AT 18, SHE WAS FORCED TO MARRY THE SICK DUKE—BUT ON WEDDING NIGHT, HIS ACTIONS LEFT HER SPEECHLESS
The chapel bells tolled like a funeral dirge as Millicent Harrow stood at the altar of Ravensford, her white silk gown feeling more like a burial shroud than a wedding dress. At eighteen, she had become the object of the congregation’s barely concealed pity. “The poor orphan,” Mrs. Peton whispered to her companion, her voice carrying in the stone chamber. “Sold to a dying duke like livestock at market.” “Lord Crofton,” came another murmur. “Seventy-two years old, they say, ravaged by illness. She’ll be a widow before the month is out.”
Millicent’s hands trembled around her wilting bouquet, but her spine remained straight—the only inheritance her father had left her: dignity in the face of defeat. Aunt Agatha appeared at her elbow, adjusting Millicent’s veil with possessive fingers. “You will not embarrass me,” she hissed into her niece’s ear, her breath sour with champagne already consumed in the vestibule. “You should thank me on bended knee. A duchess when you deserved a workhouse.”
The gratitude Aunt Agatha expected would never come. Millicent had learned in the three years since her parents’ carriage accident that silence was her only weapon; her aunt had stripped away everything else. Her mother’s jewelry, her father’s books, even the small inheritance that should have kept her comfortable until marriage—all of it had vanished into the bottomless pit of Agatha’s gambling debts. And now, Millicent herself was the final payment.
The vicar cleared his throat, his jowls quivering with nervousness. “His Grace, the Duke of Ravensford.”
The chapel fell silent. Every head turned toward the vestry door as it opened with a groan that seemed to come from the very stones of Ravensford itself. The man who emerged seemed conjured from Millicent’s darkest imaginings. Thaddius Crofton moved with the shuffling caution of someone navigating a ship’s deck in a storm. Though he must have once been tall, his frame had collapsed inward, his formal coat hanging from shoulders that seemed barely able to support the weight of the ducal chain of office. His face—gaunt, colorless, and mapped with the shadows of long-suffering—belonged to a man already half-claimed by the grave.
A collective intake of breath rippled through the congregation. Lady Havsham pressed a handkerchief to her lips. Young Miss Cordelia Winthrop turned away entirely, unable to watch what came next. Millicent forced herself to look. If she was to be bound to this man, to watch him die in the coming weeks or months, the least she could do was face him without flinching.
He approached with agonizing slowness, each step a visible effort. His breathing was labored, audible in the hushed chapel. Twice he paused, steadying himself against the end of a pew while an elderly manservant hovered anxiously behind him. The distance from the vestry door to the altar could not have been more than twenty paces, but it took an eternity to cross. When he finally stood beside her, Millicent could smell the sickness on him—the sweet, wrong scent of a body failing itself. Up close, she could see the yellowish tinge to his skin and the way his hands shook despite his obvious efforts to control them. The guests watched with the fascinated horror of spectators at an execution.
“Miss Harrow,” he said, his voice a papery whisper that barely carried beyond the first pew.
“Your Grace,” Millicent replied, curtsying as low as her trembling legs would allow.
His hand—thin, spotted, and shaking—reached for hers. But when his fingers closed around Millicent’s, his grip was surprisingly firm. And in his rheumy eyes, she glimpsed something the gossips had not prepared her for: recognition, purpose, something almost like sorrow.
“Shall we begin?” the vicar asked nervously, already flipping through his prayer book as though speed might somehow make the ceremony less grotesque.
“Yes,” the Duke said, his gaze never leaving Millicent’s face. “Let us set things right at last.”
The words made no sense, but Millicent had no time to parse them. The vicar was already racing through the liturgy, his voice pitched high with discomfort. Behind her, Aunt Agatha shifted impatiently, her silk skirts rustling. Millicent knew that sound; it was the rustle of a woman calculating profit.
