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of skin exposed—and his eyebrows lifted nearly to his hairline. “Didn’t expect me, did you?”
    An unreadable expression came over Simon’s face. “No, I didn’t.”
    Giles could accept those words as the truth, though he couldn’t place the softness in Simon’s tone as he said them. He cocked his head to the side and studied his brother, not sure what he was looking for exactly. Perhaps the man felt just as awkward in Giles’ presence as Giles felt in Simon’s and like him, didn’t know what to say.
    “Seth, why don’t you go with your mother,” Simon said, bringing Giles to present.
    Giles swung his gaze over in the direction of a boy who was sitting in a chair to the left of the bed. Their eyes locked and Giles offered him a smile.
    The boy didn’t move, but Giles couldn’t understand why not. He might be two marks past six feet and as thick and solid as an oak tree, but he wasn’t going to hurt the boy. “That’s quite a nasty facer the boy planted you, Simon,” Giles teased merely for the boy’s benefit. Simon, he knew, would see no humor in it.
    A wide grin split the boy’s face accompanied by a slight laugh—and a stifled giggle.
    Giles turned around and saw Lucy standing behind him. She once again had her delicate fingers covering her mouth, as if to keep from laughing while her eyes sparkled with what looked like tears. Hopefully they were the good kind. Surely his words hadn’t upset her. He opened his mouth to clarify why he’d said that, but confound it all, he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
    “ Come, Seth,” she said in a high-pitched tone. “Let’s give Mr. Appleton his privacy while Lord Norcourt attends him.”
    A strangled sound erupted from Giles’ throat. “Attend?”
    He barely recognized the word, but thankfully Lucy had and said, “He’s scuffed up a good bit, but not so much that he can’t travel, I shouldn’t think.”
    Giles nodded slowly and searched Simon’s face, but the younger man gave nothing away. It still made no sense why Simon would have sent for him. Nonetheless, he’d do what he could to help him.
    “I can help, if you’d like, my lord,” Seth said quietly.
    “ Oh?” Giles said, not sure what else to say to that.
    “ I’m a good help. I helped Mama carry him here and care for his wounds.”
    A small measure of pride for the boy flowed through Giles. “You are a good help.”
    The boy pushed his chest out and Giles bit back a grin.
    “ Is there anything you need, Simon?”
    The only thing on Simon that moved was his nostrils. They flared. Why was he so angry? It wasn’t Giles who’d beaten him senseless—no matter how much he might like to.
    “I’ll go get his clothes off the line. They should be dry by now,” Lucy murmured.
    “ What are we going to do?” Seth exclaimed as soon as his mother’s footsteps couldn’t be heard any longer.
    Simon closed his eyes for an extended blink and groaned. “The plan,” he said between gritted teeth.
    “Right,” the boy chirped excitedly.
    “ What plan?” Giles asked.
    Seth said something that Giles couldn’t hear over Simon’s voice. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
    Giles pressed his lips together. He’d heard a tone similar to Simon’s often enough to know he’d upset him. But damned if he knew what he’d done. Must be his mere presence. He balled his hands into fists and waited for Miss Whitaker to return. She had a way of diffusing the tension in a room and he preferred it that way.
    His gaze traveled around the sparsely decorated room and landed on the boy who was biting his lip and shifting from one foot to the other. Mischief was on his brain, no doubt. Giles schooled his features to appear disinterested, though he was anything but, and continued to wait wordlessly for Miss Whitaker.
    “This is all he was wearing,” Miss Whitaker said, blushing. She handed Simon’s clothes to Giles. “I’ll just be—”
    Simon cut off her words with a brutal sounding