The carriage horse, Molly, was a good girl, and Nicholas had to do very little to direct her. He had been a better horseman than driver, but he supposed his driving skills were more important now. He guided the horse onto the road, and when she found her stride, he urged her faster.
Once they were on their way, he chanced a look at Amelia. Her face was red and blotchy, but she was not crying. Poor girl. The strain evident on her features tore at his heart. He would have reached over to take her hand, but he hadn’t driven in some time and wanted both on the reins. Still, he felt he should say something. He wasn’t any good in these types of situations, though. What should he say?
“I’m sure all will be well,” he said finally. It sounded as hollow as he’d feared, and he winced a bit.
“I shouldn’t have left her,” Amelia said, her words like a torrent she’d been damming up. “I knew she was not strong, and I knew she was struggling. I should have gone to see her. I shouldn’t have listened to her. Why did I listen to her?”
“What did she say?”
She glanced at him. “To stay at Battle’s Peak and dedicate time to being a new bride. I didn’t need to do that, now did I?”
Nicholas felt the barb strike him just as intended. He turned his head to stare straight forward as the horse ate up the final length of road to Catmint Cottage. As soon as the gig pulled before the door, before Nicholas could even engage the brake, Amelia had jumped down and run into the house. That left Nicholas to find a way out of the conveyance on his own. This was why he didn’t drive any longer, and there was no one to help him. He moved awkwardly onto the step with his good leg then pulled his bad leg into position. Holding tightly to the box, he then lowered his good leg. Of course, it buckled, and he went down, his face in the gravel of the drive and his left leg pulsing with pain.
“Damn it,” he said, pushing his face off the ground. There was no easy way to stand from a position on the ground, and he took a moment to roll over and look up at the sky and assess the status of his legs. The left was settling down now. It hadn’t liked the quick bend at the knee or the jolt of hitting the ground. But he didn’t think he’d injured anything other than his pride. His gaze shifted to the carriage box, and he spotted his cane looking down at him smugly. Fat lot of good it did up there. He’d have to slide over to the coach, grasp the wooden frame and haul himself up. He could imagine the state of his coat after that—not that he would normally care, but this was the first time in his wife’s home, and now he would have to go in dusty and dirty.
“My lord!” The voice came from the house, and it wasn’t Amelia’s so he could only assume it was the servant who had come to fetch her. “My lord, are you hurt?” The older woman came running around the gig, her hands going to her mouth in horror when she saw him.
“Perfectly fine,” he said. “Just took a tumble.” Of course, he was not perfectly fine. If he was perfectly fine, he wouldn’t be lying on the ground.
“May I help you, my lord?” the servant asked, coming to stand near him.
“That would be much appreciated.”
“What should I—”
He managed to push himself up using his elbows and nodded at the box. “If you could hand me my walking stick.”
She looked at the box, saw the stick, and pulled it out right away. It was so easy for her, and how Nicholas envied the ease at which she accomplished the task. Of course, it was an easy task for everyone but him.
She handed him the stick, and he set it on the ground and began to pull himself up. Without being asked, the servant went to his other side and helped lift him that way. A moment later, he was upright again with a fine sheen of perspiration along his forehead.
“Thank you,” he told the servant, though he would have rather pushed her away and told her he was fine on his own, thank you very much. But that would have been uncharitable and untrue, and what was one more instance of swallowing his pride? His belly was full of it these past few years. “How is Mrs. Blackstock?” he asked, brushing off the sleeves of his coat.
“I couldn’t rouse her this morning, my lord. She has been rising later and later since Mr. Blackstock’s death, but never this late. I went to her chamber, and she didn’t wake, not even when I shook her.”
Nicholas raked a hand through his hair to try and tame it. He looked about and spotted his hat on the ground. Bloody hell. “Have you called for the doctor?”
“I sent our odd job boy for him, but he hasn’t returned yet.” She bent and retrieved his hat, brushed it off efficiently, and handed it to him.
“Thank you. Again. Would you mind showing me to Mrs. Blackstock’s chamber?”
“Of course, my lord. Lady Nicholas has already gone inside.”
Nicholas followed the servant into Catmint Cottage. The house was bright and cozy. Everything was clean and neat and uncluttered. The walls were papered or painted cheery colors with portraits or landscapes on the walls. The morning sun streamed into the windows lighting the vestibule as the chambers whose doors were open to invite him to look, but he felt the sadness within. Almost as soon as he had the thought, he dismissed it as ridiculous. Houses did not have feelings or emotions. And they didn’t absorb those emotions from their inhabitants.
“This way, my lord,” the servant said as she started up the stairs.
Of course, the bedchamber was upstairs. Nicholas considered saying he would wait below, but Amelia was up there, and she needed him. So climb he must. He tested the banister to make sure it was solid and sturdy, then put his cane on one step and held tight to the banister with the other and pulled himself up. He would have preferred to go up as he did at home, but he wouldn’t do that in front of a servant. In any case, these stairs were narrower and wooden, as opposed to the wide, curving marble steps at Battle’s Peak.
The servant turned away, pretending not to notice his difficulty and smart enough not to offer assistance. She moved slowly ahead of him and pretended to busy herself at the top of the stairs until he made it. By then Nicholas was breathing heavily and cursing himself for thinking he could be any use whatsoever to Amelia. It would have been better to send Florentia and stay back at Battle’s Peak.
“This way, my lord,” the servant said when she’d given him a discreet moment to catch his breath. He followed her to a room at the end of the corridor with the door flung open. The servant stood aside so he could enter, and as soon as he did, he spotted Amelia on the bed beside her mother, who was propped on pillows and looking at Amelia as her daughter spoke softly to her and bathed her brow with a damp cloth.
Amelia glanced over her shoulder as he entered, her expression slightly annoyed. She probably wondered what had taken him so long. Then she spotted the servant. “Rose,” she said, “would you fetch some broth and a cup of tea, I think.”
“Of course, my lady.” The servant bustled away, and Nicholas took his hat off.
“How is she?” he asked Amelia, who had glanced at him again, the annoyance gone from her expression now.
“She’s given us quite a scare,” she said, obviously aware her mother was also listening. “She hasn’t been eating, but we’ll get some food into her and build her strength up.”