It Only Takes a Kiss

Book 2: Once Upon a Bride

by Wilma Counts

Genres: Historical Fiction; Regency Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

Best friends since their schooldays, Henrietta, Harriet, and Hero are wise and witty young ladies, embarking on the sometimes bumpy road to happily-ever-after, each in her own brilliant way . . . Hero Whitby has harbored long-buried fears since a devastating attack by two young men of the privileged class. Now, while her peers aspire to husband-hunting, Hero pursues her passion to be a doctor, working alongside her father, a respected Devonshire physician. But when a badly beaten stranger is carried in to his practice, Hero is stunned by her reaction. Over three days of tending to the man, along with her instinct to heal, she finds herself intensely drawn to him . . . Robbed and left for dead for highwaymen, Alexander Sterne has no memory of his past as a soldier in Wellington’s army—or as a carousing playboy. But as he becomes aware of his surroundings and the plight of the locals, Alex realizes only he can break the corrupt hold of an evil land steward. And when Hero’s tender kiss awakens him from sleep—and restores his identity—he knows that he must regain not only his strength but a newfound compassion . . . which can only be ignited by Hero and a meeting of hearts that may heal them both . . .

Release date: October 16, 2018

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 233

Sample

Prologue

The Duchess of Thornleigh was worried about one of her sons—she had three, as well as two daughters, and she worried about all of them from time to time, but she had convinced herself that this time her concern was more than justified. Never one to suffer in silence, she unloaded her worries on her husband.

“I vow, Alfred, ever since his return from the Continent, Alex has seemed out of sorts,” she said as she swept from her dressing room into the master bedchamber of Thornleigh House, the duke’s London residence. She sank onto a couch beside the duke, who had been calmly reading a travel book as he waited for her. She had not bothered to tie the sashes of a maroon silk robe that she wore over a pink nightgown, also silk.

Her husband was not at all surprised that his energetic wife had started in the middle of a conversation. “What is it this time?” He put his book aside and draped an arm over her shoulder.

“No one thing in particular,” she said with a sigh. “It is just that I often catch him sort of staring into space. He is out every night. He is gambling too much and drinking too much. And there are women too. Not a woman. Women—plural, and of a certain sort. I know I am not supposed to know these things, but they are common knowledge below stairs—”

“The man is thirty years old,” her husband admonished. “He is entitled to live as he pleases.”

“He is thirty-one,” she corrected. “But the point is, he is behaving as he did when he was a twenty-year-old.”

“Well, not exactly as he did then, but—”

She rushed on. “And I have it on good authority that he rides that black beast of his like a madman, returning it to the stables in a high degree of lather.”

“Now, now, my dear.” He squeezed her shoulder. “You must not put yourself into a lather too. Our son returned to us. Wellington lost thousands at Waterloo, you know.”

“I do know. And my heart grieves for those other mothers. But Baxter tells me—”

“Servants’ gossip, my love,” he chided.

She waved a dismissive hand. “Baxter tells me the servants talk about terrible nightmares in which he seems to relive horrifying scenes of battle.”

“I know. Jasper told me.”

“And you accuse me of listening to servants?” She reached to brush a lock of silvery gray hair off his brow. “Your valet and my maid are caring people. Besides, they have known Alex since he was in short coats.”

“I know, my dear. I am worried about him too. He needs purpose—something to absorb all that pent-up energy. I can hardly buy him another commission, can I? Or threaten to cut off his allowance—when his income exceeds anything I might give him.”

“If my brother were not already dead, I should be sorely tempted to kill him for making Alex his heir,” she muttered.

“Alex needs to take more interest in his inheritance.”

“He needs a wife,” she said vehemently, “but he refuses most invitations to affairs of polite society where he might meet eligible ladies. Instead, he prefers to spend much of his time at his club with other returned soldiers.”

“I will speak to him—again. But he has been home only a few months. Ten years and more is a long time to be away.”

“He was never like this when he had occasional leaves during those years. Then, he had changed a little—matured—but not truly changed. Not like this.”

“He always knew he was going back to it. He is not going back this time.”

“Thank goodness.”

“The point is, my love, he needs time to work into this new life.”

“Alfred! He has had seven months already.”