“If any person can show just cause why they may not be joined together, let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”
The silence stretched. Millicent felt a wild urge to speak, to object to her own wedding, to cry out that this was not matrimony but murder. But what would she say? That she did not love him? Love was a luxury for heroines in novels, not orphans whose only other option was destitution.
“I require and charge you both, as you will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed…”
The Duke’s hand tightened almost imperceptibly on hers—not painful, but deliberate. When Millicent dared to glance up at him, she found him watching her with an intensity that belied his frailty. His lips moved, forming words too soft for anyone else to hear: Forgive me.
Before she could respond, the vicar was prompting the Duke for his vows. Thaddius Crofton’s voice, though weak, did not waver. “I, Thaddius Edward Crofton, take thee, Millicent Charlotte Harrow, to be my wedded wife.”
Then it was her turn. The words stuck in her throat like stones. She could feel the weight of judgment, the pitying glances, Aunt Agatha’s satisfied smile, and the Duke’s labored breathing. “I, Millicent Charlotte Harrow…” Her voice broke. She swallowed and began again. “I, Millicent Charlotte Harrow, take thee, Thaddius Edward Crofton, to be my wedded husband.”
The ring he slipped onto her finger was warm, as though he had been holding it close to his heart. It was gold, heavy, and ancient—the ring of the Dukes of Ravensford, binding her to a dying man and a crumbling estate.
“I now pronounce you man and wife.”
The chapel erupted in polite applause that sounded more like the patter of rain on a coffin lid. Aunt Agatha was already moving toward the vestry where the marriage documents waited for signatures and witnesses. This was what she had come for: the proof of transaction, the legal transfer of her niece from burden to asset. The Duke swayed slightly, and Millicent instinctively reached out to steady him. Their eyes met once more, and again she saw that strange look: gratitude mixed with something deeper—remorse, perhaps, or determination.
“Come,” he whispered. “We must sign the documents. And then, my dear, we must talk.”
The Duke’s chambers were nothing like Millicent had imagined. She had braced herself for something Gothic and oppressive—heavy velvet curtains, the cloying smell of medicine, perhaps a bath chair or an invalid’s table laden with tinctures and tonic bottles. Instead, she found herself in a surprisingly austere room dominated by a massive oak desk piled high with ledgers and correspondence. Bookshelves lined two walls, their volumes worn with use rather than arranged for display. A fire burned low in the grate, casting amber light across Persian rugs that had seen better decades.
Thaddius dismissed his manservant with a slight wave, then moved slowly toward a pair of wing-backed chairs positioned before the fire. The journey from door to hearth left him breathless, but he refused Millicent’s instinctive offer of assistance.
“Sit,” he said, lowering himself into one chair with visible relief. “Please, we have much to discuss and little time for propriety.”
Millicent perched on the edge of the opposite chair, her wedding gown pooling around her like spilled milk. Her heart hammered against her ribs. This was the moment then—the wedding night. She thought of the whispered warnings from married women, the vague euphemisms, and knowing looks. Whatever was about to happen, she would endure it with the same stoicism she had endured everything else.
But the Duke made no move toward her. Instead, he reached into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew a small object that caught the firelight: a silver locket tarnished with age. “Do you recognize this?” he asked, holding it out to her.
Millicent took it with trembling fingers. The locket was warm from his body heat and surprisingly heavy. She pressed the tiny clasp, and it sprang open, revealing two faded photographs. On the left, a young man in military uniform, barely twenty, with laughing eyes and her father’s unmistakable nose. On the right, another soldier, taller and broader, with Thaddius Crofton’s high cheekbones beneath a face still unravaged by illness.
“That was taken in the Crimea,” Thaddius said softly. “1854. Your father, Lieutenant James Harrow, and myself. We were both second sons with something to prove and nothing to lose.”
Millicent’s throat constricted. She had so few images of her father; Aunt Agatha had sold most of them and claimed the rest. This laughing young man seemed almost a stranger, yet she knew him in her bones.
