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“I am an invalid,” Lord Stephen replied, gesturing with his cane toward his left leg. “Did you know that invalid and in-valid look the same on paper? They can look the same in life as well, so I learned all that I could pertaining to the preservation of human health. I’m more knowledgeable regarding bones and injuries than I am about illness, but I’ve picked up a few things.”
“What do you suggest for fever?” Lady Althea asked.
“The willow bark tea will help with that, but cool sponge baths—cool, not too cold—will also help. Not ice water, and not surgical spirits, for they will remove too much heat from the body too quickly and propel the patient into the cycle of fever followed by chills. Don’t forget to bathe especially the face, neck, feet, and hands. If the congestion gets bad, make a towel sauna over a bowl of boiling water into which you crush a handful of peppermint leaves.”
“I’d forgotten the towel saunas,” Althea said, reaching for a cloak.
“While I have nightmares about them,” his lordship replied airily. “I’ll have a bundle of supplies sent over to Rothhaven in the next hour.”
“We’ll take them with us now,” Nathaniel said. “If you please.”
“Give me five minutes.” Althea strode off in the direction of the steps, pausing before descending. “Don’t kill each other.”
Nathaniel was thus left in the company of a man new to his acquaintance, a novel and curiously welcome experience. He’d not met a strange gentleman in years, and Lord Stephen was looking at him with an interest that suggested his lordship was equally intrigued.
“I notice your lordship isn’t warning me to treat your sister with utmost care.”
Lord Stephen propped himself against the sideboard. To appearances he was lounging, but he kept hold of his cane and took weight off his left leg.
“If you need such a warning regarding proper behavior toward a female, Althea will see that you receive it and in a manner that could jeopardize your titular succession. That could be a problem for a man far from the services of a physician and without an extant heir.” He smiled, much as a fox likely smiled at a dim-witted hen.
“Warn me anyway,” Nathaniel snapped. “She is your sister and I am unknown to you. Assuming that her efforts alone will check my untoward impulses is less than sibling loyalty demands.”
His lordship straightened without quite taking his weight from the sideboard. “Very well.” His brows knit as he studied the handle of his walking stick. “Make my sister cry and I will kill you, slowly and painfully. How’s that?”
The warning was that of a boy, but the light in his lordship’s eyes belonged to a man—a dangerous man.
“Lacks originality but manages to get the point across,” Nathaniel said. “Expand a bit on the slow, painful death and you’ll be more convincing.”
“Said the man whose worst trait is that grannies make up stories about him to entertain children on stormy nights. Do I offer you a brandy now?”
“You do, being a quick study despite appearances to the contrary. I politely decline because I am in something of a hurry.”
“Dukes often are,” Lord Stephen opined. “Poor sods. That’s why they need duchesses, ladies who will stand between the titled idiot and all that distracts him from what matters, or so my brother claims. Althea hasn’t had to remind you of your manners yet, has she?”
Lord Stephen’s gaze assessed, the same way an art dealer examined a dusty item of statuary, seeing the quality therein, but also the restoration needed after years of neglect. If his lordship was the spare, what on earth must the Duke of Walden be like? But then, spares were often fierce in their own way.
They had to be. “Her ladyship has not objected to my behavior thus far,” Nathaniel said. “I trust I will never give her cause to regret her association with me.”
She already did, or she should. The lady herself emerged from belowstairs, a covered basket over her arm.
“Did you remember to fetch some ginger?” his lordship asked. “Illness and its treatments can occasion dyspepsia.”
“I forgot, drat and damnation.”
“Never mind,” Lord Stephen said, pushing away from the sideboard. “I’ll send some along at first light. Wash your hands frequently when you’re tending an illness, Thea. Paracelsus advised cleanliness in the sickroom, and he was a man of considerable judgment. Rothhaven, I really will kill you.”
He held out a hand.
Nathaniel shook, finding his lordship’s grip firm to the point of painful. “As you should, if I transgress. Lady Althea, shall we be on our way?”
She passed Nathaniel the basket, snatched a straw hat from a peg, and preceded him out the door. Lord Stephen remained in the foyer, looking far too pleased with himself for a man watching his sister disappear into the darkness with a stranger.
“Nighty-night,” he said, waving gently. “And don’t worry. Althea refused to let me die, though I gave the quest my all on more than one occasion. The patient will be up and about in no time.” He blew a kiss not at his sister, who was off down the steps, but at Nathaniel.
“Good night, and my thanks for your reassurances—such as they are.”
Nathaniel and Althea kept up a brisk pace along the moonlit paths, but when he ushered her into Robbie’s apartment they found the patient’s condition was worse than when Nathaniel had left less than an hour past.
