West could hardly wait to return to Eversby Priory. He was beginning to hate London and its hard-hearted chaos of streets, buildings, vehicles, and trains, filth, smoke, glitter, and grandeur. Oh, he missed the city from time to time, but after a few days he was always eager to get back to Hampshire.

The Ravenels’ ancient manor house was positioned on a hill from which anyone who approached could be seen for miles. The estate’s tens of thousands of acres had belonged to the family since the days of William the Conqueror. It seemed appropriate that Ethan Ransom, who—although illegitimate—was in the family’s direct line of descent, should be guarded from his enemies in the home of his ancestors. He and Garrett Gibson would be safe there. West would make sure of it.

Garrett was shaking her head. “I can’t leave my father . . . he’s old and ill . . .”

“We’ll take him with us. Now, tell me what Ransom will need for the journey.”

West was fairly certain that in ordinary circumstances, Garrett would have argued over the plan. But she looked at him dumbly, seeming paralyzed.

“If you don’t wish to come with us,” he said after a moment, “I’ll hire a nurse for Ransom. That might be for the best, actually. You can remain in London and maintain appearances, while—”

“We’ll need an ambulance cart from the clinic to convey him from here to the station,” Garrett interrupted with a scowl, “as well as from the Hampshire station to your home. We’ll have to take it with us.”

“An entire cart?” West asked, wondering how they could fit that onto the train carriage. “Can’t we make do with a stretcher and a good mattress?”

“The cart’s framework is fitted with special elastic springs to absorb jolts. Otherwise, the artery ligations won’t hold, and he’ll hemorrhage. We’ll also need portable water tanks, an ice box, hand lanterns, pails, basins, linens, toweling—”

“Write it all down,” West said hastily.

“We’ll also have to take my cookmaid with us, to look after my father.”

“Whatever you need.”

Her green eyes narrowed. “Why are you doing this? Mr. Ransom doesn’t like the Ravenels. The very name makes him hostile.”

“That’s because Edmund, the old earl, treated both Ransom and his mother quite badly.” West rolled up his loose shirtsleeve and began to pick at the strip of adhesive plaster Garrett had affixed over the puncture left by the hollow needle. It had stopped bleeding by now, and the bandage was beginning to itch. “I’m willing to help Ransom because in the past, he was kind to Helen and Pandora. Also because, whether he likes it or not, he’s a Ravenel, and there are damned few of us left. My brother and I were orphaned when we were young, and deep down I’ve always harbored idiotic fantasies of large family dinners and children and dogs running through the house.”

“I doubt Mr. Ransom would want any part of that.”

“Perhaps not. But we men aren’t quite as simplistic as we appear. A bullet in the chest could inspire a man to reconsider his opinions.”

Garrett was only vaguely aware of the whirlwind of preparations taking place around her. She stayed with Ethan in the Ravenels’ formerly elegant library, now a wreckage of sodden, soiled upholstery and stained carpeting. The situation now appeared to be beyond her control. Lord Trenear and West Ravenel were making decisions without her, and she was too weary to try and insert herself into the process.

Ethan gradually awakened from the surgery in great pain, disoriented, and wretchedly ill from the effects of anesthesia and the toxic aftereffects of the Thames. He barely seemed to recognize Garrett, and answered questions only in monosyllables. She did what she could to ease his misery, giving him another injection of morphine, bathing his face with cool water, and sliding a small pillow beneath his head. Sitting at the table, she lowered her head to her folded arms. For a moment, she shut her eyes and felt herself sinking into sleep.

“Doctor,” came Kathleen’s gentle voice.

Garrett jerked her head up, trying to collect herself. “How are you feeling, my lady?”

“Much better, thank you. We’ve sent two of the servants to help your cookmaid pack for herself and your father. Lord Trenear and I have a proposition we would like you to consider.”

“Yes?”

“We had already planned to leave town for the summer. But before retreating to Eversby Priory, we had accepted an invitation to spend a fortnight in Sussex with Pandora’s in-laws, the Duke and Duchess of Kingston. They have a lovely seaside manor with a private sandy cove, and ample room for guests. I think it would do your father some good to come with us, and perhaps take some seawater baths and do a bit of sunning. That way, you’ll only have to concern yourself with nursing Mr. Ransom back to health, instead of having your attention divided.”

“My lady, I could never impose on you that way, not to mention the Duke and Duchess—”

“After the way you saved Pandora’s life, they would be delighted to welcome your father. He would be treated like royalty.”

Rubbing her sore eyes, Garrett said distractedly, “He’s my responsibility. I don’t think—”

“There’s also the matter of his safety,” Kathleen pointed out gently. “If any trouble should arise over Mr. Ransom’s presence at Eversby Priory, I’m sure you would prefer your father to be kept out of harm’s way.”

