“Don’t be absurd,” St. Clare said. “Nothing’s wrong with me. Not my arm or any other part of my anatomy.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie.

His wound was healing. That didn’t stop it from causing him pain. It still ached on occasion, and the stitches made movement uncomfortable. He wasn’t surprised that his grandfather had noticed.

“Absurd, am I? I’ve been watching you since that Honeywell female departed London. You’ve been sulking like a lad after his first woman.”

“If you’re attempting to bait me—”

“I’m attempting to bring you up sharp, my boy. Have you forgotten everything I’ve taught you about self-discipline?”

St. Clare inwardly sighed. “What would you like me to say? I’ve tried to master my feelings for her. To rid myself of this restlessness.” He gave his grandfather a wry look. “Have you not wondered why I’ve passed so many hours sparring at Jackson’s?”

Allendale frowned. “That bad, is it?”

It was worse. Far worse than St. Clare had expected it to be when he’d promised Maggie he would stay in town.

Wait and hope, he’d said.

But he’d also warned her that he was impatient.

“It’s been a week,” he told his grandfather. “I don’t know when she’s coming back.”

If she was coming back.

Beasley Park was the great passion of her life. She belonged there, far more than she belonged in London. Not only because of her health, but because it was her home. The place she loved best in all the world.

What if she never came back? What if she decided to remain there? To marry Fred in order to keep her claim on the estate?

Good lord.

She wouldn’t, would she?

The very notion made his heart seize as if it were being tightened in a vise.

“I should have gone with her,” he said. “An oversight on my part. But it’s not too late. If I leave in the morning—”

Allendale’s brow clouded with outrage. “Don’t be daft. You’d risk being recognized. I’ve warned you—”

“It doesn’t matter,” St. Clare said in a burst of impatience. “Can’t you see that? Not if she needs me. I’m doing nothing for her here. And she’s there, at the mercy of Burton-Smythe, and Beresford and his mother.”

“She has a chaperone, hasn’t she? Trumble’s daughter, I thought.”

“You don’t understand.” St. Clare fell silent for a long moment, reluctant to give voice to what it was that troubled him so. “She hasn’t written,” he said finally. “She wouldn’t. Not when we’re trying to quell the gossip. But I can’t help worrying about her. She…She hasn’t been entirely well.”

“Not well? What the devil’s the matter with her?”