The Duke's Men [1] What the Duke Desires (32 page)

He shot Maximilian an apologetic glance. “I really thought I’d have a chance to speak
to you, or I wouldn’t have been so secretive in the letter. But the damned officer
got spooked when he saw soldiers and insisted that I return with him at once, since
we’d already waited a while for you.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” Maximilian’s eyes were fixed on the man in the bed. “I was out
when your message came. But I remembered your connection to Manton and went to his
lodgings. Manton wasn’t there, but Miss Bonnaud was, and she eventually figured it
out.”

No point in revealing how—or the fact that they’d spent the last several days alone
together.

Victor began another fit of coughing, and Maximilian tensed. Lisette tucked her hand
in the crook of his arm. “Are you all right?”

“No.” Raw fear tightened his throat. “He looks very ill indeed.” He squeezed her hand,
then stepped nearer
the bed. “How long has he been like this?” he asked Dr. Worth.

“He’s been sick for two weeks, Your Grace,” the physician said. “It wasn’t too bad
at first, but then he took a turn for the worse a week ago, and he’s been feverish
and insensible ever since. The next few days are crucial. He’ll either survive it
or die. I’ve seen men of his youth and vigor survive pneumonia with no ill effects
after treatment. And I’ve seen men stronger than him die under the same treatment.
At this point, it’s hard to know which he will do.”

“Is that you, Father?” said “Victor,” fretfully pushing away the doctor’s cup. “Don’t
want any more gruel. Hate gruel.”

Maximilian caught his breath. Gruel had been Mother’s favorite cure for illness. Had
it been Uncle Nigel’s, too, for the boy he’d treated as his son? Or was Victor possibly
even remembering further back, to his childhood illnesses at home?

The man looked as if he
could
be Peter. He seemed the right age, and he faintly resembled Father. Peter had been
blond as a child, whereas Victor’s hair was a medium brown, but Maximilian’s was only
a shade lighter than brown, and he’d been blond as a boy, too.

“What color are his eyes?” Maximilian asked.

When the physician blinked, Maximilian realized that must seem a very odd question.
“They’re hazel,” the doctor said. “Why?”

Peter’s eyes had been hazel.

He gripped Lisette’s hand. Could it be? Or was he
grasping at straws, desperate to have his brother back? “Is there nothing you can
do for him?”

“I’m making sure he drinks saline and sulfur draughts. Some doctors insist on cupping
and bleeding the patient as well, but I’ve never been fond of such a treatment.” The
physician sponged the man’s brow with a damp cloth. “It would help, however, if he
could leave the ship. The air here is too wet for his lungs, and the noise of the
sailors disturbs him. He needs to be in a calm, dry,
quiet
place.”

“You’re sure he doesn’t have cholera?” Maximilian asked.

Dr. Worth snorted. “He’s not vomiting, he’s not voiding his bowels every hour . . .
of course he doesn’t have cholera. I have explained that to the quarantine officers
repeatedly, but they will not act.”

“They will
now
,” Maximilian said grimly, “if I have to bring every damned member of the Privy Council
down to the docks to ensure it.”

The doctor flashed him a tired smile. “Thank you. Lifting the quarantine would do
him a vast deal of good, I think.” As Victor went into another fit of coughing, Dr.
Worth mopped his brow. “I swear I’ll do all in my power to save him, Your Grace.”

“If you succeed,” Maximilian clipped out, “I’ll gain you any medical appointment you
desire.”

The physician said gently, “Whatever happens will be his own choice, I fear, not mine
or even yours. He’ll have to fight it if he wants to live.”

Maximilian nodded, but felt the same helpless
despair come over him that he’d felt during Father’s madness and Mother’s last days
before death. What good was it to be the bloody Duke of Lyons if he couldn’t save
the ones he loved?

Assuming that this man
was
one of the ones he loved.

He turned to Bonnaud. “It’s time we had that talk.”

With a nod, Bonnaud led them from the room and down the passageway to a small cabin.
Apparently it was the one Bonnaud had shared with Victor, for it contained two bunks
fitted one above the other.

Bonnaud dropped wearily onto the lowest bunk and Lisette hurried to sit next to him.
Maximilian understood why, but it made something lurch in his chest to see the two
Bonnaud siblings ranged against him.

