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Nathaniel didn’t sleep. But he was still plagued by nightmares when a knock rapped against the door. He was already on his feet before the second one came.

Lucy stepped inside the moment the door was opened. Her cheeks were blotched red, but her voice was steadier now, laced with purpose.

“My Lord, the physician.”

Dr Aldridge entered behind her, his coat soaked through and his spectacles fogged from the sudden change in warmth. A leather bag hung from his shoulder, worn and heavy with the weight of a hundred emergencies.

He had attended the Loxleys since Nathaniel was a boy and had been there when his Uncle Henry was pulled from the hunting lodge, lifeless and broken. Nathaniel had not forgotten that day. He had never forgotten any of them.

“She fell,” Nathaniel said at once, crossing the room in three long strides.

“Near the western slope past the orchard. Her mare must have reared or thrown her … there were signs, mud, hoofprints, broken earth … she was unconscious when I found her. There’s …

her leg, the angle, her wrist … God, her breathing—”

“Lord Loxley,” the physician interrupted gently but with authority. “Let me see her. We shall speak in due course.”

Nathaniel fell silent. He stepped aside, unwilling, but he did it.

Dr Aldridge knelt beside the chaise with practised calm, removing his gloves and setting down the bag.

He took Eleanor’s wrist first, fingers pressing to her pulse.

Then her temple, her jaw. He leaned in and listened to her breath.

His hands, dry and certain, switched to her ankle, probing with care.

Nathaniel stood over them, with his fists clenched and his heart hammering against his ribcage. He couldn’t bear it, seeing her face pale and unmoving under the physician’s careful hands.

The room felt close, almost airless. He turned and began to pace, back and forth, back and forth. His coat still clung damp to his shoulders. Every time Aldridge so much as shifted position, Nathaniel’s eyes snapped to him, searching for a sign, for something.

The physician looked up. “I believe the wrist is fractured, but not severely. Her ankle has taken the worst of it, a bad sprain from the looks of it, possibly even a break. I’ll need to examine it further.

There are no signs of head trauma beyond a superficial bruise.

Her breathing is shallow, yes, but not abnormal under the circumstances. Likely from pain and exposure.”

Nathaniel stopped in his tracks.

“Will she wake?” he demanded.

Aldridge met his gaze evenly. “Yes. But she needs rest, warmth, and time. I’ll splint the wrist and wrap the ankle. There may be a fever. You must be prepared for discomfort as her body begins to recover, but she is strong, My Lord. She’ll come through.”

Nathaniel closed his eyes, a breath shuddering from him, so quiet it barely touched the air.

He dropped heavily into the chair near the hearth, with his elbows braced to his knees, as if only by sitting could he prevent his soul from tearing loose.

“Do what you must,” he said, his voice steadier now. “I’ll be here.”

Dr Aldridge nodded, already unrolling bandages from his kit. “Of course, My Lord.”

The physician worked in near silence, broken only by the hiss of the fire and the soft rustle of bandages unwinding. The air was thick with tension, and every heartbeat akin to a drumbeat in Nathaniel’s ears.

Dr Aldridge bent over Eleanor with solemn focus, laying out his instruments and cloths like a priest at an altar. He washed her wounds with warm water, his touch precise, reverent, and never hurried.

He murmured instructions to Lucy, who had now returned and was pale with worry. She moved with quiet competence, bringing fresh linens, heated bricks wrapped in flannel, and a decanter of laudanum.

But Nathaniel could barely see them. His entire being was narrowed to one point: the still, fragile rise and fall of Eleanor’s chest.

“Hold the lamp higher, if you would,” Aldridge said, gesturing.

Lucy obeyed. The light cast Eleanor’s face in sharp relief: the scrape above her brow, the cut along her collarbone. She looked like a porcelain figurine left out in the rain.

The physician pressed gently on the swollen ankle, his brow furrowed. Eleanor stirred faintly, just a wince, the smallest tightening of her mouth, and Nathaniel bolted upright.

“She felt that,” he said, voice strained. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Dr Aldridge said. “It means the nerves are intact. Pain is a sign of life, My Lord.”

Nathaniel exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

He crossed to them and stood just behind the chaise, unable to sit again.

He watched as the doctor splinted her wrist, wrapping it in a firm but careful brace of wood and cloth.

Eleanor’s fingers twitched, and again, Nathaniel nearly stepped forward but held himself back.

“This will hurt her, won’t it?” he asked, more quietly now.

“For a time, yes. But I’ve given her a small dose of laudanum. She won’t feel much more for now.”

Nathaniel nodded, his eyes never leaving her. “You’ll make sure she’s not in pain.”

“I will do everything in my power,” the physician said, glancing up. “And with respect, My Lord … you must rest, too.”

Nathaniel shook his head. “No. I remain.”

Dr Aldridge didn’t argue. He wrapped Eleanor’s ankle next, working with measured care. At one point, she let out a soft, broken murmur and Nathaniel flinched like he’d been struck.

“What is it?” he asked, immediately at her side again.

