Seventeen

George surveyed the inn’s common, disappointment blighting his good spirits. He wanted to buy somebody—anybody, everybody—a celebratory drink, but the only creature stirring was a bleary-eyed maid.

“Is Bartlow about?” George asked her.

“In the back, making coffee,” she said, bobbing a curtsy. “He’ll have a sore head though, so you’d best not shout.” She scurried off toward the kitchen, while George hung his greatcoat on a peg and stepped around behind the bar.

“Mornin’, Master George,” Bartlow said, emerging from the kitchen with a towel over his shoulder. “What can I do for ye?” He was a good-sized wheat-blond fellow with a full complement of the publican’s good cheer, usually, but this morning Bartlow was moving slowly and speaking softly.

“I’m in search of Edward Nash,” George said. “Where do you keep your cinnamon, Bartlow? I mean to stand Mr. Nash to a toddy or two.”

The fixings were at hand, all but for the spices. Bartlow took up a stool while George stirred together enough spirits for two drinks.

“You don’t want to be disturbin’ Mr. Nash, Master George. He’ll have a powerful head, and him not so kindly when in such a state.”

“Shall I make you a toddy as well?” George asked, because he was in charity with the world, which was surely a harbinger of a happy marriage.

“Aye. That’d be a kindness.”

Tremaine St. Michael strode into the common, his expression suggesting sore heads were in ample supply throughout the shire.

“Mr. Haddonfield, have you found employment at this fine establishment?” St. Michael asked.

St. Michael was soon to be family, so George poured more spirits.

“I’m here to fetch Edward Nash back to the comfort of his own hearth. Bartlow, get him down here and tell him I’m brewing his breakfast. St. Michael, you’ll join us?”

St. Michael had a rather grand beak of a nose, which he wrinkled. “I’d like a word with you first, though if Nash bestirs himself, I suppose my manners are up to the challenge.”

George’s sentiments toward Nash were of the same variety, though because Nash would also be family, George kept mixing.

“What brings you out on this fine and frosty morning?” George asked St. Michael.

“Business, you might say. You need spices, if you’re attempting to brew a toddy, and before I forget, tell Kinser he’ll want to mend his pasture walls sooner rather than later.”

“You tell him,” George said. “Unless I miss my guess, you’ll be underfoot for the next fifty years or so.” George bellowed for the maid to bring him the spices, and to hell with anybody trying to sleep off their excesses upstairs.

St. Michael slouched onto the bench in the snug. “Your guess regarding my future whereabouts would be in error, Mr. Haddonfield.”

“Forty years then, because Nita will wear you out.” The maid brought the spices, then disappeared back into the kitchen. Elsie probably had the same ability to move silently, for which Edward Nash ought to answer.

George heated his mixture over the coals in the common’s enormous hearth, poured two drinks, and joined St. Michael in the snug.

“Congratulate me, St. Michael. I’m to be married.”

St. Michael put two documents on the table. One was foolscap with a list of some sort written upon it, the other was an official document, complete with a dangling seal.

“Felicitations on your impending nuptials, Mr. Haddonfield. Condole me, however, for I’m not to be married. You see before you a special license that, alas, Lady Nita has declined to put to its intended use. This other paper is a list of properties in the area I thought might suit your sister. Perhaps you and your bride will take up residence in one of them.”

“Bloody benighted perdition,” George said, sliding a drink before St. Michael. “I’m sorry. Did Nita cry off?”

St. Michael took a dainty sniff of his toddy, as if it were whiskey. “We would not have suited. You and Mrs. Nash have my best wishes, and I would like to discuss a business matter with you when you’re recovered from your nuptial joy.”

“Are you truly that coldhearted? We would not suit, best wishes?” And how did St. Michael know to whom George had proposed?

St. Michael had yet to sip his drink when Edward Nash came thumping down the stairs in the middle of a silence just about to turn awkward.

