Chapter Fourteen
Roget’s Surgery and Clinic
Mayfair, London
Dante nodded his thanks to his driver as he made his way out of the carriage in front of the surgery and clinic where his wife worked a few days a week.
Originally, he’d intended to take her to a tea café, and he still did, but he’d decided to drop into the clinic to discover what it was about in the hopes of understanding her better.
After their sporadic conversation last night during intercourse, he worried that the man he was would eventually lose her, when he hadn’t decided what, exactly, he wanted his marriage to look like.
“I shouldn’t be long, Robert, so if you’ll wait?” When she’d left the house this morning, Anne had told him her shift ended at four o’clock. “I should have my wife with me at that time.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
The fact that his driver stubbornly clung to the honorific reserved for real dukes never failed to amuse him.
“Thank you.” Then he crossed the pavement to the door.
When he opened it, he found himself in a large room with a handful of cots.
A few of them were occupied. Immediately, his gaze fell on Anne, and she was gorgeous in the soft illumination from a few lanterns about the room.
As soon as she saw him, surprise jumped into her expression. She wiped her hands on the pinafore apron she wore to protect her dress as she approached him.
“Broderick! What a lovely surprise. What are you doing here?”
“Visiting. I wanted to see for myself what you did here and some of your duties so that I could better understand what you see each day.”
“Good idea. Let me show you around.” She glided across the room and came to a halt before a tall, thin man with spectacles.
“Lord Chesterfield, this is my husband, Mr. Cunningham. He’s come to visit our clinic.
” To him, she said, “Lord Chesterfield is the founder of the surgery. He was one of my brother’s closest friends. ”
“A pleasure to meet you,” Dante said as he extended a hand in greeting.
“The pleasure is mine.” The doctor shook his hand. “Mrs. Cunningham has a gift for ministering to the patients here. Something about her invokes calm.”
He nodded, for he’d experienced that from her as well. “She is quite unique in that way.” But it stuck in his craw to share her with anyone else, especially men.
The doctor nodded. “When I found out that Anne had married recently, it came as a shock to me.”
Dante frowned. “Why is that?”
“I’ve known her for years.” Lord Chesterfield shrugged. “I assumed she didn’t wish for that sort of life. She was content in working here, and after her fiancé died, she didn’t seem as if she were interested in finding someone else.”
“Perhaps you didn’t know her as well as you thought.” He couldn’t help issuing a low growl as he slipped an arm about her waist to show his possession of her. “Though our marriage happened rather quickly and was propelled by scandal, it is sound.”
He hoped.
The doctor narrowed his eyes behind the lenses of his spectacles. “Fair warning, Mr. Cunningham. If you don’t treat her well, there will be hell to pay.”
“From you?” One of Dante’s hands curled into a fist. “Do you have designs on her?”
“No, but I will protect her out of respect for her brother.”
“Ah, because she told you that I was the one who killed him?” he asked in a deceptively low voice that also served as a warning.
“What?” Surprise and alarm jumped into the other man’s expression. “I had no idea, but now I’m even more curious as to how the two of you wed.” He cast his gaze to Anne. “I thought you wished to have your revenge against the man who killed your brother.”
“I did…” She shook her head. “It’s complicated, and I’m not willing to discuss it here.” At Dante’s side, Anne uttered a half-stifled huff. “Enough, Broderick. There is nothing untoward happening between Lord Chesterfield and me.”
That only mollified him slightly. “I apologize,” he said to the doctor, who nodded with confusion in his eyes.
“Stop posturing,” Anne whispered into his ear as she took his arm and led him away.
Though there was an expression of apology on her face while she glanced at the doctor, as she ushered Dante toward the back of the room, it had fled.
“There has never been anything of a romantic or sexual nature between me and Lord Chesterfield. We are only friends. Actually, the reason he opened the clinic was out of respect for my brother.”
“Very well.” By increments, he relaxed. “What do you do while here?”
“Sometimes I take the patient’s vitals, or sometimes I change bandages.
Many times, I listen to the men’s stories or talk to them about how they feel.
They only want a connection, I think.” As she spoke, she showed him around the large common room.
“There are a couple of private room for examination or rest.”
