Page 39 of Married to the Forbidden Duke
“Perhaps.” He returned to his newspaper. “Have you come to see Alice? She is here somewhere.”
“How is the doctor faring?”
Uneven footsteps sounded behind them, and Frederick didn’t look up as Alice herself appeared. “I think I have seen some small improvement,” she said with a smile in her voice. “It ishard to know precisely, but at the very least, the massages have assuaged the pain.”
His aunt beamed, and Frederick did his best not to scowl. After the incident in the carriage—which haunted his dreams and made him awaken hard and aching—she hadn’t allowed him to massage her again, and he wished she would. But they were still making progress, and he wouldn’t fight against what he had once thought would never be possible.
“I’m delighted to hear it,” his aunt chirped. “Come, sit with me and tell me how you’ve been doing these past few days. How was the dinner? I can think of nothing worse than entertaining a room full of stuffy old Lords, especially when they have their heads—”
“Aunt,” Frederick chided gently. “Much as I love you, I think it best if Alice is not influenced by your colorful language on the subject.”
Alice laughed, and he peeked at the dimple on her cheek. That had not been there when they’d first married, he was sure—he would have noticed it. Could it have appeared now she seemed to be eating better?
“Didn’t you say much the same thing, Your Grace?” she asked. “How hypocritical to tell your aunt she cannot say those things.”
“If I recall correctly, I expressed myself somewhat more euphemistically,” he noted wryly. “My aunt has a dreadful habit of delivering the truth with not even the attempt at finesse.”
“Well, why should I coat reality in an unhealthy dose of sugar?” his aunt demanded, and Alice laughed again. It was the most he’d seen her smile or laugh—well,ever. “No amount of sweetness is going to change reality.”
“You may be honest with me, my lady,” Alice smiled.
“Oh, now, we’re family. You must call me Elizabeth.”
“Then you must call me Alice.”
His aunt beamed, and Frederick hid his smile behind his newspaper. He’d always suspected the two ladies would get along like a house on fire—they had the same bluntness, the same opinionated feelings, and they both had suffered in an accident that had left a permanent mark—but to see it unfold before his eyes was a remarkably special thing.
There was hope after all. But there was still more he could do to improve his new wife’s life and make her come around to him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Alice clutched the bedpost of her four-poster bed and stared determinedly at the steaming bathtub Jenny had prepared. Since the doctor and his exercises, she had been steadily getting stronger, and now was the final test.
Could she do this?
She tested pressing her foot against the floor. Toes first, then flattening it. As always, a dull ache resounded through her calf, but she thought it felt a little less potent than it had. And when she rested more of her weight on it, she felt as though it might collapse underneath her.
“Are you all right, my lady?” Jenny called out, wringing her hands.
“More than all right. I think I might be able to do this.”
Jenny nodded, visibly steeling herself. “Very well, my lady.”
Alice sucked in a deep breath and pushed off from the bedpost. Her foot felt clumsy, so rarely used as it was, and with the full press of her weight, her leg threatened to buckle. She made a few uneven steps toward the bath before she finally felt as though she was picking up speed. Falling into a rhythm.
It was not the graceful step of a lady; she would likely never have that. But her stick lay beside the bed, untouched, and she had no support other than what her own body gave her. Yes, her leg ached, small spirals of pain moving through her as she continued toward the bath, but that was a small price to pay for mobility.
She would spend the rest of her life in pain if it meant she could finally walk again. Even walking like this would be enough.
Finally, she reached the bath. She turned to face Jenny, beaming from ear to ear. “We did it!”
“That we did, Your Grace!” Jenny’s own smile split her face. “How do you feel?”
“Stronger than I’ve felt since before—” She paused, the words on the tip of her tongue.Before the accident. Back then, of course, she had taken walking for granted, never knowing what a gift moving through the world could be.
Frederick had been the one to take that away from her. And he might be the one to give it back.
She dropped her head into her hands as she rested her hip against the ceramic lip of the bath. “I don’t know what to think,” she said, letting her hands fall and looking at Jenny. “I want to hate His Grace, and sometimes I think I do. But other times I think he might be one of the most decent men I have ever met.”