“What in the vilest hell requires that I rise at an indecent hour at your request, Mr. Haddonfield? And what’s he doing here?” Nash asked, blinking at St. Michael.

St. Michael rose. “I’m leaving. Mr. Haddonfield, you may expect further correspondence from me on the subject of serving as my factor in France. Mr. Nash, good day.”

“It ain’t a good day,” Nash said, swiping the drink George had intended for St. Michael. Nash drank about half the toddy before pausing. “Nita sent you packing, then?”

“Lady Nita, to you,” George said in unison with St. Michael.

“She’s not anything to you though, is she, St. Michael?” Nash asked with nasty glee. George could smell the man’s breath from two yards away—rot and ruin blended with poor personal hygiene—which meant St. Michael was getting a blast as well.

“Her ladyship will always have my utmost esteem,” St. Michael said, abruptly sounding significantly more Scottish. “I suggest you guard your tongue, Mr. Nash.”

George had heard that cordial, nearly pleasant tone before, in various gentleman’s clubs, when the hour had grown late and masculine honor was fueled by an excess of spirits.

“Don’t mourn Lady Nita’s rejection too deeply,” Nash said. “My brother Norton said her virginal passions compared unfavorably with Addy Chalmers’s fledgling sorties into sin.”

Before George could act, St. Michael had snatched the drink from Nash and dashed the contents in the idiot’s face.

“Take back those words, sir, on behalf of both women.”

“I must agree, Nash,” George said, rising. “Though your ungentlemanly observation explains why the oldest Chalmers girl looks so familiar.”

A muscle leaped along St. Michael’s jaw. Bartlow stood halfway down the stairs, and the scullery maid scuttled out from the kitchen, turned around, and scuttled right back the way she’d come. On the stairs, four bleary-eyed fellows held perfectly still.

“It’s the damned truth,” Nash said, swiping at his dripping chin with a wrinkled handkerchief. “Nita Haddonfield is a cold fish, poking her nose where it doesn’t belong, basket of medicinals over her arm, while she puts on airs like some angel of mercy when she’s spread her legs—”

St. Michael clipped Nash on the jaw, a mere tap compared to what he could probably do, and compared to what George wanted to do.

“Apologize for that intemperate speech,” St. Michael said. “Admit the mistake of your words, the lingering influence of last night’s drink, and apologize. When your own household has benefitted from Lady Nita’s generosity and expertise, you are the last who should be allowed to malign her. The lady has rejected my suit, but I have not abdicated the honor of protecting her good name. Apologize, Nash. Now.”

Nash cocked back his fist with all the finesse of a first former and swung at St. Michael’s jaw, then further impugned his gentlemanly credentials by shaking his limp fingers as if he’d plowed them into a stone wall.

“I’ll meet you,” Nash cried, “you jumped-up excuse for a Scottish sheep farmer. I’ll meet you and we’ll see whose apology is in order. Nita Haddonfield has long been a plague on this shire. She has no care for a woman’s proper place, hasn’t an inkling of proper medical science, and the sooner she’s—”

St. Michael set aside the tankard from which Nash had been drinking. “As you wish, Nash. Lady Nita has borne the censure and indifferent thanks of her neighbors for too long. Your disrespect of her ends now. Name your seconds.”

Bartlow lowered himself to sit on the steps. The other guests silently exchanged money.

While George tucked the special license and list of properties into his pocket.

* * *

Nita’s throat hurt, her head hurt, her eyes hurt. She sat at the kitchen table sipping a posset that helped with those various pains, but nothing would assuage the ache in her heart.

“I should be drinking pennyroyal tea,” Nita informed a marmalade pantry mouser. “The idea makes me bilious.”

She took another sip of her posset, then another. This was why men got drunk, because it hurt too much to remain sober. Nita would never chastise Mr. Clackengeld for his excesses again.

She was about to drain the contents of her mug when a gust of cold air heralded a commotion at the back door. The cat leaped onto the table and glowered in the direction of the noise.

