“What of Miss Delphina?” Fotherby asked softly as those seated around him continued to eat. “With yourselves and your mother absent, who is tending her?”

“Her nurse,” Miss Portland replied quickly before anyone else at the table could speak. “And of course David dotes on her.”

“David?”

“Our youngest brother,” Portland explained.

“There are so many of you. I am a little jealous, if truth be told.”

“Have you no brothers or sisters, Doctor?” Miss Portland asked.

“None.”

“Nor have I,” Miss Webb replied. “And nor has Rosanna. That is why we were both blessed to have been welcomed into Barrington Manor.”

The shrewd young surgeon felt...

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