“You’re quite sick, you know,” she continued, trying to keep her voice bright and happy, even if her words were not. She swallowed, then continued in the brightest voice she could manage, “But it turns out that my mother is a bit of an expert at this sort of thing. Isn’t that remarkable?” She looked over at her mother with a swelling sense of pride. “I must confess, I had no idea she knew such things.” She leaned down and murmured in his ear, “I rather thought she was the sort who would faint at the sight of blood.”

“I heard that,” her mother said.

Honoria gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry. But—”

“There is no need to apologize.” Her mother glanced over at her with a wry smile before resuming her work. When she spoke, however, she did not look up. “I have not always been as . . .”

There was a hint of a pause, just enough for Honoria to realize that her mother was not quite sure what to say.

“As resolute as you may have needed me to be,” Lady Winstead finally finished.

Honoria sat very still, sucking in her upper lip as she let her mother’s words settle upon her. It was an apology, just as much as if her mother had actually said the words I’m sorry.

But it was also a request. Her mother did not want to discuss it any further. It had been difficult enough just to say what she did. And so Honoria accepted the apology in exactly the manner her mother hoped she would. She turned back to Marcus and said—

“Anyway, I don’t think anyone thought to look at your leg. The cough, you know. The doctor thought that was the cause of the fever.”

Marcus let out a little cry of pain. Honoria glanced quickly down toward her mother, who was now working with the scissors Mrs. Wetherby had brought. She’d opened them fully and was pointing one end toward Marcus’s leg like a scalpel. With one fluid motion, her mother made a long cut, right down the middle of the wound.

“He didn’t even flinch,” Honoria said with surprise.

Her mother didn’t look up. “That’s not the painful part.”

“Oh,” Honoria said, turning back to Marcus. “Well. See, that wasn’t so bad.”

He screamed.

Honoria’s head snapped back up just in time to see her mother handing a bottle of brandy back to a footman.

“Very well, that was bad,” she said to Marcus. “But the good news is it’s unlikely to get much worse.”

He screamed again.

Honoria swallowed. Her mother had adjusted the scissors and was now actually trimming away bits of tissue.

“Very well,” she said again, giving his shoulder a little pat. “It might not get better, either. The truth is, I have no idea. But I shall be here with you the whole time. I promise.”