Chapter Nine
“I need to pack,” Lexi declared as she came into Melissa’s bed chamber without as much as a knock to announce herself just when Melissa had inspected her face in her looking glass. The red dots from crying under the tree had faded. Good. Nobody liked a fallen woman wallowing in self-pity. “Did you hear me? We’re going to London.”
“Yes, I’m going to London.” Melissa surveyed the room. With the help of a maid or two, she could pack her things in only a few hours, and she could speak to Mrs. Dove-Lyon in the morrow.
“No, I’m going to London,” Lexi said. “Dustin and I, of course.”
“When?”
“Tonight,” Lexi said. “Can you stay here and help me?” Lexi plopped onto Melissa’s bed just as she used to before everything happened—before Melissa’s coming out, her wedding, and all the other disasters that followed. Even though her younger sister could be a tad annoying from time to time—or frequently, actually—the effortless closeness and trust had lasted since their childhood. Sometimes, Melissa thought, it had grown larger.
Melissa took a deep breath and blinked a few times. She’d wanted to escape and tell Mrs. Dove-Lyon the matchmaking— or match breaking—was moot. But then Lexi had swept in and depleted the wind from her sails, so Melissa remained frozen and stared into the room. The sun hung high, and her south-facing windows did little to shield her from being in the day’s prime light.
“What am I supposed to help you with?”
“The estate. Dustin is needed in London. Apparently, Prinny has reserved the entire Harley Street practice for the week. For his family.”
“The whole week?”
“Yes. I’m not supposed to say, but he’s bringing Prince Frederick, too.”
“The Duke of York?”
“And Princess Sophie.”
“Why? For treatment?”
“It’s a very private affair, but yes. Felix sent a messenger and asked for Dustin’s help. He cannot do it on his own. Nurse Wendy and Nurse Shira even asked if I could assist them in the aftercare.”
“A duke and a duchess working to treat the royal family?”
“Well, I’d entertain them with tea and ice, I suppose. Several of them are coming. Alfred and Ada have also reserved treatment rooms at 91 Harley Street. I’ll be receiving the royal family as the Duchess of Duncan.” Lexi grimaced as if she were readying herself for an examination in arithmetic.
“This is rather grand, don’t you think?” Melissa rose from the bed and paced the room.
“I don’t even know how they found out about the practice and why they asked for Dustin and Felix, two dentists, to be present.”
I did that. I’ve sent the prince regent to Felix and Dustin.
This could bode well because it would keep Prinny busy and give Melissa more time before she had to return to court. But it could also spell disaster. A shiver traced an icy path down her spine, the weight of unspoken worries settling heavily upon her shoulders like an unwelcome shawl. Mrs. Dove-Lyon must be involved in setting this all up.
“Well, it seems that Prinny is rather insistent on the discretion of the doctors and the nurses, so there is nothing we can do but oblige.”
“And Dustin will treat their teeth?”
Lexi arched a brow.
Oh dear, she’d said too much.
“Melissa?”
Melissa stood before Lexi, who remained seated on her bed. “I told him to go.”
“Oh, Melissa!”
“I know, I know. I didn’t think it through. I was scared and shy and embarrassed, and when I realized his affliction, I clung onto the only thing that could give me a reprieve.”
“But you sent him to my friends. My husband…”
“I didn’t know them all at the time. Not yet, at least because it was before your wedding; I didn’t intend to risk the practice only to send a man who needed a doctor to get the cure he needed.” It went without saying that the slightest displeasure of any royal family member could ruin the practice forever.
I was selfish; I tried to distract him from me.
Lexi swallowed visibly and gave Melissa a stern look. It was a new one in her repertoire that said, “I’m grown up and understand, so let’s keep our nerves and handle the problem.” If Melissa didn’t feel such remorse for causing the problem, she’d be proud of her little sister’s cool head and resilient management of the impending crisis. But she’d sent Prinny to the doctors on Harley Street and could make or break them.
“Do you think it’ll be a crisis at all?” Lexi asked and folded her hands in her lap. She straightened her back and awaited Melissa’s answer. Melissa’s chest swelled with pride for her sister, and it overshadowed her sense of remorse for an instant. Lexi was already a duchess, not merely in title but also in deed.
“I see it this way: There are patients coming who need care, and there are doctors willing and capable of offering it. The patients will pay for their service, and the doctors will go about their usual work thereafter.”
“Except that these patients are rather eccentric.”
“I know. Who else do we know who could be their match?”
A mischievous glimmer in Lexi’s eyes betrayed that she was willing to move mountains for her friends on Harley Street, whose success depended on paying clients from the Ton. And the one person who ruled the Ton was Mrs. Dove-Lyon.
“No!”
Melissa placed a hand on her chest, hoping the nausea wouldn’t grow, as did her dread. “Please don’t!”
“She’s the only one who knows all their secrets and doesn’t fear leveraging them.”
“And how do secrets help with the pain of eye surgeries, dental fillings, or other treatments?”
“They don’t; They help ensure that the healing and the success of the treatments will get the attention they are due afterward . Felix said that the apothecary, Alfie, is already preparing a selection of mixtures to ensure the patients’ comfort and good rest. All the doctors will do their best, but they will keep their patients’ confidentiality.”
