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how cruel it was for her to be at death’s door while she was among strangers, and that, after all, was really what they were. Of all the things they’d discussed as they’d courted, gossip, fashion, theater, they’d never actually talked about the nub of it. Why marry someone you didn’t burn for, or at least care for? They hadn’t spoken about it because they’d both known why and had accepted it.
    They’d married for convenience. But they’d both been idiots, he saw it now. The nearness of death had brought it home to him. In the long hours as he sat at her bedside and watched her sinking, his heart had sunk too. Now, too late, he realized his folly and hers. It was more than a pity that she should die without having known love, it was damnable. But what if he made another idiotic decision now either by permitting this woman to dose Annabelle, or by sending her away?
    “I have a physician from London coming,” he said.
    “He isn’t here,” she said. “Have you time to wait?”
    “I? I have all the time in the world, but my wife…” He hesitated. He’d sailed a good part of that world and had seen the strange things men thought would cure them of everything from syphilis to simple colds: charms of all varieties from dried monkey feet to bags of herbs wornaround their necks—and sometimes he’d been almost convinced those things had worked. He’d seen those same sufferers drink odd potions and feel better in an hour too.
    What other course did he have? His friend from London would be here, or so he hoped. But in how long? And would that be too long? And so, Miles thought wearily, the only question now was: What would he want if he were the one lying in that bed?
    “Mrs. Farrow,” he said courteously, “would you care to come with me and see my lady before you promise more?”
    She nodded. She walked into Annabelle’s room with him and looked at the woman lying in the center of the great bed. She caught her breath. “Ah, the poor child,” she said, low.
    “Do you still think you can help?” Miles asked.
    “I must.”
    “Then do,” he said.
    He sat and lowered his head to his hands and didn’t look up until he heard the woman ask him to help raise Annabelle’s head, so they could try to give her a sip of the first potion she’d brewed for her.
     
    Miles’s friend, the surgeon from London, arrived at sunset. Harry Selfridge was a tall, lean man whose spectacles covered soft brown eyes.
    “I came as soon as I received your letter, Miles,”he said as he stripped off his gloves. “Called for my coach, and left my consultation room filled with patients.”
    “I’m devilish sorry for having rousted you—”
    “Don’t apologize! It was no imposition. I owe you much more than this for your aid on the Forthright as well as when I had that unfortunate incident in Spain. I only hope this in some small way can help repay you. How is she?”
    “You don’t owe me anything, but do whatever you can, Harry. She’s in great need. I dismissed her other doctor. I needed someone I can trust.”
    “That would be me. Where is she?”
    Miles led him to the stair. His step faltered, he hesitated, then turned to his old friend. “I—have a woman from the village tending to her now, or at least until you came. She seemed competent, and I needed help. And…” He lowered his gaze and added, his cheekbones growing ruddy, “I’m taking her advice even though I have doubts, but her cures don’t seem too vile. In fact, I helped her give my wife a potion of peppermint, elderflower, and yarrow today. I’m not an utter fool,” he said when his friend looked at him sharply. “The woman seemed to have good credentials, and damn it, Harry, what else could I do? I dismissed the curst doctor on the spot, tossed him out of the house because it seemed to me he was killing her faster than the influenza could. Herbs, at least, I thought would be benign.”
    “Herbs? Benign? Like hemlock, henbane, and belladonna,