“I have not forgotten.”
“You might havedied.”
He attempted a smile. “Has anyone ever told you your beside manner is abhorrent.” He tugged at her wrist until she obeyed his summons and sat on the bed beside him. “I’m sorry I worried you,” he said gently. “But I won’t have you sacrificing your health for mine.”
Theo lay on her side facing him. Though he had been awake for only a few minutes, he already looked exhausted. Perhapsthis was how she had looked when she had awoken. “Sleep,” she told him.
“Only if you join me.”
Sensing he was stubborn enough to refuse if she did not agree, she nodded. “Very well.”
“You will stay with me?”
“Yes, Nate. I will stay.”
His eyes closed with relief, but his grip on her hand didn’t slacken. “Good,” he murmured, and she worried he was delirious again. “I like waking beside you.”
“There’s something else,” she said, hating that she had to mention this now.
His eyes fluttered open. “Another death threat?”
“No, I—”
“Has someone else poisoned you, my love? I warn you, I cannot exact vengeance in this state.”
She sighed in exasperation. “Beserious, Nate.”
“Very well.” His fingers toyed with her hair even as his eyes fluttered closed once more. “What else have you to tell me?”
“I sent word to your mother that you were ill,” she said apologetically. He winced.
“No doubt she is on her way.”
“With your sisters. I’m sorry.”
“All three?” He groaned. “Would that I had waited another day to wake.”
“What will you tell them?”
“Enough of the truth as will satisfy them,” he said without opening his eyes. “It was a hunting accident and I contracted a fever from my wound.”
“Do you believe it was an accident?”
There was a grim cast to his mouth, and a muscle clenched in his jaw. “No,” he said after a moment. “I don’t believe it was an accident at all.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Juliet Stanton rifled through her letters, flicking past the invitations, the bills, and the occasional note from an ardent lover. To cool their passions, she made a point of never replying within two days.
However, along with the more regular missives was the letter she had been looking for. Written on coarse paper, the direction scribbled in a clumsy hand, it looked entirely out of place. When Juliet saw it, she dropped her other correspondence and flicked it open, reading the two brief lines inside.
Eyes unseeing, she dropped the letter into her jam and stared straight ahead, the fingers of one hand curling around her knife. Seconds later, the peace was shattered by a scream.
“Thatdevil,” she raged, driving the point of her blade through the letter, and cracking the plate. “Howdarehe?”
Her servant, a stoic man she had hired for his discretion, did not so much as flinch as she hurled her plate and everything on it at the wall.
“Peters,” she said, chest heaving. “Bring the carriage round.”
