Unmasking the Duke's Mistress (Gentlemen of Disrepute #1)(62)

Archie was moaning and tossing and turning within the bed. A faint sheen of sweat was moist upon his brow and his face was pale. Arabella placed a hand over his forehead to feel how hot he was, and found the skin beneath to be surprisingly cool. She peered anxiously into his face.

‘My tummy is sore, Mama,’ Archie moaned.

‘We have sent for the doctor to come and examine you.’

Archie began to cry. ‘I do not want the doctor.’

‘What nonsense is this?’ said Arabella gently. ‘He is a kind old man who will make you better.’

Archie said nothing, just closed his eyes.

There was a knocking at the front door of the cottage and Arabella hurried down to let in the elderly Dr Phipps whom she had known all her life, and indeed who had delivered her into this world as a baby. But when she opened the front door it was not Dr Phipps standing on the step.

‘Mrs Marlbrook?’ The man was as young as Arabella, and had striking blue eyes that held a tinge of green. His hair was muddy blond and he was smiling a very pleasant smile. ‘I am Doctor Roxby, Doctor Phipps retired last year, I am afraid. You sent a message that your son is unwell.’

Arabella invited the young doctor inside. ‘Archie has been complaining of a sore stomach, twice last week and three times this week. The pains are severe enough to keep him bedridden and they seem to be getting worse.’

Arabella and the doctor climbed the narrow spiral staircase of the cottage to reach the bedchambers upstairs.

Doctor Roxby ducked his head to enter the bedchamber that Arabella and Archie shared. ‘Rest assured, ma’am, I will do everything that I can for him.’

The doctor examined Archie carefully while Arabella and her mother looked on. His manner was kind and reassuring. And while he worked he spoke to Archie telling the boy what he was doing and asking Archie questions. Did it hurt when he pressed here? Was this worse? Or better?

‘Is he using the chamber pot regularly, Mrs Marlbrook?’

‘He is.’

‘And eating as normal?’

‘His appetite has been impaired of late.’

‘Nothing that we cannot sort, young man,’ said the doctor, smiling down at Archie.

Arabella and her mother went downstairs with the doctor, leaving Archie to rest.

‘I can find nothing wrong with him, ma’am. Perhaps it is more a problem of his sensibilities. Archie tells me that he has recently started at the village school. Might there have been any associated problems?’

Arabella saw her mother throw her a meaningful look, and thought of the fight that Archie had got into during his first week there.

‘I will look into it, Doctor,’ she said, not wishing to reveal the details of the affair.

Mrs Tatton, who had been standing quietly listening to all that the doctor had to say, stepped forwards. ‘My daughter has been a widow these years past, Doctor, and the boy suffers for the lack of a man’s influence.’ She looked pointedly at Arabella as if to remind her that it was all Dominic’s fault.

Arabella looked away, feeling the sting of guilt at blaming Dominic for a crime of which he was innocent.

‘I will call again in a few days to check upon Archie.’ Doctor Roxby accepted his payment and took his leave of them.

As soon as the door shut Arabella leaned her back upon it.

‘Well, I have never heard of such a thing in all my life,’ said Mrs Tatton.

‘Now that he has said it, I begin to see the signs,’ said Arabella. ‘Archie is better on the days he does not have to go to school. After only one day back there he is ill again. He speaks so very little of it. And never makes mention of the other boys.’ She felt quite sick at the thought that the bullying had continued. ‘Why did he not tell me, Mama?’

‘Maybe he did not wish to cause you worry or perhaps he has been threatened into silence by the bullies.’


How could she not have realised?

‘We can guess the cause of the bullying. You heard what he asked at the dinner table the other week.’ Her mother lowered her voice. ‘Bastard, indeed! You see what he has done to the boy, Arabella? Why could he not have just married you, and been done with it? And then none of this would have happened. But, no, he decides that you are not good enough for him—again—and now we are come to this, with your son lying upstairs afraid to go to school for fear of what the other boys are saying about his parentage.’ Mrs Tatton sat down heavily and placed her trembling hands upon the parlour table.

‘There is no good to be had going down that route, Mama. Let us just deal with this the best we can. Please be kind enough to check upon Archie while I visit the schoolhouse.’ And Arabella left before she could no longer stopper her tongue and the terribleness of the truth burst out, revealing to her mother the whole mess of it.



Dominic’s visit to Madame Boisseron’s shop had convinced him of her innocence. The woman was honest and he believed her assertion that, such was the delicacy and secrets involved in the affairs of her clientele, for her to talk of any of her customers would be to lose her business.

That evening he was sitting alone in his study trying to think of how on earth he was going to trace the man calling himself Smith, when Bentley showed Hunter in.

Hunter sat down in the wing chair on the other side of the desk from Dominic.

Dominic poured his friend a large brandy using the crystal-cut decanter and glasses on the silver tray by the window.