“It seems a well-run operation.” And quite impressive. “It’s something I wish had been in existence years ago when I came home to England.”
“I’m sorry you had no recourse.” With her hand still on his arm, Anne led him over to one of the soldiers who sat on a cot.
“Let me introduce you to Mr. Firth. He wandered into the clinic a couple of years ago and has been popping in at least once a month ever since.” With a smile, she focused on the man with thinning dark hair and a scar on one cheek.
“Mr. Firth, this is my husband, Mr. Cunningham. He was also a soldier.”
“Dear God!” As soon as the man heard Dante’s name, he shoved to his feet with shock and horror and anger mixing throughout his expression. “Get out! You are a horrible person!” Then he lashed out with a fist and took a swing at him that connected soundly with his chin.
Caught by surprise, Dante lost his balance and tumbled to the floor. As he sprawled on the wood, he bounced his gaze between Anne and the former soldier as pain radiated through his jaw. “What the devil is wrong with you?”
“Are you all right?” Anne asked as she offered a hand to help him off the floor.
“I’ve been through worse.” But as he stood, Mr. Firth rushed at him again.
Dante darted out of the way while Anne called for help from the doctor. “Enough!”
Lord Chesterfield rushed over. He wedged his body between Dante and Mr. Firth. “We don’t condone violence in this clinic.”
Mr. Firth strained against the doctor’s hold.
“That man has no business being here!” He tried to break free, but Chesterfield held the soldier’s arm and pulled him back from Dante.
“He’s the specter of death. We called him the butcher of the Dordogne Valley.
I saw him kill three men in the same night in the tiny village with no name where I was recovering from a gunshot wound.
” The man strained again at the doctor’s hold.
He glared at Dante. “You killed my friend for doing little more than professing his love of France.”
“A sympathizer in the English army! That’s treason.”
“His mother was French! Those were his countrymen.”
“Except he pledged his allegiance to the King and crown. Of England.” Dante shrugged. “I had a job to do. So did those men, and it was to fight and defend England, not coddle France.” Except his own allegiance had been divided during those days because of the woman he’d fallen in love with.”
“Bastard!” Mr. Firth snarled as he tugged at the doctor’s hold. “Stay away from me, murderer!”
Lord Chesterfield frowned as he glanced at Dante. “I apologize. Sometimes the men get riled when memories assail them.”
As the other patients became restless and talked among themselves regarding Mr. Firth’s claims, the mood shifted in the clinic. Chesterfield escorted Mr. Firth to one of the private rooms and closed the door behind them.
A wave of self-disgust slammed into him.
In that moment, he was once more embarrassed and ashamed of his past. When he glanced at Anne, caught the shock and horror in her expression, it brought him even lower.
“Uh, please excuse me.” Without waiting for her reply, he quickly left the clinic, merely to take in the cold, fresh air outside.
His carriage waited about a block down the street, but he didn’t immediately gesture to the driver.
“Why the hell do I care so much what she thinks?” A bit away from the door, he laid a gloved palm against the brick facade of the building and bowed his head while the urge to cast up his accounts pressed in on him.
He cared because his wife was becoming more dear to him as each day passed.
Was he falling in love with her? It was too confusing to think about, and he needed time to sort out his thoughts, because every time he was in her company, everything tumbled out of his brain except being with her.
The trouble was, no matter how much pleasure he gave her when they were intimate, no matter how much of a gentleman he acted while around her, he would never be good enough for her.
His past would always be his past. Nothing could change that.
It was folly to think their marriage might have a chance when he had done such horrible things.
Things that people still remembered… and hated him for.
Did that include Anne? When they were strangers, he didn’t much care that she might despise him. But now that they were pulling closer to each other? It was miserable feeling that she might harbor such emotions for him.
“Broderick?”
The sound of her voice and the concern therein had the urge to be sick growing. He didn’t answer her. How could she even stand there with him knowing who he was?
“Broderick, please look at me.” Anne joined him on the pavement as snow once more drifted lazily down. When she touched his arm, he flinched, for he didn’t deserve any sort of kindness. “Please?”
“Don’t, Anne. I can’t bear it.”
For the space of a few heartbeats, they stared at each other as silence brewed between them, and he wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole. Finally, his wife spoke.