He kissed her cheek. “Stop fretting, Elizabeth. I will speak to him. But he is his own man now. There is not much more I can do. I keep hoping he will turn his attention to that neglected property in Cornwall, but…” His voice trailed off, then brightened. “Now—let’s talk about something else—like our trip.”

She laid her head on his shoulder. “I am not even sure we should go—not with Alex in such straits.”

He gave her a shake. “Oh, no, my dear! You are not changing your mind at this late date! You have nagged at me for years about wanting to see Rome and Florence and go the opera at La Scala. Now that the Corsican monster is firmly ensconced on St. Helena, we are going. Period. End of discussion.”

“I do not nag. But Alex—”

“Is a big boy. He can take care of himself. He has managed to do so for over a decade with little help from us. But—just in case—I have asked Finneston to look in on him now and then.” The Marquis of Finneston was the duke’s heir, and Alex’s older brother.

He pulled her close and said, “When we get to Florence, I don’t want you to go comparing my attributes to those of Michelangelo’s David. Remember, David was a young man in his prime.”

She snuggled even closer. “I’ve no quarrel with your ‘attributes,’ my darling.”

Chapter 1

May 1816

The persistent pounding finally filtered through the fog of sleep. No, it was not a ship’s carpenter pounding on the deck of a pirate’s galleon—though just why Miss Hero Whitby, daughter of a country doctor, would ever be a captive on a pirate ship, watching a handsome pirate captain swashbuckle his way through formidable enemies, was quite beyond her. Must have been something in her younger brother’s last missive from school. Jonathan had always loved pirate stories. Either that, or the letter she’d received recently from Lady Henrietta Parker—no, Lady Bodwyn now.

Hero smiled at recalling how her friend Retta sang the praises of her new husband and of the married state in general. She was amused because the so-called “Three H’s” at Miss Pringle’s school—Henrietta, Harriet, and Hero—had long considered themselves firmly “on the shelf.” Such romantic effusions were distinctly out of character for any of the H’s. Hero knew that a woman in her midtwenties was expected to be dismayed by her unmarried state, but it was a fact of her own life that Hero regretted not at all, handsome pirate captains notwithstanding.

Reluctantly giving up the comfort of dreamland and pleasant musings, she tossed aside the covers and forced herself fully awake.

“I’m coming,” she muttered, pulling an old woolen robe over her flannel nightgown, her feet seeking fleece-lined slippers. She turned up the wick on the oil lamp next to her bed and glanced at the clock. Five o’clock in the morning! She carried the lamp into the hall, where she heard her father’s door open.

“I’ll see to it, Papa. You need your rest—and stay off that gouty foot.”

“Hmpf!” he grunted in response. “’Twas not I who spent all day and much of the evening yesterday seeing Mrs. Humphrey through the birth of her seventh child—or was it the eighth?”

“Her eighth—another boy,” Hero called over her shoulder as she started down the stairs.

“Don’t know why that woman can’t figure out where all those babies come from,” Dr. Whitby growled in an undertone, then raised his voice to call, “I’ll be there shortly.”

The knocking was louder as she reached the entrance hall; it was now accompanied by a gruff male voice yelling, “Hey, Doc!”

Stewart, the Whitbys’ handyman who served variously as butler, gardener, and coachman, was already opening the door.

“Need the doc,” the voice said.

“What is it, Mr. Jacobs?” Hero asked. She had recognized him immediately as a local fisherman.

“Got a man hurt bad, Miss Hero. Me ʼn’ my boy was jus’ going to the boat ʼn’ we saw him a-layin’ on the side o’ the road. Got him in the back of the wagon.”

“But he is alive?” she asked.

“Oh, ya. Moanin’ like the devil he is, but don’t say nothin’ that makes sense.”

“Stewart, get the litter and help Mr. Jacobs and his son bring the man into the surgery. I will meet you there.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Before going to the surgery herself, she approached the door of Mrs. Hutchins, who had a bed-sitting room on the ground floor just off the kitchen in the rear of the building. Mrs. Hutchins had served the Whitby family as housekeeper and cook since before Hero was born. The door opened even as Hero raised her hand to knock. Mrs. Hutchins, several inches shorter than Hero and some four stone heavier, was tying the sash of her robe.

“I heard the commotion, Miss Hero. I’ll get hot water goin’ right away. Should still be some warm in the tank on the cooker.”

