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head askance. “Seems ter me,” he said, “as ’twould be more useful t’other way. Ye ain’t a-getting ’is boots off, I’ll be bound. And I got ye here, but I ain’t stayin’ t’ explain as how his lordship got shot, I ain’t,” he maintained stoutly. “I ain’t swingin’ on the Nubbing Cheat fer it. I was a bloomin’ noddy fer comin’, anyways.”
    “Jem—”
    “I’ll get ’is boots, then I’m going.”
    “In this rain? Jem, you would not leave me surely.” Her eyes met his reproachfully.
    He looked away. “Miss Kitty, I ain’t nobody—they’ll hang me if he was ter die.”
    “Jem, I cannot manage alone. If you take the carriage, I am discovered.” She could almost see the struggle between his conscience and his rational mind, and she pressed her advantage. “Please, Jem. I’ll not ask you to do more than take his boots. You can play least in sight after even, until we are ready to leave.” Laying a hand on the coachey’s shoulder, she cajoled, “I’ll see you are paid for this, I swear.”
    “I got ter look ter the horses,” he muttered.
    “But you will come back?”
    It was as though the resistance melted beneath her hand. A sigh of capitulation escaped him. “Aye, but—”
    “I’ll tend him,” she promised quickly. “And if aught happens, I will swear you had nothing to do with what has happened.”
    He looked doubtfully to where Haverhill lay on the bed. “I dunno—it ain’t seemly fer ye to do it, but—”
    “If this gets out, my reputation is in shreds, anyway,” she countered. “Just get his boots and tend the horses.”
    “Ye can manage the rest?”
    The thought of undressing a man was unthinkable, and Kitty was not at all sure she could do it. In fact, she expected she would die of embarrassment. Nonetheless, she nodded. “I think so,” she mumbled, coloring.
    It was not until Haverhill’s boots stood neatly at the bottom of the bed and Jem had left that Kitty realized the enormity of the task. The baron must surely be a full foot taller than she, and certainly she knew he was heavy. But the physician would have to see the wound, she reminded herself practically. It was clearly no time to be missish.
    Moving to the head of the bed, she leaned over, assessing the task. He’d have to come out of the coat, the waistcoat, and the shirt. More than that seemed little to the purpose.
    “If you can aid me at all, ’twill be to the good, my lord,” she told him, not knowing if he could even lift his arm himself. When he did not respond, she sighed heavily, and sat down to pull on one sleeve. The gentleman’s fashion of well-fitted coats was a nuisance, she reflected with resignation. “This is going to hurt,” she muttered.
    By the time she’d pulled and stretched and forced until she got the coat off his shoulders, she knew she had to have help. She was about to roll off the bed and call downstairs when she realized that Haverhill was conscious.
    “You are awake,” she accused him.
    “I could scarce be anything else.” His voice sounded stronger, and his hazel eyes were fixed on hers.
    “Can you not help at all?”
    He looked to where she knelt on the side of the bed, her wet dress pulled up almost to her knees. And as tired and as weak as he was, he nodded. “Help me to sit.”
    She pulled on his good arm until he sat up, but the room swam around him. For a moment, he weaved uncertainly, unable to get his bearings. “Lost too much blood,” he muttered thickly. Then, forcing himself to the matter at hand, he held out his arm.
    She tugged the sleeve off and peeled the jacket around his back, then carefully edged it down the other arm, turning the other sleeve inside out as it came off. Her fingers fumbled at the buttons on his waistcoat, releasing them. It came off far more easily than the coat. He swayed beneath her hands.
    “We are nearly done,” she encouraged him. “There is but the shirt.”
    He nodded.
    The creamy lawn was stained darkly