down the street. They were there in a matter of seconds. Declan wondered what injuries could be sustained inside a moving carriage. They’d discussed a turned ankle or a fainting spell, something from which Helena could easily recover. But she was meant to succumb before they were speeding away. He leaned, trying to catch Helena’s eye through the window. To his left, the clinic grew smaller and smaller. Their opportunity was slipping away. They’d not be back this—
Suddenly, the glass pane to the carriage window slapped open. Helena stuck out her head and called, “Stop the carriage!”
Declan swung away, barely managing to hang on. “Hold!” he shouted.
“Stop, stop, stop,” Helena sputtered, sticking her head almost entirely out. She clutched the pane with tight, gloved fingers.
“I am . . . not well,” she gasped, pinching her lips together.
Declan didn’t fake his alarm. Bloody hell. This girl—
“Stop the carriage,” she called again, her voice winded and gaspy.
The carriage stopped, horses dancing a clatter on the street. Nettle rushed to open the door.
Inside the carriage, pandemonium reigned. Her sisters pressed back, their outraged protests a tangle of Don’ts—! and Get-backs—! The countess clutched a kerchief over her nose and mouth. The cousin appeared stunned.
“Really, Helena,” her mother hissed, “can you not wait until we reach Lusk House?”
“I cannot help when I am struck by intestinal distress,” Helena exclaimed, laying her head against the cool glass of the window.
“Mother, get her out!” said her sister Joan. “If she is sick in this small space, we’ll all be . . . be—”
“Mama!” chimed the other sisters, kerchiefs now flying to faces and skirts pulled back. “The silks!”
“I’ll go,” called Helena, crawling drunkenly to the door. “I’m going.” She lurched down the steps. “I need air. I need air.”
A large planter of chrysanthemums stood nearby, and she staggered to it, gripping the sides, bowing over the orange blooms.
Lady Pembrook gasped. “For God’s sake, Helena, comport yourself. You cannot mean to be sick in the street?”
“I cannot help when I fall ill, Mama,” she said breathily.
Declan would not have believed this performance if he’d not seen it with his own eyes. “My lady,” he said to the countess, “I see the office of a doctor just there.” He pointed to Dr. Keep’s door. “With your permission, I will take Lady Helena inside and seek care.”
“What?” Lady Pembrook squinted at the shiny placard beside the smart green door. “Oh, so it is.”
She glanced to Helena again, now hanging off the planter, still clinging to the rim. She looked like a strong wind had blown her sideways.
“I’m afraid there is no other help for it,” said the countess, withdrawing into the vehicle. “I cannot allow her to carry on in the street. We must think of the duke’s dear cousin. Yes, yes, Shaw—take her inside. If she must be so . . . overcome, what choice do we have?”
She looked again at the planter, and Helena drooped in the direction of the flowers, her face nearly touching the petals. The peacock feather fell forward and hung limply in the chrysanthemums, a bird downed in flight.
“Take her, take her,” hissed the countess. “I’m sorry I cannot accompany her, but I am highly susceptible to infection and would, doubtless, succumb. And I’ll not leave one of her sisters and have them stricken too.”
“I’ll stay with her, Mama,” said her sister Camille from inside the carriage.
“You will not,” said the countess. “She’s too ill to risk our good health. I’ll send Meg, her maid, as soon as we reach Lusk House. Helena will prefer the care of a trained servant.”
“Very good, ma’am,” said Declan, carefully detaching Helena from the planter. “I know this practice, and they will take excellent care. Perhaps it is merely something she ate.”
“Carry on, coachman!” the countess said wearily, tapping the carriage wall. “Watch for Meg within the hour!”
The carriage door slammed shut.
“Go,” Helena said, slumping against him. “Go, go, go.”
It seemed unnecessary to carry on the charade inside the clean, modern clinic, and Helena straightened up and smoothed her hair. In the clipped cordial tones of a future duchess, she asked if she might speak to an employee, Miss Joanna Keep. Winking at Declan, she straightened her peacock feather.
“If I’d feigned calamity so near to the baroness’s house,” she said, “Lady Linney would have insisted I return. And the ankle would have been wholly insufficient. I had to portray some condition that would make my mother flee.”
“That was accomplished, I’d say.”
“I’m not the only one in the