When they smiled.
“Let me get you some water,” Freddie said. Carefully, he put a spoon to Hugh’s lips, dribbling the liquid into his mouth.
“More,” Hugh croaked. There had been nothing left to swallow. Every drop had just soaked into his parched tongue.
Freddie gave him a few more spoonfuls, then said, “Let’s wait a bit. I don’t want to give you too much at once.”
Hugh nodded. He didn’t know why, but he nodded.
“Does it hurt?”
It did, but Hugh had the strange sensation that it hadn’t hurt quite so much until Freddie asked about it.
“It’s still there, you know,” Freddie said, motioning toward the foot of the bed. “Your leg.”
Of course it was still there. It hurt like bloody hell. Where else would it be?
“Sometimes men feel pain even after they lose a limb,” Freddie said in a nervous rush. “Phantom pain, it’s called. I read about it, I don’t know when. Some time ago.”
Then it was probably true. Freddie’s memory was almost as good as Hugh’s, and his tastes had always run toward the biological sciences. When they were children, Freddie had practically lived outside, digging in the dirt, collecting his specimens. Hugh had tagged along after him a few times, but he’d been bored out of his skull.
Hugh had quickly discovered that one’s interest in beetles did not increase with the number of beetles located. The same went for frogs.
“Father’s downstairs,” Freddie said.
Hugh closed his eyes. It was the closest he could manage to a nod.
“I should get him.” Said without conviction.
“Don’t.”
A minute or so went by, and Freddie said, “Here, have a bit more water. You lost a great deal of blood. It will be why you feel so weak.”
Hugh took a few more spoonfuls. It hurt to swallow.
“Your leg is broken, too. The femur. The doctor set it, but he said the bone was splintered.” Freddie cleared his throat. “You’re going to be stuck here for quite some time, I’m afraid. The femur is the largest bone in the human body. It’s going to take several months to heal.”
Freddie was lying. Hugh could hear it in his voice. Which meant that it was going to take quite a bit longer than a few months to heal. Or maybe it wouldn’t heal at all. Maybe he was crippled.
Wouldn’t that be funny.
“What day is it?” Hugh rasped.
“You’ve been unconscious for three days,” Freddie answered, correctly interpreting the question.
“Three days,” Hugh echoed. Good Lord.
“I arrived yesterday. Corville notified me.”
Hugh nodded. It figured their butler would be the one to let Freddie know his brother had nearly died. “What about Daniel?” Hugh asked.
“Lord Winstead?” Freddie swallowed. “He’s gone.”
Hugh’s eyes flew open.
“No, no, not dead gone,” Freddie quickly said. “His shoulder was injured, but he’ll be fine. He’s just left England is all. Father tried to have him arrested, but you weren’t dead yet—”
Yet. Funny.
“—and then, well, I don’t know what Father said to him. He came to see you the day after it happened. I wasn’t here, but Corville told me Winstead tried to apologize. Father wasn’t having . . . well, you know Father.” Freddie swallowed and cleared his throat. “I think Lord Winstead went to France.”
“He should come back,” Hugh said hoarsely. It wasn’t Daniel’s fault. He hadn’t been the one to call for the duel.
“Yes, well, you can take that up with Father,” Freddie said uncomfortably. “He’s been talking about hunting him down.”
“In France?”
“I didn’t try to reason with him.”
“No, of course not.” Because who reasoned with a madman?
“They thought you might die,” Freddie explained.
“I see.” And that was the awful part. Hugh did see.
The Marquess of Ramsgate did not get to choose his heir; primogeniture would force him to give Freddie the title, the lands, the fortune, pretty much anything that wasn’t nailed down by entail. But if Lord Ramsgate could have chosen, they all knew he would have chosen Hugh.
