Page 63 of Courting the Country Miss

She folded her arms. “Well, you might want to complain more because Richard is ready to thrash you as soon as you’ve recovered.”

“I know.”

“You scared him. All of us.”

“Trust me, it won’t happen again. I’m done with racing. I guess I’ll…” He trailed off as a new thought struck him. “Were my horses injured?”

“I’m afraid neither of them survived.”

He blew out his breath in a long exhale. Perfectly matched, well-behaved horses who loved to win. Gone. He’d killed them, too.

A blurry Richard came in and leaned over him.

Before Richard could say anything, Tristan announced, “I’m never racing again. And I’ve decided to run for the House of Commons.”

Richard paused. “You must have hit your head worse than we thought.”

“I’m in earnest,” Tristan said. “I’m finished with all the meaningless parties, women, games, racing. None of it matters. I want to make a difference like you do in Parliament, and like Elizabeth and Leticia do with their school.”

Richard’s fuzzy outline sat down hard. “I should have thrown you from a moving curricle years ago.”

Richard might have been smiling, but the clouds that surrounded everything made it impossible to see detail. Fatigue overcame Tristan again. He awoke to his valet, Bentley, rousing him to take care of physical needs and to bathe and shave him. Sitting up brought on waves of nausea and dizziness, so he did everything lying down. Though bruised from head to toe, nothing appeared to be broken.

After Bentley got him changed into a clean nightshirt and tucked back into bed, the doctor returned.

“I’m glad to see you awake.” He listened to Tristan’s breathing, checked his heart, and looked into his eyes. “Any dizziness or blurred vision?”

“Yes—especially blurred vision.”

“Memory loss?”

“I can’t remember the accident, or anything that happened in the hours leading up to it.”

“All normal. The dizziness and vision issues should pass in a few days. Stay in bed until it does.” The doctor felt his chest and stomach, as well as all his limbs but found nothing that pained him enough to be broken. “Extreme emotion is also a common side effect of a hard blow to the head. If that happens, know it’s normal and it, too, will pass soon.”

Tristan murmured, “A friend of mine died that day. I doubt that will pass soon.”

The doctor patted his shoulder but didn’t offer patronizing advice about how that, too, would fade. He changed the bandages on Tristan’s head and bade him a good day.

“If there’s any sign of fever, send for me at once,” he said to Richard and Elizabeth at the door.

A servant brought Tristan a cup of broth but he drank little more than half before he fell asleep.

When he woke, Leticia sat next to him holding his hand. With his blurred vision a halo surrounded her entire body and her face glowed with ethereal beauty. She smiled and squeezed his hand. Beams of afternoon sunlight streamed in between the draperies like sparkling stripes of gold.

He drew in a deep breath, inhaling her fragrance. “You smell good. That’s not your usual perfume.”

She let out her breath in an amused exhale. “No. Isabella and I picked out some new scents.”

“I like it. The violet undertones are very provocative.”

She laughed softly. “You find everything provocative.”

“Not true. Horse manure does nothing for me.”

She laughed again, the sound of it washing over him like sweet, cool water. “I mean, everything that involves a woman, silly.”

He entwined his fingers with hers. “You may be surprised to hear that I have refined taste in a great many things, especially women.”