Chapter 4 - GEORGINA—THE MOMENT NO ONE WANTED

Chapter 4

GEORGINA—THE MOMENT NO ONE WANTED

Iled the Duke of Torrance into our modest, yellow home—sunshine-colored paint, matching papered walls adorned every room. Not much else. Many possessions of my proud Wilcox family had been sold to keep creditors away.

The duke stopped at a sun-bleached spot. The window along the stairs had done its damage tattling about portraits that were missing.

Before he asked about it, I pointed him to our parlor to where a sofa and conversational chairs and a pianoforte congregated. “Your Grace, wait in here. I’ll go see if Tavis is ready to see you.”

“Please don’t leave again.” The duke sounded desperate.

Maybe I should’ve allowed his friend to stay. “I’m not going if you’re not going.”

“You have a sense of humor, Miss Wilcox. I like that.”

Before I could curtsy and go check with Katherine and the doctors, I saw movement beneath the blanket thrown over our floral-patterned sofa. Then the dearest, angriest voice sounded. “Is he a bill collector? They come at all hours.”

“Milaya, come out, please,” the duke said. “I don’t wish to be seen talking to furniture. It wouldn’t be the first time my sanity’s been questioned.”

“My name is not Milaya. It’s Lydia.”

“Milaya means ‘sweetheart.’ ” He took off his hat. “Please come.”

“Tell him I’m not his little milaya either if he’s come to take things.”

I stooped near the blanket. “He’s not a bill collector. Come out, Lydia.”

Her little brown face poked out. The five-year-old glanced at him with her solid gray eyes and sniffly nose. “Then he’s not here to buy the business? It’s not for sale. It’s Papa’s. No sale.”

“Fine,” the duke said, “I won’t procure it.”

She came a little closer to him and tapped on his knee. “I said don’t buy it. Leave it for Katherine. She loves it the most.”

“You sure she’ll still love it tomorrow, milaya? I hear it’s a woman’s right to change her mind.” Until now the duke sounded reasonable and polite. These words held a tiny fiery barb.

Katherine might have to explain, but she’d stop confiding in us all when she married Tavis.

He set his hat on the sofa. “Why are you each worried that someone will buy Wilcox Coal?”

“Debt, silly. Our brother-in-law can’t count so well. He spends more than he has. More than we have.”

The little girl confessed all before I could reach her and clap my fingers over her mouth. Giving her the be-quiet eyes, I marched to her. “That’s not polite to say, Lydia.”

“But it’s the truth. And since he mentioned our company, he must know.”

Her wide eyes beamed when the duke nodded.

“I’m aware. I thought this might be a scheme to secure a sympathetic loan.”

The gasp leaving my lips was true.

Shocked that he’d speak so freely, shocked that the outrageous request wouldn’t be beyond Tavis, I stood still beside Lydia. Then I became bold. “But you still came?”

He looked to answer when his gaze turned to the stairs. “You sent for me, Lady Hampton.”

The room suddenly felt hot.

Katherine didn’t say a word, but she returned his greeting with a wordless expression that was part fury and something else.

I braced for her to rail at this stranger, this unknown friend of Tavis’s. Like the sotted fellow who called me gorgeous, Katherine said a lot with her eyes but no words.

“Lady Hampton, I wish I could visit under different circumstances.”

That’s not what his countenance said. It had war painted on his pale cheeks.

I would step in and protect my sister, but she hadn’t moved from her position on the stairs.

“Is he evil?” Lydia came to his shin, looking as if she would kick him. “Just tell me, Katherine.”

“No, child,” my sister said. “Let the Duke of Torrance see to his friend’s dying wish. This way, sir.”

With Lydia following closely, he walked to the base of the stairs. “I came because you asked, Lady Hampton.”

My other sister, Scarlett, ran past Katherine and jumped around the duke.

Seeing she still had on the pair of men’s slippers, black leather with a heel, from her last caper, I hoped the duke didn’t think us all mad.

Yet, since he hadn’t stopped looking at Katherine, I wasn’t sure he noticed anything at all.

Scarlett tugged Lydia away and held her. “Is it true you bet a man a pound that you could scale Saint George’s Chapel?”

“Yes, but I only made it halfway before slipping on a buttress and nearly falling to my death. It’s not something I’m proud of.”

“Because you nearly killed yourself.” My tone sounded surprised, for men brag about stupid things.

“I was upset, Miss Wilcox, because I didn’t win the bet. Then I had to be fetched down by my father. It was awful. He said he taught me better . . . how to be a better climber. I don’t gamble like that anymore.”

“Nearly died. Pity you tempted fate.” Katherine took a step. Her gray gown skirted the treads. She stopped one away from him and looked down on him. “You’d think grown men would know better.”

“Anyone can be a fool or be fooled, Lady Hampton. Introduce me to this Wilcox. I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting Miss Wilcox and Miss Lydia Wilcox.”

“That is Scarlett Wilcox. She’s the third oldest Wilcox.”

Hating her cold tone, I decided to help him. “The duke convinced me to end my run and return.”

“Well, he’s a smooth talker. Quite convincing, I’m sure.” Katherine’s tone would freeze the Thames.

“They’re older than me,” Lydia said as if it weren’t obvious. “If he’s good, let’s get him one of Georgina’s biscuits. They are good. So, he will stay.”

