Page 56 of The Not So Perfect Duke

No words of goodbye, for Damon was staring out the opposite window. The carriage pulled away, and Althea unlocked the door and stepped into the vestibule. All she wanted was to go to her room and have a good cry.

All her future plans, her hopes for the agency—gone.

* * *

“Buchanan, it would have been expedient to drop you at Bethnal Green police station, but I wanted a private word.”

“So I surmised.”

“Don’t spare any detail. I saw that slight arch in your eyebrow when you felt the lump. You already know that it is a tumor, correct?”

“That is something I should be discussing with Althea and her family—”

“Fuck patient confidentiality. What do you know about this growth?” Damon barked angrily. But he was worried too. His hands were shaking.

“Not much,” Buchanan sighed. “That’s why I am bringing in Stevenson. It may not be cancer.”

“Oh, God,” Damon moaned.

“I have heard of these growths on the lower leg before. From my understanding, they rarely spread elsewhere in the body. If it is even cancer at all. We are getting ahead of ourselves, and do not repeat this to Althea.”

“No,” Damon replied, plowing his fingers through his hair in agitation. “What is the treatment?”

“I am not going to discuss it, Chellenham.” Buchanan folded his arms in defiance.

But Damon was not going to have it. “To hell you’re not. I will find this Stevenson myself and shake it out of him. Tell. Me. Or I will shake it out of you,” Damon hissed through his clenched teeth.

“One common way is—amputation. It stops the growth and eliminates any possible reoccurrence. But again, this is the worst-case scenario. Cancer is not easy to diagnose, let alone treat. Throughout this century, there have been wild treatments from using sulfur to electricity and everything in between.”

The doctor sighed. “We are no closer to curing cancer than we were one hundred years ago. We can postpone death, relieve some suffering, and make life more tolerable. In the end, it is the knife that removes the disease permanently. As would be the case here for Althea. As I said, if it is even cancer at all. Is that enough information for you?”

Damon shook his head. “How in hell can you do this for a living? Surrounded by suffering and death.”

“It is why I turned to drink, that, and my time in the Canadian North-West Mounted Police during the Riel Rebellion. It is why I do not have a going medical practice. I mostly do autopsies and forensic investigations. It’s easier to deal with the dead. I have plenty of training in that regard.”

“Do you drink to excess now?”

Buchanan shook his head. “Not for almost a year, and it is a struggle. But I want a future with Sybil, and I have to prove to her I am worth the investment. But more importantly, I have to prove it to myself.”

“Yes, I know of what you speak. Only for me, it wasn’t drinking, but anonymous sex with strangers.”

And why Damon revealed that private part of his life, he had no idea. Perhaps because the doctor was being forthright about his.

Buchanan shrugged. “We all deal with traumatic situations in different ways.”

Traumatic? What was he on about?

Damon scoffed. “I was hardly taking part in violent insurgencies on the untamed Canadian prairies as you were.”

“No, but there are other levels of trauma one deals with. Regardless, this isn’t about us.”

“No, it is not.”

The men grew quiet and reflective, and the words Asher had spoken at their luncheon entered his mind.

“Protect her, whether she needs or wants protection. All the signs of falling in love.”

Protect. Hang it all.