Page 66 of How to Capture a Duke

“Absolutely not. I refuse to meet the man,” Tristan said, his voice harsh.

“Won’t you at least give him a try?” Olivia set down her needlework and rose to brush a piece of thread from her skirt. Tristan wasn’t fooled. First, his wife had never worked on needlework. Second, her calmness was a farce. She knew exactly how he’d react to the news when she’d summoned him to the parlor to tell him about her meeting with Mr. Horace Higgins.

He answered her question with one of his own. “What makes you b…b-elieve I would even consider it?”

Damnation. His stammer was a clear indication of his heightened anxiety. He inhaled a deep breath to rein in his temper. He was losing control, and his wife was the cause.

She brushed a loose lock of fair hair from her cheek. “Please give Mr. Higgins a chance. I do not wish to send him away.”

“Send him away? You mean he is here? In my home?” he asked incredulously.

“Our home,” she corrected. “And yes, he awaits in the study.”

“My s…s-tudy? Have you lost your m…m-ind?” He couldn’t believe she’d bring the man into his home and have him escorted into his study, his private domain. Where the hell was Gordon? He’d give his butler an earful later.

Tristan stormed out of the parlor and stalked down the hall toward his study. The thought pierced his haze that he was doing precisely what he’d insisted he would not do.

Meet the man.

He turned a corner, and a housemaid squeaked in surprise, jumped aside, and promptly dropped an armful of clean and folded linens.

Bloody hell. He was not the type of man who terrorized his staff. Until Olivia. What in God’s name had his wife been thinking to bring Mr. Higgins into his house? Didn’t she know him at all?

Fists clenched, he stormed into his study.

“Your Grace.” Higgins rose from a leather chair before the desk to address him. Tristan was unimpressed.

“I do not need your services,” Tristan snapped.

“The duchess told me that—”

“I said I d…d-don’t n…n-eed you.” Tristan’s gut tightened with the all-too-familiar feelings of disgust and dread. He’d never hated his weakness more.

Rather than obey, the short man did the strangest thing. He returned to the leather chair and motioned for Tristan to occupy the one across from him. “I do believe you need me.” Higgins regarded him, his sharp brown eyes unnerving behind spectacles. “I will not tell you to speak slowly or to relax. I will not promise there is a cure, but I can teach you ways to improve your speech, and most importantly, I will eliminate the shame, the anxiety, the embarrassment. You are not alone.”

Tristan was taken aback, not so much at the man’s audacity, but because of the truth behind his words. Despite his reluctance, the question escaped from his lips. “How? Others have tried.”

“Incompetence is not treatment. Others have caused more harm than good.”

In that, at least, they were in complete agreement.

Still, he was wary of what Higgins promised. “What do you know of my condition?”

Unblinking eyes held his. “I have it as well.”

Tristan was stunned. Anyone who met Higgins would believe the man’s speech beyond reproach, but upon reflection, Tristan recognized it. His speech had a certain cadence to it, a practiced rhythm like that of a well-accomplished pianist. Somehow, he’d mastered a technique. An effective one.

Horace Higgins waved toward the empty chair across from him. “Now, please sit, and we shall begin.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Where do you tense when you stutter?” Horace Higgins asked.

“My lips, jaw, throat.” Tristan was highly conscious of Olivia sitting in the corner watching them. At first, Tristan had asked for her to stay, to see how ridiculous the sessions would be, how ineffective.

But something had happened, something that had shocked Tristan. Horace Higgins understood him. Truly understood what he’d gone through with his mother, his years at Eton at the mercy of cruel bullies like Lord Dumfries. Understood the deep-seated shame, the helplessness.

Olivia hadn’t been in the room then, when he’d exposed a piece of his soul like an animal exposing its belly for the slice of a hunter’s knife. He couldn’t bear it. But at his request, she’d stayed with him for the therapy.