It did, however, reinforce how uncanny was the resemblance between brother and sister.
Both had eyes of crystal blue, both had pointed jaws, and both had dark curls, though
Bonnaud’s were cut to just under his chin.

One thing was certain—Bonnaud looked wrung out. He did
not
look like a man engaged in some sort of fraud.

“I suppose you want to see the handkerchief first,” Bonnaud said, reaching under the
bunk for a small trunk.

“No.” Maximilian crossed his arms over his chest. “I want to know why you risked your
very life to return to this country with a man you believed to be Peter Cale. You
and I met only briefly years ago—why go to so
much trouble for me? Because I don’t believe it’s out of the goodness of your heart.”

Though Lisette shot him an injured glance, Bonnaud met his gaze evenly. “It’s not.
I don’t know how much Lisette has told you, but I’m wanted in England for stealing
a horse when I was seventeen. I was hoping that if I could reunite you with your brother,
you would use your influence to get the charge against me dropped.”

Maximilian blinked. He hadn’t expected
that.
And he had to admire the man for not only admitting his crime, but not trying to
excuse it.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Bonnaud went on, “I enjoy my work in France for the Sûreté.
But I miss England.” He took Lisette’s hand in his and squeezed it. When he went on,
his voice was choked. “And I miss my brother and sister. With Lisette and Dom both
here, I have no one. My landlord, Eugène Vidocq, is very good to me, but—”

“He’s not family. I understand that.” Especially as someone who’d been left alone
for the past few years, with no one to share his pain and grief.

Until Lisette had come along. “I assure you, Bonnaud, if Victor Cale proves to be
my brother, I’ll do everything in my power to restore you to England and your family.
It’s the least I can do.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Bonnaud said as Lisette cast Maximilian a melting smile that
warmed his heart.

“So how did it begin—your finding Victor?” Maximilian asked.

“I’ve known him off and on for a few years. I never connected him with your family
because I didn’t remember that your surname was Cale. When I met you, everyone referred
to you as Lord Maximilian.”

That had been before the fire, when Maximilian was still only a second son.

“Besides,” Bonnaud went on, “neither Victor nor I talked much about our pasts. To
be honest, I thought he was an orphan. He’d spent some years after the war serving
in Prussia’s standing army, having fought with them against the French at Waterloo.”

“Peter would only have been eighteen then.”

“I think Victor was seventeen when he joined, yes.”

Maximilian mused a moment. “That would probably have been right after my great-uncle
died. The timing fits.” He stared at Bonnaud. “But how did he escape the fire? Who
was the boy killed in the fire if it wasn’t Peter? And if Victor is Peter, why did
he change his name?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know enough details about the fire even to be able to ask
him the right questions, and he won’t talk about it anyway. He says he’ll only tell
his family
about it.”

That roused Maximilian’s suspicions. He needed to be careful here and not let his
desire for this stranger to be Peter take over his good sense. “Tell me how you met
him.”

“A few years ago, I was on a case in Antwerp. I needed an interpreter and I was referred
to Victor, since he speaks several languages and he’d left the army to
work on his own. After he helped me with that case, I used him whenever I needed an
interpreter. Most recently he aided me in tracking down a forger.”

Bonnaud took a long breath. “One night during that investigation, Victor and I went
drinking. He pulled out a handkerchief, and I recognized it as being just like yours—down
to the fancy embroidery. That’s when I remembered that your family name was Cale.”

“Show me the handkerchief,” Maximilian said.

Dragging out his small trunk, Bonnaud removed a folded piece of linen. With shaky
hands, Maximilian took it and held it up to the lantern’s light. It was worn and frayed
and dingy, but the embroidery was still intact, and it was exactly like that on Maximilian’s
handkerchief. He didn’t really need to see the swath of white showing through it.
He’d already felt the thickness of the extra fabric in the middle.

His heart began to pound.

“Well?” Lisette asked softly.

He handed it to her. “It’s Peter’s. At the very least Victor knew him, or knew someone
who knew him.” He stared Bonnaud down. “So when you saw the handkerchief, you told
him what? That it belonged to the heir to a duke?”