Hero hurried to the surgery, saying a brief prayer of thanksgiving that a decade earlier, when her father had built his new surgery, he had also seen fit to install a fancy cast-iron cooker to replace the old-fashioned kitchen fireplace. Arriving at the surgery, she lighted a spill from the lamp she carried and lit the side lamps in the surgery and one hanging directly over a long rectangular table in the middle of the room. As she had on many previous occasions, she fleetingly marveled at the medical facility her father had designed for the community he served: Besides the surgical room, there was a room with two beds, an office, and an examination room for run-of-the-mill illnesses and mishaps. Visiting medical colleagues never failed to show approval—and envy—of the facility, however much they may have been surprised at finding Dr. Whitby had a female assistant.

She lit the fire in the fireplace, then exchanged her wool robe for a lighter, apron-like garment that would allow freer movement. As she checked to see that everything was in order, she heard the three men grunting and muttering with their burden. The two Jacobs men lifted the litter even with the table as Stewart and Hero maneuvered the patient onto the table. He groaned and flailed his hands feebly, but he did not really fight them. Finally, he was in position to be examined.

“He’s a big ʼun,” the elder Jacobs man said. “Don’t know how long he musta laid there in the cold afore we come along.”

“Pa ʼn’ me think robbers spooked his horse ʼn’ made off with it ʼn’ any valuables,” said the son, a broad-shouldered lad in his late teens.

“But they musta been interrupted,” his father noted. “Didn’t have time ta git his boots.”

Hero glanced briefly at the man’s boots—shiny and black—but concentrated her attention on the rest of him. Mr. Jacobs was right: He was a big man. Hero estimated more than six feet and maybe thirteen or fourteen stone. Dark brown hair, matted with blood above one ear. Streaks of blood on his face, smeared where he had apparently swiped his face with his arm. A torn white linen shirt showing splotches of dirt and bloodstains, especially on one sleeve. No coat, which might have held a wallet and some means of identification. Well-fitted buckskin pantaloons. The pantaloons. Something wrong there. Blood had stained through the leather and there was a sharp angle in the right thigh just above the knee. Good God! Bone. She’d seen broken legs before, but not like this. She ran her hands along a firm torso. He flinched at her touch and moaned anew.

“Broken ribs. Get his clothes off,” she ordered.

“But, miss—” the older Jacobs man protested.

“Do as she says,” her father said, limping into the room with his cane and taking in the situation at a glance.

“Do it carefully,” Hero said. “Mrs. Hutchins will have a fit if we totally destroy his clothing.”

Her father supervised the disrobing, ensuring that Stewart cut the garments along the seams, as Hero turned her attention to the man’s head wound. As usual, the head injury had bled profusely, but there was only a small laceration and a bump the size of large egg above his left ear. She ruthlessly destroyed the handiwork of some stylish hairdresser or valet and cut away the hair around the wound, which she then washed thoroughly. She also wiped away the streaks of blood on his face, glad to see no fresh flow of blood. “Hmm. Not too bad, I think. Do have a look, Papa.”

Her father limped the few steps to where she stood. “He could have a concussion. No telling how long he’s been unconscious. Just put a loose bandage on that, then help me see to his leg. It’s a bad break and if gangrene sets in, he will lose the leg.”

“We’ll jus’ be goin’ now,” the elder fisherman said. “Gotta catch the tide just right, ye know.”

“Of course,” Hero said, tying the ends of the bandage around the patient’s head. “He will be all right now. You likely saved his life.”

“We’ll check back wit’ ye later.”

The Jacobs men left and Hero immediately mentally kicked herself for letting them go. The leg had not been set yet.

The man was naked now except for a towel Dr. Whitby had thrown across his groin. Hero smiled to herself. It was not as though she had never seen a naked man before, but her father always tried to be protective of his daughter’s modesty.

“He looks to be in good physical shape,” Dr. Whitby said, “in spite of all these scars.” He pointed at a scar on the man’s side that ran to his back and a long scar on the thigh of the leg that had not been broken. Hero noted two others on his face, one from his nose to his left jaw and another that slashed through the outer edge of his right eyebrow, but she also noted that neither of these diminished his looks appreciably. His face and neck, as well as his hands—though bloodied—were deeply tanned; his torso from the neck down slightly less so. She could not help noticing that, cleaned up, this would be one very attractive man.

