The Duke

by Kerrigan Byrne

“I watched Dr. Fowler change the dressing, myself.” His eyes moved behind the goggles as though scrutinizing the exact same thing in his memory. “No abscess. No evidence of infection or putridity. No vein discoloration. Though … presence of abnormal discomfort for a wound not entirely recent.” His gaze snapped to her, assessing her with clinical precision. “Explain your theory.”

  She’d have to keep this brief to retain his attention. “As you know, I’ve survived typhus, I’m intimately familiar with its symptoms. There’s almost always a very painful rash. It feels as though your chest is full of cotton, and you want to cough and cough, but you expel nothing. And then there’s … digestive complaints, which are unpleasant and embarrassing, to say the least.”

  “You don’t have to explain the disease to me, Pritchard. I’ve noted it enough.” Impatiently, Longhurst threw the cuffs of his shirtsleeves and began to roll them to the elbow. “I have a great deal of work to do.”

  Terrified that she might be bashing up against the wall of another masculine ego, she hurried on. “My point is, Trenwyth has exhibited only one of these symptoms, and only a little. He’s wheezing more than coughing. It’s just not the same. If it were just the absence of the rash, or that he had the rash but not the cough, then I would assume it was just an abnormal manifestation of the disease. But the absence of both symptoms?”

  He considered it a moment, nodded curtly, and removed his goggles. “So, why septicemia?”

  “You, yourself, noted the pain in his arm. His fever is spiking ever higher, and he’s having an increasingly difficult time breathing. His pulse is both quickening and weakening, almost to a flutter. William said he hasn’t used the necessary once. All these symptoms point to a terrible infection.”

  Longhurst hurried to the door on long legs. “I’ll examine Trenwyth again. If all is as you noted, we’ll inform Dr. Fowler and prepare the surgical theater.”

  “I already told Dr. Fowler. He won’t hear of it.” Imogen seized his arm. “I fear, Dr. Longhurst, that if you take this to him, we’ll both be reprimanded. And worse, he’ll forbid us to treat the duke.”

  “Fowler,” Longhurst spat, as though the name disgusted him. “How a man that stupid was chosen to run such a facility boggles the mind. The blowhard can raise funds, but is utter shit at practicing medicine.” He flicked her a conciliatory look from behind lashes long and thick for a man. “Excuse my vulgarity.”

  “I agree.” Imogen sighed out a breath of relief. “Will you help Trenwyth? I think you’re his only hope.”

  “I’m more chemist than surgeon. This isn’t really my purview.” He glanced about the laboratory, indecision disturbing the tranquility of his features. “If I performed an unauthorized procedure, I could lose my position.”

  “And if you don’t, a man could lose his life!” Imogen cried.

  For the first time since she’d known him, Longhurst’s eyes altered from sharp to soft as they alighted on her face. “You are right to remind me of that,” he conceded. “Come, let us see to your patient.”

  When she was a young girl, Imogen’s family had a cat named Iris, who’d given birth to a litter of kittens. One of the kittens, Icarus, had taken a particular shine to her and followed her everywhere, going so far as to join her in the bath. At night, it would curl up on her chest and Imogen would hold perfectly still, marveling at the speed of the tiny sleeping animal’s breaths. Once, she’d even attempted to mimic the short motions of the creature’s chest, and found it impossible to maintain.

  Now, hovering over Longhurst as he examined Trenwyth, Imogen despaired to note that the duke’s breath was every bit as fast and shallow as Icarus’s had been long ago. This time, when Longhurst palpated the wrist, Cole’s body jerked and spasmed, but only a raw sound escaped. It was as though he couldn’t produce the air for a scream any longer.

  Time was running out, she thought with despair.

  Longhurst looked up at her, his eyes as serious as she’d ever seen them. “Prepare the anesthesia and surgical kit,” he ordered hoarsely. “And hope that it is not too late.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Over the years, the definition of hell made many transitions in Cole’s perspective. As a young man, it had been a nebulous place of dubious origin. Some underworld created by old and religious men to threaten those with rebellious spirits and inquiring minds into submission. His mother had been fond of the place as a probable destination for his eternal soul, and had taken every opportunity to inform him thus.

  As a soldier, hell had become a tangible thing. The battlefield. Where weapons forged in fire ground men forged of earth into so much meat. Cut living flesh down to nothing but elements and offal that, once dried, returned to dust.

  It had been impossible for Cole to imagine anything more hellish, until the smoke had cleared on April 20, 1877. The April Uprising. Hell had become an endless, punishing march to an Ottoman prison somewhere between Bulgaria and Constantinople. A year became an eternity of tedium interrupted by bouts of torture. Where Cole had learned that a youth spent in pursuit of the most exquisite pleasure could be balanced in such a short time with equally exquisite pain. That torment could be as consuming as an orgasm, the veins in his body dilating to allow the pain to flow into his every limb, to set fire to his every nerve. Suspending his muscles with the helpless, pulsating sensation until his body was no longer his own. No matter how valiantly he fought it, groans and screams spilled from him as freely as his blood.

  In hell, he’d lost an intrinsic part of himself.

  And then he’d lost his hand.

  He’d endured, because despite whatever fresh terror the day would hold, the night would bring her …

  Ginny.

