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"Not in front of the women," he whispered. "Don't want to . . . scare them."

Timens made a scoffing sound. "Too late for that, old boy."

For a barely conscious fellow with a hole in his arm, the heat of Lightfoot's glare was impressive. "All the more reason to give a show of strength. To reassure them." He turned to Everett. "My legs still work. Just got to get my head to cease swimming."

Timens caught Everett's eye. "He took a pretty good knock to the back of the skull when he went down."

"Help me get him up. I can walk him in while you ride into Graham to fetch the doctor."

Timens nodded and together, they pulled Lightfoot to his feet without too much jostling. Everett stretched his friend's uninjured arm over his shoulders and wrapped an arm around his waist to hold him upright.

Everett took on the majority of Lightfoot's weight then released Timens to his fetching duties with a nod. After the butler scurried toward the carriage house, Everett tilted his head toward his valet. "Ready?"

"Not really, but it beats returning to the dirt."

Everett grunted as he dragged his friend toward the house.

Lightfoot managed to help him for the first ten feet or so before he began to slump, growing heavier with every step.

Worried the valet might have lost consciousness, Everett jostled him slightly when they reached the bottom of the porch steps.

"You know," he said between clenched teeth, "this would be a good time for you to start living up to your name."

A weak but decidedly lucid chuckle exhaled from the man at his side. "Sorry, Griff. It's . . . the extra lead. Makes me . . . heavy."

The weight dragging on Everett's body might not have lessened, but the weight on his heart did. If Ray could joke about the situation, it couldn't be too dire.

At that moment, Miss Rosenfeld ran down the steps, arms outstretched. "Let me help you."

"Don't touch his arm," Everett warned.

She halted, obviously at a loss as to how to help without touching him.

"The desk chair in my office," Everett ground out as he leaned to the left, using his few inches of greater height to lift Lightfoot's feet from the ground. "Has wheels. Bring it."

She whirled and dashed back into the house, leaving Everett to scale the steps without an audience.

The woman was quick, though, arriving back with the chair before he cleared the last step.

She wheeled the chair into position at the top of the stairs and held it steady while Everett lowered Lightfoot into the seat.

"Mrs. Potter said to bring him into the kitchen." Miss Rosenfeld led the way into the house as if ready to clear the path should an obstacle jump from a closet to block their path. "She has water boiling and the medicine box prepared."

Everett pushed Lightfoot down the hall, careful not to move too fast and run over the man's no-longer-light feet.

When they reached the kitchen, Mrs. Potter took over like an army general.

She immediately took scissors to Lightfoot's shirt, earning a more distressed moan for her disregard of fine tailoring than any complaint related to his actual wound.

Everett looked up and shared a grin with Miss Rosenfeld, taking comfort from the relief he saw mirrored in her eyes.

She seemed to share his assessment. Lightfoot would be fine.

The deep reverberations of Spartacus's barking drew Everett to the back door. Miss Rosenfeld followed.

"He took off the moment we heard the shot," she said, placing her hand high on his back as she tried to peer over his shoulder. "He might have found the shooter."

The feel of her hand made him ache to close his eyes and savor the rare treasure of a woman's touch, but her words had his jaw tightening.

The shooter could simply be an inept hunter whose shot had missed its intended target, but Everett's gut rejected that theory.

They'd never had hunters in this area before.

And who would be foolish enough to aim toward a person's home?

It's not like they couldn't see it. It was the largest house in the county, for crying out loud.

Could've been kids taking a potshot at the Monster of Manticore Manor.

Everett's stomach cramped at the thought of Lightfoot taking a bullet meant for him.

If kids were to blame, they'd likely be too scared to cover their tracks.

If he could trail them home, they'd get to see the monster up close when he knocked on their door and had words with their parents.

And if it hadn't been kids?

Everett frowned. If someone was targeting his home, his staff, he needed to know. He took a step backward and reached for the rifle kept on a rack above the kitchen door.

"Wait," a quiet voice said near his ear.

He turned and found her pulling a string from her apron pocket.

"I grabbed this from upstairs. In case you had need of it." She opened her hand to reveal his eye patch.

Two truths pounded in his head with the force of a migraine.

One, she'd been looking at his half-dead eye all this time and had not been repulsed enough to turn away from the sight.

Two, he'd left his patch looped over the easel supporting his current painting.

If she'd found the patch, she'd seen his artwork as well.

The one piece he never wanted her to see.

The unfinished portrait of a sweetly beautiful book binder.

Another bark from Spartacus shook him from his humiliating ruminations. With a mechanical movement he accepted the patch from her hand. He moved too slowly, though, for she clasped his arm before he could make an escape.

Her earnest eyes found his without a single flinch. "Be careful."

Careful? He'd left careful behind the moment he'd let Callista Rosenfeld into his house. And it seemed he'd soon be paying the price for his reckless folly.