke was not his new last name. At this point, he figured Jean-Louis was simply entertaining himself at his expense.
“I need to see Doctora Montalban today,” he said shortly, his eyes still cast down on the plans.
“I will let the lady doctor know, Don Duc,” Jean-Louis informed him with a stubborn look.
“I’m not requesting,” Apollo snapped, slapping both hands on his desk. Jean-Louis barely blinked. “I’m requiring her to be here.”
The big man twisted his mouth in what Apollo supposed was his attempt at a smirk, and clasped his enormous hands in front of himself.
“The doctor has some very interesting notions when it comes to gents telling her what to do.” Was that admiration in the sod’s voice? Was that a sparkle in the eyes of a man Apollo had watched almost kill at least a half dozen men with his bare hands?
“Jean-Louis, are you seeing her today?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“I might be.” That was delivered with another of those sparkling smiles and a waggle of busy eyebrows.
His patience was badly frayed, and he would love nothing more than to have someone snap it. Perhaps it would do him good to be pounded to a pulp by this brute. He’d barely slept in the last week.
The worst part was that he knew she’d been there. The smell of carbolic had been thick in the air two nights ago when he’d turned up past two in the morning. But there had been no poorly dressed wildcat to be seen. She was sneaking in with patients without leaving a word.
He had things to do, carajo.
There was Ackworth and his ploy to declare him an impostor, the damned MPs who wanted his vote but not so much his presence, and this blasted bride hunt. But did he attend to any of it? No, he was sitting in his apartment, watching the door, waiting for a five-foot-three-inch headache to walk in and continue to disrupt his existence.
“Then you best make sure she’s here, in my house, not one minute past noon.” Jean-Louis simply raised an eyebrow completely unbothered. “Not one minute later, or you can tell your lady doctor that I will come for her myself.” Apollo knew this was his own doing. He’d been careless somewhere and now things were out of his control. He did not like it when his world was in disorder, and that was exactly what her absence felt like.
“She’s really got you sweating.” Jean-Louis delivered this observation displaying an impressive number of teeth, and Apollo almost launched himself across his desk and throttled the man. “She’s something, that lady doctor,” the former pugilist chuckled, as if Aurora’s intent on driving Apollo out of his mind was the most delightful thing he’d ever heard.
“Bring her to me , Jean-Louis.” He thought he felt one of his molars pop, but for once, Jean-Louis kept his mouth shut and nodded.
“Sobrino!” His aunt barreled into the room with that frantic air she carried around recently.
“Tia, I don’t have—”
“No, you’re not getting out of this, Apollo,” she exclaimed, as Jean-Louis scurried out of the room.
“It is barely nine in the morning,” he groaned, but his aunt was giving him no quarter. She stood across his desk with a stubborn scowl that spelled trouble.
“I just heard from Claude that you won’t see your guests for morning tea.”
His aunt’s new strategy was matchmaking by covert strikes. She’d taken to bringing gaggles of girls over at random times, as if she could ambush him into picking one.
“They’re not my guests,” he said tightly. “They’re your guests.”
“What in the world is happening with you?” his aunt asked, looking genuinely baffled.
“What is happening, Tia, is that I have a dukedom to run,” he said with as much calm as he could manage. He loved his aunt, but as of late, it was as if she felt entitled to his life. For so long, he’d seen her as his champion for this lost cause he’d been fighting against his father, recently he felt increasingly confined by her intents on his life. “Evan is coming over today to discuss matters of the duchy. We have meetings with businessmen in the afternoon.” And he had what was almost surely going to be a battle of wills in about three hours with Aurora. “Can’t Juliana entertain those ladies with you?”
“Juliana’s gone to see some paintings at one of the galleries in the exposition with a new friend.” Lately every time he asked about his cousin, she was out with some new acquaintance, and he wondered if Juli’s whereabouts should be his aunt’s focus, not Apollo’s marital future.
“Then you entertain them, Tia,” he said with such force, his aunt flinched. He immediately felt guilty, but then his aunt spoke and made him angry all over again.
“Lord Forsyth has advised that you present yourself as a man of leisure. It is unseemly for a duke to work.”
“I don’t care what Forsyth says.” He was being a brute and that would not help matters. “Perdoname, Tia,” he apologized, rubbing his hands over his face. This was not how he wanted for a conversation about Forsyth to go. Losing his temper whenever the man came up would only make things harder. “I will come and say hello to the guests for a few minutes, but I truly cannot spend the morning having tea with debutantes.” This mollified her, somewhat, but she was still frowning at him.
“Something’s different about you, sobrino,” his aunt said, her gaze vexed by whatever she saw in him.
“I am different, aunt, I have a world of responsibilities, dozens of families who depend on me, and taking tea with heiresses is not a priority.” Again she sent him one of those perturbed looks, her eyes searching, as if there was something she was missing.