“No,” Katherine said. “He won’t be here that long. I mean, he needs to go see Tavis now. Time is short.”

He dropped his greatcoat. The brass buttons jingled when the wool hit the floor. The duke stretched out his hand to me. “Lead me.”

Katherine looked as if she wanted to spit, but I led the duke up the stairs. The rest followed until we approached the bedchamber.

The door opened and Mr. Adam Carew, the brilliant physician who’d treated our family over the years, stepped out. “Your Grace, a pleasure to see you.”

“You know the Duke of Torrance?” Katherine’s brow rose. “I thought you stayed in Russia.”

The prickly tone made Carew back up. “We went to Inverness Royal Academy, the Eton for mixed-race and West Indies boys.”

“Then you went for more study and trained in medicine.” The duke shook his hand. “Carew, I intend to start science lectures again. I want you to come.”

“Science lectures?” Scarlett started smiling.

Katherine’s scowl deepened. “I thought you’d leave again after this.”

The duke didn’t look at Katherine or answer her. Instead, he focused on the physician. “Is the viscount’s condition as bad as I’ve heard?”

“If you think I’m lying, Jahleel,” Katherine said, her voice sounding hateful, more heated than I’d known, “you can leave.”

And Jahleel was it now?

“What I meant, Lady Hampton, is that I know Mr. Carew is aware of numerous techniques. This diligent man from the colony of Trinidad combines the best of all sciences to treat patients.”

“You are too kind, Your Grace. Lady Hampton asked me to visit for the same reasons.”

“And she wanted an opinion other than the physician Tavis’s family sent.” I folded my arms and looked at the fellow who’d been at this house too many times, often with bad news.

“My conclusion is the same at this point. Lord Hampton will be gone within the hour.”

Lydia started to cry. “Our Tavis gone now too.”

Tears trickled down Scarlett’s face. “He’s a mixed bag, but he was ours. There’s something in that.”

“Remember his laughter,” the duke said. His voice was small and kind and more human than Katherine’s.

She continued to frown, especially when Lydia hugged the duke’s leg.

My throat began to thicken.

No matter how much trouble Tavis had caused us, we did care for him. He made Katherine smile at the darkest point in her life.

“Things have seasons,” I said. “I’ll remember the good, never the bad.”

“Scarlett, Georgina. Take Dr. Carew downstairs with Lydia for sweet biscuits and tea.”

Carew patted Katherine’s elbow. “Since there’s not much to do here and the other physician is inside, I will accompany Miss Wilcox, Miss Scarlett, and Lydia Wilcox to the kitchen.”

“I’ll stay,” I said. “I’ll be with you, Katherine.”

“No, Georgina, go show off your biscuits.” She raised her hand as if to dismiss me. “You make the best ones with ginger and molasses.”

Matchmaking? Tavis was dying and my older sister was trying to act like our mother, setting me up with the honorable physician. But Mama knew her girls and propriety, and she’d not try to fix things with a marriage on the day Tavis would die. “I’ll stay. Scarlett and Lydia can reward our old friend.”

Mr. Carew sighed and bent to the littlest Wilcox. “Yes, I saw you come into the world. I’ve sort of been part of the Wilcox family for a long time. I know when it’s time to go and eat sweets.”

“Don’t talk about me being born. You’re going to make me sound young in front of the duke. He smells nice. He’s my new friend.”

Scarlett took Lydia and led her away, asking Mr. Carew about recording facts about patients.

“Ma’am, you ask a lot of questions,” the physician said with a soft accent that sounded of the ocean and drums.

My younger sister offered him a half smirk. “I’m just getting started, Mr. Carew. I need your thoughts on the system of trusses some men of science think can aid the backbone.”

“Ma’am, I looked at your sketch. It’s fantastical. Even if I thought it had a chance of working, Hampton’s too weak. And I’ll be overruled. The viscount’s father has the physician they want inside treating him. That’s not me.”

His tone had turned to a hurricane, speaking of the prejudice we didn’t want to mention in this house. Tavis’s white family, led by his father, the Duke of Hampton, wanted a white doctor to administer care and perform the certification when the viscount expired. He refused Tavis’s requests for money, which made our brother-in-law desperate. In the end, it was the color of silver, the color of money, which did him in.

Though his parents were so concerned about these color details, not a single one was here. Tavis’s Blackamoor wife and sisters-in-law were the only family who loved the fool enough to be near in the man’s hour of need.

Well, us, and the mysterious duke who kept gazing at Katherine.

She opened the door to the bedchamber.

“Sing something, Georgina,” Katherine said when we all went inside. “Your voice is so pretty. Tavis may hear and feel better.”

I began with a hum and then sang a melody of “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” a hymn by Charles Wesley.

“Love divine, all loves excelling

Joy of Heaven to Earth come down,

Fix in us Thy humble dwelling . . .”

Oh, did we need fixing.

Old Tavis too.

When I opened my eyes, Katherine had taken a seat in the chair beside her husband’s bed. The once active joking man lay still in bandages and piles of blankets.

The doctor counted a pulse.

Poor Katherine took up Tavis’s hand.

The duke, who looked more distressed, stood under the threshold muttering foreign words under his breath.