“Don’t touch my drink,” Nita said, rising—a bit unsteadily. The boot boy had opened the door, though he apparently didn’t know what to make of Addy Chalmers.

“Addy, is Annie well?” Maybe the drink was to blame, but Nita could not find the resolve to don her gloves and cape and slog through a chilly morning to tend the child.

Please, not today.

Though Nita would. Of course she would.

“Annie is fine, but, Lady Nita, I was at the livery, mucking stalls because Mr. Clackengeld is the worse for drink this morning. I knew he would be, and yet the horses must be tended, mustn’t they? The lads were talking, and they’d heard it from Bartlow’s scullery maid when she brought in the eggs.”

Addy was agitated. A mother with a child at the breast shouldn’t be agitated.

“What did she say?” Nita asked.

“Your Mr. St. Michael has been called out by Edward Nash. They’re to fight a duel, pistols, and George is Mr. St. Michael’s second.”

Nita sagged against the wall between her sisters’ everyday cloaks, hung in age order on pegs. A hanging ham dangled by her shoulder, and her posset abruptly provided anything but comfort.

“A duel?” Nita whispered. “Why, in the name of all that’s sensible—?”

That Tremaine St. Michael—shrewd, calculating, brilliant, and dear—would go off to face death, and over what? Some rash words? A stupid exchange between stubborn men?

Nita would have been enraged, but the idea that Tremaine could die kept her pinned to the wall, knees abruptly refusing their usual office. Death had no honor. A man who woke up hale and hearty could repose in a coffin by nightfall. Tremaine was daft if he thought he alone could cheat death.

Daft and endlessly, hopelessly dear.

“Men can be stupidity itself when they get to flinging their honor about,” Addy said. “You should sit down, Lady Nita. You look a mite peaked.”

“Excellent suggestion, but I cannot seem to move.” Or breathe, or think. Tremaine could die. A quick end if he took a shot to the heart. A terrible, lingering death if the wound festered in a limb, and the worst death of all if the bullet hit his belly.

Nita had not absorbed the grief of Tremaine leaving her future, and now this most awful, nonnegotiable, permanent…and he’d apparently chosen this path willingly.

“You!” Addy snapped at the boot boy. “Fetch the countess, or my lady’s sisters, and be quick about it. Mind the earl doesn’t see you.”

“A duel.” A funeral, more like. Nita could adjust to a world without Edward Nash in it, but she could not fathom that Tremaine might have Edward’s blood on his hands. Let cholera end Edward Nash some months hence, or the protracted indignity that was typhus, anything that posed no risk to Tremaine St. Michael’s continued well-being.

“Come, my lady,” Addy said, taking Nita by the arm. They steered around hams, cloaks, boots, braided onions, and the marmalade cat to return Nita to the worktable.

“Why pistols?” Nita wailed softly. “Gunshot wounds bleed like the devil and can so easily kill a man. They get infected, they disfigure. I hate gunshot wounds.” Nita hated all wounds, come to that, wounds to the heart most of all. “I believe I’m tipsy.”

“I’m the last who’d judge you for having a tot,” Addy said. “Norton Nash told me that guns are preferred to swords so the duel is more quickly over, and because guns allow the duelists to delope. Everybody fires into the air, honor’s avenged, and the gentlemen can get back to their clubs and cards.”

“Norton Nash told you that?” The scoundrel with the cowlick, may he rest in peace, whom Nita was relieved not to have married.

Addy swung the teakettle over the coals. “Norton liked to talk almost as much as he liked to engage in other activities. We were to be married, but because he’d bought his colors, he said we should keep our engagement quiet. You’ll not tell anybody?”

Nothing made any sense. “Why wouldn’t I tell Nicholas, who will hold Edward accountable for Norton’s bad behavior? Nicholas cannot engage in duels because Leah would kill him and he’s the magistrate. Mary is a Nash, isn’t she?”