“He saved my life,” Thaddius continued, his gaze fixed on the fire. “Twice, actually. Once when a Russian bayonet found my shoulder, and again when fever nearly took me in the field hospital. He sat by my bedside for three weeks, forcing water down my throat and reading to me from whatever books he could scavenge. The doctors had already written me off.” He paused, his breathing labored. Millicent waited, the locket clutched in her palm. “When we returned to England, we made a pact. We were brothers, we said, closer than blood. Whatever fortune came to either of us, we would share. When his children came, they would be mine. When mine came, they would be his.”
A bitter smile twisted his lips. “But I never married. The illness—it began even then, slowly. And your father married your mother and found happiness I could only witness from afar.”
“He never mentioned you,” Millicent whispered.
“No, he wouldn’t have. We quarreled, you see, the year before he died. I had urged him to leave your aunt’s household, to take you and your mother away from Agatha’s influence. But he was loyal to his late wife’s sister, believing she deserved his protection after her own husband’s death left her in reduced circumstances.” Thaddius’s hands clenched on the arms of his chair. “I called him a fool. He called me a meddling bachelor with no understanding of family obligations. We did not speak again.”
The fire popped, sending sparks up the chimney. Outside, rain had begun to fall, pattering against the windows like urgent fingers.
“When I learned of the carriage accident,” Thaddius said, his voice dropping to barely more than a rasp, “I tried to reach you. I wrote to Agatha, offered to assume guardianship. She replied that you were quite well-cared for and needed nothing from me.”
“She never told me,” Millicent’s voice was hollow.
“Of course not, because you were worth more to her as a pawn than as a ward. I made inquiries—quietly at first, then more urgently as my own health declined. I learned she had gambled away your entire inheritance, that she had been approached by creditors, that she had begun entertaining offers for your hand from men who…” He stopped, his jaw working. “…men who would have used you poorly and discarded you when their interest waned.”
Millicent thought of Mr. Grimby, the debt collector who had visited the house twice last month, his eyes traveling over her with the assessment of a horse trader. Aunt Agatha had laughed at something he said and refilled his brandy glass.
“I could not let it happen,” Thaddius said. “I promised your father I would watch over you, and I failed him once already by letting pride keep me silent. I would not fail him again.”
“So you married me.” The words came out flat, emotionless. Millicent felt as though she were watching this conversation from a great distance.
“So I married you—to give you my name, my protection, and most importantly, my estate.” He leaned forward, urgency animating his wasted features. “You must understand, Millicent. This is not a marriage in truth. I have no intentions… that is, I would never presume…” He struggled for words, color rising in his pale cheeks. “I am dying. The physicians give me weeks, perhaps months, if I am unlucky. But as my Duchess, as my legal heir, everything I possess becomes yours: the estate, the investments, the title’s protections. Agatha will have no claim on you. No man can touch you without your consent. You will be free.”
The locket seemed to pulse with heat in Millicent’s hand. She looked down at the two young soldiers, frozen forever in their moment of brotherhood and hope. “You married me to save me,” she said slowly.
“I married you to honor a debt to the finest man I ever knew.” Thaddius sagged back in his chair, the burst of energy draining from him like water from a cracked vessel. “And to thwart the greed of a woman who would sell her own blood for a winning hand at cards.”
Millicent rose from her chair and moved to kneel beside him. Up close, she could see the effort it cost him to remain conscious, the tremor in his limbs, and the sallow tint to his skin. This man had used his dying strength to rescue her.
“Then I have a debt, too,” she said firmly. “And I intend to repay it.”
His eyes met hers, confused. “There is no debt. You owe me nothing.”
“You gave me your name and your fortune,” Millicent said. “I give you my word: I will not let you die.”
Morning light filtered through the mullioned windows of Ravensford as Millicent descended the grand staircase, still wearing yesterday’s traveling dress. She had spent the night in the Duchess’s chambers, a vast suite that smelled of lavender and disuse, while Thaddius had been helped to bed by his manservant shortly after their conversation.
