Page 96 of A Duchess to Fight For
Cook furrowed her brow. “You want to eat dinner here?”
“Yes. I don’t care what you serve me. Bread and butter would be fine. Just put it in front of me in about two hours?”
She nodded and sighed.
He left the kitchen and headed for the front door. “I’ll be gone an hour or maybe a little longer.”
He left the townhouse for St James’s Park. He smiled. His servants must think him bonkers. They knew he was a creature of habit.
Percy ran around the park six times. He found in St James’s Park hard to tally his miles. By the time he looped it back to the starting point, he couldn’t remember if it was the third or fourth time around.
Six miles, most of them in the state where euphoria kicks in. Percy loved that feeling. It felt magical and made him feel so at peace.
*****
Cook ended up making a tasty stew that, as she said, could be heated again if he decided to eat dinner at home another time.
Percy called for another bath and headed upstairs, but not without taking a wine bottle first. He had a puzzle to conquer, and wine might help him conquer it.
He lowered himself into the hot bathtub with a full wine glass in hand. The bottle was within arm’s length. He leaned back. ‘So,’ he began in his head, ‘I strike back when she hurts me. That is well established. How do I change my bad habits so that I don’t do that anymore?’
Percy soaped his body. He ducked under the water to wet his hair then soap that too. With a clean body, he reached for his wine glass and saw it was half full. If he were going to solve this problem, he would have to do better than that. He gulped down the wine and filled the glass to the top.
‘The scales are balanced. I like that. There’s a visual there I can conjure up when needed. How about I don’t open my mouth until I have visualized balanced scales? I like it.’
Percy left the tub, dried off, and took himself and his bottle of wine to bed. He picked up the Shakespeare tome to see if the sonnets were in it. Finding they were, he leaned back against the pillows, picked up his wine, and began to read.
He sighed contentedly and put the book aside. ‘Now what to do about Harold. Do I go to tea every day and stand next to her every night even if he does the same? Would Louisa ask me to leave? Would Harold give up? Would Louisa get mad at me if Harold gave up?
‘Amelia told me to have patience. Does that mean out-waiting him? Harold might not be scared off that easily. I can’t worry about Harold; I need to worry about me.
‘I’ve got to get Cecil and Kent to give me specifics about the negative changes in my behaviour. That’s got to change.’
Percy threw the extra pillow to the other side of the bed and slid down until he was on his back looking up at the fabric of the canopy.
Three days of soul searching went by where Percy faced his flaws and fears. He went over his actions repeatedly. Instead of coming to a solution and brushing aside the problem as if it had been fixed, he reviewed his actions and possible fixes over and over again. He emerged only when he thought himself ready to face the world again.
