Blame It on the Duke(95)
“I wasn’t going to leave you when you might die, Nick. How could I leave and spend six months on the ocean wondering if you were alive or dead?”
“But you won’t be able to give the scholars your missing chapters of the Kama Sutra. They’ll be waiting and no one will arrive. I never wanted to come between you and your dreams, Alice.”
“I know that, Nick. You’ve encouraged my dreams at every turn. Outfitting my study. Finding me a tutor.”
Nick shook his head. “You should have gone. You can’t abandon your dreams for me.”
“I should have listened to you. You had a very good reason not to go to the asylum. I blindly forged ahead without thinking that you might have a legitimate reason. I should never have forced you to go.”
“You didn’t force me to do anything. I made the choice. And you have to find another ship. Is there another in your father’s fleet that will be leaving this month? You’ve worked so hard on this, Alice. I won’t let you give everything up for my sake.”
“You want me to leave?”
“Of course I do. You must follow your dreams to India.”
Dr. Forster arrived. “Awake, are we?”
“And obstinate as ever,” Alice said.
She dropped his hand and rose from the bed.
Nick heard the hurt in her voice and he didn’t know how to make anything better.
She was fearless and unconventional and she wasn’t his to keep.
She was something of the wind that blew through his life and lifted the dust from his heart. He could never be the one to destroy her dreams.
“Good to see you in the land of the living,” Captain Lear said, shaking Nick’s hand. “Scared us there for a moment, Hatherly.”
“Lear, I upset Alice. She left in a huff.”
“What did you do, you fool?”
“She missed her ship to India. And I told her she should find another one. That she should leave and she became agitated.”
“Of course she did. The lady loves you. She said so while you were sleeping.”
“I know, and that’s terrible.”
“Is it?”
“I’ve hurt a young, innocent lady, and my dark, scarred heart is bleeding. I have to find some way to make this better.”
She’d said she was the one lady in the world who was immune to his charm and he’d believed her because he’d wanted to believe her, and because she had a convincing way of saying things, as though she were the authority on the topic.
He’d known she was inexperienced and easily hurt. He’d wanted to believe that she had shed her inhibitions so easily and entered freely and mindfully into a mutually pleasurable physical relationship with convenient time restraints.
What was it about her that made him want to be a better man?
He’d never had a twinge of conscience. Not once in all these years of debauchery. This was his destiny and he was merely fulfilling what was prescribed for him by his father and grandfather.
If this experience showed her nothing, hadn’t it shown her that he was unstable?
“I need to ask you something,” Nick said.
“You want me to take Lady Hatherly to India.”
“How did you know?”
“She missed her ship. And I know how much it means to her to go. And I also know how much you love her.”
“I don’t—”
He was going to deny it. And then he shut his mouth.
“Uh-huh. That’s what I thought,” Lear said with a smug smile.
“How did you become so all-knowing?”
“Always wanted to see India. Long passage around the Cape of Good Hope, though. Five, six months. Of course, it will give you time for that honeymoon you never properly had.”
“I’m not going. I can’t leave the duke, you know that.”
“Uh-huh,” Lear said skeptically. “Well, if I’m outfitting one of my ships for India, I’d best be going to make the preparations.”
“She’ll bring her cat with her.”
“That’s fine. I need a new ship’s cat. Mrs. Peebles perished, sadly, when she slept in the wrong barrel.”
“Kali will be an excellent ship’s cat; she loves to hunt mice and she’s not afraid of anything. When can you be ready? I’ll pay all costs, of course. She needs to be in Calcutta by December.”
“Two days. Do you want to tell her, or should I?”
“I’ll tell her,” Nick said.
Lear nodded and left.
I’ll tell her, Nick thought, and I won’t shout: Don’t go to India.
Even having that thought seemed sacrilegious. This was Alice’s goal. All her hard work and scholarship would be for naught if she didn’t follow her heart to India.