The household had retired early, leaving the new Duchess to navigate the silent corridors alone. Now, in the gray dawn, the estate revealed itself properly. Ravensford was larger than she had realized—a sprawling Renaissance manor that had absorbed additions over centuries, like a tree growing new rings. Portraits of stern-faced Croftons lined the walls, their eyes following her progress through rooms filled with furniture draped in Holland covers. Dust motes danced in the thin sunlight. The air tasted of old wood and older secrets.
She found the kitchens first, where a startled cook named Mrs. Brennan hastily prepared tea and toast, apologizing profusely for not having breakfast ready. “We didn’t know Your Grace’s preferences,” she stammered, bobbing curtsies. “His Grace, he eats so little now—barely a bite of porridge most mornings.”
Millicent accepted the tea gratefully and asked about the household’s routine. Mrs. Brennan seemed relieved to have direction, explaining that most of the staff had been let go over the past two years as the Duke’s illness progressed. Now only five remained: herself, the manservant Grimshaw, a housemaid, a groom, and an ancient groundskeeper who was nearly as deaf as a stone.
“The Duke wouldn’t hear of dismissing us,” Mrs. Brennan said, her eyes misting. “Even when the steward said it was financially prudent. ‘They are family,’ he said. ‘We keep family.'”
After breakfast, Millicent continued her exploration: the morning room, the conservatory with its collection of withered exotic plants, and the ballroom that clearly hadn’t hosted a dance in decades. Each space whispered of former grandeur now fading into genteel neglect. It was not poverty—the furnishings were quality and the grounds still maintained—but rather the exhaustion of a household holding vigil over a dying master.
She found the library by accident, opening what she thought was a linen closet only to discover a narrow servant stair that spiraled upward. Following it on impulse, she emerged into a circular tower room lined floor to ceiling with books. Her breath caught. Here, finally, was warmth. A fire had been laid but not lit. The chairs showed wear from actual use. Books lay open on side tables, marked with strips of ribbon. This was a room that had been loved.
And there, on a desk positioned to catch the eastern light, sat a wooden box she recognized immediately. Her hand shook as she crossed to it. The box was rosewood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl in a pattern of vines and flowers. Her father had kept it on his desk in the study of their old house. She had played with it as a child, fascinated by the way the pearl caught the light. After his death, Aunt Agatha had claimed it was lost.
The lid opened smoothly, well-oiled hinges making no sound. Inside lay bundles of letters tied with string, their paper yellowed and soft with age. Millicent lifted the first bundle with reverent care and untied it.
“My dear Thaddius,” the top letter began in her father’s familiar script. “I write to you from the most extraordinary happiness. Catherine has agreed to marry me. Can you believe it? Plain James Harrow has won the hand of the most remarkable woman in three counties.”
Millicent sank into the desk chair, her eyes devouring the words. The letter went on to describe her mother—her wit, her kindness, her ability to quote Virgil while also managing a household account book. Her father’s joy radiated from every line, his excitement almost boyish as he begged Thaddius to attend the wedding, to stand as his witness.
She reached for the next letter, then the next. Years of correspondence unfolded before her. Her father writing of her own birth: “She has your eyes, Thaddius, that same piercing gray. Catherine laughs and says we must keep close watch on her, for she will see through every deception.” Letters about her childhood illnesses, her first words, her stubborn insistence on learning to ride astride rather than sidesaddle.
And Thaddius’s responses, in a bolder hand, were tucked between her father’s letters. Congratulations on the birth. Advice about childhood fevers. A gentle ribbing about James’s overprotectiveness: “She will grow stronger if you let her fall occasionally, old friend. Trust her resilience.”
