The townhouse in London had been decorated by the late Lady Albroke on the occasion of her marriage and left to moulder ever since. Forty years had faded the wallpapers, shredded the fitted carpets, and scratched the varnish on every matching Sheraton chair.

Downstairs, effort had been made in the study and dining room, which were needed for business and pleasure. The furniture had been polished. The curtains washed and mended. Rugs put over the bare patches in the carpet. Upstairs, the drawing room and salon were kept in dust-sheets. Further up, the best bedroom was looking distinctly shabby and ugly. The ugliest item of all was the giant canopied bed, sitting directly in the middle of the room.

The canopy itself was a mass of brown velvet brocade, heavily decorated with gold lace and tassels and fol-de-rol. When the curtains were drawn, the bed felt like a velvet prison. For that reason, they were never drawn, and instead hunched darkly at the head of the bed like an undertaker over a coffin. Shadows gathered deeply in the sagging creases of the canopy body above, for it was too high for the light from the windows to reach, except on the brightest of summer mornings. There was a dark stain of mysterious origin in one corner, near the bedpost. Richard rather thought it might be blood.

There was little for Richard to do, in bed, except ponder the origin of the stain above and the ugliness of his bed canopy. For two full days, when he had not been sleeping, he had been occupied in either task. He could not lie on his side and occupy himself with the ugliness of his walls or fireplace, for on his side he could not breathe. He could not sit up and occupy himself with the ugliness of his chest of drawers, for sitting up exhausted him. The only thing he could do was lie on his back like an upended tortoise and stare at the canopy.

And he was sick of it. An impotent anger rose within him. He moved, tortoise-slow, pain arcing up his ribs. There was a bell on the chair beside the bed. Before he could reach it, there was a brisk footstep in the hallway and a knock at the open door, and the butler sauntered in.

"A visitor for you, my lord."

Was it Neil already? But no, the letter could not have even reached him yet. He would likely not arrive for another four days at least. Richard blinked at the butler. Even that motion made his head ache.

"Who is it?" Richard rasped.

"A Miss Dalrymple, my lord."

Miss Dalrymple. Richard was even more surprised by that. He struggled to sit up, and the butler came forward to assist him. There was the general rearranging of pillows and the canopy slipped out of sight above him. Instead, propped up against his pillows, Richard had the slightly less charmless view of the chest of drawers against the wall, and the various accoutrements of illness — ointment bottles, rags, bandages — sitting on top of it.

When Richard had his breath back, he said, "Send her up. She steals things, so don't leave her alone. Bring a tea tray for her. She's got a sweet tooth."

"Very good, my lord."

"And," he added savagely, "I want this damn bed canopy removed. Today."

The butler gave the canopy a grave look, as though weighing its sins. "I will have it done, my lord."

The butler left again, and Richard pressed a hand to his ribcage and breathed out slowly. Three broken ribs, Doctor Cavendish had said. And nothing to be done for them but rest, willow bark, and the foul-smelling ointment that stained all Richard's nightshirts yellow. Nor anything to be done for his stiff muscles or the blooming black bruises all over his back and stomach. Nothing but rest, rest, rest. As though he could do otherwise, when he could hardly move.

A dainty footstep in the hallway alerted Richard to Miss Dalrymple's arrival, and he twisted his neck slowly as she entered the room and looked curiously around her.

"I've never been in a gentleman's bedchamber before," she said cheerfully. "Do I need a chaperone?"

"Only if you want one." Richard winced at the effort of speaking. "Sorry. I can't get up. Please, sit."

"No, no, no," she said, drawing up a chair and perching herself on its edge with her cavernous reticule clasped firmly in her hands. "I quite understand. You must have put up a brave defence. Got him with the..." she paused, frowning, "...one two?"

"I'm no pugilist," Richard grunted. "I didn't get him at all."

She raised her eyebrows. "Not once?"

"Not once." He sneered, remembering how he'd been able to do nothing but curl his arms around his knees and hope it would stop. "Not even once."

"But he has left the country," Miss Dalrymple said. "He got on a packet and he's gone for Paris. I thought that meant you'd beat him."

"It meant he had some sense," Richard grunted. "I can't prosecute him if he's in Paris." Or if I'm dead, he thought. And it had very nearly come to that. Might have come to that, if Lord Therrywhistle and his groom hadn't interrupted. He breathed out slowly through his teeth.

Miss Dalrymple watched him shrewdly. "What if he comes back?"

"I don't know." He shrugged and hissed as pain bloomed in his shoulder. "I suppose I'll have to. But to haul him up before a magistrate... an earl's son, thrashing an earl... it will be a dreadful scandal. It already is."

"Yes." For a moment, Miss Dalrymple's merry brown eyes went cold. "I've been reading the newspapers and listening to the gossip. Dreadful! The false things that they are saying about you and Lady Laura — have you heard she is missing?"

"Missing?" He sat forward, a flame of strange fear streaking through him that was somehow more painful than the jolt of agony in his ribs. "But Fordham could not have—"

"—No. Not him." Miss Dalrymple paused as a maid entered, bearing a tray loaded with tea and cakes and sandwiches. "Oh. How kind of you."

