The Duke Meets His Match (The Infamous Somertons #3)(56)
Eliza and Amelia looked at her in concern, and their overprotectiveness took over. In their eyes she was still their little sister.
“I’ll send for Alice,” Eliza said.
“I’ll tell her to fetch you a cup of warm milk,” Amelia said as both sisters left the room.
At long last, Chloe was alone. She sat at her dressing table and rested her head in her hands. She gulped and then finally yielded to the compulsive sobs that shook her. Sleep and warm milk wouldn’t help her tonight. Nothing would. There was no cure for a broken heart.
…
Michael sat in a chair before the hearth of his study, a decanter of scotch beside him. He raised the crystal decanter and filled his glass to the brim. He was well on his way to becoming drunk.
God, he hated what he’d done tonight. The wounded look in Chloe’s blue eyes would haunt him all his days. He reached for the glass, took a swallow, and watched the fire in the grate.
He didn’t have a choice. One glimpse of that dammed letter had sent him back in time to the battlefield. Only Chloe’s cry of pain had returned him to his senses. But by then, it was too late. She’d been hurt. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t delivered the blow. Her injury was a direct result of his actions.
It could have been worse. Much worse. His fingers curled around the glass. He should have dragged Henry from the library, out of Huntingdon’s house, and explained everything. Michael owed it to him, owed it to Henry’s father.
Henry had been right. He had no honor.
Michael threw his head back and downed the remaining contents in one swallow. The letter sat upon his desk. He dared a glimpse at it, and to his surprise his stomach didn’t sink. Instead, he envisioned Chloe on the desk, her passionate cries as she experienced pleasure. Memories of her were everywhere in this room. They’d made love on the carpet before the hearth. They’d talked—first about his past and then about hers. His maps, his history books, his globe…even that damned letter on the desk didn’t bother him now. Rather, he was filled with her presence.
He refilled his glass. No sense wanting what he could never have.
He cared for her too much to damn her to a life of hell. Only a selfish bastard could doom a woman like Chloe to a life of misery. If she was hurt tonight, then she risked far greater injury when he suffered another fit.
And he would.
It was as inevitable as the lowering of the sun each evening.
She should be happy, not constantly worried about him. For the first time, he’d done the right thing. The honorable thing.
Then why did it hurt so much?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chloe woke feeling miserable. Her mind burned with the memory of Michael’s kiss. Then, with a shiver of vivid recollection, the erotic images changed and she pictured Henry’s stricken face as he’d walked into the library. She rose twice in the middle of the night to pace her bedchamber, then lie back down, only to have her mind return to its tortured thinking.
She pushed aside the coverlet and sat up in bed. There was only one place she wanted to be today. Only one person whose smile could always fill her with joy.
Chloe summoned her maid and dressed quickly. It wasn’t her day to visit the orphanage, but she needed to visit Emily. A short carriage ride later, she arrived at the orphanage.
Her knock was answered quickly by a young girl, and Chloe hurried inside. The halls of the orphanage were empty, and she knew the children would be outside playing and she’d have time alone with Emily. Chloe entered the room that housed the younger girls and halted. A portly man was bent over Emily’s bed, and he held a stethoscope to the child’s chest. A medicine bag was open and rested on a nearby chair.
Chloe frowned. From what Mrs. Porter had told her, the orphanage physician would not visit Emily again until next week.
The man lowered the stethoscope and turned to Chloe. Blue eyes beneath bushy eyebrows and a slightly protruding brow met her gaze. Chloe was surprised to recognize Dr. Graves, the physician who had been at the duke’s residence.
“Dr. Graves?” Chloe said as she approached the bed.
He lowered his stethoscope. “Ah, yes. You’re the young lady I met at the Duke of Cameron’s home. Miss Somerton, is it?”
Chloe nodded then glanced at the bed to see Emily’s beaming face. “Miss Chloe! Have you come to read to me today?”
“Yes, sweetheart. Please pardon us, Emily, as I’d like a word with the doctor.”
Dr. Graves closed his bag and followed her into the hall outside the room.
“Are you the new orphanage physician, sir?” Chloe asked.
“No, miss. I was sent to treat Miss Emily and offer a second opinion on her condition.”
Chloe didn’t think the orphanage could afford the services of another doctor, and neither Mrs. Porter nor Mr. Whitleson had mentioned they would hire another physician. Was Dr. Graves providing charitable services for free? Or was Michael somehow involved? She regarded the doctor with somber curiosity as the question intrigued her.
“Are you a friend or distant family of the child?” he asked her.
Chloe nodded. “A close friend. I have grown quite attached to young Emily. What can you tell me about her condition?”
“Today was my first visit with her and, although it is too soon for a complete diagnosis, I believe the tonic the orphanage doctor has been treating her with is contributing to her decline. I recommend they cease the tonic and give her my medicine instead. She also needs to get outside. Being cooped up inside this old building is not conducive to anyone’s good health, let alone a sickly child. I understand physical activity causes her shortness of breath, but I do believe fresh air will do her lungs wonders.”