But as the correspondence continued, a new thread emerged: concern. Thaddius writing about Agatha’s influence, her gambling, and her manipulation of Catherine’s gentle nature. Her father’s responses grew defensive, then frustrated. “You do not understand the obligations of family,” her father had written in one particularly heated letter. “Agatha lost everything when Reginald died. Would you have me turn her out? She is my wife’s only sister. I would have you protect your daughter from her,” Thaddius had replied. “I have made inquiries, James. The debts are worse than you know. She will drag you all down with her unless you act.” “You overstep,” her father had written back. “I thank you for your concern, but this is my family to manage, not yours.”
The letters stopped there. The dates showed they ended nearly two years before her father’s death. Two years of silence between the closest of friends.
Millicent found herself crying without quite knowing when the tears had started. They fell onto the old paper, and she hastily blotted them away with her sleeve, terrified of damaging these precious remnants. Her father had been warned. He had known about Agatha’s debts and her schemes. And he had chosen loyalty over prudence, family obligation over wisdom. It had killed him. Perhaps not literally—the carriage accident had been genuine, a wheel breaking on a rain-slicked road—but it had placed him on that road at that moment, driving too fast to reach a meeting with one of Agatha’s creditors.
“He saw you, you know. In your father.”
Millicent startled, turning to find Grimshaw standing in the doorway, a tea tray in his gnarled hands. The old manservant moved into the room with the confidence of long familiarity.
“Begging Your Grace’s pardon for the intrusion,” he said, setting the tray on a side table. “But the Duke mentioned you might find your way here. Said you had your father’s curiosity.”
“Did you know him? My father?”
“Met him once when he visited after his wedding. Bright young man, full of plans and hopes. The Duke was never the same after their falling out. Blamed himself terrible when the news came about the accident.” Grimshaw moved to the fireplace and lit the waiting kindling with practiced efficiency. “He’s been collecting those letters for years, Your Grace. Every time he thought to write to mend the breach, but pride’s a fierce enemy—fiercer even than the illness.”
The fire caught, spreading warmth through the circular room. Millicent wiped her eyes and looked around with new understanding. This wasn’t just a library; it was a shrine to friendship, to love that had survived death and regret.
“He means to make it right,” Grimshaw said softly. “The only way he can now.”
“By saving me. By honoring the man who saved him first.”
The old servant bowed slightly. “If Your Grace requires anything, you need only ring.”
After he left, Millicent sat in the growing firelight, her father’s letters spread before her like a map to a country she had never known existed. A place where she had been loved not just by parents, but by a guardian who had watched from afar, waiting for his chance to make good on an old promise. She would not let that chance go to waste.
The crisis came three days after the wedding, announced by Grimshaw’s urgent knock at dawn. Millicent threw on a dressing gown and rushed to the Duke’s chambers to find Thaddius unconscious, his breathing shallow and rapid, his skin clammy to the touch. The room reeked of something sweet and wrong, like fruit left too long in the sun. Grimshaw hovered at the bedside, his weathered face gray with fear.
“He won’t wake, Your Grace. I’ve tried everything. Water, salts, even a bit of brandy. He just lies there, burning up one moment and cold as death the next.”
Millicent pressed her hand to Thaddius’s forehead. His skin was furnace-hot, yet he shivered beneath the blankets. His lips moved soundlessly, forming words in some fever dream she couldn’t access.
“Send for the physician,” she commanded immediately.
“Already done, Your Grace. He should arrive within the hour.”
But Dr. Whitmore, when he finally appeared, offered nothing but platitudes and a slow shake of his head. He was an elderly man with spectacles that perched precariously on a bulbous nose, and he examined Thaddius with the resigned air of an undertaker measuring for a coffin.
“The diabetes has progressed beyond treatment,” he pronounced, snapping his medical bag shut. “I have been managing His Grace’s condition for two years now, and I’m afraid we have reached the inevitable conclusion. Keep him comfortable. Laudanum for the pain. I give him forty-eight hours at most.”
“Forty-eight hours?” Millicent’s voice rose despite her efforts to control it. “Surely there must be something—a treatment, a specialist.”
