A Promise by Daylight Read online

  Not that she had any intention of throwing herself on Philomena’s mercy again—not when she had done more than was required in securing Millie this position in the first place. But...

  “Is there a problem?” Mr. Harris asked.

  There would be no question now. “No,” she said slowly, refolding the letter and tucking it inside her jacket. “No, not at all.”

  Mr. Harris nodded and led her a short distance away, opening another door. “Here you are, then. These will be your rooms.”

  Her attention shot to the left, toward the direction they’d just come from. Her chamber was just down from His Grace’s rooms. Adjacent to His Grace’s rooms, if she estimated correctly.

  She didn’t like that. Not at all.

  She followed Mr. Harris inside, endeavoring to remain calm. There was no reason not to be calm, really. “Surely there must be accommodations below stairs that I could occupy,” she suggested. A memory snaked in—the reason she’d left service in the first place, and one of the many reasons she’d balked at the idea of returning.

  “His Grace has ordered that you be installed here for his convenience,” Mr. Harris said. “You wouldn’t want to be down there, anyhow. The opportunities are fewer and of a quite different caliber.”

  She managed a halfhearted smile—it wouldn’t do for him to think her completely uninterested in the opportunities he valued so highly—and looked at the wall she almost certainly shared with His Grace’s bedchamber. There was no adjoining door, but a large curio cabinet stretched across half its length and rose at least seven feet.

  “In any case, as I was saying, I’m already seeing signs of improvement, and I expect His Grace’s social calendar to return to full capacity very shortly.” Another grin, this time accompanied by a wink. “Not to put you on the spot, but Sacks and I are counting on you.”

  “Sacks?”

  “His Grace’s valet. And not to worry...I’ve no doubt there’ll be plenty of, shall we say, incentive in it for you, as well.” The footmen returned upstairs with her things—just a small trunk and a bag—and deposited them on the floor in the lavishly furnished dressing room done in three shades of gold and yellow.

  She cast her eye about the room, into the adjacent chamber that included a bed draped in gold damask, and suddenly had trouble breathing.

  “His Grace asked me to discover your fee,” Mr. Harris said now.

  Her fee. Of course. Her mind raced for a figure that might make this all bearable and named an outrageous sum.

  Mr. Harris didn’t bat an eye. “Very good. I shall return with your advance wages.”

  And then she was alone in her new accommodations, with the sounds of the duke’s entertainment filtering through the wall and not a single alternative in all the world.

  She strode to the window. Looked out at Paris with its mishmash of buildings, houses, cobbled streets, wagons, pedestrians, all bathed in a gloomy drizzle. The truth was, she did have an alternative, and she was looking at it now.

  The streets of Paris. Penniless, to make her way alone in a city that would show no mercy. Out there, without any references or money, the only position she would find would be in a brothel.

  In here, on the other hand...

  She looked over her shoulder at the room’s grand furnishings, paintings, statuettes, trinkets. Just one or two of the pieces here would go a long way toward financing her education. Not that she would ever consider stealing from him.

  But he had what she needed—money—and he would pay her an exorbitant wage to attend him. Before she left his service, she would make sure that he wrote Miles Germain a letter of introduction, as well.

  She tightened her hand around the windowsill, looking out at Paris but imagining the Mediterranean’s great cities: Venice, Athens, Constantinople.

  With the duke as a reference, her identity as Miles Germain would be cemented for as long as she could maintain her disguise. She could come and go freely, unaccosted, because all the world would believe she was male.

  Within a few years, armed with knowledge from Malta’s renowned School of Anatomy and Surgery, Miles Germain would be a well-respected surgeon in practice for himself, and nobody—nobody—would ever take that away.

  All she had to do was continue in his employ and make sure he made a full recovery.

  A sudden knock startled her, and she turned quickly from the window to find another of the duke’s servants—a very young man wearing a tidy wig and an expectant expression.

  “Monsieur,” he said with a bow. “Je suis à vous.”

  But she didn’t want him at her disposal! She started forward. “Merci,” she said, “but—”

  “I shall put away your things—” He started toward her trunk and bag.

  “No,” Millie said quickly, hurrying to block his way. “No, that won’t be necessary,” she told him in French. “I shall put them away myself.” The duke had assigned her a valet?

  “I have been placed at your service, monsieur,” the man said firmly. “You have only to tell me what you need. A change of clothes, perhaps...”

  “I don’t need a change of clothes. And I won’t need anyone at my service.”

  Just then, Mr. Harris walked in. “Ah, excellent. Bernet has found you.”

  Already she was imagining the man lifting away her wig to find her shoulder-length hair stuffed inside—damn and blast, she should have cut it completely off—whisking off her shirt and discovering the cloth she’d wound around her breasts beneath her shift to flatten them, and realizing that a maid, not a valet, was the appropriate help.

  “Mr. Harris, I absolutely will not require any assistance. I am perfectly capable of looking after myself. In fact, I’m used to it.”

  “Of course you are,” Harris said, handing her an envelope that doubtless contained the ridiculous sum she had demanded. “But there’s no need, while you’re here. Bernet’s been only too anxious for an upstairs assignment,” he added with a wink. “I’m sure you’d hate to disappoint him.”

