“Hmm. Montclave. I never liked that fellow. I am usually a good judge of character. I was all for you until the flowers arrived. Then I was forced to send you some flowers of my own.”
“That was you?” Miles asked.
“Yes,” the duke said laughing. “A whole cartful. Things like that soothe me when I find me and mine have been put out.”
That mystery was now solved. He supposed he should have guessed that only the duke would go in for such a wild gambit, even if Miles had not known the cause. He presumed the duke had not just constrained himself to flowers either.
“And the note?”
“What note?” the duke asked.
“The one that said I was a terrible person and the author hoped terrible things happened to me.”
The duke laughed heartily, though Miles could not see the humor in it. “Valor,” he said. “She’s seemed to have got very free with her missives.”
“What about the advertisement in the newspaper for a new valet?” he asked.
They heard a thump on the door, as clearly the current valet was pressed against it and listening hard.
“Me? No? That’ll be the sort of thing Mrs. Right gets up to. She’s very devoted to my girls, you understand.”
“Exceedingly so, it seems,” Miles said softly. This flower business had caused what he’d sensed at the ball. Lady Grace and the duke had seemed a bit put off by him. They thought he was in love with Lady Lavender. They thought he must have been stringing Lady Grace along for his own amusement.
As if he would harm a hair on her head!
“Your Grace, I assure you that I did not send those flowers. I asked that you attend me so that I might ask for your permission to propose to your daughter.”
Just then, there was the sound of a struggle outside the door. It crashed open and the physician stumbled into the room.
“Lord Dashlend! Call off your ridiculous valet!”
The ridiculous valet himself staggered in, his clothes very much askew. “I was only trying to hold him back to give you time, Lord Dashlend.”
“By assaulting the doctor?” Miles asked.
Moreau shrugged.
“I think we’re done here,” the duke said to Miles.
“Your Grace, I beg you to reconsider,” Miles said. He would kill Montclave if that rogue had ruined his chances by sending bouquets of flowers.
“Reconsider?” the duke asked, laughing. “I’d rather thought you’d want to get on with the thing.”
“Get on with it? Yes, Iwouldlike to get on with it,” Miles said, very much relieved that he’d misunderstood.
“I do not know what I missed,” the doctor said, “and I will not inquire. Lord Dashlend, I’ll give you a going over to ensure you are fit and, assuming that is the case, you may be carried down the stairs in the chair I’ve brought with me. It is in the corridor, and it would be in here already if I did not have to fight your valet to get in myself.”
Moreau shrugged as if he did not know how it happened.
“I’ll send Charlie and Thomas up—they’re both strapping lads and should get you down without dropping you,” the duke said.
Miles nodded his thanks, though he had not considered the idea of anybody dropping him down the stairs.
After the duke departed, Miles said, “Perhaps it would be more practical to just hop down the stairs on my good foot?”
The physician frowned. “No,” he said flatly. He then proceeded to examine the ankle on his bad foot and seemed satisfied that it was still sprained.
There did not seem to be any room for a debate on it, so Miles decided not to argue.