With the same bright red hair Norton had been so vain about—no cowlick, though.

“Would you turn your bastard daughter over to Edward Nash’s tender mercy? I considered approaching Penny Nash, but didn’t because he might well have left the matter in Edward’s hands. I’m sorry—I know you were sweet on Norton too.”

Half the shire had apparently been sweet on Norton, though what did that matter when Tremaine was facing death?

“Addy, good day.” The countess came down the kitchen stairs, followed by Susannah, Kirsten, and Della. Leah’s greeting held a question, for Addy would no more presume on Belle Maison’s hospitality than she’d open the dancing at an assembly.

“Edward has called Tremaine out,” Nita said. “Tremaine could die in the next hour, and I’m about to be sick.”

* * *

“No wind,” George said. “That’s a good thing.”

The lack of wind was a matter of indifference to Tremaine. “What’s he doing here?”

Here was a clearing in the Belle Maison home wood, one apparently denuded of deadfall and brush by the enterprising Chalmers lads. Patches of snow alternated with bracken and bare, frozen ground.

“Horton is the only physician in the shire,” George said, “and you’ve agreed to face a fellow over a pair of loaded pistols. When you’re through dispatching Nash, you might consider shooting me. Nicholas is the magistrate and takes a dim view of ritual murder because it upsets his countess.”

Other people had woes and worries. Tremaine recalled that as he passed his coat to George. The cold air would wake Nash up, which struck Tremaine as fair, if loaded pistols were involved.

“What would the lovely Mrs. Nash have to say about your demise?” Tremaine asked, passing George two gold sleeve buttons and rolling back a cuff.

“As long as you kill Edward first, Digby will inherit Stonebridge, so Elsie would manage. I’d like to survive until my wedding night though.”

“I thought as much,” Tremaine said. “Never did favor public school, myself. Will Bellefonte truly be upset with you?”

George draped Tremaine’s coat over William’s saddle. “He’ll be upset that he couldn’t be here and must instead bide at home with the womenfolk, pretending he’s not worried to death about you. Nash is not accounted any kind of shot.”

“He’s no kind of man,” Tremaine said, “though I won’t be his executioner. Did you know his brother had taken liberties with your sister?”

A man facing death lost his tenuous grip on the niceties of polite conversation. Then too, George was apparently a friend willing to waive those niceties. Across the clearing, Nash was bouncing around as if boxing with an imaginary sparring partner.

“Norton Nash was a handsome charmer,” George said, “but he’s a dead handsome charmer. Nita never said a word, but Addy Chalmers’s situation bears consideration. Addy was a decent girl until she turned up with child shortly after Norton joined up.”

“And we’re told life in the country is boring,” Tremaine said.

He was not afraid to die. Every shepherd stranded in the high pastures in the midst of an early winter storm came to terms with death. A businessman impersonating a Frenchman on a Continent wracked by war attended to the same reconciliation.

But Tremaine St. Michael did not want to die. He did not want Nita burdened with his death, and he did not want to give up hope that somehow, he and Nita might come to terms.

“I’ll see if your opponent is done impersonating Gentleman Jackson after a few pints too many,” George said, clapping Tremaine on the shoulder and crossing the clearing.

Tremaine had no patience with the aristocratic lunacy of “the field of honor.” Life was precious, and he’d no more blow Edward Nash’s brains out over a few stupid words than he’d drive his sheep into the sea.

And yet Lady Nita Haddonfield’s good name could not go undefended any longer. Her brothers were bewildered by her, her sisters fretted for her, but none of them defended the honor of the only woman Tremaine knew who battled death with no thought for herself. Horton’s criticisms, the vicar’s snide sermons, Nash’s sneering condescension were unacceptable.

Ingrates, the lot of them.

Nash’s heir might be dying of lung fever but for Nita Haddonfield, her courage, her generosity, and her command of medical science.