  “Perhaps he could look after one of the guests— Attendez!” Bernet was kneeling in front of her trunk with his hands on the latches. She rushed to stop him. “I’ve got half of an apothecary’s shop in there,” she said now. “Very delicate—I shall need to unpack it myself. Truly.”

  That seemed to satisfy him. He inclined his head, stood up and backed away.

  Now she lifted her chin and summoned a tone she’d heard Philomena use often enough to dismiss servants. “That will be all for now.”

  “Très bien,” Bernet said with a bow.

  “You may give me a list of any supplies you’ll need for His Grace’s care,” Harris said now. “Otherwise, you have only to ring if you need anything, and Sacks will let you know if His Grace requires your attendance.”

  The moment they were gone she dropped to her knees in front of the trunk, jerked the lid open, dug through shirts, waistcoats and pairs of breeches and men’s stockings. Yanked out the shifts she should never have kept. And at the very bottom, a tiny box with a pair of dangling silver earrings, and the two colorful scarves she hadn’t been able to part with. She paused, running her hand over their silken texture, letting her fingers play with the bright blue fringe at the ends, remembering that day at Constantinople’s grand bazaar—she, Katherine, Philomena and India.

  The scarves and earrings had been a silly indulgence. She’d never even worn them.

  With the shifts and scarves wadded in her hands, she hurried into the bedchamber, threw back the drapery at the back corner of the bed and stuffed them beneath the mattress.

  It would do until she could find a better place, which she would have to do before the maid came tomorrow morning to make the bed. She returned to the dressing room

  Now what? Would the duke expect her to return to his rooms or wait to be summoned? Would his guests ever leave? And what would happen if they did?

  He would be alone, and bored, and may well seek out more company or an impromptu medical examin
ation.

  She touched the hilt of the smallsword at her hip. What good fortune that a fashionable man wasn’t dressed without one. But if the duke sought her out at night, perhaps finding his way into her rooms while she was abed and not fully dressed...

  That simply could not happen. She would not give up the freedom of her disguise that easily, not even if she had to sleep fully clothed. Still...

  She went to the door and turned the latch. But, of course, he would have a key.

  She spun on her heel. Surveyed the room: one door led out, another led to her new adjoining bedchamber, where there was yet another door she would need to consider.

  Moments later, she dragged a chair over and shoved it against the door that led from the dressing room to the corridor, and then stood back. Tonight, after she’d gone to bed, that might work. But...

  She looked suspiciously at the curio cabinet. Some grand houses had secret passageways, or so she’d heard. Furnishings that were merely false fronts. She inspected the edges of the cabinet, running her finger along the seam where it met the wall, finding no discernible space. Muted laughter drifted from the other side. Was not his bed directly opposite? So there couldn’t possibly be any kind of...

  Of course there could. The entire house could have a network of secret passageways through which His Grace made surprise visits on unsuspecting guests.

  She got another chair, dragged it next to the curio cabinet and climbed up. Reached to the back paneling and tapped—lightly, so she wouldn’t be heard—but could determine nothing. She reached to remove a bronze obstacle but snatched her hand back, seeing now that it was a sculpture of a man with his face buried between a woman’s—

  Ugh. Disgusting.

  Tap-tap-tap. Did the wall sound hollow?

  She moved a benign porcelain horse instead and tried a different section of paneling.

  Tap-tap-tap.

  Behind her, a man cleared his throat.

  She whirled around, losing her balance, grabbing for the cabinet to keep from falling. The duke stood in the doorway to the bedchamber, watching her with amused interest.

  “Please,” he said, holding up his hand. “Do not let me interrupt.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  MR. MILES GERMAIN was apparently debating whether to climb down from the chair.

  Yes, Winston had definitely expected someone older. And someone male, which he had a strong suspicion Mr. Germain was not.

  Apparently he hadn’t asked Philomena enough questions.

  He studied his new medic now—average features, nothing to draw a man’s eye. No hint of breasts. Even lips, plain, straight nose, ordinary rounded chin. Slightly arched brows, thick lashes that weren’t too long, weren’t too short. All of which, set above a modest suit and topped off by an awful bagwig, did little to betray her sex.

  But he’d been a breath away from too many graceful female necks not to have noticed the smooth, curving throat when his new medic had adjusted his sling.

  And there was the matter of Mr. Germain’s ear.

  It was a small ear. Delicate. Dainty, really, with a tiny, almost imperceptible hole in the lobe, which didn’t mean anything—Sir William Jaxbury and his gold hoops were proof of that—but that was no male ear.

  “I once had a cabinet fall,” Mr. Germain said now, as if it were the complete truth. “Toppled to the ground. Very dangerous.” He—almost certainly she—even looked Winston in the eye when she said it.

  Interesting.

  Winston glanced at another chair that had been shoved against the dressing room door in an apparent attempt to keep someone out—that someone, he assumed, being himself. “You’ve also had trouble with doors flying open, I see.”

  “Occasionally.”

  It explained why he’d had to come in through the bedchamber. “Perhaps, to put your mind at ease, you’d like me to call a carpenter.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” A small crease appeared above her upper lip—a lip that, on closer inspection, was a bit too full to appropriately frame the mouth of an average male medic.

