Page 201 of Courting the Wrong Duke

“No, you do not.”

“No,” he admitted. “Probably not.”

Rosalind laughed again and wiped impatiently at her eyes. “Perhaps we should put that in the manual.”

His thoughts were still moving rather slowly. “What manual?”

Her expression softened. “Our courtship manual.”

Something shifted in his memory.

A garden beneath the summer sun. Rosalind arguing with him in a gallery. Horses carrying them across Wales.

Then Bryn Hir. Algernon. The pistol.

William’s amusement disappeared as he tried to push himself upright.

Pain exploded beneath his ribs. “Bloody hell.”

“Do not move!”

Rosalind was on her feet immediately, one hand against his shoulder as she pressed him carefully back into the pillows. William breathed through the pain until the room stopped threatening to disappear around him.

“I have been shot.”

“Yes.”

He looked down at himself. His shirt had been replaced by one he did not recognize, and thick bandaging circled his ribs beneath it.

“That seems unnecessarily dramatic.”

“You threw yourself at a man holding a pistol.”

“My brother.”

“That does not improve the decision.”

William looked at her. Rosalind looked furious, which under the circumstances seemed entirely unreasonable.

It was also one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

“How long have I been here?”

“Two days.”

His humor disappeared. “Two days?”

“You have woken briefly several times, although I am not certain you knew it.” Rosalind settled into the chair again but kept hold of his hand. “The physician says you were extraordinarily fortunate. The ball struck one of your ribs and glanced along your side rather than passing deeply into your body. He removed it, and there has been no sign of fever. He says you are no longer in immediate danger.”

William was quiet for a moment, trying to absorb the fact that two entire days had passed without his knowledge.

Then another thought pushed everything else aside.

“Your father?”

“Alive, free, and currently behaving as though several weeks of imprisonment have given him the right to order everyone else about.”

Relief loosened something inside him. “And Isabella?”