Page 15 of The Duke
“Nurse Pritchard. You shouldn’t be here. It’s typhus.” A lock of hair the color of hot chocolate curled against his forehead and kept falling into eyes the color of oak leaves in the late summer. Imogen very much doubted that Dr. Longhurst remembered to go to the barber very often, though his disheveled appearance didn’t decrease his attractiveness.
“Because I’ve already survived typhus, Dr. Fowler assigned me as His Grace’s personal nurse.”
“Oh.” His eyes brightened, and he swiped at his hair as though only just noticing that he’d forgotten to groom this morning. “Very well, then. Do come in.” He drew the door open wider and stepped out of her path. “You know William? He’s also survived typhus, and will be helping you care for Lord Trenwyth.”
“Of course, hello.”
“Nurse Pritchard.” William, a young, sandy-haired lad, nodded to her. “I’ll step out now, but just tug on this bellpull ’ere if you need me, and I’ll be back faster than you can say ‘bob’s yer uncle.’”
“Thank you.” Imogen barely heard a word the cockney lad said, let alone noted his departure, so intent was she on the sleeping man almost as white as the sheets tucked around his prone form.
Cole.
The spare yet expensive room disappeared as she ventured closer, afraid to blink lest the shallow rise and fall of his chest cease. “How… how is he?” She didn’t even fight to keep the catch from her voice.
“Rather dim-witted, I’m afraid, but strong as an ox and willing to help.”
It took her a moment to process that Longhurst had misunderstood her meaning. “No, not William. I mean Trenwyth.”
“Ah.” He trailed her to the bedside. “I’ll admit the prognosis isn’t good. His fever refuses to break. Tried everything.” He sighed, as though Trenwyth’s fever were being purposely recalcitrant and tiresome to his patience. “Were the duke as strong as he should be, a man in his prime, I’d give him a better chance. But malnourished as he is, and with the rest of his injuries…” He let the sentence die, as it contained words unnecessary to utter.
Imogen stared down at Trenwyth’s face as he slept in a kind of fitful, feverish torpor. Beneath thin blankets, his limbs twitched restlessly and his eyes rolled behind their lids.
She devoured the sight of him, absorbing the features she knew, and acquainting herself with the alarming changes. The grooves in his forehead and branching from his eyes had deepened more than they should in a year. His pallor accentuated the hollows beneath his strong cheekbones, turning them gaunt to the point of skeletal. But she recognized his face, his dear, familiar,beautifulface, and thanked God that he’d made it home.
To her.
Information processed slowly through the depths of her emotion and she latched on to the last thing Dr. Longhurst had said.
“Therestof his injuries?” She echoed his words in a query.
Instead of informing her of his clinical assessment, Longhurst grasped the edge of the coverlet and threw it wide, allowing her to see for herself.
“Dear.God.” Her voice broke on the exclamation.
“God had nothing to do with what happened to this man.” Even Dr. Longhurst, a colleague she knew to be rational and sensible to the point of stoic, injected an extra note of emotion into his voice at the ghastly sight of Trenwyth’s body.
“W-why?” Imogen whispered.
More bruises covered Trenwyth’s long form than unmarked flesh. His hipbones jutted against the thin white linen of the undergarment draped to grant him a modicum of modesty. He was malnourished, emaciated, and had obviously been tortured. His skin, once a hue of gold to rival the sunlit barley fields in August, now reminded her of the pale wax she had to peel from the top of an unopened bottle of Ravencroft Scotch. Though his cuts and abrasions had already been stitched and wrapped, the angriest bruises suggested he’d spent a great deal of time bound by coarse rope, indenting at his neck, his ankles and wris—.
Imogen closed her eyes, assaulted by a wave of anger, compassion, and disbelief.
His left hand, it was… gone.
CHAPTERFOUR
“You’re not going to cry, are you?” Panic edged into Dr. Longhurst’s voice.
“No.” Imogen sniffed, fearing that at any moment she might be proved a liar. It was all she could do to tear her horrified gaze from the rounded, bandage-wrapped wrist. “But… how did this happen?Whodid this to him?”
Trenwyth shivered, though a sheen of sweat glossed his skin, and Imogen helped Dr. Longhurst to cover him as he murmured strange and nonsensical things.
“Know what I believe?” Longhurst asked in his abbreviated way, looking about them as though to assure their privacy. “The Ottoman Turks. Now help me open the windows. There’s new evidence that fresh, clean air is beneficial to those with fevers this high, and all of our antipyretic efforts have been thwarted.”
Dazed, Imogen trailed after Dr. Longhurst, surprised how reluctant she was to leave Trenwyth’s side, even to perform this little task. “The Ottomans?” He’d been the second one only this hour to deduce that. “Did you also read the American papers?”
He gave her a queer sort of look. “No, but I’ve spent time among the Persians and the Turkish people, studying some of their chemical and medical advancements. While I respect and enjoyed them very much, I’ve also seen what they do to their enemies. Have you ever heard of Sharia law?”
