A large basket overflowing with grapes and dark bottles had been plunked to his writing table—the sound had awakened him. Now his bed curtains were wide open, as were the drapes at the window. Late autumn sunlight streamed through, the air clear, the sky very blue.

His head and eyes ached. “What …?”

“Shutting yourself up in a dark sick room is never good for you,” came Helena’s breezy voice. “Light and air is what you need, along with my remedies. No one in my house remains ill for long.”

“ … are you doing here?” Ash finished, voice rasping. “There is contagion …”

“Nonsense, I never take sick. Brisk walks and eating a hearty dinner is all that is required for good health. Now, what does the doctor believe it is? Consumption?”

Helena, her curves hugged by a light-blue cotton gown, bustled about the room, tying back drapes, poking up the fire. A lace cap covered her dark golden hair, its tapes flying as she moved. She opened the basket and proceeded to stand at least a dozen bottles across the writing table.

“No one has mentioned consumption,” Ash managed before he coughed, his body spasming.

“Smallpox? Yellow fever?”

“What are you going on about?” Ash dragged in a breath and lay back down. “A chill, Mrs. Courtland, nothing more.”

She turned in surprise. “Truly? I had it from your aunt—albeit in a roundabout manner—that you were at death’s door.”

“If my physician is putting that rumor about …”

“Surely he ought to know.” Helena opened a bottle and poured a dark, thick liquid into a glass. “He is a doctor.”

“A quack, you mean. He barely looked at me before he was opening my vein.” Ash coughed again, his sides aching with it. “If I die, then Lewis is duke. A physician can pry many fees out of those who’ll pay to keep the boy healthy.”

“Very cynical.” Helena brought the glass to him in bright determination. “On your part, and on the physician’s. Drink this, and you’ll be right as rain.”

Ash clutched the bedcovers, holding them to his chin. He wore a nightshirt and nothing else, and already felt his blush rising.

“What is that?” He eyed the glass in suspicion.

“All sorts of good things. Plus plenty of brandy to make it slip down well. I know how to dose a gentleman.”

“Oh? How many gentlemen have you dosed?” He felt a twinge of irritated jealousy.

“My father, gardener, butler, footmen, friends’ fathers and brothers and their servants. They all swear by my remedies.”

“Or swear at them,” Ash muttered.

“What was that?” Helena leaned closer. “I beg your pardon—I did not hear you.”

She should not bend over him so. Ash’s already unsteady heartbeat sped as her bodice sagged to show a sweet round of bosom. She smelled of mint with a touch of honey, making Ash want to pull her down to him and discover if she tasted of those things as well.

He had to have been mad to kiss her in the garden. And yet … The warmth of her lips, the brush of breath on his skin, the way she fit into his arms … The sensations had never left him.

Helena shoved the glass under his chin. The bite of brandy, mint, and whatever else she’d included burst through his clogged nose and made him wince.

“Drink up,” she said. “You’ll feel so much better.”

Ash doubted it. The physician had given him a purge after bleeding him, which had made him even more weak. His aunt had then shoved broth down his throat, followed by an extremely bitter tea. Ash had drunk all to be polite, but he balked now.

“Take that away,” he ordered. “And go. I truly do not wish to make you ill.”

“I told you, I never take sick. Don’t be such a stick, Ash. My remedies are far better than what a physician will give you. My patients get well.”

It was clear that Helena had great confidence in her potion. It was also clear she’d not leave the room until he drank it.

Suppressing a sigh, Ash raised himself on his elbows and reached for the glass.

“You are ever so pale,” Helena said, studying him. “Except for your red nose. I have another physic to fix that.”

Ash clenched the glass, held his breath, and drank.

She was right about the brandy, which made up about two-thirds of the concoction, sweetened with honey to take out the sting. Ash tasted more herbs under the mint, though he wasn’t certain what.

All in all, it was far more pleasant than what Aunt Florence or the physician had given him. More like a brandy punch, but Ash decided not to say that. The liquid soothed his throat—he decided to keep that to himself as well.

Helena plucked the empty glass from his hand and carried it to the writing table, before returning to shake out the bedcovers.

Ash jerked the blankets up again. “Have a care for your modesty, madam.”