“God, no! I’m no fool. Victor’s a decent enough fellow, but he has led a rather rough
existence. Ever since he left the army, he’s been a soldier for pay for whoever hires
him. I thought it wise to be circumspect.”

Relief surged through Maximilian. Now he knew why Vidocq had spoken highly of Bonnaud.

Then something occurred to him. “But you told the doctor who I was.”

Bonnaud rubbed his bleary eyes. “Once Victor worsened and grew delirious, there seemed
no point in keeping this affair secret from Dr. Worth. I didn’t tell him that Victor
might be your brother; I just said he might be related to the Duke of Lyons. Victor
doesn’t even know his own name right now, much less what we are saying. Most of what
he babbles is nonsense. And I had to confide in someone, if only to gain help in getting
off the damned ship.”

That made sense, especially under the circumstances. “Go on then, continue your story.
You were drinking in a tavern, you saw the handkerchief . . .”

“I asked him how he came by it. That put him on his guard. He wanted to know why I
asked, and I told him I’d seen one like it in England. That got him excited. He said
he’d had an English father, who’d died in a fire at Gheel a few months before Waterloo.”

Excitement coursed through Maximilian. It didn’t get much plainer than that. But how
could that bloody investigator have missed that Peter was still alive?
Damn
him! Maximilian had never liked the man, and now he liked him even less.

Bonnaud went on. “He said he’d been told he had no other family, but he’d always wondered
if that was the truth.”

“Told by whom?” Maximilian demanded.

“I don’t know. The minute I started asking questions, he closed up. He asked if I
knew who his family was,
and then
I
closed up. I didn’t think you would want me to reveal too much.”

“You were right,” Maximilian said. “Thank you.”

“So we came to a sort of agreement. I said I’d take him to meet his family, if he
would let me set up the meeting. But I’m sure he already suspects that his family
is of some consequence. He commented on the fact that the embroidery seemed to be
a family crest.”

“Why didn’t you just
write
to the duke with all this information?” Lisette put in.

Bonnaud eyed her askance. “I didn’t even know if Lyons remembered our conversation
all those years ago, and I wasn’t going to take the chance that he might never see
the letter. Besides, Victor was adamant about wanting to meet him, and I—”

“You were hoping for my help with the horse thieving charge,” Maximilian said dryly.

“Exactly. We both thought that coming in person was the best idea.”

Lisette snorted. “Yes, because taking a ship from a city infested with fever is always
a good plan.”

“It wasn’t that bad when we got there,” Bonnaud grumbled. “And anyway, how was I to
know he would get sick? For God’s sake, he was wounded at Waterloo and survived.”
He shook his head. “I can’t believe he got through that only to be laid low by some
damned pneumonia.”

Maximilian sat there a moment, taking in everything Bonnaud had said. “So all you
know for
certain is that Victor’s English father died in a fire in Gheel?”

“And that his surname is Cale, and has been all the time that I’ve known him. He absolutely
refuses to say any more about his family as long as I refuse to tell him any more.”

Maximilian scrubbed his hand over his face. He’d thought to get answers. Instead,
he only had more questions.

The door to the cabin opened, and Dr. Worth thrust his head in. “I need to mix up
more of my draught. Can one of you sit with him?”

Lisette stood. “I will.”

“No, you won’t,” Maximilian put in. “You’re exhausted. I’ll sit with him. It’s too
late to do anything about the quarantine tonight. I’ll deal with it in the morning.”

The physician smiled at Lisette. “If you’d like, Miss, you can rest in my quarters.
I’ve been sleeping in the infirmary anyway—I won’t leave Mr. Cale until the worst
is past.”

“Very well,” she said, “but I’m not going to sleep long. Tristan is obviously too
worn out to do anything more tonight, and Max needs sleep, too, if he’s to be of any
good to us tomorrow.”

“Max?” Bonnaud interjected. “You’re calling the Duke of Lyons
Max
?”

When she blushed, Maximilian said, “Your sister and I have become friends through
the midst of
this. That’s all.” At least until he could convince her to marry him.

Bonnaud’s eyes narrowed, but he merely said, “Then it’s settled. His Grace will get
the quarantine lifted, and Lisette and I will take turns sitting with Victor until
he’s better.”