The lady's words faded as she moved away; Lucifer stopped trying to listen. She'd said she'd stay by him. It sounded like the Grange was "Papa's" residence, so presumably she lived there, too. He hoped she did. He wanted to see more of her once the pain had gone. The pain in his head, and the pain around his heart.

Horatio had been a very dear friend-how dear he hadn't realized until now, now that he was gone. He touched on his grief, but was too weak to deal with it. Shifting his mind away, he tried to find some way past the pain, but it seemed to feed on the effort.

So he simply lay there and waited.

He heard the lady return; others were with her. What followed wasn't pleasant. Luckily, he wasn't far removed from unconsciousness; he was only dimly aware of being lifted. He expected to feel the jolting of a carriage; if he did, the sensation didn't make it past the pain.

Then he was on a bed, being undressed. His senses flickered weakly, registering that there were two women present; from their hands and voices, they were both older than his guardian angel. He would have helped them if he could, but even that was beyond him. They fussed and insisted on pulling a nightshirt over his head, being inordinately careful of his injured skull.

They made him comfortable in soft pillows and sweet-smelling sheets, then they left him in blessed peace.

Phyllida looked in on her patient as soon as Gladys, their housekeeper, reported that he was settled.

Miss Sweet, her old governess, sat tatting in a chair by the window. "He's resting quietly," Sweetie mouthed.

Phyllida nodded and went to the bed. They'd left him sprawled on his stomach to spare his sore head. He was much larger than she'd realized-the broad expanse of his shoulders and chest, the long lines of his back, the even longer length of his legs-his body dominated the bed. He wasn't, perhaps, the largest man she'd seen, but she suspected he should have been the most vital. Instead, a sullen heaviness invested his limbs, a weighted tension quite unlike relaxation. She peered at his face; the section she could see was pale, still starkly handsome but stony, lacking all sense of life. The lips that should have held the hint of a wicked smile were compressed to a thin line.