Free Leslie Lafoy by The Dukes Proposal

were? Maybe Harry was right and she could read minds. If she could, it was undoubtedly in his best interests to know just how extensive her abilities were. He summoned a casual smile. “How did you know that I enjoy spicy cuisine?”
    “Everyone’s heard that you were a surgeon in Her Majesty’s Army medical corps,” she replied brightly. “Drayton considered the likely garrisons and concluded that somewhere in the Near East was logical.” She grinned and, her eyes sparkling, added, “After that it was purely a gamble.”
    So much for the possibly of marrying a woman with eerie, mind-reading powers. Harry had always been a gullible twit. After all the years, he really should have known better than to listen to him. That issue aside, the box had been rather neatly and conveniently opened on his immediate past. As his future bride, Lady Fiona had a right to know that it was going to create some difficulties for her.
    “If you’ve heard of my service to the Crown,” he said casually, “you must also have heard that my parents were appalled and embarrassed by it.”
    “Actually, I’ve been told that they weren’t very happy with your decision to become a doctor.”
    “To put it mildly.” And the true start of the problem.
    “Why did you decide to train as a physician?” she asked, then hastily added, “If you don’t mind me asking, of course.”
    Of course he didn’t mind. He’d been asked the question at least a thousand times over the years. “I was bored with being a child of extreme privilege.”
    She pursed her lips for a moment, then knitted her brows. “Perhaps that might have been part of it,” she said slowly, “but I doubt it would have been a sufficient reason to endure their disapproval and the difficult training. I would expect that the reason would be more personal and closer to the heart.”
    How interesting. Of all the times he’d tossed out his ready answer, she was the very first to ever look past it and know there was more. That alone made her deserving of the truth. “My father owned a good number of properties, and when I was thirteen he decided that it was time that I surveyed the London part of what would someday be my personal kingdom. We rode around town in his outrageously appointed carriage, climbing out at each block so that I could meet the managers of the property.”
    Ian paused as the old memory rolled past his eyes, still every bit as vivid and disturbing as the day it had been made. With a deep breath for fortification, he went on, saying, “There was one stop, a tenement house where the Irish lived. On the walk in front of it lay a man with a badly mangled, badly bandaged leg. I knew looking at it that he had gangrene.” Afraid that his voice would catch, he drew another breath and softly cleared his throat before adding, “My father stepped over him as though he wasn’t even there.”
    And kept right on going, not even seeing the pain and desperate hope in the man’s eyes. The son of a bitch.
    “He’s not the only man to have ever done that,” Lady Fiona offered gently.
    “True,” Ian allowed, pushing the anger away. “But I knew in that moment that I couldn’t follow them.”
    “What did you do?”
    Underestimated the quality of my father’s character. “I demanded that the footmen help me load the man into the carriage and take him to a doctor. My father countermanded the order and had the footmen toss me into the carriage.”
    “And the man on the walkway?”
    “He was dead by the time I found my way back there that night. It was as I watched them wrap him for burial that I decided that there was never again going to be a time when someone’s life depended on my ability to get help for them. I was going to be able to help them myself. Right that moment, without having to ask or plead or hope for a flicker of compassion in others.”
    And, by God, he’d seen that promise to himself fulfilled. Despite all the nasty words and horrified outrage.