“I’m not following how this differs from what they usually do…”
“This time, we need their patients to spread the word about their success. Imagine this: Princess Sophie might have to wait her turn or wait until her brother is finished—for the day. I’m certain her treatment will take several days. Who’s to ensure her pride doesn’t get the better of her and that she comes out of the practice with the right way to look at things?”
“Manipulating the royals is a precarious game, Melissa. I wouldn’t dare—” Lexi grimaced as if she were watching a carriage accident and couldn’t look away.
“But I would. And so should you, Duchess. They are our peers.”
Lexi furrowed her brows, but when she lifted her chin, Melissa knew she’d see her and raise her one.
“I’ll ask Mrs. Dove-Lyon for tea every day. Her knowledge of their affairs will hang like a threat over them, and they won’t dare cross her once they see how close she is to Ada, Alfred Stein, and some of the other doctors on Harley Street.” Dr. Alfred Stein was a pediatrician married to Ada, who was almost like a daughter to Mrs. Dove-Lyon.
“She won’t come for tea. But she will for hot chocolate and a visit with Ada and her little twins.”
“Fine.” Even Mrs. Dove-Lyon had a soft spot for babies, as it seemed.
“Let me know when to be there.” This would be Melissa’s chance to ask to stop the arrangement she had with Mrs. Dove-Lyon. She walked to her armoire and opened it, considering whether any of the gowns she’d brought would suit an afternoon with Mrs. Dove-Lyon and the princess. For Prinny, any gown would do as long as she could show sufficient cleavage.
Lexi came to her side. “I need your help here .”
“Of course, I’ll be there.” Step one was to speak to Mrs. Dove-Lyon, step two was to avoid Prinny for as long as possible, and step three was a life resigned so she could wallow in her heartbreak—for it would surely break if she couldn’t ever fully give her heart to John. An involuntary gasp escaped her lips as her heart plunged, a stone cast into the fathomless depths of her fear.
“No, Melissa. Here. I need you to do what the duchess ought.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Dustin mustn’t go to London without me. I can be more useful to him there this time around. But there’s much to do with the estate having a duchess for the first time in over twelve years. Please help me; I cannot vacate my position when I’ve just assumed it.”
“I’m not the duchess, Lexi. You are.”
“Yes, I know. But I can’t trust anyone else to maintain my reputation among the locals in my absence so soon after my arrival.”
“You are in charge, you know. Duchesses rule the staff and—”
Lexi shook her head. “That’s not how John has been running the estate. He built a community of trust. He’s been working with the locals. The farmers speak freely with him, and he never charges them more than he needs. That’s why everything is in such profitable margins. Haven’t you looked at the ledgers?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry, of course not. But Dustin and I have. John has created a symbiosis between the duke and the tenants. It’s a fragile system of trust, and I mustn’t risk it.”
“You’re entrusting me with the diplomacy of your new—”
“I’d entrust you with my life, Melissa. You know that! All I know is because of you.”
Melissa slumped. She was just a guest at Starcliff Castle, and there was no reason for her to snoop around, but she wasn’t a guest in her sister’s life. And now that Lexi was the duchess of this estate, Melissa could hardly escape it.
She had a sinking feeling that she wouldn’t be able to leave for London and speak to Mrs. Dove-Lyon, but she could think of no other way.
“What do you mean?” Melissa asked Lexi. “What’s all because of me?”
Lexi rolled her eyes. “You don’t know?”
Melissa shook her head.
“First, you were the best at finishing school. You have more polish than Lady Grandhal, and she was the strictest of all the teachers.”
Melissa remembered Lady Grandhal as a bit of dragon, ready to spit fire if she made the tiniest of mistakes, too low of a curtsy or too long of a smile.
“And then you accepted a courtship with the poise of a princess. At your wedding, everybody mumbled that they’d never seen a more regal and beautiful bride.”
Oh, Lexi, outward perfection is not the same as inside. I’m not as good as you think, sweet sister.
“And then, when you stood ramrod in the first row at his funeral, you remained elegant despite a stroke of fate that you didn’t deserve.”
“But now I’m fallen, I’m Prinny’s mistress, and you had to rush into a marriage—”
“Nothing like that! At first, I thought so. I was rushed. What did I know.” Lexi brushed her naivety off as if it had been years ago, not just a few weeks.
“Lexi, it’s because of me that—”
“It’s because of you that I ever had the courage to even fall in love. I was so busy checking off items from a list and trying to be perfect that I was too afraid to find someone that wasn’t titled, let alone a working dentist. I was so stupid.”
“I am so stupid,” Melissa replied.
“You? How could you ever say that? You are so brilliant that even the prince asked you to come to his court. I completely understand that it’s not just your beauty he was after, don’t you?”
“I’m not the diplomat you think I am.”
“I don’t think it; I know it.”
She was the one who’d selfishly distracted Prinny from her body and suggested—she swallowed hard—that the prince regent seek treatment for his own ailments and imperfections. And now, her sister had to leave her new post as duchess to ensure that Melissa hadn’t promised too much. However, the royal family had a reputation for being easily displeased. These patients could destroy the practice if any of them as much as flinched.
“Please stay in my lieu. I promised Dustin that I’d add a feminine touch to the castle. Much has gone neglected since John’s wife has passed away.”
Including him, Melissa thought.
Thus, Melissa had to stay behind and protect her sister’s new position as duchess. No matter her feelings, this was about her family, which was more important.