Freddie was twenty-seven and had not yet married. Hugh was holding out hope that he might yet do so, but he knew there was no woman in the world who would catch Freddie’s eye. He accepted this about his brother. He didn’t understand it, but he accepted it. He just wished Freddie would understand that he could still get married and do his duty and take all this bloody pressure off Hugh. Surely there were plenty of women who would be thrilled to have their husbands out of their beds once the nursery was sufficiently populated.
Hugh’s father, however, was so disgusted he’d told Freddie not to bother with a bride. The title might have to reside with Freddie for a few years, but as far as Lord Ramsgate was planning, it ought to end up with Hugh or his children.
Not that he ever seemed to hold Hugh in much affection, either.
Lord Ramsgate was not the only nobleman who saw no reason to care for his children equally. Hugh would be better for Ramsgate, and thus Hugh was better, period.
Because they all knew that the marquess loved Ramsgate, Hugh, and Freddie in precisely that order.
And probably Freddie not at all.
“Would you like laudanum?” Freddie asked abruptly. “The doctor said we could give you some if you woke up.”
If. Even less funny than the yet.
Hugh gave a nod and allowed his older brother to help him into something approaching a sitting position. “God, that’s foul,” he said, handing the cup back to Freddie once he’d downed the contents.
Freddie sniffed the dregs. “Alcohol,” he confirmed. “The morphine is dissolved in it.”
“Just what I need,” Hugh muttered. “More alcohol.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Hugh just shook his head.
“I’m glad you’re awake,” Freddie said in a tone that forced Hugh to notice that he had not sat back down after pouring the laudanum. “I’ll ask Corville to tell Father. I’d rather not, you know, if I don’t have to . . .”
“Of course,” Hugh said. The world was a better place when Freddie avoided their father. The world was a better place when Hugh avoided him as well, but someone had to interact with the old bastard on occasion, and they both knew it had to be he. That Freddie had come here, to their old home in St. James’s, was a testament of his love for Hugh.
“I will see you tomorrow,” Freddie said, pausing at the door.
“You don’t have to,” Hugh told him.
Freddie swallowed, and he looked away. “Perhaps the next day, then.”
Or the next. Hugh wouldn’t blame him if he never came back.
Freddie must have instructed the butler to wait before notifying their father of the change in Hugh’s condition, because nearly a full day went by before Lord Ramsgate blustered into the room.
“You’re awake,” he barked.
It was remarkable how much that sounded like an accusation.
“You bloody stupid idiot,” Ramsgate hissed. “Nearly getting yourself killed. And for what? For what?”
“I’m delighted to see you, too, Father,” Hugh replied. He was sitting up now, his splinted leg thrust forward like a log. He was quite certain he sounded better than he felt, but with the Marquess of Ramsgate, one must never show weakness.
He’d learned that early on.
His father gave him a disgusted look but otherwise ignored the sarcasm. “You could have died.”
“So I understand.”
“Do you think this is funny?” the marquess snapped.
“As a matter of fact,” Hugh replied, “I do not.”
“You know what would have happened if you died.”
Hugh smiled blandly. “I’ve pondered it, to be sure, but does anyone really know what happens after we die?”
God, but it was enjoyabl
e to watch his father’s face bulge and turn red. Just so long as he didn’t start to spit.
“Do you take nothing seriously?” the marquess demanded.
“I take many things seriously, but not this.”
Lord Ramsgate sucked in his breath, his entire body shaking with rage. “We both know your brother will never marry.”
“Oh, is that what this is all about?” Hugh did his best imitation of surprise.
“I will not have Ramsgate pass from this family!”
Hugh followed this outburst with a perfectly timed pause, then said, “Oh come now, Cousin Robert isn’t so bad. They even let him back into Oxford. Well, the first time.”
“Is that what this is?” the marquess spat. “You’re trying to kill yourself just to vex me?”
“I would imagine I could vex you with significantly less effort than that. And with a far more pleasant outcome for myself.”
“If you want to be rid of me, you know what you have to do,” Lord Ramsgate said.