“My dear Duchess, I understand this is distressing, but you must accept the reality. The Duke’s constitution is exhausted. His body is shutting down. The kindest thing now is to let nature take its course.” Dr. Whitmore’s tone was not unkind, but it carried the finality of a judge pronouncing sentence. “I shall return this evening to check on him. In the meantime, you may wish to send for family—for the will reading and such.”
He left, and Millicent stood frozen in the sickroom, rage and helplessness roaring in her chest. Forty-eight hours. Three days of marriage and she would be a widow. Thaddius would die without seeing his sacrifice bear fruit, without knowing if his intervention had truly saved her. She would not accept it.
But before she could formulate a plan, the vultures arrived. They came in a hired carriage, announced by the crunch of wheels on gravel. Millicent watched from the window as three figures emerged: a portly man in an expensive but ill-fitting coat, a thin woman whose face looked as though she had been weaned on vinegar, and trailing behind them—resplendent in black silk despite the lack of any actual death—Aunt Agatha.
“The Duke’s cousins,” Grimshaw informed her quietly, appearing at her elbow. “Mr. Percival Crofton and his sister, Miss Leticia. They are His Grace’s closest living relatives after yourself.”
“They never visited when he was well.”
“No, but news of a dying Duke travels fast in certain circles.”
Millicent descended to the drawing room where the visitors had been installed. Percival Crofton rose as she entered, his bow perfunctory and his eyes already cataloging the furnishings with an appraiser’s attention.
“My dear Duchess,” he said, his voice oily with false sympathy. “What a tragedy to be called here under such circumstances. We came as soon as we heard of dear Thaddius’s decline.”
“How considerate,” Millicent replied, her tone glacial. “Though I’m afraid the Duke is resting and cannot receive visitors.”
“Oh, we wouldn’t dream of disturbing him,” Leticia said, her sharp eyes darting around the room. “We merely wish to offer our support in this difficult time. And, of course, to ensure that dear cousin Thaddius has everything he needs.”
Aunt Agatha, positioned by the fireplace like a spider in her web, smiled. “How fortunate that family can gather in these final hours. Millicent, dear, you look exhausted. Perhaps these good people might assist you with the necessary arrangements.”
“Arrangements?” Millicent kept her voice level through sheer force of will.
“For the funeral, naturally,” Percival said, his tone unctuous. “And the estate matters that will follow. These things are complex, and you are so young, so inexperienced. We would hate to see you burdened with decisions beyond your understanding.”
The implication was clear. They expected her to step aside, to defer to older and supposedly wiser heads, to let them manage the duchy that would—in the absence of direct heirs—pass to Percival as the nearest male relative.
“I appreciate your concern,” Millicent said, each word sharp as a blade. “But the Duke’s affairs are well in hand. I will send word if your presence is required. Now, see here—”
“I believe the Duchess has made herself clear,” Grimshaw interrupted from the doorway, his elderly frame somehow commanding despite his years. “Shall I show you out?”
Leticia rose, her face pinched with offense. “We have traveled a great distance to be here. Surely you don’t mean to turn us away from our own cousin’s deathbed.”
“I mean to protect my husband’s peace,” Millicent said. “You may take rooms at the village inn if you wish to remain nearby. I will inform you of any changes in His Grace’s condition.”
Aunt Agatha glided forward, her expression a mask of wounded concern. “Millicent darling, there’s no need for hostility. We are all family here. Mr. Crofton merely wishes to ensure that you are not overwhelmed by responsibilities you cannot possibly manage alone.”
“I am not alone.” Millicent met her aunt’s eyes directly, drawing strength from the anger that burned beneath her carefully maintained composure. “I am the Duchess of Ravensford, and this is my household to manage.”
“For now,” Percival muttered, adjusting his coat. “We shall see what the will reveals.”
They departed in a flurry of affronted dignity, Aunt Agatha lingering at the door to deliver one final poisonous smile. “Do try not to tire yourself with nursing duties, dear. You wouldn’t want to compromise your health just as you’re about to enter a period of mourning.”