“She’s coming to,” Dr Aldridge said calmly. “A good sign, though she may be disorientated. Her body is still in shock.”

Eleanor stirred again, her lashes fluttering, though her eyes remained closed. Nathaniel knelt beside her, his hand brushing against hers, hesitant for a breath.

“I’m here,” he said, voice cracking. “It’s all right, Eleanor. You’re safe.”

Her lips parted, but no words came. Her hand twitched within his.

“She heard me,” he whispered.

“Yes,” Dr Aldridge said. “She knows you’re with her.”

Nathaniel pressed her hand to his mouth, eyes shut tight. For the first time in years, the composure, the poise, the Loxley pride, all of it fractured. He couldn’t stop the ache behind his ribs, the unbearable swell of something too vast to name.

“She cannot …” He paused. “I cannot lose her.”

“You won’t,” Dr Aldridge said firmly, tying the last bandage in place. “She’ll need rest, and you’ll need to keep her still. But she’ll recover, My Lord. In time.”

Time.

Nathaniel remained kneeling, her hand still wrapped in his, as if he could tether her to the world with his grip alone.

He had wasted so much time on silence, on pride, on refusing to admit the one thing that now thundered through him with every beat of his heart.

He loved her. And whatever came, he would never ever leave her side again.

***

When another knock voiced itself, Nathaniel thought that Dr Aldridge had forgotten something. He slowly rose from Eleanor’s side, squeezing her hand once more before kissing it.

Lucy opened the door a crack. “It’s her grace, My Lord. She asks … might you step outside for a word?”

His jaw tightened. “Very well,” he said, though his voice was reluctant, edged with a thin veneer of courtesy. He smoothed a hand down his coat, as if that alone could anchor him, and stepped into the corridor.

The air outside the chamber felt cold and too wide. The hallway was dimly lit by a single candelabra, the rain now a whisper behind the high windows.

His mother stood beneath the portrait of the third duke, her posture immaculate and her gloved hands folded before her. Her expression was unreadable as ever, except for the faint pinch at the corners of her mouth. A Loxley sign of strain if one knew to look for it.

“I spoke with Dr Aldridge,” she said, quietly. “He believes she will recover.”

Nathaniel gave a curt nod. “Yes. In time.”

His mother hesitated. “Are you quite all right?”

He frowned. “Of course. It is Eleanor we should all be worried about.”

“Quite,” she said, brushing an invisible thread from her sleeve. “And yet, you look like a man freshly dragged from the sea.”

Nathaniel stared at her, unblinking. “She could have died. She was alone, in the rain, thrown from her horse, and left broken at the base of a slope. Forgive me if I’m not inclined to care how I appear.”

The duchess gave the slightest tilt of her head, a gesture that might pass for sympathy or dismissal.

“I understand your concern, Nathaniel,” she said, with cool composure. “Truly. But you are still under the weight of the moment. It was an accident, after all. There is no need to … dramatise it further.”

He stiffened. “You think I’m overreacting?”

“I think,” she said, calmly, “that you are not thinking clearly. I thought it best to speak now before emotion completely unseats you.”

He took a step back, disbelieving. “Unseats me?”

She lifted her chin. “You have always valued restraint. I only mean to remind you that perspective is often lost in the first light of crisis. Especially where emotion is concerned.”

Nathaniel’s voice dropped, dark and cold. “She is not a crisis.”

“No,” his mother said. “But neither is she infallible. I thought, perhaps, you might recall what happened with Mr Pembroke. Or have you forgotten that altogether?”

The name hit like ice down his spine. He stiffened. Then, he shook his head in disbelief.

“You cannot be serious.”

Her eyes flickered. “I merely think it prudent to remember certain … entanglements. Mr Pembroke was Eleanor’s closest companion once and even is now. You knew this when you married her. But in light of the strain between you of late—”

“Enough.” The word came like a blade. His mother only had time to blink before he continued.

“I will not stand in this hall and discuss Arthur Pembroke while my wife lies in there, barely breathing,” Nathaniel managed to muster through clenched teeth. “Whatever you believe Eleanor is guilty of, whatever society murmured months ago, means nothing to me now. She means everything to me.”

There was a beat of stunned silence.

“She is not some reckless girl playing at romance,” he went on, with his eyes burning. “She’s braver than anyone in this house, yourself included. She challenges me, sees me, and loves me despite it. And I have been too blind, too bloody proud, to give her what she deserves.”

“Nathaniel—”

“I will not have her character questioned. Not here. Not now when she is unable to defend herself before your accusations.”

His mother’s lips parted, but no words came. Perhaps it was the force of his voice or the fact that for the first time, Nathaniel stood before her not as the son she had shaped into a cold mirror of the family name, but as a man fully his own. Unyielding. Fierce. Devoted.

He stepped back towards the chamber door.

“When she wakes,” he said, his voice lower now, but firm, “I will be at her side. Whatever still needs to be discussed will be discussed, but only once she is of healthy mind and body. That is the only thing that matters to me right now, Mother.”

And without waiting for an answer, he turned and re-entered the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.