As George conferred with Nash’s seconds—he had two who apparently knew little about the entire undertaking, for they’d had to consult Dr. Horton frequently—Tremaine was smacked by an insight.

He was risking death because of a stupid slur to Nita’s good name. When Nita risked death, she at least did so in the name of restoring some helpless soul to good health.

Though Nash would delope. The bad shots always deloped rather than expose their lack of skill.

“Gentlemen, take your places,” George said.

Tremaine went to the middle of the clearing and turned his back to his opponent. When Nash took his place, Tremaine could smell rank sweat and gin, and the entire undertaking acquired a pathetic quality.

Tremaine might want to shoot the bastard, but Nita wouldn’t appreciate that.

As the count slowly progressed, Tremaine paced along, sorrow and sweetness walking with him. He might never kiss Nita Haddonfield again—“five”—never hold her again—“seven”—never argue with her again—“ten”—never see her smile again.

Sorrows, all of them.

But he had kissed her—“twelve”—held her—“fourteen”—argued with her, and beheld her many smiles—“sixteen.” God willing—

On the count of eighteen, a pistol shot rang through the clearing, and a burning pain cut through Tremaine’s right calf.

Incredulity leaped along with physical agony, for the bastard had ruined an excellent riding boot.

And fired early.

“Foul!” George cried. “Mr. Nash, you’ve fired before the end of the count. Mr. St. Michael, you may take your shot.”

Fire, Tremaine would, though turning around was a bloody uncomfortable undertaking with a boot full of hot coals. He raised his arm, straightened it—the gun shook not at all, while Nash was wetting himself—then cocked an elbow and fired aloft.

As the second shot rang out, George dashed to Tremaine’s side and got an arm around his waist.

“I’ve never seen such poor marksmanship or such bad form. We can have Nash arrested, you know. Nicholas will oblige.”

“Why is Horton coming over here?”

“Because you’ve been shot, old boy,” George said gently as he helped Tremaine to the edge of the clearing. “You’re leaving a brilliant little trail of blood in the snow, and that can’t be an encouraging sign.”

Horton bustled up, a black bag clutched in his hand. “Cut that boot off him, Mr. Haddonfield. My scalpel will do the job.”

He produced a thin knife from his bag, a rusty stain along its blade.

“And then you’ll use that knife on me?” Tremaine asked.

“The blade is sharp,” Horton retorted, “and you’re not in a position to be choosy, sir. Damned lot of nonsense, if you ask me.”

Nita Haddonfield’s good name was not a damned lot of nonsense. Blood created a sticky warmth inside Tremaine’s boot, his calf was on fire, and George Haddonfield was all that held him up.

“Doctor, your services will not be needed,” Tremaine said. “My thanks for your time.”

“St. Michael, don’t be an idiot,” George hissed. “You’re losing blood. A bullet could be poisoning your leg as we speak. I can’t carry you back to Belle Maison.”

“William can carry me,” Tremaine said, though his own voice sounded far away and very like his grandfather’s. “The question is, will Lady Nita treat me if I survive the journey?”

* * *

“Two shots,” Leah murmured as she paced her private parlor. “They couldn’t even take their stupidity out of hearing of the house?”

“Sounds travel in cold air,” Kirsten said. “Nita, are you feeling better?”

“I’m not as queasy.” But Nita was not better, for those pistol shots only confirmed that two grown men with far better things to do had aimed deadly weapons at each other.

“If Edward survives, I will cut him directly in the churchyard,” Susannah said. Titus Andronicus lay open on her lap. “I’ll be sure the entire village is watching, and Vicar too.”

“Vicar has already taken me into dislike,” Nita said. “No need for you to get into his bad graces too.”

“We can start our own congregation,” Addy suggested. “Women who refuse to let Vicar’s opinion of them rob them entirely of faith.”

“Hear, hear,” Della said, raising the teapot as if it were her personal drinking horn. “At least the duel is over. Those shots came from the direction of the home wood. Shall we send Nicholas to investigate?”

