Page 45 of The Wolf of Mayfair
“You have beennoassistance to me,” Wingrave said nastily. “You are right about one thing, however.”
The physician brightened.
“Something is poisoned in these chambers,” he hissed. “The time I’ve given of my life, listening to your ancient, half-witted drivel.”
Clearing his throat, Hembly drew his shoulders back. “There is a reason they are anci—”
Wingrave narrowed his eyes into thin, unforgiving slits.
This time, the young man took proper warning. Swallowing noisily, Dr. Hembly packed up his bag. When he’d snapped it closed, he avoided Wingrave’s eyes, dropped a bow, and made a hasty retreat.
And Wingrave and Helia were alone once more.
The moment that fraudulent pretender to medical skill closed the door behind himself, Wingrave whipped his attention back over to Helia.
She lay there, so very still and, but for the flushed red splotches on her cheeks, pale as a ghost.
A ghost is what she will become ...
Wingrave forcibly shoved the thought aside.
“You’ve continued to make a bother of yourself, Helia,” he growled. “Forcing me to entertain fools.”
As an afterthought, he muttered, “More fools, that is.”
After all, the whole reason she lay in that bed and Wingrave met doctor after incompetent doctor was that she’d been daft enough to hie herself outside, in the midst of a bloody snowstorm.
A snowstorm which ironically had ceased, started again.
Wingrave picked up a neatly folded white linen cloth and dunked it into the long-cold washbasin water.
“I’m not happy with you,” he snapped.
He wrung the towel out and pressed it against Helia’s forehead. Before, when he’d done so, she’d thrashed and turned. Now it was as if the fever had left her too weak to do anything other than whimper.
That only added to his crossness.
“How dare you go from strong, spirited, indefatigable she-devil to weak kitten.”
She remained still as death.
He deepened his glare on her. “And do not think you’re going to get off so easily and do anything likediebefore I’ve had the chance to take you to task for running outside like a ruddy idiot.”
Her silence was his only response.
“Oh, forgive me,” Wingrave taunted. “I should be a better host, you say? Well, I’ve far greater burdens to attend ... namely, the one involving looking after you.”
He yanked the towel from her brow. Her fever had turned the previously cold fabric lukewarm, an unnecessary reminder of the fact that she lay feverish, dying in her bed. Worse, dying inhisbed. Because even after the servants carted the bodies off, the reminders lived on. They dwelled in this house and one’s mind, until a man managed to wrestle his demons and squash those weakening thoughts.
Only, a different thought now intruded.
May good fortune and health be ever with you.
Thoughts not of death but of a different exchange between Wingrave and this insolent imp, who lay still before him.
You may not have had friends before, but you have one now ...
And despite himself, despite the misery of these past days, and despite the fact he never smiled, a wry grin dusted his lips.