“I would say our sleeping giant either is or has been a soldier,” her father continued. “Come look at this leg, Hero. You will have some needlework to do here.”

Hero looked and was dismayed to see that her father was right. She hated sewing pieces of human flesh back together, though the Good Lord knew she had done so often enough. A jagged section of the man’s femur jutted from a six-inch slash above his right knee.

“You will need to clean that out thoroughly,” her father said. “See that there are no small bits floating about to cause infection.”

“Yes, Papa,” she said patiently.

“Sorry, my dear. I sometimes forget that you know as much as I do by now.”

“I sincerely doubt that, Papa, but I do remember how to clean a wound.”

“Stewart, you help her set the leg. There should be some boards and strips of cloth for a splint in the closet.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mrs. Hutchins and a maid shuffled in carrying buckets of hot water.

The maid Dorcas—Mrs. Hutchins’s pretty sixteen-year-old niece—stared at the body on the table. She emitted a long sigh. “That there is a real good-lookin’ feller.”

“Never you mind, missy,” her aunt said. “You just set them buckets down and get on back to the kitchen. Refill that tank and then you get started on the bread. It ain’t gonna make itself.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Dorcas backed out of the room slowly, keeping her eyes on the supine figure on the table. Mrs. Hutchins made a shushing noise and waved the girl on her way.

With the help of her father and Stewart—and silently glad the patient was still unconscious—Hero carefully placed several strips of cloth and a flat length of wood under his injured leg. These would form the basis of the splint to keep the broken bone in place.

Stewart had brought in a stool for Dr. Whitby, who watched with great interest while Hero cleaned the surface of the wound and began probing for bits of shattered bone, which could cause problems later. The patient groaned and flinched from time to time. Stewart stood at the head of the table, ready to grab the man’s shoulders if necessary to keep him in place as Hero worked. It was yet another task the handyman performed occasionally. Dr. Whitby, acting as his daughter’s assistant, kept mopping the fresh blood away. In recent years, that had been more and more the way of things. Whereas Hero had once been his apprentice in all but name, the roles had been reversed as her father’s stamina had weakened and he now experienced occasional tremors in his once steady-as-a-rock hands.

“I think that’s it.” Hero stood back for a moment while her father mopped at the slowing trickle of blood. “Now, to set this bone. Mrs. Hutchins, if you will hold his shoulders down to keep him from thrashing about, and, Mr. Stewart, if you will take hold of his foot and ankle and pull when I tell you to—”

Hero gripped the patient’s leg around his upper thigh to hold it steady; Stewart gripped his ankle and pulled, and Dr. Whitby guided the bone into place, then held another, shorter, flat length of wood against the inside of the leg as Hero stitched together the edges of the wound on his outer thigh. The patient had groaned and tried to thrash about as they repositioned the bone, but Mrs. Hutchins was a strong woman and prevented undue movement. The final step was to bandage the wound, then place a third length of wood along the outside of the leg and tie the strips of cloth that would hold the splint in place.

Hero stepped away from the table slightly and arched her back. “What time is it?”

Her father extracted his watch from a pocket. “Almost nine.”

“Oh, dear. And we’ve still his ribs to see to. Papa, why don’t you go and get your foot elevated?” The fact that he offered no protest told her volumes about his degree of pain and lack of stamina.

She ran her hands along the injured man’s rib cage—bare, this time. His skin was warm—not feverish yet, just warm. As she leaned close, she caught a whiff of cedar and spice. His shaving soap? As she ran her hands over his ribs, she felt and saw some old scars. It occurred to her that if her father’s conjecture was right—and she thought it was—this man had been through more than one campaign. She thought of her brother Michael, two years her senior, still with the British Army of Occupation in Belgium. As a medical man, Michael would not have been directly involved in that awful battle at Waterloo nearly ten months ago, but he would have seen the results firsthand.

She abandoned these musings and turned to the task at hand: binding broken ribs. With the help of Mrs. Hutchins and Mr. Stewart, she managed to get two wide bands of cloth under the man’s rib cage despite his incoherent protests. She then tied them tightly. Stewart wheeled one of the beds in from the adjoining room. That was another of her father’s brilliant innovations: wheels on patient beds. Stewart blocked the wheels with small wedges of wood and, trying to cause the man as little discomfort as possible, the three of them transferred him from the table to the bed and wheeled the bed back to its customary location next door. They also put side rails in place to prevent the patient’s rolling out of bed. The wheels were again blocked, and he was covered with warm blankets. The transfer process had not been easy because of his size and his state of unconsciousness. His mutterings had decreased significantly and Hero thought he might have drifted into real sleep.