When they were gone, Millicent sagged against the mantelpiece, her hands shaking. Through the window, she watched the carriage roll toward the village, carrying its cargo of greed and calculation.
“They’ll be back,” Grimshaw said quietly.
“I know. The Duke changed his will the day before the wedding. Left everything to you, free and clear. They’ll contest it if they can.”
Millicent straightened, forcing steel back into her spine. “Then we ensure they cannot. Grimshaw, I need you to send for someone. Not Dr. Whitmore. Someone else. Someone who actually knows how to treat diabetes rather than simply waiting for patients to die.”
“Your Grace, the nearest specialist would be in London. It would take days.”
“Then send a telegram. Offer double his usual fee. Triple it if necessary.” She turned to face the old servant, her jaw set. “Forty-eight hours, Dr. Whitmore said. Very well. We have forty-eight hours to prove him wrong.”
Grimshaw’s weathered face broke into the ghost of a smile. “Your father would be proud, Your Grace.”
“My father trusted the wrong people and died for it,” Millicent said. “I will not make the same mistake.”
She climbed the stairs back to Thaddius’s chamber, where he lay lost in fevered dreams, his breathing labored and irregular. She pulled a chair to his bedside and took his burning hand in hers.
“You saved me,” she whispered. “Now let me save you.”
The breaking point came on the fifth morning when Millicent entered Thaddius’s chamber to find Dr. Whitmore preparing to bleed him again. The physician had arrived unannounced, accompanied by Aunt Agatha and a younger doctor Millicent had never seen before—a nervous man with ink-stained fingers who introduced himself as Dr. Pettigrew, recently arrived from the village to assist with the case.
“What are you doing?” Millicent demanded, staring at the brass bleeding bowl already positioned beneath Thaddius’s limp arm.
“The treatment protocol, Your Grace,” Dr. Whitmore replied without looking up. He was rolling up the Duke’s sleeve, exposing skin so pale it appeared nearly translucent. “The humors must be balanced. The blood is clearly corrupted—you can smell the sweetness of it. We must drain the impurities before they poison his vital organs entirely.”
Thaddius lay motionless, his breathing shallow and rapid. His lips were cracked and bleeding from dehydration, and the sickly sweet fruit-rot smell that Dr. Whitmore mentioned hung over the bed like a shroud. In the past two days, he had worsened dramatically despite—or perhaps because of—the physician’s interventions.
“You bled him yesterday,” Millicent said, her voice tight. “And the day before that.”
“The condition requires aggressive treatment,” Dr. Pettigrew interjected, consulting a leatherbound notebook. “Dr. Whitmore has been most generous in sharing his protocols with me. In addition to the bleeding, we’ve been administering strengthening tonics: beef broth thickened with white bread and port wine fortified with honey to restore his vitality.”
Port wine with honey for a man whose body could not process sugar. Millicent felt something cold and sharp crystallize in her chest.
“Stop,” she said.
Dr. Whitmore finally looked up, his expression one of patronizing patience. “My dear Duchess, I understand your distress, but you must trust those with medical expertise. The Duke’s condition is grave precisely because it has been allowed to progress untreated for so long. We are doing everything in our power.”
“You’re killing him.” The words fell into the room like stones into still water.
Aunt Agatha, who had been standing near the window in an attitude of concerned observation, turned sharply. “Millicent, really? These gentlemen are trained physicians. You cannot possibly—”
“I can, and I do.” Millicent moved to the bedside, placing herself physically between Thaddius and the doctors. “You will not bleed him again. You will not give him any more of your strengthening tonics. You will leave this room immediately.”
Dr. Whitmore’s face darkened. “Your Grace, you are overwrought. Perhaps you should rest while we—”
“I am the Duchess of Ravensford, and this is my household.” Millicent’s voice didn’t rise, but it carried the weight of absolute authority. “I am also the Duke’s wife, which gives me final say over his medical care. You are dismissed.”