“Perhaps you’re right. I’ll have to ask my father what he would prefer. However, I doubt he’ll like the idea of staying with strangers.”

“Your cookmaid would accompany him, of course.” Kathleen regarded her with a warm, concerned gaze. “I’ll bring him to you as soon as he arrives, and you can discuss it.”

“He’ll want to go with me,” Garrett said. “I’m all he has.”

But, when Stanley Gibson arrived at Ravenel House and the choice before him was laid out, his reaction wasn’t exactly what Garrett had expected.

“A holiday at the seashore with a duke?” her father exclaimed, looking befuddled. “Me, a man who’s never sea-bathed in his life? A constable, hobnobbing with upper-class toffs, eating dinner off gold dishes and drinking fancy French wine?”

“I understand, Papa,” Garrett said. “You don’t have to—”

“By Jove, I’ll accept!” he exclaimed heartily. “If the duke wants my company, he shall have it. I suppose it will do him good to spend time with a man like me, learn a thing or two about my years on the beat.”

“Papa,” Garrett began in muted alarm, “I don’t think the duke specifically requested—”

“All settled, then,” Eliza broke in hastily. “Wouldn’t do to disappoint a duke, would it? You and I will have to brace up and go to Sussex, Mr. Gibson, to humor His Grace—‘Do what ye can for other people,’ Mum always says. Come now, the housekeeper has a room for you to rest in ’til we leave for our train in the morning.”

Before Garrett could utter a word of protest, the pair had bustled out of the library.

With a speed and efficiency that was nothing short of miraculous, the Ravenels had acquired every item on Garrett’s list before dawn. Ethan was carefully strapped into a stretcher, which was carried out by a pair of footmen and the earl himself, to the waiting ambulance cart behind the mews. The sky was unrelieved black, the only light coming from streetlamps that cast crooked shadows across the pavement.

Sitting beside Ethan in the covered cart, Garrett could see very little of their route or direction. West had told her that they were going to a private railway station just south of London, where they would board a special train without being observed, and bypass the usual permissions and restrictions. Extra precautions had been taken for guarding crossings and securing facing points, which would be timed to allow the train to run without stoppages.

A single horse pulled the ambulance cart at a measured pace. Despite the vehicle’s shock-absorbing springs, Ethan was jostled and jarred until stifled groans escaped him. Unable to imagine what hell he was enduring, Garrett held his hand, not letting go even when his grip turned bone-crushingly tight.

The cart slowed as they came to a place so dark and quiet that it seemed as if they had entered some remote forest. Peeking beneath the hem of the cart’s canvas covering, Garrett saw towering gates covered with ivy, and ghostly sculptures of angels, and solemn figures of men, women, and children with their arms crossed in resignation upon their breasts. Graveyard sculptures. A stab of horror went through her, and she crawled to the front of the cart to where West Ravenel was sitting with the driver.

“Where the devil are you taking us, Mr. Ravenel?”

He glanced at her over his shoulder, his brows raised. “I told you before—a private railway station.”

“It looks like a cemetery.”

“It’s a cemetery station,” he admitted. “With a dedicated line that runs funeral trains out to the burial grounds. It also happens to connect to the main lines and branches of the London Ironstone Railroad, owned by our mutual friend Tom Severin.”

“You told Mr. Severin about all this? Dear God. Can we trust him?”

West grimaced slightly. “One never wants to be in the position of having to trust Severin,” he admitted. “But he’s the only one who could obtain clearances for a special train so quickly.”

They approached a massive brick and stone building housing a railway platform. A ponderous stone sign adorned the top of the carriage entrance: Silent Gardens. Just below it, the shape of an open book emblazoned with words had been carved in the stone. Ad Meliora. “Toward better things,” Garrett translated beneath her breath.

West looked back at her in surprise. “You’ve studied Latin?”

She sent him a sardonic glance. “I’m a doctor.”

A quick, apologetic grin crossed his face. “Of course.”

The ambulance cart came to a halt at the platform, where the Ravenel carriage and two other vehicles were already parked. The instant the brake was applied, footmen and a pair of porters rushed forward to begin the process of removing the stretcher from the vehicle.

“Be careful,” Garrett said sharply.

“I’ll manage them,” West told her, “while you board the train carriage.”

“If they bump or jar him—”

“Yes, I understand. Let me handle it.”

Frowning, Garrett descended from the cart and took in her surroundings. A reverse-painted glass sign beside the door listed the contents of each floor: mortuary rooms, crypts, storerooms, and third-class waiting rooms on the basement level; chapel, robing rooms, and second-class waiting rooms on the main level; and offices and first-class waiting rooms on the upper levels.

A second sign instructed mourners as to which funeral carriages on the train were designated for first-class coffins, and which ones were for second and third class.