A brief stab of pain showed on Uncle Hal’s face, but was brutally suppressed in the next moment.
“And what do you propose doing, if you find her?” he said, his voice rasping. “Carry her back here by force?”
William lifted one shoulder, impatient.
“I’ll find out what the devil she actually means to do, for one thing,” he said. “She may be going to her father’s house in Philadelphia, and if she is—I’ll see that she gets there safely. If it’s Ben …” He paused, briefly recalling his harrowing escape from Morristown. “I’ll take her to Adam,” he concluded. “He’ll see that she’s safe, and if she does mean to go to Ben …”
“Jesus. Does Adam know?” Hal’s voice cracked and he coughed. William saw his father glance sharply at Hal and move toward the bell to summon a servant.
Hal frowned at him and made a sharp gesture to stop him.
“I’m fine,” he said shortly, but the last word had to be forced out, and his breathing was suddenly stertorous.
“The devil you are,” Papa said, and grabbed Uncle Hal by the elbow, hauling him to the sofa and pushing him down upon it. “Willie, go and tell Moira to boil coffee—very strong and lots of it—and now.”
“I’m—” Hal began, but broke off, coughing. He’d pressed his fist into his chest and was turning a nasty color that alarmed William.
“Is he—” he began. His father turned on him like a tiger.
“Now!” he shouted, and as William hurtled from the room, he heard his father call after him, “Get my saddlebags!”
The next few hours passed in a blur of activity, with people running to and fro and fetching things and making anxious, stupid suggestions, while Hal sat on the sofa holding Papa’s hand as though it were a rope thrown to a drowning swimmer, alternating between blowing air, gasping, and drinking black coffee with some sort of herb crumbled into it that Papa had dug out of his saddlebags.
William, not knowing how to help, but unwilling to just go to bed, had lurked in the kitchen, carrying more hot coffee as needed, but mostly listening to Moira and Miss Crabb, from whom he learned that the duke suffered from something called asthma and that （lowered voices, with a cautious glance over the shoulder） Lord John’s wife-but-she-wasn’t-really-and-the-things-folk-said-of-her was a famous healer and had given Lord John the little dry sticks to put in the coffee.
“And what His Grace will do if he has another o’ them fits on the boat,” Moira said, shaking her head, “I don’t know!”
“Boat?” asked William, looking up from his third piece of apple pie. “Is he meaning to go somewhere?”
“Oh, yes,” Miss Crabb said, nodding wisely. “To England.”
“For to speak to the House o’ Lords,” Moira added.
“About the war,” Miss Crabb said quickly, before Moira could steal any more of her thunder. William hid a smile in his napkin, but was curious. He wondered whether Uncle Hal really had opinions on the conduct of the war that he felt obliged to share with the House of Lords or whether he had sought a good excuse to go home to England—and Aunt Minnie.
He did know—from his father—that Hal hadn’t been able to bring himself to write to his wife about Ben.
“When does he mean to go?” he asked.
“In a month,” Miss Crabb said, and pursed her lips.
“Does Lord John mean to go as well?” William half-hoped the answer was no. While he didn’t want Uncle Hal to choke to death alone on a ship, he much preferred to have Papa here, holding things together while he, William, pursued Amaranthus.
The two women shook their heads, both looking grave. They might have said more, but at that moment Papa’s quick footsteps came down the hall, and a moment later his disheveled fair head poked through the door.
“He’s better,” he said at once, catching William’s eye. “Come and help me; he wants to go up to his bed.”
THE DUKE SPENT much of the next day in bed, but when William went up to check on his state of health, he was sitting upright, a writing desk on his knees, scribbling away. He looked up at William’s advent and forestalled any queries by saying, “So, you still mean to go after her.”
It wasn’t posed as a question, and William merely nodded. So did Hal, and took a clean sheet of paper from the quire on his bedside table.
“Tomorrow, then,” he said.
AT DAWN OF the next day, William fastened his stock, buttoned his buff waistcoat, pulled on the red coat he’d thought he’d never wear again, and went downstairs, his step firm in his freshly polished boots.