"Edward's been wounded," Emily at last managed to blurt out.

"Seriously?" Theo was white beneath the sun's bronzing, and the scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose stood out in sharp relief. Her eyes were so large with distress, they dwarfed her other features.

"His arm… they amputated his arm," Emily gasped before collapsing onto the sofa in a renewed burst of uncontrollable sobs.

"Oh, no." Theo stood in shock, trying to imagine Edward crippled – a man who loved all physical sports; the friend who'd taught her unarmed combat and how to fence; the friend with whom she'd swum in the cove as a child, scrambled over the cliffs, climbed trees in search of birds' nests, ridden to hounds.

Sylvester moved to the weeping girl on the sofa. Her sobs were beginning to catch in her throat in an alarming fashion, and he was afraid she was about to go into strong hysterics.

"Emily!" He took her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. But her eyes were wild and unseeing. She opened her mouth on a soundless scream.

Sylvester slapped her cheek with calculated force, and the wildness in her eyes was replaced with shock and then recognition. "I do beg your pardon, Emily," he said. "But you were about to go into hysterics."

"Mama always does that," Theo said, her own voice shaky as she struggled with her own distress. "Emily's of a nervous disposition, she can't help it." She sat beside her sister, wrapping her arms around her. Her sister needed her support at the moment more than she herself needed time to come to terms with this news. "Poor sweet, what a terrible shock for you. How did you hear about this?"

"Lady Fairfax." Emily's voice still trembled, but it was clear she was in control of herself again and obviously didn't resent Sylvester's swift intervention. "She came to the dower house. They'd received a letter from Edward's colonel."

"How did it happen?" Sylvester asked calmly, going to the sideboard and filling a glass with ratafia. It wasn't what he would have chosen for shock, but he knew his sister-in-law's tastes.

"A sniper," Emily said, accepting the glass with a tearfully polite smile. "He was shot in the shoulder. But why would they have to amputate his whole arm?"

"To prevent mortification," Sylvester explained, pouring sherry for himself and Theo. "Instant amputation may seem an extreme move, Emily, but it saves life." He saw the blood-soaked tables in the hospital tents, the bins overflowing with amputated limbs, the flickering candlelight, the exhausted, blood-reeking surgeons with their great smoking knives; the anguished screams filled his head.

He kept his voice matter-of-fact. "The French do much better than we do with their wounded, because they discovered early that the sooner an injured limb is removed, the better the chance of survival. Before any battle, or even skirmish, they have hospital tents set up and an army of carts and limbers to remove the wounded from the field the instant a truce is declared. We're learning from them slowly, getting our wounded off the field faster, but still not fast enough. Our butcher's bills in the hospital tents still exceed theirs."

Edward Fairfax, although he probably wouldn't acknowledge it at the moment, was a lucky man if an enlightened surgeon had taken drastic action in time.

"What else did the letter say?" Theo took a gulp of her sherry, fighting to keep the horrifying images from overrunning her mind. Edward in agony, biting a bullet as they sawed through bone and sinew…

She glanced at Emily and realized that her sister's imagination hadn't stretched to those horrors. She told herself that that agony was over for Edward now, so there was no point in morbid imaginings, but the dreadful pictures still played behind her eyes.

"He's coming home," Emily said. "Obviously he'll never be able to fight again."

There were small mercies, Theo thought resolutely, even in tragedy. A crippled Edward was not a body lying inert on a battlefield. "He'll manage," she said. "You know how strong-minded he is. He won't let something like this ruin his life."

Sylvester perched on the edge of the table, regarding the sisters, hearing Theo's struggle to comfort Emily, understanding her struggle to believe in her own reassurances. He knew better than they the devastating effects of amputation. A young man learning to accept that he was no longer whole. How would this Edward Fairfax handle the card that fate had dealt him? Most men were embittered and filled with self-disgust, seeing in the words and gestures of love and support the patronizing charity of people who pitied them. If Emily was expecting her fiance to run into her arms as if nothing had happened, she was in for a rude awakening when the wounded man returned.

Returned to the neighborhood and the close contact he'd always had with the Belmonts. The thought obtruded violently into his musings. "What regiment is he in?"

"Seventh Hussars," Theo replied.

"When did he buy his colors?"

"A year ago."

The Seventh Hussars would probably know nothing of the affairs of the Third Dragoons. A young man in the Seventh Hussars would know nothing of Vimiera. His regiment hadn't been part of that expeditionary force, and Fairfax hadn't been in the army then, anyway. Unless he'd heard something… but why would he have? He'd know nothing of the past of the present Earl of Stoneridge. Even if he'd heard rumors of the scandal of Vimiera, he'd not associate them with Theo's husband. And it was such an old story now, superseded by so many other scandals.

He glanced at Theo, still sitting with her arm around her sister. Her face was set, that firm jaw unwavering. How would such a straightforward, bold creature view a husband tainted with the charge of cowardice? It wasn't difficult to imagine the answer, and it chilled him to the marrow. He told himself again that there was no reason why the dishonorable past should ever rear its head, but he wished Edward Fairfax to the devil.

"How long will it take him to journey from Spain, sir?" Emily asked, her voice much stronger now, although she was twisting his handkerchief convulsively between her hands.

A man weakened by pain and loss of blood would make slow progress unless he had comrades who would look out for him and ensure he found transport in carts and wagons across country until they reached the coast and a naval ship.

"It's hard to say, Emily. Anywhere from a week to a month."

"That's an eternity," Theo muttered, her mind uncannily following Sylvester's along the route of a severely wounded soldier making shift through war-torn Spain. "Come, Emily, we'll walk back to the dower house and talk to Mama. Does she know about this?"

Emily shook her head. "She was out when Lady Fairfax called. Lady Fairfax didn't want to tell me the news without Mama, but she was so upset, she couldn't keep it to herself."

"I can imagine." Theo rose briskly. "I don't know how long I'll be, Stoneridge." Without a backward glance she hustled Emily into the hall.

Sylvester raised an eyebrow at her departing back. Since their wedding she'd been using his first name quite naturally, but it seemed that with the intrusion of the outside world, old habits reasserted themselves. He would have liked to go with them to the dower house, but Theo obviously felt the Belmont women were sufficient unto themselves.

The reflection left him feeling strangely empty and lacking in some way after the hours of intimacy they'd shared in the last two days.

"What's it like?" Emily asked abruptly, half running to keep up with Theo's hasty stride. Her own future, until this morning so certain and secure, had been abruptly threatened, and the question arose naturally from her own turmoil. "Marriage, I mean. Was it… I mean… is it…"

"It's lovely," Theo said, rescuing her sister from the morass, well aware of what aspect of marriage was concerning her. "But I imagine it helps if one of you knows what's what." She linked her arm through her sister's, saying intently, "You'll find out soon enough, love."