"Eat as you please. I'm afraid I won't join you."

And for a few minutes, Richard was denied any reassurance for his anxiety, because Miss Dalrymple did eat, munching her way steadily through a piece of cake and a lemon tart and pouring herself two cups of tea. She slipped several apricots into her reticule while he watched, but he had no interest in stopping her. If she would finish telling him what she had begun to say, he would let her walk off with his entire pantry.

It did not come to that. Twenty minutes later she was ready to talk again, between sips of tea and mouthfuls of biscuit.

"She ran away."

Richard relaxed back against his pillows. That was not so bad. Laura could look after herself. He only feared what Fordham might do to her if he found her. But if he was in Paris, there was little chance of that.

"She jumped out an attic window," added Miss Dalrymple. "Should have broken both her legs, I'd think, but it was all snowed up below. A maid who heard it from a groom who saw it told me but The Chronicle is saying her father pushed her. Anyway, she wasn't hurt by it. Stole one of her father's horses, and galloped off. No one's seen her since."

"How long has it been?"

"Two nights ago. The morning papers are all speculating where she's run off to."

Richard pressed his hand to his ribs again. But there was no need to worry for her. And he had no right to. No reason.

"Her father mismanaged things," Miss Dalrymple said shrewdly. "He never did understand her."

"Does anyone?" Richard smiled despite himself. "Do you?"

"Probably not at all." Miss Dalrymple slipped another apricot in her reticule. "It's you I understand."

"Me?" He moved too quickly and came to a short stop, gasping. "Ouch."

"Now don't do that," she admonished. "If you lie very still for a month or two, you'll quite likely heal up to being a normal cripple again."

He almost laughed, and the air pressed like a knife against his ribs.

"And I do understand you," Miss Dalrymple said. "At least, I always thought you were a nice, gentle type of boy under your scowls. And perhaps just a little lonely. I had an idea she might make good company for you."

"May I remind you, Madam, that I am more than five and thirty years old?" Richard said archly. "And in no need of matchmaking."

"You're a boy until you're sixty," she retorted, "and by then I'll be a hundred and ten, so you'll be a boy forever to me."

Savagely, she ate another slice of cake, sending crumbs scattering over the carpet.

"It doesn't signify anyway," she said, through a mouthful. "I must've got it wrong. I thought she'd be here, with you. Unless you're hiding her somewhere?"

"I haven't seen her in weeks." Richard watched bemused as Miss Dalrymple slipped to the floor and peered suspiciously under the bed. "I assure you, she's not here."

"Then where is she?" Miss Dalrymple looked up, her cheeks red with exertion. "She's only a girl you know."

"A full grown woman of seven and twenty!"

"Practically a baby!" Miss Dalrymple got to her knees with a creak and a pop and then to her feet with a grunt. "Do you promise you don't know where she is?"

"I've no idea."

"Well. Bother. I hope she's not done anything stupid. She does, you know."

"I never guessed," Richard said drily.

Miss Dalrymple began to meander around the room, peering at his things. A comb slipped as if by magic into her reticule while her eyes were fixed saintfully on a portrait of Richard's mother.

"Charming picture."

"Can I have my comb back, Miss Dalrymple?"

"What? Oh! Can't think how it got there." She smiled brightly. "Lovely little ivory thing."

"Indeed," Richard said dryly, reaching out for it. Even that small effort made his fingers shake. Miss Dalrymple looked down upon him, something dangerously close to pity in her face.

"I'll recover," Richard said bluntly. "You tell everyone that I'm not dying, you hear?"

"I will." Miss Dalrymple frowned. "And what about Laura?"

"Laura?" He watched Miss Dalrymple uneasily. "Should there be something about her?"

"If there's something you want to be said about her..." Miss Dalrymple blinked encouragingly. "I might be the one to say it."

"Are you asking me to gossip?" Richard said stiffly.

Miss Dalrymple sighed, as a governess might over a stupid student. "Everybody is gossipping already. If there's any antidote to gossip, it's the truth."

"And if the truth is only further poison?"

"But is it?" Miss Dalrymple cocked her head and narrowed her eyes at him. "Ah, Lord Albroke, you have surprised me."

Richard flushed and turned his head peevishly away. "I'm tired, and you should leave now. Go on. I need my sleep."

But Miss Dalrymple was not finished with him. She went around the other side of the bed to meet his eyes and frowned at him.

"I won't say anything to anyone if you ask me not to, but it would help Laura if you had it put about that you were engaged. The newspapers would pick it up. It would make her look decent."

"Well she's not decent," grumbled Richard. "And we're not engaged."

"Are you really not?" she enquired.

"Of course not!"

Miss Dalrymple gave him a skeptical look, but turned and left. After he heard the front door shut, Richard called for a servant and had the pillows rearranged again so he could sleep. When he next woke, the bed canopy was gone. And he realized, with a twist of annoyance, that the bed canopy had not been the problem at all.