“Kill you?”
“You damned—”
“If I’d known it would be so easy, I really would have—”
“Just marry some fool girl and give me an heir!” his father roared.
“All things being equal,” Hugh said with devastating calm, “I’d rather she not be a fool.”
His father shook with fury, and a full minute passed before he was able to speak. “I need to know that Ramsgate will remain in the family.”
“I never said I wouldn’t marry,” Hugh said, although why he felt the need to say even this much he had no idea. “But I’m not going to do so on your schedule. Besides, I’m not your heir.”
“Frederick—”
“Might still marry,” Hugh cut in, each syllable hard and clipped.
But his father just snorted and headed for the door.
“Oh, Father,” Hugh called out before he could leave. “Will you send word to Lord Winstead’s family that he may safely return to Britain?”
“Of course not. He can rot in hell for all I care. Or France.” The marquess gave a grim chuckle. “It’s much the same place, in my opinion.”
“There is no reason why he should not be allowed to return,” Hugh said with more patience than he would have thought himself capable. “As we have both noted, he did not kill me.”
“He shot you.”
“I shot him first.”
“In the shoulder.”
Hugh clenched his teeth. Arguing with his father had always been exhausting, and he was far overdue for his laudanum. “It was my fault,” he bit out.
“I don’t care,” the marquess said. “He left on his own two feet. You’re a cripple who may not even be able to sire children now.”
Hugh felt his eyes grow wide with alarm. He had been shot in the leg. The leg.
“Didn’t think of that, did you?” his father taunted. “That bullet hit an artery. It’s a miracle you didn’t bleed to death. The doctor thinks your leg got enough blood to survive, but God only knows about the rest of you.” He yanked the door open and tossed his last statement over his shoulder. “Winstead has ruined my life. I can bloody well ruin his.”
The full extent of Hugh’s injuries would not become known for several months. His femur healed. Somewhat.
His muscle slowly knit back together. What was left of it.
On the bright side, all signs pointed toward his still being able to father a child.
Not that he wanted to. Or perhaps more to the point, not that he’d been presented with an opportunity.
But when his father inquired . . . or, rather, demanded . . . or, rather, yanked off the bedsheets in the presence of some German doctor Hugh would not have wanted to come across in a dark alley . . .
Hugh pulled the covers right back up, feigned mortal embarrassment, and let his father think he’d been irreparably damaged.
And the whole time, throughout the entire excruciating recuperation, Hugh was confined to his father’s house, trapped in bed, and forced to endure daily ministrations from a nurse whose special brand of care brought to mind Attila the Hun.
She looked like him, too. Or at least she had a face that Hugh imagined would be at home on Attila. The truth was, the comparison wasn’t very complimentary.
To Attila.
But Attila the nurse, however rough and crude she might be, was still preferable to Hugh’s father, who came by every day at four in the afternoon, brandy in hand (just one; none for Hugh), with the latest news on his hunt for Daniel Smythe-Smith.
And every day, at four-oh-one in the afternoon, Hugh asked his father to stop.
Just stop.
But of course he didn’t. Lord Ramsgate vowed to hunt Daniel until one of them was dead.
Eventually Hugh was well enough to leave Ramsgate House. He didn’t have much money—just his gambling winnings from back when he gambled—but he had enough to hire a valet and take a small apartment in The Albany, which was well known as the premier building in London for gentlemen of exceptional birth and unexceptional fortune.
He taught himself to walk again. He needed a cane for any real distance, but he could make it the length of a ballroom on his own two feet.
Not that he visited ballrooms.
He learned to live with pain, the constant ache of a badly set bone, the pulsing throb of a twisted muscle.
And he forced himself to visit his father, to try to reason with him, to tell him to stop hunting Daniel Smythe-Smith. But nothing worked. His father clung to his fury with pinched white fingers. He would never have a grandson now, he fumed, and it was all the fault of the Earl of Winstead.