“I’ll go,” Nita said, rising. “If a duel has been fought over me, then I have no more good name to protect, do I?” For her sisters’ sake, that notion really should bother her, but all that mattered was that Tremaine be alive and remain that way.

“You certainly do,” Addy retorted, “but I’ll go with you.”

The other women were on their feet in an instant.

“I’ll give Edward the benefit of my opinion regarding dueling,” Susannah said, tossing poor Titus in the direction of the sofa.

“I’ll bribe George,” Kirsten added, “for he was present when Edward issued his challenge. Men never tell us the parts that matter, and Della says she saw George in a compromising situation with a certain comely widow.”

“Nicholas can’t go,” Leah said, “but he’ll want specifics. Who was the widow, Kirsten?”

Nita was fairly certain who the widow was. She did not, however, recognize this band of angels intent on protecting her from the very bad news that might have resulted from the duel.

“You needn’t accompany me,” Nita said. “If I’m to be ruined, the less you’re seen in my company, the better.”

“You’re not ruined,” Addy said fiercely.

“I agree with Addy,” Leah said, and as the countess and highest title in the shire, she could speak with authority. “Nicholas will dissuade anybody from discussing today’s events. Men must be allowed their silly crotchets, after all. Ladies, we’ll need our boots and cloaks.”

“Nita should bring her medical bag,” Della said. “Duels can get messy.”

“Surely not—” Nita began, because that bag was an item of loathing among her family members and had figuratively cost her a future with Tremaine.

“Horton will be there,” Kirsten added. “And Edward thinks of himself as a great rural sportsman. I don’t doubt Mr. St. Michael is an excellent shot.”

Good God, Horton, with his dirty instruments and complete disregard for the patient’s pain. Terror for Tremaine threatened to choke Nita where she stood.

“Fetch your bag,” Susannah said.

“Get your cloak,” Leah said, “and I’ll fetch the medical bag for you.”

* * *

George Haddonfield was apparently a connoisseur of good whiskey, for Tremaine had nearly drained that worthy fellow’s flask before William shuffled to a halt. The horse stood placidly outside the Belle Maison kitchen door while Tremaine enjoyed another dram. Excellent stuff. Slowed down the cold creeping over a man from within.

“I’ll find a footman,” George said, swinging off his gelding. “Don’t, for God’s sake, fall out of your saddle, St. Michael. Nicholas might even be about, and if he can help, that’s one less source of gossip—”

The kitchen door opened and a half-dozen women in cloaks and scarves emerged.

“The jury has assembled,” Tremaine murmured. “Ladies, I apologize for my condition. Bit messy, you see. Mourning the end of a fine boot and a finer engagement.”

“He’s tipsy,” George muttered. “Nash fired early and St. Michael got the worst of it, but you lot aren’t to know any of that.”

“Stone sober,” Tremaine retorted cheerily. “But, alas, not in any condition to dismount unaided.”

“I’ll lead the horses to the stable,” Susannah said. “Leah, let Nicholas know Mr. St. Michael has survived his ordeal. If I’m not back by noon, I’ve gone to kill Edward Nash.”

“You can’t kill him,” Addy Chalmers said—what was she doing among the assemblage? “He’s Mary’s uncle. I’ll go with you.”

“Get Mr. St. Michael into the kitchen.” Nita spoke with the crisp dispatch of a field marshal confident of victory. Pain hadn’t robbed Tremaine of consciousness, but the relief of knowing Nita would tend him nearly put him into a swoon.

“I’m sorry to bother you, my lady,” Tremaine said as George more or less pulled him off his horse. “Hadn’t meant to impose, but Horton was there with his dirty knife. Paracelsus would disapprove.”

“I would disapprove,” Nita said. The damned woman was smiling, also crying, as she slipped an arm around Tremaine’s waist. “Slowly, George, and once we get Mr. St. Michael out of the cold, his bleeding might become profuse.”

