Sinclair turned his gaze on Nora. He did not need to say anything. Words were not necessary. His expression said it all.

It was time for her to do what she had come here to do.

Chapter 16

Constantine took Nora by the hand and hastened to the duchess’s bedchamber, his pulse pounding anxiously in his ears.

The duke was sitting at his wife’s bedside when they entered the room. His eyes landed on Constantine instantly. “Where have you been?” he demanded. When his gaze alighted on Nora some of the panic ebbed from his bloodshot eyes. “Ah, you’re here, gel. Thank heavens. Help her. Please.”

Constantine took Nora’s arm and led her closer to the bed.

The duke vacated the chair so that she could use it to sit closer and examine the duchess who reclined listlessly in her regal bed.

The duke took up position beside him along the wall where he stood a safe distance from the colossal bed at the center of the chamber. “Where were you?” he grumbled, his resentment sharp on the air.

“I took Nora . . . er, Miss Langley to visit Middlesex.”

Birchwood looked at him askance. “The hospital? Why? Is the girl ill?”

“No. I thought she might like to observe the surgical theater there. It is quite renowned.”

The duke’s eyes narrowed and he looked at Constantine long and hard before facing forward again. “We needed you here.” He nodded at Nora. “We needed her. Is that not why she is here? To help my Maude? Not to go off gallivanting with you?” The duke’s lips tightened, almost disappearing before they released and he spoke again. “What is this girl to you?”

Constantine could only stare. He had no response. The question was absurd.

After some moments, he finally found his voice. “Nor—Miss Langley? She is no one to me. She’s here because she is a very skilled herbalist.” The words felt wrong somehow. He studied Nora as she bent over the duchess, her hands gently probing and touching the duchess’s inert body.

She was not no one.

She was someone. Someone who drove him to distraction and made his skin feel too hot and too tight over his bones.

“You best leave her be then. She is here for my Maude. Not for you and whatever oats you seek to sow. Lady Elise is for you. Busy yourself with wooing her.”

He nodded. “Of course.”

It was far easier to agree with the man. Especially as he stood fretting, clearly distraught over his wife. A wife who looked alarmingly pale and listless beneath Nora’s ministrations.

The duchess moaned softly, clearly beset with pain. She turned her face into the pillow as though hoping to muffle the sound.