Collin slid from the saddle before even the quickest groom had appeared.
"Somerhart!" He shouted as he crashed through the door. A hue and cry answered him, as several servants rushed for the entry. "Is the duke here?" he asked the man he recognized from his last visit.
"I beg your pardon—"
Collin threw back the blanket to reveal his fevered burden. The butler gaped at the swath of white skin revealed above her soiled dress. A maid gasped, loud and shrill.
"Your mistress is gravely ill."
"Jones," the butler barked to some invisible person. "His Grace is riding. Track him down. Bridget. Show this gentleman the way to her chambers." He glanced around, still dignified, but burning with purpose. "Where is Thom? He must be sent for the doctor."
"The doctor's on his way. I left word in town."
The maid began to scurry toward the stairs. Collin followed her, leaving behind a racket of whispers and urgent hisses. He flew up the soft carpet of the stairs, Alex lighter than she should be in his tired arms. When he laid her on her bed his muscles tingled and jumped at the strangeness of having nothing to hold.
Bridget hovered, darting panicked glances between her mistress and the stranger. "Get some water," he barked. "A towel."
"I'll take care of that."
Collin turned to the scrape of that voice and found himself face to face with six feet of outraged housekeeper. She shouldered Collin to the side and began to wash Alexandra's face, her arms and feet, clucking and shaking her head with every pass of the rag. Collin backed away, wondered what to do with himself.
"She took ill around midnight," he finally contributed. The woman pierced him with green eyes. "High fever. She can't keep even water down most of the time." Collin looked away from her to Alexandra's face. Her teeth began to chatter, each shiver sending ice into his veins.
"Get out! I need to see her properly dressed."
Collin backed from the room, knowing he had no right to be there and desperately wanting to stay. He hovered just outside the chamber door and gazed dazedly around her sitting room, noticing only the oddest things . . . The rearing jade horse perched on the mantle, the small circle of a bright red pillow canted against a chairback. One yellowing glove lay on a table next to the window, beginning to crack with age. A keepsake, no doubt.
The hall door opened to a maid who bustled by, weighted down by a tray. Collin caught the faint spice of tea. He followed her back into the bedchamber.
The women ignored him, allowed him to stare down at their charge. It had been hours since he'd seen her in good light. Surely her cheekbones had been just as prominent earlier, surely the skin around her mouth was always so pale. She couldn't be so ill, so quickly. He'd made love to her not twelve hours before.
A sudden shift in the room caught Collin's attention. Both servants straightened and stared at a point somewhere over his shoulder. The maid bobbed a curtsy.
The Duke of Somerhart moved past without a glance in his direction. He rushed to his sister's side, pressed a hand to her cheek with grave care. "Alex?"
There was no response. Collin watched the man reach beneath the crisp sheets to pull her hand out. Their coloring was the same, black hair and blue eyes. There the similarities ended. Somerhart was tall and whip-hard, and his usual expression of idle contempt could cut glass. His face was even sharper than that now. He squeezed her hand, stroked her fingers with his thumb, and then he turned cold blue eyes to Collin.
"What the fuck are you doing with my sister?"
"She—"
"I made it clear you were to stay away from her."
"I can't defend myself."
"Is this your revenge?"
"No."
Somerhart turned his eyes back to Alexandra, apparently done with Collin for the moment. He sat gently on the bed and pressed her slack fingers to his mouth, then bent to murmur something close to her ear. She stirred a little at the words, but her eyelids only fluttered.
"Move back."
Collin took a step back, assuming he was being ordered from the room. When a short man dressed in severe black brushed past, he realized the doctor was speaking to the room in general. The man was a small package of efficient energy as he situated his equipment and bent to his task. He briskly examined Alexandra, peering into her eyes, her throat, her ears, checking her pulse and her breathing. He even unbuttoned the woolen nightdress she'd been dressed in. Collin looked away. He felt weakness vibrate up from his knees. The doctor has come, was all he could think.
"Scarletina," the man's voice cracked. "See the rash starting here?"
Somerhart rumbled a low answer.
"You must get some water into her. Willow bark tea if you can." He pulled ajar from his bag, opened the lid. "Try to keep her comfortable. Keep her warm." He pressed a leech to her neck. "Marrow broth if she keeps down the tea."
Bile burned the back of Collin's throat at the sight of the writhing leech dark against her skin. It was obscene, that thing burrowing into her white flesh, sucking her precious blood. Another one squirmed on her wrist, then another at the crook of her arm.
"Blackburn." Collin's name fell like a fist from the duke's lips. "Get out. See yourself to my library."
Collin hesitated, wondering if this were the last time he'd see her. But now was not the time for tender goodbyes. He had apologies to make and explanations to give. And if Somerhart refused to allow him near her, he would scale the walls.
Forcing his feet to move, he turned away from her, left her behind in the care of others. He wandered down the stairs and was directed to the library with a jerk of the butler's head. He was not surprised when refreshments failed to appear.
The air seemed to thicken with rage when the duke stepped inside the library and pinned him with a glare.
"I came to see your sister. After you ordered me not to."
"That was months ago."
"Yes. We spoke only briefly. We happened upon each other again at your cousin's home. George Tate is married to my cousin, Lucy."
"Yes. I am aware of that." Somerhart stalked to the sideboard and poured himself a drink. He did not offer one to Collin.
"We became better acquainted."
"You seduced her, you mean?"
