A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes Page 0,48
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.”
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. “You fell near the river?”
Robbie nodded. “Apparently so.”
Rothhaven glanced at the clock on the mantel. “And you left the house at dawn? I thought you said—”
“The fog was thick, Nathaniel. I simply wanted one last ramble.”
“But that was hours 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?”
“Afraid not, Your Grace.”
“Then let us hope lung fever doesn’t become an issue.” Except that it all too easily could. A long seizure usually left Robbie exhausted and disoriented, in this case apparently so exhausted he’d succumbed to sleep immediately thereafter, right on the cold, damp earth and half in the river.
Or perhaps he’d lost consciousness during the seizure itself and never awakened. Nathaniel had no way to tell, and Robbie refused to see physicians competent to treat his ailment—if any there were.
Nathaniel took the basket and a basin of ice water up the steps, pausing on the landing to let old Thatcher shuffle past.