But she’d always known he was there. The world was simply a better place, knowing that he was in it.

And now he might die. She’d be lost without him. How had she not realized that?

“Honoria!”

Honoria turned. It was her mother, bursting through the door.

“I came as quickly as I could,” Lady Winstead said, hurrying across the room. Then she saw Marcus’s leg. “Oh, my God.”

Honoria felt another one of those gaspy, wheezing noises blowing up within her. There was something about seeing her mother, about her mother seeing Marcus. It was like the time when she was twelve, and she’d fallen off her horse. She’d thought she was fine; she’d walked all the way home, bruised and achy, her face bleeding where she’d scratched it against a rock.

And then she’d seen her mother, and her mother’s expression, and she’d started to bawl.

It was the same thing. She wanted to bawl. Dear God, all she wanted to do was push back and turn away and cry and cry and cry.

But she couldn’t. Marcus needed her. He needed her to be calm. And capable. “Mrs. Wetherby is getting hot water,” she told her mother. “She should be back soon.”

“Good. We’ll need lots of it. And brandy. And a knife.”

Honoria looked at her mother with surprise. She sounded as if she knew what she was doing. Her mother.

“The doctor is going to want to take off the leg,” Lady Winstead said grimly.

“What?” Honoria hadn’t even considered that.

“And he may be right.”

Honoria’s heart stopped beating. Until her mother said, “But not yet.”

Honoria stared at her mother in shock. She could not remember the last time she’d heard her speak with such decisiveness. When Daniel had fled the country, he’d taken a piece of their mother with him. She’d been utterly lost, unable to commit herself to anything or anyone, even her daughter. It was almost as if she could not bring herself to make any decisions, because to do so would mean that she accepted her life as it now was, with her only son gone, possibly forever.

But maybe all she had needed was a reason to wake up. A critical moment.

Maybe she’d needed to be needed.

“Stand back,” Lady Winstead said, pushing up her sleeves.

Honoria stepped aside, trying to ignore the tiny pang of jealousy that flared to life within her. Hadn’t she needed her mother?

“Honoria?”

She looked at her mother, who was watching her with an expectant expression. “Sorry,” Honoria mumbled, holding out the cloth in her hand. “Do you want this?”

“A clean one, please.”

“Of course.” Honoria rushed to do her mother’s bidding, further depleting Marcus’s supply of underthings.

Her mother took the cloth, then looked at it with a confused expression. “What is . . .”