Tremaine’s heartache was already profuse. “You may remove my leg if you like,” he said as he was half carried into the kitchen. “You are already in possession of my heart.”

“A tipsy shepherd poet,” George murmured. “Where do you want him?”

“On the table. I’ll need blankets, more whiskey, quantities of sugar, bandages, and as much prayer as you can muster.”

“What about my heart?” Tremaine asked as he was propped against the kitchen worktable. “Do you need that as well?”

Nita held a flask up to his mouth, more of George Haddonfield’s lovely brew. Tremaine dutifully gulped but fought off a growing mental fog, because he needed an answer to his question.

“Shall you hold on to my heart, Lady Nita?”

“You’re tipsy, Mr. St. Michael, and weak from loss of blood. Right now, I’ll hold on to your leg while George cuts your boot off.”

Tremaine might have importuned Lady Nita further, but she kissed him, a sweet, nighty-night kiss that boded well for his heart. She’d also called him Mr. St. Michael in the brisk tones that had ever been a cause for good cheer.

When George started peeling off the abused boot, an agony of fire shot through Tremaine that did not bode at all well for his leg.

He let the darkness take him, because if anybody could restore him to adequate health, it was Nita Haddonfield. Though—alas for true love—that admission rather shot the other boot off of Tremaine’s objections to her medical calling.

* * *

Tremaine St. Michael had been lucky. Edward’s shot had apparently hit a rock and scraped a deep furrow in the victim’s flesh, though the bullet had spent most of its force before striking Tremaine.

The scar would be substantial, and the blood loss had been as well, but if infection didn’t set in, the patient would recover.

Nita was a ferocious opponent of infection. No ammunition, not Cook’s hoard of white sugar, not her stores of honey, not George’s last bottle of what he called “winter whiskey,” was too precious to spare in the fight against infection.

“I’ve seen an infected toenail carry a man off,” Nita said, speaking around a lump of fear that was her constant affliction of late. “It wasn’t a peaceful death either. Not for the patient, not for his family.”

“And not for you,” Nicholas replied. He’d accosted Nita outside Tremaine’s room, and all Nita wanted was to get back to her patient’s side.

“Nicholas, if you lecture me now on the inappropriateness of my medical endeavors, I will kick you where it hurts.” Though Nita was too tired and heartsick to kick anybody very hard, and in fairness, Nicholas himself had shown her that maneuver when she’d turned twelve.

“What if we have a civil discussion?” Nick countered, taking the tea tray from Nita and setting it on the sideboard across the corridor. “What if you allow the head of your family and your dearest, sweetest brother a moment of your time? St. Michael won’t be dancing down the lane anytime soon, Nita, and you haven’t shown up at a meal for three days.”

“You are my nosiest and most bothersome brother.”

Nick was also the largest, strongest Haddonfield, and when he settled his arms around Nita, she could do nothing but accept his embrace.

“How is the patient?” he asked.

Nicholas always smelled good, though since his marriage, his scent bore an undernote of lily of the valley. Leah’s influence, no doubt.

“Resting quietly.” Nita gave Nick the medical euphemism for “as well as can be expected,” but it was also the truth. Tremaine seemed to realize that rest was an ally, or perhaps years of racketing about in pursuit of trade had worn him out in ways that didn’t show.

Nick steered Nita to a window seat at the end of the corridor. The chill of a winter afternoon rolled off the glass at her back, while Nick wedged his warmth against her side.

“What does resting quietly mean, Nita?”

“It means, so far, infection hasn’t set in, though a bullet wound can fester slowly, depending on its depth and where it strikes. If the bone is shattered, then significant damage is done to the surrounding tissue, and—”

Nick kissed her forehead. “Have a care for my luncheon, Sister. Will St. Michael come right?”

