GEMMA BECAME AWARE OF a sharp pain in her shoulder, the one chilled from having the quilt slip down as she slept.

Poke. A skinny finger dug in deep.

"What?" Poked? In her own bed, in her own house? Gemma sat up blinking and furious, and not a little bit alarmed.

I'm not in my bed. I'm on the floor. Furthermore, I'm naked. She clutched the quilt higher and squinted against the light of a candle held too near her face. The light drew back and Gemma saw the bony yet perfect features of Miss Atalanta Worthington. Gemma drew back, bracing one hand on something that she suddenly realized was a hard, masculine buttock.

I'm naked on the floor with Lysander.

Oh, hellfire!

She almost took the opportunity to blush deeply and make vague waffling excuses. Then she remembered the only reason anyone ever woke her in the middle of the night.

"Who is ill?"

Atalanta nodded crisply, as if approving Gemma's lack of prudish driveling about. "It's the pregnant one."

Gemma smiled. "Oh, how wonderful! She's so weary of—"

"I think it's gone bad."

No more talk. Gemma pulled last night's ball gown over her head and impatiently turned her back to Atalanta, who did her up at speed. Twisting her hair up out of the way, Gemma grabbed a couple of pins off the floor as she pattered barefoot from the room. "Lysander! Fetch Mr. Bing from his room in the stable!" she barked over her shoulder as she headed down the hall. "You!" She pointed at Atalanta, for she had no time to pronounce that many syllables. "Build up the fire in the kitchen stove and put vast amounts of water on the boil!"

She strode briskly into her bedchamber and pushed a few hovering Gosling offspring aside to move straight to Jennie.

Oh God.

It had indeed gone bad.

LOOKING AT JENNIE, LYING sweating and delirious in Gemma's bed, the truth hit Gemma like a rockfall, crushing her with sudden awareness.

Witless. Blasted blind and stupid. It had been right before her eyes the entire time.

She'd dismissed the signs as the normal symptoms of advanced pregnancy, and tragically, they might very well have been. It was only now that she saw the truth. The swelling of Jennie's hands and face was edema. The shortness of breath was the fluids invading her lungs. The headaches, the florid cheeks, those indicated a dangerous rise in her blood pressure. The pain in her abdomen had not been the kicking of the child, but impending liver breakdown. Now, the confusion and panting.

Toxemia.

And when it was this bad, it could be a death sentence for both mother and child. Yet there was no time to hate herself now. She could practice self-loathing at her leisure once she helped her friend.

There was only one thing that could save Jennie and hopefully, her baby as well.

"She'll be alright, I tell ye. Knows what she's about, my Jen."