“I’ll sit wit’ his lordship while ye get a bit o’ rest,” Mrs. Hutchins announced. The older woman, nominally a servant in the doctor’s household, had years ago taken a motherly interest in her employer’s motherless children.

“‘His lordship’? What makes you think he deserves such an exalted address?”

“Well, he ain’t no fisherman or farmer with that fine linen shirt an’ them boots.”

“You may have a point there,” Hero said, “though he could just as well be a member of the gentry as the aristocracy. However, I’d rather you see to breakfast—late as it is. Stewart, will you watch ‘his lordship’ for a few minutes as I freshen up?”

Twenty minutes later, Hero had hurriedly changed into a comfortable day dress and serviceable shoes and rebraided her hair, arranging the braids in a crown on top of her head. She also grabbed a bit of breakfast, choosing to sit at one end of the kitchen worktable rather than sit alone in the dining room, when Mrs. Hutchins told her that her father had already broken his fast and gone about whatever business called him today. Hero always loved the warmth and the spicy smell of the kitchen.

Taking with her a bucket of hot water, she reported back to the hospital rooms, where she found not Mr. Stewart, but her father sitting on a chair beside the patient’s bed. She sighed. She should have known.

“How is he?” she asked, setting down her steaming bucket and reaching to feel the pulse at the base of his neck.

“Quiet. Getting a bit feverish, though. Have to watch that.”

“Mrs. Hutchins is calling him ‘his lordship’ until we have a real name for him.”

“Is she now? We could use someone of that rank in this area. Someone to put Willard Teague and his bully boys from the docks of Bristol in their place.”

“I know, Papa. But you know as well as I do that the only person who could wield such authority is the absentee owner of the Abbey. Ever since Sir Benjamin died—”

“Now, now, daughter. Don’t you be working yourself into a tizzy over that man’s absence,” her father cautioned mildly.

“I won’t,” she promised, idly fussing with the bedding covering their patient, “but it is such a shame. That whole estate—the farms, the mine—people are really hurting. Our neighbors! Diana says their roof needs repair. The roof, Papa! He’s responsible.”

“Never mind, my dear. Your sister knows well enough she and her family need never go without a roof over their heads.”

“Papa, that is not the point and you know it. Sir Benjamin has been dead for what?—eight years now—and the biggest landholding in the area continues to go downhill. Tenant farmers like Diana’s Milton and those miners—they are all victims of an owner who puts none of his gains back into his holdings. How on earth could anyone with a shred of conscience allow people to suffer so?”

“No tizzy, remember?” His voice softened. “Of course you are right. But we cannot do much about Weyburn Abbey if the current owner continues to ignore it.” He pointed at their patient. “Best stick to what we can do—like see to this poor fellow.” He rose and hobbled on his cane to the door. “Keep an eye on him. Let me know if his temperature rises.”

Hero placed a hand on the patient’s forehead. “Not bad at the moment. And, Papa, you should be in the drawing room with your foot elevated!”

“I’ll go as soon as I see to Jupiter. Perkins says that gash above his left foreleg is not healing well and Jupiter will not allow anyone in the stable to touch it.”

“You be careful now,” she said automatically. She worried about her father’s doing too much, but she hadn’t the heart—let alone the authority—to force her stubborn parent to slow down. Maybe when Michael comes home, she mused.

She poured clean water into a bowl, dipped a clean cloth into it, and, parting the patient’s lips, dribbled a bit of liquid into his mouth. She was pleased to see his throat move as he swallowed.

“We must see that you get enough water,” she said to the inert figure.

Leaving open the door between the surgery and the room where he lay, Hero set about putting the surgery back in order. Mr. Stewart had already swept the floor and restored the litter to its proper place, upright in a corner. She washed the instruments they had used and the surgical table, then placed a clean sheet on it, noting that Mr. Stewart had already taken the soiled one, along with the patient’s clothing, out to the washhouse.

She looked around for something else to do, but all seemed. . .