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“James?”

“Over ’ere, Mrs. Beecham.” James stepped aside so the light coming from the housekeeper’s candle fell on Jonas.

The elderly lady gasped. “Merciful heavens, Viscount Langton! What has happened to you?” She backed up a few paces. “Bring him inside, James.”

Jonas pushed himself away from the wall. He swayed slightly, then steadied himself. Without bothering to voice an “If you please,” James stepped up to him and shouldered his uninjured arm. The head groom did not fit beside him nearly as well as Miss Doyle had, but Jonas was grateful for his assistance as they cut through the kitchen and faced the servants’ stairs.

“Always so many stairs,” he mumbled.

“Well, they’re a sight better than the ladder to the stable loft, at least,” James said.

Jonas had rarely felt so pitiful, but he was too tired to care. “If that’s what we had ahead of us, I’d choose to bed down with the horses.”

With a soft chuckle, James kept him moving upward, and about the time Jonas felt as though they’d scaled a mountain, they reached the upper landing.

Mrs. Beecham was waiting for them outside Jonas’s bedchamber. “I’ve lit the fire,” she said. “And as soon as you’re situated, I’ll have Tolley send for the doctor.”

Jonas’s head snapped up. “No doctor.” The last thing he needed was the physician from Little Tilbury coming to examine the bullet wounds in his arm. It didn’t matter where the doctor’s allegiance lay, neither the government men nor the smugglers must learn of his incriminating injury.

Mrs. Beecham frowned. “I’m sure Dr. Goddard would be—”

“The last time Dr. Goddard saw me, he did nothing more than attach four leeches to my skin and tell my mother that I should no longer be allowed to climb trees. I do not believe that either of those things was helpful to a thirteen-year-old lad with a broken nose and skinned knees.” James walked him over to the bed, and with a sigh of relief, Jonas eased onto it. “Believe me, Mrs. Beecham, I have already bled sufficiently to rid myself of all evil humors.”

With worried eyes, the matronly woman glanced at the bandage tied around Jonas’s bare arm. “Something must be done, my lord. Severe injuries rarely improve on their own.”

“True, but I would rather put my trust in your home remedies than Dr. Goddard’s leeches.”

“What about that poultice you gave me when I cut my leg last year, Mrs. Beecham?” James said. “It worked wonders, that did.”

The housekeeper gave a faint smile. “Honey and garlic are known to help wounds heal, but I am not sure that—”

“Honey and garlic it is,” Jonas said with as much authority as he could muster. “I leave my care in your hands, Mrs. Beecham—but in your hands alone. No doctor, no nursemaids. I wish to recover in private.” He glanced at his tattered clothing. “Now, if you’d be good enough to have someone draw me a bath and ask Tolley to send to London for Hancock, I would appreciate it. I have a feeling I will need my valet here for the next few weeks.”

***

Day and night blurred into one great whole. People came and went. Sometimes Jonas saw them; sometimes he heard them. Occasionally, it seemed that it was his own voice that spoke, but more often, it was his sister, Rosalind’s, or his mother’s or Mrs. Beecham’s. None of the words made sense. The only impressions of which he was certain were the constant burning of his skin and the pulsating of his arm. He wanted to tell the people who flitted in and out of his consciousness that he would speak with them when he was not so weary, but that time never seemed to come.

It was the familiar flute-like call of a blackbird that finally roused him from his sleep. At first, Jonas lay with his eyes closed, just listening. The bird was close. On the windowsill perhaps. Or in a nearby tree. Its song was clear and spoke of bright sunny days and long, warm evenings, and suddenly, Jonas longed to experience those things too. He turned his head. The movement startled the bird, and it took off in a flurry of feathers, leaving Jonas with an unobstructed view through the window of a cloudless blue sky.

“Jonas?”

He turned again. Rosalind was sitting on a chair beside the fireplace, a book on her knee. She came to her feet and stepped closer, her floral dress swooshing as she moved.

“Roz?” He strained to remember when she’d arrived. Surely she’d been at Finley Park with her husband, the Duke of Kelbrook, the last he’d heard. “What are you doing here?” She put her hand to her mouth to stifle a sob, and when a tear rolled down her cheek, panic seized him. “Has something happened to the duke?”

Instead of answering him, she sat on the bed beside him and touched her fingers to his forehead. “Finally,” she whispered as another tear joined the first. “Our prayers are answered.”

“Your prayers?”

“For you, you foolish boy!” A smile broke through her tears, and Jonas reciprocated. If she was reverting to scolding him the way she had done in his youth, all was well with Rosalind.

“For your information, I left boyhood behind some years ago.” He coughed. His mouth was so dry that talking was difficult.

Rosalind reached for a glass on the small bedside table. “Have some water.” She helped support his head and shoulders as he took a few sips. Exhausted after only a few moments, he dropped back to his pillow.

“Whatever’s the matter with me?” He groaned. “I have no strength at all.”

“Well, that’s easy enough to explain,” Rosalind said, replacing the glass on the table before she faced him again. “You’ve been fighting for your life for over a fortnight.”