“Damnable woman.Ever the wallflower and still notable to dance with the ones she chooses.”
Heads turned at the low growl that came from his hunched frame.This time the suitors were the Fellows of Cambridge, and once again not one would have her.This time she would manage without his rescue.He had sacrificed his father’s esteem to rescue her once before.He wouldn’t do it again.
By the time he reached Trumpington Road and turned into his own lane, every step increased his agony.Nausea gnawed at him, and he clamped his teeth hard against the pain.
The wretched neighbors are about to be entertained by my undignified collapse,he thought.The mere idea propelled him forward with as much speed as he could muster.
His door stood ajar and saved Andrew the effort of knocking or wrenching it open.He pushed with his good shoulder and stumbled into the front hall.“Harley, blast you!Come here at once!”
Charles Harley stood a few feet beyond the door, taking a gentleman’s hat.Two faces looked at him with alarm.
“Damnation,” Andrew spat.“Jamie Heyworth.Richard sent a nursemaid again!I don’t need any bloody Hayden interference, damn it anyway.”
Jamie ignored the obvious lie.Andrew sank unceremoniously toward the floor and into Jamie’s arms.
After two hours and much rough ministration at Harley’s hands, Andrew felt no better.He glared at his very irritated friend.
“I’m notyour bloody nursemaid,” Jamie insisted.“Can’t an old friend pop in without you acting like a bear with a thorn in its paw?”
Jamie, who picked Andrew up off the floor and helped Harley haul him up the stairs to his bed, was certainly notas gentle or patient as a nursemaid.
Sometime later, the vial of laudanum Jamie had generously offered lay splintered on the bedroom floor, its contents staining the offerer’s waistcoat.
“Ruined my best waistcoat!”Jamie complained.“There’s gratitude for you.”
“A nursemaid would at least be nice to look at.”Andrew managed a defiant growl.
Heyworth’s face split with a cheeky grin.“Still the old Andrew inside, I see.
“Tell Richard he owes you a new suit.Something better than that one, I trust.And Jamie, go away.”
“Notyet, old boy.”Major Lord James Heyworth, late of His Majesty’s First Dragoon Guards, remained unflappable.He effortlessly raised Andrew while Harley slid warm stones under his hip.
“Good gad, Andrew, you’re as white as these sheets.”
Andrew didn’t answer.
“So, no to the laudanum?”Jamie asked.
Andrew replied with a very soft growl that Jamie ignored.
“Can’t say your physician had aught else to offer.If you won’t take it, no point in calling him next time.Richard is probably right.You need a surgeon, not a physician.Physics won’t fix this.”
A quiet mumble from the bed sounded like a strong wish regarding where the devil might put Richard Hayden.
Heyworth chuckled.“Wished him there many times myself, old boy, but he’s right this time.You are worse than three months ago, almost as bad as on the ship after Waterloo.”
“Is that why Richard sent you?”
Heyworth hesitated but didn’t deny it.They both knew he couldn’t afford to turn down any little commission Glenaire might give him, even one involving an old friend, one he would have willingly done for free.
“He sent you to care for me on that bloody ship, didn’t he?”
Jamie’s temper rose.“I chose to do it, and you damn well know it.Richard didn’t pay me to care for you, you blasted fool.I’d have done this, too, even if he hadn’t asked.There’s the name of a good surgeon in Harley’s care and orders to see you use it.”
“You don’t order my household, and I’ll thank you and Richard not to interfere with my servant.What else did our erstwhile friend send you to do?Come, come, Jamie.I can’t talk much longer.I’m getting ready to faint.”
Heyworth leaned forward, alarm on his expressive face, but the patient snarled at him.“Just finish it.”
“How do—” Heyworth sighed.“Never mind.I gave up trying to follow your mind or Richard’s years ago.It’s trivial anyway.I am to ask you if you’ve seen his sister.Said to ask casually, blast him.Don’t know why.Lady Georgie’s too high in the instep for soldiers like us.”
“He should choose his messengers more carefully.There’s a reason you were never a diplomat or a spy.”
“So, have you?Seen her, I mean.”
“Tell Richard I have no idea what he’s talking about.No.Tell him that Cambridge is none of his damn business.”
