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“Mr. Robbie should take to his bed with a hot water bottle and peppermint tea until the physician can get here,” she said.
“No doctor,” Robbie said, making an attempt to stand on his own. “I refuse to be quacked.”
Something passed between him and Rothhaven. An old argument, an entire debate, such as Althea often had with Stephen about using two canes at all times. But Robbie wasn’t merely being stubborn. His gaze had acquired the same haunted look he’d turned on the blue morning sky.
“We can stand here arguing,” Althea said, “or we can put you to bed. I am competent to wrap a sore ankle and I know my way around an herbal. We’ll want comfrey salve or arnica, both if you have them. Willow bark tea, ice water, clean linen, and if the pain grows too great, some poppy syrup.”
“No laudanum,” Robbie said. “No quacks, no laudanum, Nathaniel. Promise me.”
Rothhaven touched Robbie’s shoulder, the gesture so personal Althea wished she hadn’t seen it.
“I promise, Robbie. You’re safe. Shall we get you comfortable in the estate office? I’d like to spare you the stairs for now if I can.”
Robbie—apparently that was a first name—nodded, the inclination of his head regal despite his bedraggled state. “The estate office will do.”
They shuffled into the house with Althea minding the door and trailing behind.
An older fellow came up from the steps that led belowstairs. He was spare, white-haired, and looked out on the world through vivid blue eyes.
“Master Robbie, so glad you’re home.”
Master Robbie?
Rothhaven kept moving. “Treegum, please fetch bandages and the usual medicinals from the herbal. We’re dealing with a sprained ankle. We’ll be in the family parlor.”
Treegum gave Althea such a thorough visual inspection she might well have been a felon escaped from the hulks come to steal the silver. Then the old fellow was off down the steps with surprising speed for one of his venerable years.
“The difficult part,” Althea said, when Robbie was sitting on the sofa, “will be getting that boot off, though perhaps time spent soaking in the river will have made the leather more forgiving.”
Rothhaven stood over Robbie, hands on his hips. “Youfellnear the river?”
Robbie nodded. “Apparently so.”
Rothhaven glanced at the clock on the mantel. “And you left the houseat dawn? I thought you said—”
“The fog was thick, Nathaniel. I simply wanted one last ramble.”
“But that washours ago. And the whole morning—”
“Stop fussing the poor man,” Althea said. “Time enough for recriminations and lectures later, though in my experience, grown men with any dignity generally lecture themselves mercilessly in such situations, all the while pretending they are immortal and invincible. Help me get this boot off.”
Robbie’s smile was more mischievous this time. “You heard the lady, Nathaniel. Help her get my boot off.”
“I’ll cut your damned boot off,” Rothhaven growled. “The sheer, inconceivable hubris, the utter lack of thought, the risk for the sake of a mere—”
Althea put her hand over his mouth. “Boot off now, snorting and pawing later. You race about on your horse at perilous speed in fading light without so much as a groom to get you home should your gelding take a mis-step. This is how all too many men behave. Anybody can slip on a damp patch of grass. Either make yourself useful or go threaten some children with trespassing charges.”
At first Althea thought Robbie was in distress. His shoulders heaved, then he took a hitching breath, and then he was laughing as if all the merriment in creation had been visited upon him in a single moment.
Rothhaven ran a hand through his hair. “I apprehend that I am out-numbered and I yield to the superior odds. I’ll see what’s keeping Treegum.”
Althea bent to the task of easing off Robbie’s boot, which put an abrupt end to his laughter.
“What do you mean, our stores are low?” Nathaniel kept his tone civil with effort. The herbal usually fell under the housekeeper’s purview, and Treegum should have been able to rely on Mrs. Beaseley to mind the inventory.
“Exactly that, Your Grace. Winter brought its usual share of influenza, colds, and catarrhs, apparently. We have a bit of the comfrey and arnica and plenty of linen, but we’re nearly out of the willow bark tea.”
“Feverfew?”
