Chapter Thirty-Two
Max had always been considered athletic.
He was light on his feet and his hands were quick.
All in all, he had the reflexes to catch his father as the man fell.
It was his mind that was slow. Throughout his life, he’d seen his father rage until spittle was flying as fast as the crockery.
He’d watched the duke punch straight into a wall, leaving a hole that remained to this day.
This fury wasn’t even in the top ten of his father’s rages, and yet when the man clutched his chest and began gaping like a dying fish, all Max could do was stare.
His father was not one who fell. His father made other people fall.
He watched as the duke’s knees bent. He saw the slow descent of his father’s torso as he pitched forward. If it were not for Lord Benedict, Max would have watched his father land face first at his own feet while he did nothing but stare.
“Don’t try to talk,” Benedict said. “Just take a moment.”
With Christopher’s help, they turned his father over, settling him on his back with a cushion under his head.
His father’s eyes were wild, and his mouth kept opening and closing.
He was breathing in a choppy, ragged way and making grunting sounds that shook Max to the core.
He couldn’t grasp that this gasping man at his feet was his father.
Lord Benedict looked up at the footman, speaking in low urgent tones. “I believe Dr. Carter is upstairs. Please tell him that Lord Benedict requests his immediate attention on a medical matter.”
The footman nodded and dashed away. Meanwhile, Christopher was loosening the duke’s cravat. But what caught everyone’s attention was the way the man was waving his left hand. The fingers were curled as if cramped, but he seemed to be gesturing at Max.
And so Max went down on his knees beside his father.
He grasped the duke’s hand, letting the fingers curl around his own, but feeling for the first time the lack of muscles in the hand.
It was as though his father’s hand was just bone and skin, skeletal without sinew.
Or perhaps it had been that long since he’d touched his father in any way at all.
“Don’t try to talk,” Lord Benedict was saying, but his father wasn’t listening. Of course not. The man never listened to anyone.
“Take a slow breath,” Max said. “A doctor is coming.”
The duke was still trying to say something. As his breath lengthened, the wild look in his eyes shifted to a glower. Then he worked hard to form one word.
“Home.”
Lord Benedict shook his head. “It isn’t wise to move you that far, Your Grace. There are beds upstairs—”
“Home.”
Max set his jaw. “If you cannot be moved, then you will have to stay here.”
The duke’s jaw clenched, and his brows drew down in a glower.
“Home!” he repeated, and no wonder. Staying at a place he thought was a Molly house would be adding insult to injury.
And now that Max was watching his father carefully, he saw the extent of that injury.
One side of the duke’s face didn’t move as well as the other.
“Oh dear…” A high male voice filled the room.
Max looked up to see a dandy strut into the room.
His expression was warm and his smile compassionate as he set his medical bag on the floor.
Christopher stepped back to give him room.
Good God, the duke was going to hate being treated by a dandy, but if Benedict recommended him, then the man knew what he was about.
And with a doctor here to attend to his father, Max’s mind clicked back into focus.
“Chris, could you please go to the house. Yihui—”
“I’ll stop whatever idiocy is afoot.” Chris glanced down at the duke. “And prepare Emmaline.”
“Thank you.”
Chris gave his shoulder a squeeze before heading out at a run.
Max relaxed a bit. He desperately wanted to rush home and find out what had happened to Yihui, but he knew his duty to his title and his father.
His place was right here for all that he still wanted to rage at the duke for causing this disaster in the first place.
Instead, he watched with a grim expression as Dr. Carter completed his business.
In the end, the doctor rocked back on his heels. “If I could have a word, my lord?” he said to Max.
Max shook his head. His father was awake and calmer now. He would want to hear the diagnosis himself. “Speak to the patient, please. I will listen as well.”
“Very well. Your Grace, I’m sure you have guessed the truth.
You have suffered an apoplexy. Fortunately, it has not compromised your breathing nor your heart.
I believe whatever hope of recovery you have will be in complete rest.” He glanced at the nearest footman.
“A room shall be made for you here, and a litter can carry—”
“No.” The duke’s one word was clear to all of them.
Max sighed. As far as he could tell, his father’s faculties were not impaired. The duke had guessed what had happened from the very beginning and stated his desire to rest at home. Certainly, he could override his father, but he saw no reason to do so out of spite.
“We will take him home. Dr. Carter, if you would accompany us and see to my father’s well-being, I would very much appreciate your efforts.”
The man flashed a warm grin. “Of course, my lord. I am at your service.”
He saw his father’s grimace but didn’t care. Max had lost faith in Dr. Morton’s skills a long time ago.
The business of transferring his father took time.
The duke was warned against any type of movement and so he lay on the floor and tried to glower everyone into doing his bidding.
And for the first time in both their lives, people turned to Max for direction instead of his father.
Certainly, they smiled at the duke, they expressed their condolences and hope for a speedy recovery, but they treated him as a lesser man in all aspects, deferring to Max for any decision.
It was jarring to go from second place to first all in the matter of minutes. And though Max managed to get everything arranged, he couldn’t shake the feeling that his life had just changed irrevocably for the worse.
Unless his father made a full recovery—and he had never heard of a man who did so after an apoplexy—then Max would very rapidly have to take over the running of things.
Any dream of going to China was at an end, not to mention diplomatic trips, once the war was over.
He would have to take the reins of their vast ducal lands.
He’d been begging for this responsibility for years, but his father had been unwilling to relinquish the tiniest amount of control. Now he would have to do it completely.
The idea should have filled Max with satisfaction. Instead, his spirits dropped lower with every moment that he sat beside his father and worried.