“I don’t know,” Nita said. The fear was in her belly too, like a wasting disease. Mostly, the fear was in her heart. “I never know. I think the patient is fading, and then for no reason, they’re up and about, begging for a strong cup of tea and wishing me to perdition. I think surely, surely, another patient is mending well, and they slip away in the middle of a morning.”

Nick’s arm settled around Nita’s shoulders, a comforting weight. “Shall I ask Fairly to have a look at him?”

Nick was asking, not ordering, demanding, fussing, or complaining. He’d charged into the kitchen as Nita had examined the wound to Tremaine’s leg, turned white as new-fallen snow, and abruptly quit the room. Since then, he’d been quiet, his expression considering rather than put-upon.

And Nick had made an excellent suggestion.

David, Viscount Fairly, was a neighbor who lived two hours’ ride across the shire. Fairly was also a physician trained in Scotland, where the best and most forward-thinking practices were taught. Nobody had dared suggest consulting with Horton—Nita would soundly kick any who mentioned that name—but Fairly was a different resource entirely.

“A fine notion,” Nita said, the fear easing marginally. “Please have the viscount pay a call. I know he doesn’t practice, but we’ve had a few discussions, and he doesn’t reject my ideas simply because of my gender.”

“A man of sense, is our David. I am a man of sense too.”

Nick was a man of heart.

“Whatever you’re about to say, Nicholas, just say it. I’m too tired to shout at you and too worried to indulge in verbal fisticuffs.”

“Glad to know it, because my countess has gone several rounds with me lately, and I did not emerge victorious. Here is what I need to say: I am proud of you, Nita Haddonfield, for the convictions you put ahead of your own comfort and convenience, for your courage, for your ferocious appetite for knowledge. St. Michael will soon be back on his mettle, hatching schemes regarding my sheep and speaking in that execrable poetic dialect for the amusement of all. His good health is exclusively your accomplishment.”

“The good Lord alone—” Nita said, trying to rise.

Nick gently pulled her back to his side. “The good Lord and my dear sister. You think I strut about here, dandling my heir and plaguing my sisters, but I’ve also done some listening and some nosing about the village. Horton is a disgrace, and nobody uses him if they can help it. They all turn to you, the wealthy, the poor, the hopeless, and you never turn them down. Do you know what we call this behavior?”

“Stupid,” Nita said. “You’ve called it dangerous, mutton-headed, headstrong—”

Nick had shouted those words and more at her, and while Nita needed to return to Tremaine’s side, Nick would not let her go until he’d said his fraternal piece.

“All very true,” Nick said, “but it’s also honorable, Bernita mine. To look after those who can’t look after themselves, to attend to duty rather than convenience. You have reminded me of what honor requires, and I’m grateful.”

That last word—grateful—wasn’t one Nita heard very often. “Is that an apology?”

Nick removed his arm. “Not quite, and this is where my countess and I differ. Shall we look in on your patient?”

Nita shot to her feet, then grasped Nick’s arm to steady herself.

“You need to eat something,” Nick groused. “Something more than tea and ginger biscuits.”

“I do, but about this apology?”

“I’m not apologizing for worrying over your safety and health, Nita. I can’t help myself. I worry about those whom I love, and you are among that number. You always will be. If that’s a kicking offense, then have at me. Where I do apologize is for failing to respect your abilities and the passion with which you share them. For that, I apologize heartily.”

This conversation—a conversation, not an argument—was important. The part of Nita that loved Nicholas knew that. The rest of her dreaded what she’d find when they entered Tremaine’s room. He had been resting quietly when she’d left him only moments earlier, and yet he might be fevered or worse upon her return.

She worried for Tremaine, despite all sense to the contrary, as Nick worried about her—as her entire family had worried about her for years.

“I worry,” Nita said, hand on the latch. “God knows I worry. I cannot blame you for the same trait.” Nita could, rather, commiserate with Nick for the helplessness and anxiety that caring produced.

“He’ll be fine,” Nick said, opening the door. “Bothersome, scheming, and he talks funny, but St. Michael will be fine.”