Helena looked surprised. “My modesty? I am completely dressed. You are the one in your nightshirt. You are also flat on your back with illness—I doubt anyone would believe you’d leap up and ravish me on the spot.”

Ash went hotter than the fever had ever climbed. He was more awake now, and feeling stronger. If she continued to lean over him, smoothing the bedclothes, he might just drag her down to him and forget he was a gentleman.

He stopped himself because of his sickness—he truly did not want to pass it to her. Ash remembered how quickly Olivia had caught her fever, how she’d taken to her bed, still weak from bringing Lily into the world not a month before that.

“Please go,” Ash said, gritting his teeth. “These things happen rapidly—I was fine one moment, the next, quite ill.”

“You worry so, Ash. Perhaps that is why you are adamant about your schedules, fearing you’ll forget something if you don’t mark it down.”

More warmth flooded him as he realized she called him by the name his friends did: Ash. Not Your Grace or even Ashford. No one had ever used his given name, Augustine, not even his mother. Before he’d become duke, he’d had Lewis’s title, Marquess of Wilsdon, and had been called Wils.

“My schedule has gone to the devil with this illness.” Ash coughed again, but it didn’t hurt as much this time. “Pardon my language.”

“Well, the devil can enjoy it.” Helena busied herself at the table, and Ash heard another clink of glass and trickling liquid.

“There is nothing wrong with a timetable,” he argued. “I prefer it to chaos.”

Helena brought the refilled glass to the bed. “A little chaos now and then is not a bad thing. I admit I have a timetable as well, my dear Ash. During the Season, I must remember what invitations I have accepted and to what place I am going and when. But constant rigidness is not good for you. You’d never have taken sick if you were less unbending.”

Ash listened to the last in incredulity. “I am in this bed because I did not adhere to my schedule. I let my aunt talk me into hosting a ball, at which I grew frustrated and tramped about the garden in the freezing cold. This weakened my constitution so that when I went about without my coat the next day, I had no defenses. I’d have noticed it was cold in the garden and gone back inside if you hadn’t followed me …”

He trailed off. He knew good and well he’d not noticed the icy air because he’d taken Helena into his arms and kissed her.

Helena flushed. “I worried about you wandering in the dark …”

She too trailed off, her cheeks pretty with her rosy blush. Ash found himself reaching to stroke one.

Helena jumped. She mistook the reason he’d lifted his hand and pushed the glass into it. “This will ease your stuffed nose.”

She turned quickly away, agitation in every line.

Should Ash speak of the kiss? Or continue to pretend it hadn’t happened? That he hadn’t realized what a beautiful woman she was?

Helena, at the table, moved glasses and bottles purposefully, her movements graceful. The tapes on her cap caught in her golden curls.

Ash closed his eyes and sipped the next concoction. This one was not as sweet, but pleasantly mellow. Again, it soothed his throat, and its aroma drifted into his nose, clearing it a bit.

“What is in this?” he asked.

“Nothing exotic. Drink it all.”

Ash complied. He swallowed the final drops and thumped the glass to the bedside table. “I am not cured yet.”

Helena gave him an exasperated look over her shoulder. “Of course not, silly. You must take all my doses over the course of several days. Then you’ll be fine.”

She returned to the bed, more composed after this exchange, and set a plate of grapes next to the empty glass. “These will fill your stomach and lighten the humors.”

Ash ate a few grapes after she turned away, depositing the seeds on a clean dish she’d left for the purpose.

“I’ll not marry any of those ladies, Helena,” he said quietly. His voice sounded almost normal, without the scratch of the last two days.

Helena continued to fuss about the table. “We’ll talk of that when you’re well.”

“It is unfair to the young ladies. From the looks I caught, everyone at that ball believed I’d hosted it to search for my next duchess.”

Helena faced him, resting her hands on the table behind her. “Because everyone knows you need a wife. Including your children, which was why they went to such lengths to compose that letter to you.”

“Lewis’s doing.” Ash couldn’t help a surge of pride. “He is growing up faster than I realize.”

“That is why this time with them is so precious. Lewis will go to school soon, and find his own friends, his own interests. Gracious, my husband barely knew his father and mother, only seeing them from afar until he was quite grown up.”

Helena rarely spoke of her husband, a good-for-nothing fop. If Courtland hadn’t managed to break his neck, he’d have broken her heart with mistresses, gambling debts, and duels.