“But hosting charity salons for women with murky reputations is? You do know the rumors of the conditions of her birth.” This he would not tolerate. Somehow, he knew this was Forsyth’s doing.
“Aurora is not up for discussion,” he told his aunt, in a hard tone. “And she has nothing to do with this.”
“Don’t forget who you’re here for.” For his mother. To honor her name. To ensure her death was not in vain. But he wondered if performing for these aristocrats was the way to do that.
“I cannot be like my father and shirk my duties.”
“No, you cannot,” she told him after a long pause. With a sigh, she came around and kissed him on the cheek. “Violeta would be so proud of you,” his aunt told him, before quietly exiting the room.
The mention of his mother felt like a punch in the gut. All this time, he thought this was what she’d wanted. To see him triumph, to see him reclaim what was robbed from him. But lately he could not stop thinking that his mother, like that patient of Aurora’s, had been barely sixteen when she married.
He could only imagine the fear she’d felt when she found herself on her own, with a man who, in many ways, was a stranger and who ultimately never cared for her. He wondered what would make that girl proud. He was starting to believe it might have nothing to do with titles.
“Don’t tell me you’re hiding in here.” Apollo didn’t appreciate Evan’s grin or his confident guess of his current circumstances as he made his way into the room.
“How bad is it?” he asked, and Evan grinned, before taking his usual seat.
“They look quite bloodthirsty.”
“Wasn’t your wife to be here for this?” Apollo asked, annoyed. The three of them had been working on a plan to erect a bottling plant for Luz Alana’s new cordials on a piece of land owned by the duchy near Glasgow. “Her presence is a requirement if I am to tolerate yours.” Evan only laughed, but Apollo did not miss the contentment in his brother at the mention of his new wife. He truly would not have believed a mere few months—and the love of a woman—could transform a man so dramatically. But the same Evan, who a year ago told Apollo that once they exacted revenge on their father, he would leave society forever, was now making plans to establish the first association for business and tradespeople that welcomed women.
Apollo did not begrudge him any of it. Not really, but at moments like this, when the weight of his title and the life that came with it seemed beyond his capabilities. Perhaps Evan had been so eager to help him claim it because he didn’t want it either.
“You’re truly cross,” Evan said, with a frown. Apollo grunted in answer as he pretended to double-check his tie. “I would’ve thought a room full of women poised to throw themselves at you would be a boon.”
“There isn’t a single woman in that room who sees me as anything other than a novelty or a taste of something exotic.” Evan, as he always did when the cravenness of the people of his world came to light, looked contrite. Apollo had no patience for his brother’s guilt today. “If there’s one thing you are not responsible for, Lord Evan —” his brother winced at the title, but Apollo carried on “—it’s for overeager debutantes and their mothers. If we were in Cartagena, it would be the same, they’d just look different.”
“At least this batch is a bit more varied than the one from London.” Apollo rolled his eyes at the reminder of the mothers who had descended on him like locusts after he’d arrived in the city, once his father’s death was announced.
“I truly don’t have the energy for any of this,” Apollo said with finality, then bit back a groan when the image of a certain half-feral physician appeared in his mind.
“You don’t seem to have energy for much at the moment,” Evan concurred, which only incensed Apollo more.
“I still thrashed you this morning.” Evan shrugged, un bothered. These days, the hunted, high-strung man Apollo had first met was a far cry from this smiling, easygoing man.
“Are you certain there’s nothing amiss? You seem tired. Are you sleeping?” Apollo only shook his head. He could tell Evan the reasons why he hadn’t slept in days. But his brother would most likely laugh in Apollo’s face. It was what he’d done to him when he was at his wit’s end over Luz Alana. “Is it Ackworth?” Evan asked, now a hint of real concern in his voice.
He shook his head and sighed. “No, but I’m sure he’ll be making himself a nuisance soon enough.”
“I wish we could get something on him,” Evan mused. Apollo did too, but so far they had not been able to find out much that could help them discredit the bastard. “If it’s not Ackworth, something else is amiss,” his brother pushed. “You’ve been even more unbearable than usual.”
“Do I need more reasons to be cross than the bevy of women in that other room waiting to sink their claws into me?” he asked, with honest exasperation.
Evan chuckled, mollified for the moment. “I can’t say I envy you,” he conceded, pushing off from his repose on Apollo’s desk. “I will go get my wife, and we shall be back to save you from their satin-clad clutches.”
“I’ll go deal with the debutantes,” he announced, peevishly and stood up.
Perhaps Aurora was doing him a favor by keeping her distance. The last thing he wanted was to drag a woman who already took on all of the world’s problems into his mess. A mess that was all of his own making.
When he reached the door connecting his study, Apollo sighed, turned the knob and stepped inside.
“Ladies, did I keep you waiting?”