Page 13 of Duke in Darkness

His valet jerked in surprise, then smiled. “You’re awake! You must be famished, I can arrange for the kitchens to send up a tray, or if you prefer downstairs, whatever you wish can be made. Bacon, kippers, rare beef, coddled eggs, toast and preserves—”

“I didn’t ask for a goddamned menu. I want an explanation.”

Hobbs visibly braced himself. “Your foot. Don’t you remember?”

“I remember brandy and balm. Not laudanum.”

“Ah.”

“Yes, bloody ah,” Gabriel snapped. He hated laudanum, the way it wrenched away control and sucked him down into an abyss, as well as the lingering aftereffects.

“I had no choice, sir. It was a bad attack. You were in so much pain. The brandy wasn’t even taking the edge off, and the balm takes time to seep in and work.”

Gabriel glared at Hobbs as he swung his feet onto the floor and gingerly put a little weight on them. Naturally, the day after his nuptials, the vicious, clawing cramps, and debilitating pain had abated to nothing more than the usual scar tenderness. “Drugged on my goddamned wedding night!”

“You couldn’t even walk by yourself,” retorted the older man as he continued to brush a jacket sleeve. “On the bed you were curled in half, shaking, your entire body drenched in sweat. Not even you could have bedded a woman in that condition.”

“Lilian…”

“Her Grace knocked on the connecting door about midnight. I tried to dissuade her from coming in, but she insisted. Unfortunately, she saw you unconscious, smelled the spilled brandy, and, ah, drew her own conclusions. The duchess left before I could explain about your foot or the laudanum.”

Gabriel groaned as he stumbled over to a basin of fresh and blessedly cool water. “My wife thinks…I’m a wedding day drunkard. Christ.”

“Humblest apologies, sir.”

“But you’d do the same again.”

“Every time,” said Hobbs grimly. “And you know why.”

Sighing heavily, Gabriel peered into the small mirror over the basin and tried not to wince at his drawn features and bloodshot eyes. Indeed, he did know why. Years ago, when he’d been a captain and first permitted a batman paid for by the British Army, he’d plucked the enlisted Hobbs from otherwise extremely harsh conditions, and offered a far better post. His impulsive choice of an older man, weathered, stoic, and possessing a wide range of useful skills had proved to be inspired. Hobbs had been steadfast from the first, although that loyalty had turned into something akin to worship after Gabriel had saved his life, fighting off several persistent French soldiers, then shoving him up over the bank that had been the difference between freedom and capture at Bayonne. “Yes. I know.”

“You require more than a sponge bath. I’ll have a copper tub brought up. There is time, Her Grace has not yet left her chamber.”

“Very well, Nanny,” Gabriel agreed, as he had a rather pungent air about him. Sweat and spilled brandy would never be a seductive mix, definitely not the combination to attempt an apology to a wife probably thinking the worst of him right now.

Hobbs grinned like a choirboy and marched over to the door. “Did you want a tray sent up?”

“I think so. Nothing heavy. Actually, send up breakfast for two.”

“At once, Your Grace.”

When bathed, shaved, and dressed, he almost felt human again. Armed with the peace offering of an ingenious wheeled breakfast trolley boasting hot tea and lemon, a pot of chocolate, toasted bread and butter, berry preserves, raisin pastries, coddled eggs, and thin slices of ham, he knocked once on the connecting door and entered his wife’s bedchamber. Lilian wasn’t still abed as he’d assumed, but curled up on the cushioned window seat with an embroidery frame. Her hair was in its usual tight braided coil, and she wore a simple pink gown, plain, high-necked and with sleeves to her elbows.

“Good morning,” Gabriel said hesitantly. “I come bearing breakfast. Have you eaten?”

Lilian shook her head, her expression politely blank. “No. Not yet. I wasn’t sure what you wished me to do in the mornings. I can make myself very scarce.”

He winced. “About last night…”

“There is no need to explain, Exton. You are the duke. I will of course honor and obey, as vowed.”

Hell. Much worse than he’d thought.

Positioning the trolley between the two chairs in front of her bedchamber fireplace, he settled into the right hand one so she wouldn’t have to look at his facial scar. “Join me.”

His wife nodded and walked over, but her face could have been a mask. “Goodness me. What a nice little bounty.”

“I don’t know…what you enjoy for breakfast. So I asked for several choices.”