It did not matter when Hugh pointed out that Freddie was healthy and could still surprise them and get married. Lots of men who would rather have remained unwed took wives. The marquess just spat. He literally spat on the floor and said that even if Freddie took a bride, he would never manage to sire a son. And if he did—if by some miracle he did—it wouldn’t be any child worthy of their name.
No, it was Winstead’s fault. Hugh was supposed to have provided the Ramsgate heir, and now look at him. He was a useless cripple. Who probably couldn’t sire a son, either.
Lord Ramsgate would never forgive Daniel Smythe-Smith, the once dashing and popular Earl of Winstead. Never.
And Hugh, whose one constant in life had been his ability to look at a problem from all angles and sort out the most logical solution, had no idea what to do. More than once he’d thought about getting married himself, but despite the fact that he seemed to be in working order, there was always the chance that the bullet had indeed done him some damage. Plus, he thought as he looked down at the ruin of his leg, what woman would have him?
And then one day, something sparked in his memory—a fleeting moment from that conversation with Freddie, right after the duel.
Freddie had said that he hadn’t tried to reason with the marquess, and Hugh had said, “Of course not,” and then he’d thought, Because who reasons with a madman?
He finally knew the answer.
Only another madman.
Chapter One
Fensmore
nr. Chatteris
Cambridgeshire
Autumn 1824
Lady Sarah Pleinsworth, veteran of three unsuccessful seasons in London, looked about her soon-to-be cousin’s drawing room and announced, “I am plagued by weddings.”
Her companions were her younger sisters, Harriet, Elizabeth, and Frances, who—at sixteen, fourteen, and eleven—were not of an age to worry about matrimonial prospects. Still, one might think they would offer a bit of sympathy.
One might, if one was not familiar with the Pleinsworth girls.
“You’re being melodramatic,” Harriet replied, sparing Sarah a fleeting glance before dipping her pen in ink and resuming her scribbles at the writing desk.
Sarah turned slowly in her direction. “You’re writing a play about Henry VIII and a unicorn and you’re calling me melodramatic?”
“It’s a satire,” Harriet replied.
“What’s a satire?” Frances cut in. “Is it the same as a satyr?”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened with wicked delight. “Yes!” she exclaimed.
“Elizabeth!” Harriet scolded.
Frances narrowed her eyes at Elizabeth. “It’s not, is it?”
“It ought to be,” Elizabeth retorted, “given that you’ve made her put a bloody unicorn in the story.”
“Elizabeth!” Sarah didn’t really care that her sister had cursed, but as the oldest in the family, she knew she ought to care. Or at the very least, make a pretense of caring.
“I wasn’t cursing,” Elizabeth protested. “It was wishful thinking.”
This was met with confused silence.
“If the unicorn is bleeding,” Elizabeth explained, “then the play has at least a chance of being interesting.”
Frances gasped. “Oh, Harriet! You’re not going to injure the unicorn, are you?”
Harriet slid a hand over her writing. “Well, not very much.”
Frances’s gasp whooshed into a choke of terror. “Harriet!”
“Is it even possible to have a plague of weddings?” Harriet said loudly, turning back to Sarah. “And if so, would two qualify?”
“They would,” Sarah replied darkly, “if they were occurring just one week apart, and if one happened to be related to one of the brides and one of the grooms, and especially if one was forced to be the maid of honor at a wedding in which—”
“You only have to be maid of honor once,” Elizabeth cut in.
“Once is enough,” Sarah muttered. No one should have to walk down a church aisle with a bouquet of flowers unless she was the bride, already had been the bride, or was too young to be the bride. Otherwise, it was just cruel.
“I think it’s divine that Honoria asked you to be the maid of honor,” Frances gushed. “It’s so romantic. Maybe you can write a scene like this in your play, Harriet.”
“That’s a good idea,” Harriet replied. “I could introduce a new character. I’ll have her look just like Sarah.”