  “I want you to feel entirely safe here, Mr. Germain,” he said.

  “I can’t think why I wouldn’t,” she said evenly, finally climbing down from the chair. It was too bad her coat prevented any view of her arse, or his suspicions would certainly be proved.

  “If it’s my guests that concern you, a simple turn of the key will deter any unwanted visitors.”

  “At the moment, Your Grace, my only concern is for your health. I can’t believe standing is good for your condition. I would advise a hasty return to your bed.”

  “I’m hardly an invalid.”

  “Obviously.”

  He’d irritated her. How intriguing. Although now that he was standing here, he wished he weren’t. The gash on his thigh throbbed, and it hurt like the devil to put his weight on that leg, and his back felt as if someone had taken a knife to it.

  “When do you expect we shall depart for Greece?” she asked now.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, and leaned against the doorjamb to take some weight off his left leg. “I’m in no particular hurry. I suppose it will depend partly on your assessment of my fitness for travel.”

  “Mobile as you are, I expect you will be fit very soon,” she said almost immediately.

  He raised a brow. “One might almost think you were anxious to be under way. Are you not enjoying Paris, then? If you like, I could make some suggestions for your entertainment while we’re still here.”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  “Are you sure? There are any number of pleasurable hideaways that should not be missed. I suspect you enjoy a good debauch now and then, isn’t that right, Mr. Germain?”

  That little line appeared again on the left side of her upper lip, and she gave him a look of grave reproof. “I am in the business of staying free from disease, Your Grace.”

  He laughed. “I can think of several ways to do that. One has only to take precautions. Surely a man of your age is well versed in that subject.”

  That line above her lip deepened.

  “I shall have plenty to keep me occupied looking after Your Grace’s health. I understand that Your Grace is extremely fortunate not to have been more seriously injured.”

  He thought of the accident, and a quick, sucking sensation grabbed his chest. “Indeed. Very fortunate.” Thoughts forced their way in—images of the man who’d not been so fortunate, who had died mere feet away from Winston, whose blood had pooled around Winston’s fingers as they both lay on the street.

  Her brows dove. “Is something the matter?”

  “Not at all.” Nothing except the fact that he did not wish to discuss anything about the accident. “Unless you consider that I’ve lost use of my arm, and my shoulder aches like the devil, and I have a number of nasty cuts. Of course, you’ll be able to determine all the facts upon examination.” An examination that, if her manner in his bedchamber were any indication, she would not hesitate to perform.

  And wasn’t that going to be an interesting opportunity.

  “Of course,” she agreed.

  And he couldn’t help himself. He gestured with his good arm toward a chair by the window. “Perhaps you’d like to perform it now?”

  A spark of objection came into her eyes. “I haven’t yet unpacked all of my instruments.”

  “Good God. I should hope you won’t need any instruments to perform a simple examination.”

  “Mmm, yes,” she said doubtfully. “One would hope. But I have no idea what I might find. I shall want my scissors and probe at the ready, and my incision knife, certainly—”

  “Incision knife.”

  She looked at him as though he were a child. “I must be prepared to immediately address whatever I might find. Which is why I shall need to wait for the basic supply of lints, plasters and bandages I asked Harris to send for, in case any kind of procedure is required—and even if it isn’t, as Your Grace’s wounds will almost certa
inly require fresh dressings, if for no other reason than to apply a medicine more appropriate than oil of turpentine.”

  “How very...thorough.”

  “Your Grace, if you were struck by mortar and stone, there’s no telling what manner of grit could have escaped the eye of the surgeon who first attended you. Given your mobility, and the fact that you don’t appear to be feverish at the moment, I’m inclined to think that all is as it should be. But only when I’ve had a chance to see exactly where the stones struck you and precisely what damage occurred shall I be able to fully—”

  “I understand your point, Mr. Germain.” And he’d had more than enough of it. He pushed away from the door frame, and an arrow of pain shot from his shoulder to his left buttock.

  “By all means, let us delay the examination.” He bowed. “Until later, then.”

  * * *

  HIS ENTIRE BODY ached as he returned to his rooms. It was tempting to toss everyone out and go to sleep.

  He eased himself back onto his bed and replied to a ridiculous political assertion Favreau was making, laughed at a joke Perry tossed out from the card table, called to Seville in the other room to inquire whether Linton had arrived in Paris yet.

  “Doctor’s a right young piece of stuff, isn’t he?” Perry said, wandering over from the card table. “You know who’d like him...Kern. Always did enjoy that sort of thing.”

  “If Kern tries to distract my medic, he’ll answer to me.” And he would be very disappointed once he discovered that the protrusion at the front of Mr. Germain’s breeches was just for show. He smiled to himself, thinking of it now.

  His woman doctor may not have any discernible breasts, but she was bloody well hung.

  Just then, Harris came in and leaned close to his ear. “She has been found, Your Grace.”

  The room seemed to fade, and Winston fixed his full attention on Harris. “Where?”

  “A small house at the edge of town.” Harris hesitated. “It is my understanding that there are five children.”