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Did he really not know her? Was he delirious? What if his fever had increased? “Of course it is me.” She tried to keep her voice steady. “Please. You must lie down again.”

“How did I get here?”

Calm. She must remain calm. “We brought you back in the carriage.”

He thought a moment. “Back? From where?”

“The village. West, lie down. You must not be up like this.”

“This accursed headache… Will you pour me some more water?” He let her lead him back to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. “It must be nearly morning. I really ought to…” He broke off and put a hand to his forehead. “There was some trouble in the village.”

“Yes. Yes, there was. But there is nothing to worry about now. Everything is calm.”

“Ah.” He lay back against the pillows, thinking. “Well, I must ride down with Bray then, to make certain.”

She reached across and felt his forehead. She didn’t think that his fever was worse. He was frowning. “My shoulder is deuced sore.” Before she could say anything to stop him, he tested it by raising his arm slightly. "Ow!"

“Do not move it!”

“There were soldiers here. And then…” He thought a moment. “We rode down to the village. Last night.” He thought some more. “I see by your face that… By God! I was shot. That is it. That explains everything.”

She could have burst into tears of relief. “Yes. Yes, you were shot. They… they removed a ball from your shoulder.”

“I was about to speak, to..." He broke off and lay there, frowning. "I remember. My cursed bad knee gave out. I fell." He rubbed his forehead with the thumb and forefinger of his good hand. “If I could only… This cursed headache.”

“You need not remember every detail now. It is enough that you are…” She had to stop and swallow hard. “That is, I could not have borne…”

He reached for her hand with his good hand. “Now, now. You must not cry over a blunderhead like me. Look on the bright side: You have had a rest from my nonsense for a few hours.”

“A few hours!” She tried to dash tears away from her eyes. “A few hours? You were unconscious for three days. The London doctor arrived yesterday evening. He has been offering me… offering me… h… hope… b—but…but…” She broke off.

“Three days? Good God. No wonder I am thirsty.” He lay still a moment. Then he put his good arm around her and pulled her gently but awkwardly down to him. “Darling. I am sorry. I did not realize.”

She found herself sobbing into his shoulder. She would have told him that she was perfectly fine, but she was crying too hard to speak. He stroked her back with his good hand.

Her entire face grew so sodden that she couldn’t breathe. She drew back and blew her nose, and then realized that she could just make out his face. The first gray light of dawn was creeping into the room where he’d pulled the curtain back.

“Three days. I must be luckier than I deserve to be.”

“It was hardly your fault!”

“Wasn’t it?” His eyes searched her face. “You warned me about Townley. If I had listened to you… if I had not assumed that I could solve everything myself…” He lay silent for a moment.

“This conversation can wait until you are recovered.”

“No. No, it cannot. I have been a fool.” He tried to move his bandaged arm again, winced, and let it fall.

In the shock of finding West not only conscious, but on his feet, she’d thought only of how relieved she was that he hadn’t died. But in the growing daylight she could see how white his face was. “You must not strain yourself now. I shall fetch the doctor.”

“No. I must tell you everything, while I have the chance.” He gave his head a small, irritable shake. “First of all, I love you. And I am a damned fool not to have told you that.” His grip on her hand was surprisingly strong. "And second of all, there is something else that I must tell you—something that I have been wrong to keep from you.” He took a breath. “When we returned to London after we—well, after your brother pursued us to stop us from eloping..." He stopped again. "No. I must begin by telling you that you were right, and I was wrong. I ought to have listened to you when you said that we could not trust the message from your parents. You have every right to be angry about that. Because when we did go back, your mother and father had a... a great deal to say to me. All of it was unpleasant, and most of it was insulting. The upshot was that they threatened to sue me for seduction. To keep the matter out of the courts, I had to agree to leave the country—and end all contact with you.”

For a moment Pomona was too bewildered to speak. “To sue you...? But... that would have ruined me. What sane parents would even have considered…” She trailed off.

“Your mother called me a fortune hunter to my face. After that and a number of other things that were said, I did not think that the threat was a bluff. And I could not risk bringing such scandal upon you. So I... left."

"Oh." It was all that she could say. Everything was falling into place in her mind. Her heart had been broken. Two years of her life had been wasted. The first months of her marriage had been broken by distrust.

And it was time to make certain that from now on, they would not keep secrets from each other. "West. There is something that I must tell you, too. When we were in Venice, I was not writing letters. I was… writing a novel.”