as the slightest movement sent a burning sort of pain through her shoulder. “How long have I been here?”
“Four nights,” Mercy answered.
“We’ve been taking turns watching over you so Dr. Conleith can see to his other patients, but he examines you every morning and is here every evening.” Felicity dared a glance up at him before her gaze darted away. “And we all meet here for tea or supper, just as Dr. Conleith does his final rounds.”
Nora did her best to blink away confusion. “We all?”
Mercy gestured expansively to the clinic at large. “Felicity, Prudence, and Morley, of course. Did you know he and Dr. Conleith fought in the war together?”
“Morley did most of the fighting,” Titus said with a self-effacing grimace. “I was merely a medical officer.”
He was never merely anything.
Nora had known he’d left Cambridge for a while before returning, but she hadn’t discovered why until now.
Had war crafted the boy she’d loved into this man of brutal strength and sinew? Had it hardened his gentle eyes and deepened the brackets beside his mouth?
“I’m touched,” Nora whispered. “That you were all here by my side, despite…” Despite the damage her husband had wrought on the entire family.
“Of course we were!” Mercy exclaimed. “Nora, had we known what William was like. What you had to endure—”
“Mercy.” Felicity seized her twin’s hand, looking as if she wanted to brain her sister with the tome she still held. “Let’s not speak of that now, she’s only just regained consciousness.”
“Right.” Chagrined, Mercy dropped her hands to her sides and clutched at her skirts as if she could contain herself that way.
“Mama and Papa send their…good wishes,” Felicity said with an unconvincing smile. “They’ll be ever so relieved to hear that you’re out of the proverbial woods.”
Would they be? Nora wasn’t so certain. It might have been easier for them if she and William had both perished on the docks.
They could bury her shame forever.
Mention of the Baron and Baroness of Cresthaven seemed to galvanize Titus into action. He pulled a notebook from a pocket hanging at the foot of her bed. “The bullet created a small tear in your axillary vein, through which you lost a great deal of blood,” he informed the notes as he flipped through them with industrious fervor. “That can be blamed for your lengthy lack of consciousness. However, there have been no signs of further bleeding nor infection. I see no reason you cannot return to Cresthaven Place tomorrow to recover. I’ll send notes and diagrams of my surgical repair for the attending doctor and—”
“Actually.” Mercy held up a finger as if trying to get the attention of a teacher in class, though she looked nonplussed when it worked.
As if she didn’t want to say what came next.
“Father mentioned… well, he thinks it’s best you do not convalesce at Cresthaven Place. Not until William’s crimes are all uncovered, and the extent of the scandal is known. There was no talking him out of it. You know how he is.”
After so many years, her parents’ lack of concern shouldn’t hurt so much.
And yet…
Nora sighed. Perhaps she’d woken up too soon, after all. “It’s all right. I would like to sleep in my own bed before I have to relinquish it to whomever will become the next Viscount Woodhaven.”
“Do you know who that will be?” Mercy asked with an anxious wrinkle between her brows.
“I haven’t the faintest idea. William had no siblings nor cousins, and was still convinced that I’d eventually give him an heir.”
A soft clack rang in the silence that followed, sounding very much like teeth crashing together. Had that vein been so prominent in Titus’s forehead before?
Mercy blew a ringlet away from her eye. “I hope he’s not some strident old grump with a shrew for a wife. They can’t take your rooms in town, can they? I mean, you’re allowed a dowager stipend, are you not?”
Nurse Higgins adopted a rather protective posture over Nora, eliciting from her the most ridiculous urge to crawl into the matronly woman’s lap and sleep for days. “Now inn’t the best time to be concerning her ladyship with such things, child,” she gently reproached.
Sufficiently chastised, Mercy winced. “You’re right, of course. Do forget all about it, Nora. I’m certain it’ll work out.”
Nora closed her eyes, wishing for all the world that Titus was not here to witness this. Did he know about William’s crimes? About the wrongs she’d committed and the lovers she’d taken?