Page 41 of The Nabob's Designing Daughter
“Does he know that you see to the medical needs of the people?”
He held his breath, waiting to see if she would deny it.
“Visiting the poor is a great lady’s occupation, isn’t it?”
She would have found a way to convince her father of that.
“I’m going to do all I can to save him, Ann.”
“You couldn’t do any less and be you, Errol.”
Ann’s heartraced as the duke himself escorted them to the bedchamber where they’d carried her father.
Errol entered, but the duke stopped her outside in the corridor. “Ann,” he said. “Might you not want to wait in the parlor? Filomena will join you. He may not want you to see him like this.”
“He is conscious?”
“Yes, and in great pain. His man and the butler are with him, and one of the footmen.”
She shook her head. “I must go in. He’ll be beastly to Errol.”
“He’s likely to be beastly to you as well.”
She pressed a hand to her forehead. “So be it. I won’t let Errol go through this alone. It’s my fault he’s here.” She pushed past the duke, her gaze sweeping the chamber. Father’s brushes and shaving kit lay on a dressing table, and a footman was picking up discarded clothes.
Errol’s medical bag sat on the table near the bed, open to display his essential tools and medicines. Her father’s stocking-clad feet stretched at the end of the bed. She moved closer.
His coats and shirt had been stripped away. She’d never seen her father’s bulky paunch.
Father’s valet stood holding a linen compress gingerly to the broad chest, as each breath came in a labored wheeze. The butler stood at his other side.
Ann pressed a hand to her own chest. She’d been stripped of all hope today, knowing that Errol would take her up on her offer to release him from a year’s commitment, that he would choose to leave Kinmarty, to leave her, knowing she would either have to marry against her wishes to a man of her father’s choice, or leave her home and her father and somehow make her own way.
But she’d never wished for her father to die. His death wouldn’t make her life easier; it would only be more fraught with grief and guilt.
Errol approached the bed and signaled the servant to move away. When he lifted away the bandage, he blinked, and then his gaze settled back into an analytical frown.
“Strachney,” he said. “Can you hear me?”
“Get your filthy hands off me.” Strachney smacked at Errol’s hand, and squealed, from the pain of the movement or the force of the men holding him back she wasn’t sure.
“Right, then.” Errol went to the washstand and returned.
“Will this work?” Ann had a probe ready for him.
“Thank you.” His gaze sparked warmth within her, the two simple words giving her foolish hope.
“Father,” she said, “lie as still as you possibly can while the doctor examines you.”
“Damn you, girl. I did it all for you and you’d throw it away on this… this…Ow. You’re hurting me.”
A gash traced from the top of his chest to the skin of the stomach, the fleshy layers oozing blood. Errol poked gently around the edges. “You’ve powder burns on your shoulders and upper chest. But here… tweezers, Ann, please.”
She fetched him the instrument and watched as he pulled out a sliver of wood, making her father howl and hurl curses so foul she winced. For all of his airs, her father cursed like the lowest of scallywags.
But he’d pulled himself up, hadn’t he? Mother’s family had not approved of him as a husband. That was why her godmother, her mother’s lifelong friend, made sure her inheritance would not be under his control.
“Ann.” Errol’s mouth firmed. “Will you not wait outside. I’d not have you subjected to this abuse.”
