Page 44 of Elixir of a Duchess' Passion
“Of course, My Lady.”
With that, the butler hurried away. Knowing that it gave the man pride to go about his job in the traditional manner that all noble households were conducted, Melissa took a leisurely stroll back to the house to give him time to see Daisy and her husband through to the sunroom.
When she finally arrived at the all-glass room that backed onto the house, Daisy and Anthony had just been shown in, Flit trotting happily behind them with his tail wagging. The way he had his nose turned up towards the reticule upon Daisy’s arm suggested that Melissa had been right. He had certainly smelled something.
“Anthony, Daisy, what a pleasure it is to see you both,” Melissa greeted them as she entered through the glass doors, leaving them open to let the fresh air through. Though several windows were already open, the room was temperate in the heat of the late summer day, and several of the plants looked as though they could do with a good spritz of water. Making a mental note to take care of it once Daisy and her husband departed, she gestured to the white-washed iron seats with their floral cushions and said, “Please, both of you, make yourselves comfortable.”
“Thank you, Lady Belmont,” Anthony said, graciously taking to a seat beside his wife, who quickly took to removing a treat from her bag for Flit as soon as she was situated.
The spaniel wasted no time in taking it from her before hurrying off, likely to hide it in the garden somewhere for later. Melissa watched him go with a chuckle before she turned to Anthony. “How many times must I tell you, Anthony? Please, call me Mel.”
“Forgive him, Mel,” Daisy said with a shake of her head. She placed her hand upon her husband’s knee in an affectionate squeeze. “Too much time spent on politics in London has made him overly formal.”
“Yes, well, there is no need for formalities here when we are practically family,” Melissa insisted, smiling at them both. “I do hope this is merely a friendly visit? You are both looking quite well.”
Melissa looked them both up and down, and though Anthony looked a little tired, likely from his journey back from London, she couldn’t see any reason why they might have come looking for her healing.
“Yes and no,” Daisy admitted, and Melissa was concerned. Though she remembered her last few visits from Daisy had always landed on the subject of her fertility treatments, she could read her friend entirely too easily to believe that she had come to offer some good news on that front. Besides, this was the first she had learned of Anthony’s return to Oxfordshire. There couldn’t possibly have been enough time for them to have conceived already.
“Oh?” she responded inquiringly, raising an eyebrow at her friend.
“It is indeed a friendly visit, though it is also a means for me to say farewell for a while,” Daisy explained, glancing at her husband with an excited and questioning expression as though she wished to check that what she was about to say was correct before actually speaking the words. “Anthony has insisted that I join him in London for his next trip, and we may remain there for quite some time.”
Turning slightly so that her husband could not see, Daisy gave Melissa a knowing look, and immediately the duchess knew they were both thinking of the fertility teas that Melissa had prescribed her friend. Of course, were she to be with her husband in London for a while, those teas were bound to have a better effect than were she to remain in the countryside alone for long periods. Yet, Melissa felt a little grief at the thought of her only friend going away for a while.
Her absence would mean one less thing to distract Melissa from things that really ought not be given her full attention, things like Lord Spurnrose and his illness, even his cousin who had taken it upon himself to veil his contempt for her long enough to get her to help.
Stop it! Stop thinking of them!Melissa snapped angrily at herself, and although she tried to concentrate her full attention on her friend and her husband, their conversation turning to the usual things like the weather and the latest gossip, again and again, she found herself thinking of the viscount.
Several times throughout their visit, Melissa found herself being pulled from her thoughts by her friend, and the look of concern on Daisy’s face became more and more obvious. Even Anthony looked a little uncertain by the end of it. The handsome nobleman, though not nearly as close to her as his wife, could likely tell that there was something off with her. Melissa knew it when he did not protest at Daisy’s suggestion that she would like a moment alone with Melissa when he suggested that they really ought to be going to finish their arrangements for their trip.
As any typical nobleman whose time was money, Anthony did not beat around the bush when saying his farewells, and he only gave Melissa a quick bow before kissing Daisy on the head and promising to ready the coachman.
The instant he was gone, Daisy turned to Melissa and demanded, “What is wrong with you?”
Bile immediately rose in the back of Melissa’s throat. There was an edge to Daisy’s tone that suggested she had said something wrong, though thinking back on their conversation, she couldn’t imagine what it was. In fact, she could barely remember anything they had discussed save for Daisy’s promising to bring her back something from London. That was the last thing she remembered before her mind had slipped into unconscious thoughts of Lord Spurnrose and how she wished she knew how he was doing.
“Excuse me?”
Daisy looked at Melissa with a disgruntled expression, furrowing her brow with concern. “The entire time we have been sitting here, you have not been yourself.”
Feeling a little uncomfortable at having her friend notice, Melissa glanced down before meeting Daisy’s gaze and asking, “Then who have I been?”
The fact that her friend did not laugh at her response suggested how concerned she was, and Melissa felt even more awkward.
“Mel, what is going on?” Daisy demanded. Before Melissa could respond, Daisy stepped forward and grabbed hold of both her hands. “You know you can tell me anything.”
How she squeezed her hands made Melissa feel comforted and awkward in equal measure. She had always hated it whenever her friend read her so easily.
“It is nothing,” Melissa said, shaking her head. Though when the words left her lips, she felt a clawing in her gut that told her she was even lying to herself. “I just didn’t sleep very well last night.”
The second part wasn’t exactly a lie, but Melissa hoped her friend would not ask why. She wasn’t sure she could bring herself to admit that she had tossed and turned all night because she had been concerning herself all too much with Lord Spurnrose and whether or not her advice had been good enough.
Even now, she was thinking of him even though she tried desperately to force him from her thoughts entirely. No matter what she did or said, something always seemed to make him pop back into her head. Some sound or sensation she experienced would make her think of him, and then it would be almost impossible to think of anything else.
“Have you been having trouble again?” Daisy asked, her concern only seeming to grow. “Nobody is making threats, are they?”
Melissa cringed at that. She could see how her friend would jump to that. It would not have been the first time nor the last that someone had taken to threats to try and get her to stop her medical practises.