"No, that's not what I mean. We were. . ." Collin rubbed a fist against his brow, trying to free his rusty brain from its exhaustion. "We engaged in a flirtation."
"A flirtation. And did you mean to wound her? To punish her?"
"Of course not. I do not hold her responsible for my brother's death."
"Don't lie to me," Somerhart growled, jaw set with desperate anger. "I could see it clearly on your face when we spoke. You held her in contempt."
"I did. Then. After I met her .. ." His shrug sent pain dancing down his arms.
"So how did she end up half-dead and in your care?"
"She. . . She came to Edinburgh, came to the fair. When I saw her there, we . . ." He could not say the truth, could not tell him that his little sister had propositioned a man. "We arranged to meet. For a week at her cottage."
"For a week." Somerhart placed the glass carefully on the marble top of a table. "So there was no doubt of your intention."
"No. None. I meant to have her."
Collin did not step away when her brother approached, he did not flinch at the sight of his fist. He was ready for the impact. Still, it propelled him backward, flung him off his feet to land with a thump onto the floor. His jaw rang with pain, a vibration that traveled at gleeful speed to his head and set off a sympathetic ache there.
He was dimly surprised that Somerhart did not leap upon him and pummel him into the rug. He only stood over him, fists clenched, panting with suppressed violence.
Collin rubbed his sore face and staggered to his feet, waited for the room to right itself. The dim clink of glass informed him that Somerhart had moved away.
"She is not a whore, you bastard. She is a girl, barely a woman."
"She was a virgin."
Collin watched the man's hand still, watched his jaw jump and clench. "What?" That one word was razor sharp and cut into Collin's conscience with ease.
"She was a virgin."
"Was."
"Aye. By the time I realized, it was too late."
"You mean by the time you penetrated her. My baby sister."
Collin felt it was wiser not to respond to that.
Somerhart's eyes rose from his drink to sweep him with a contemptuous sneer.
"I suppose you expect to marry her now, a woman of high rank, a woman with an income twice yours, I don't doubt."
"I proposed immediately. She refused in like time." "She refused?"
"She says she is not looking for a husband."
"What the hell is she looking for then?"
Collin cleared his throat, not knowing how to answer, but Somerhart stared at him, waiting. "She wants no more than what you have, I suppose. Freedom to do as she wants."
"She's had as much freedom as she's going to get."
"I'd imagine so."
Somerhart's arm jerked in a blur of motion and Collin heard crystal explode against the far wall in a great cacophony of glass and liquid. "God damn it to hell!" the duke growled, his face suddenly savage, brutal with frustration. No, not frustration, Collin realized. Fear.
"She will pull through this." Collin wondered at the certainty in his words. "She must. The scarlet fever is a childhood illness. Surely she's strong enough to withstand it."
"When was she last conscious?"
"Last night. Last night around ten. I woke at midnight and found her as she is now."
"Have you mistreated her?"
Collin tried not to take offense. It was a legitimate question considering the circumstances. "No. Though I was angry at her deception. I would never have, that is . . . I suppose it makes little difference, but I would never have taken her maidenhead, and she knew that." He felt pinned under the duke's glare but met his eyes without flinching. "I care for your sister. I would not have seen her harmed."
"And you did not think it harmful to tryst with an unmarried young girl, regardless of her respectability?"
"I did not feel it was right, and still I did it. There is no excuse for my actions."
Those icy eyes narrowed, studied him for a moment. "Oh, there's an excuse, I'll wager. Alex has been known to be ruthless in her enthusiasms."
Collin coughed, cleared his throat, and fought the flush that heated his skin.
"When she was sixteen, she insisted she needed a stallion for riding. She said a mare or gelding would not do. I resisted her, but it was rough going for several months. Her will has not been tempered in the meantime."
"No." Collin shifted, ran a hand through his hair. "I'll ask for her hand again when she recovers. She seemed quite adamant in her refusal, but perhaps I can change her mind."
"I'm not sure I'd want you to."
"Hardly a surprise. I'm quite beneath her, as you've said."
"Yes." But he studied Collin with an assessing gleam that any horseman could recognize. "You are not given to excess though. You're straightforward, intelligent. I've never heard a word said against you."
"I am seldom in London, Your Grace."
"Don't start with the 'Your Graces' now. It's a little late for that considering you've defiled my sister."
Collin inclined his head, trying not to betray his newly hatched irritation. He could hardly protest the treatment.
"Would you have offered for her in any case? Virgin or not?"
He opened his mouth to answer honestly and found he could not. No, he meant to say, but hadn't he thought of it, briefly, during that visit to Lucy's? Thought of it and dismissed it out of hand? And again at the cottage? But even if she hadn't been a virgin, could he have spent a week in her bed and given her up with naught more than a farewell kiss?
"Your silence speaks for itself."
"No, actually. I'm not sure of my answer. If I'd meant to marry her, I wouldn't have met her as I did, but as to how I would have felt afterward? I can't say. She's a remarkable woman, a woman to be proud of."
"You think so?" His words were a genuine question, not a reproach for Alexandra.
"If she had not been your sister, if she'd been born no more than a Scottish seamstress, I would have offered for her, virgin or not."
"Hm." Those eyes swept Collin again, chilling in their appraisal. "Thank you for bringing her home. You did not abandon her to her sickness, at the very least."
Collin's irritation pitched forward into anger. "Do not insult me."
One elegant black brow rose in mock surprise. "What should I have expected from you, do you think?"
