“None, upon my honor.”
“Very pretty, my lord, but I have frequently been forced to observe the remarkable disparity that exists between my notions of what is horrid, and yours. Are you ever put out of countenance?”
“Very often.”
She smiled a little archly. “Will you think me very saucy, my lord, if I say that that confession gives me an excessively odd idea of the life you must lead at the Hall? For you have treated as the merest commonplaces every shocking event that has occurred in the last week, from your cousin’s death at Nicky’s hands, to the discovery that you have stumbled upon a dangerous treason. These things appear not to have the power to disturb the tone of your mind! I envy you!”
“Well,” he said reflectively, “two of my sisters and my brother Harry were forever doing such outrageous things that I think I must have grown out of the way of being very much surprised at anything.”
She laughed and rose rather shakily to her feet. He put his hand under her elbow to assist her, and escorted her to the door. She parted from him in the hall, declining his offer to take her upstairs. “Indeed, I am quite well now! You do not mean to go to London again, I hope?”
“No, I am fixed in Sussex for some time, I believe. You have only to send a message over to the Hall if you should wish to speak with me. May I again impress upon you that you have no need to feel any further alarm?”
She looked quizzical, but as the doctor just then appeared at the head of the stairs, returned no answer but went up, leaning on the banister rail and saying,
“You mean to scold me, Dr. Greenlaw, but indeed I am going to my room, and I have drunk all that horrid mixture!”
“I am glad of it, ma’am. I can assure you you will be the better for it. I shall call tomorrow to see how you are going on, if you please.”