Chapter Thirteen
Major Reid arrived astride a great Roman-nosed gray. Tom almost didn’t recognize him. That was Reid? That skeleton dressed in riding clothes?
He swallowed his shock. “Major Reid!” he called out, and strode across the stableyard to greet him.
Reid dismounted. “Matlock. How do you do?”
“Lord, Major, you look like death warmed over! Fever take you again, sir?”
Reid shrugged. “You know how it is.”
Tom nodded. He’d seen soldiers worn to the bone by fever before. “Let me introduce you to m’ host, Major, and then we’ll have a chat about old times.” But ten minutes of watching Reid make small talk with Robert and Almeria in the green and gold salon filled him with the conviction that something more than mere illness was wrong with Reid. The painful gauntness, the weariness e