  A ridiculous name, really. Rather boozy and lowbrow, come to think of it. Didn’t suit her at all. The sultry, exotic waif with a riot of shimmering ebony curls. Eyes lined with dark kohl that sparkled like tiger’s eye gems from her porcelain skin. She’d been long, lean, and sinuous, but her grace and sensuality hadn’t been the practiced, come-hither seductions of most of the women in her profession. She hadn’t draped herself over him like a smothering blanket of perfume and sex, one hand on his cod and the other in his purse. No. She’d been wary and uncertain, like a baby doe he’d had to coax to eat from his …

  Well, never mind from what.

  On nights when the cold would seep deeper than his bones, into his very soul, he would remember how warm it had been inside her. How she’d clung to him, and buried her face against his neck. How she’d shuddered with release over him before he took her, those cat’s-eyes wide with wonder.

  When his gaolers would cut him, would ask him questions he could not answer in a tongue he did not speak, creating reasons to torture him, he would detach himself.

  And find her.

  He’d go to her in that room, the room the color of blood, and he’d lie in her arms. Her small limbs, as delicate and feeble as a bird’s, somehow sheltering him from his pain. Her voice, a tentative whisper, would soothe him and sometimes strengthen him. He’d remember how fiercely she’d given him permission to grieve.

  To feel.

  Ginny. A prostitute. A creature of a cold and often brutal profession. And yet she’d shown him more genuine warmth than he’d been privy to in a lifetime. She’d been more than a whore to him that night.

  She’d been a friend.

  And during his year in hell, she’d become something indescribably more precious than that. Not a saint, per se, but a sanctuary. Her features—blurred by a dim lantern, makeup, and a bottle of whisky—were made even more opaque by time and tribulation. But the memory of her soft lips, her dark hair, and unparalleled touch had climbed inside of him. Had created her own place in a heart growing ever more bitter and bleak.

  Ginny. He would find her, he vowed. He’d duck into the Bare Kitten out of the damp London night, and there she’d be. Her face would melt into a smile, because she knew he’d come for her. To claim her. To take her away from a life of objec
tification and mistreatment.

  He’d only have to endure. To survive.

  Today, hell was no longer a place, but a state of being. His prison no longer consisted of four walls guarded by unspeakably cruel men, and yet he remained confined.

  Trapped.

  He could have battled the blinding pain in his wrist. Pain had been a foe he’d vanquished well and often. He’d conquered all that threatened to destroy him. The despair of another sunrise lost to a place so foreign and cruel. The insidious fear that the world you knew had forgotten you in this place, and you no longer had a home. The horror and disbelief of looking down at a body that was once yours, and not at all recognizing it.

  But the heat of fever had taken him prisoner, pulled him away from himself and thrust him into an inescapable delirium. Then, with the inevitability of mortality, the chills followed, seizing him up in such force, his bones surged and rattled. Reality became nebulous, and time a fabrication of madness, until the more he tried to cling to the memory of Ginny, his Ginny, the more she became a diaphanous specter.

  His world had become a nothing but a gray cloud of pain. He would dream that his blood was turning black, tentacles of the putrid stuff sprouting from his apendageless wrists and reaching up to poison his heart. Agony consumed everything, the fever burned away all hope. All thought, dreams, or memory. Until he could no longer visit his sanctuary. Until he could no longer conjure her face. He gave himself over to the mist, melded with the pain, and ceased to fight.

  That’s when she said his name.

  She called for him through the cloying mist. Her voice followed by waves of cool pressure on his skin bringing blessed relief. She told him to fight, begged him to live, and a fire ignited inside of him again. Frantic, he reached for her. He desperately fought against a mire threatening to swallow him, immobilizing his limbs.

  He tried. God, how he tried. How had she found him in hell? She didn’t belong here, but he couldn’t bring himself to let her go.

  A male voice joined hers. Grating and unwelcome. Pain accompanied it and their voices became more frenetic.

  Cole tried to snarl, to warn the man away from his woman, but he couldn’t summon the breath. A lake of fire and brimstone drowned him before he could summon her name again, and dragged him down into darkness.

  * * *

  Imogen spent three days with her heart palpitating so intensely she could barely function. So very much was at stake, and the anticipation of disaster overcame everything, driving her halfway to madness.

  The only reason she retained her job was because she’d been right. During the emergency procedure, Dr. Longhurst found infection not only in Trenwyth’s muscle tissue, but also in his bone. He’d done what he could, but the fever still refused to subside, and the fear was that too much damage had already been done.

  Trenwyth’s death would not only be a tragedy that could have been prevented, but also the impetus for so much more calamity. Dr. Fowler would have an excuse to be rid of Longhurst and herself, and he made it no secret that doing so would cause him extreme pleasure.

  Men like him hated nothing so much as the proof of their own folly. Even though Imogen mentioned no word to the staff about his refusal to perform the procedure, he still pierced her with his repugnant glare whenever she was unable to avoid his presence.

  Her nights became a blur of chaos and catastrophe. Anxiety and exhaustion made her clumsy and forgetful. Del Toro threatened that if she spilled something on one more patron, or broke another dish, he’d have to start charging her to work for him.

  It seemed that the thread of balance she’d woven into her life had become as tenuous as Trenwyth’s survival. Any moment now, the thread could snap. Any moment and the fingertips by which she clung to the edge of the abyss would lose their desperate grip, and she’d shatter at the end of an absurdly short fall.

  “Any news, dear girl?” Lord Anstruther queried as he’d done every day when she’d brought him his tea and paper. “Any change?” He looked more brittle than ever before, the edge of his lips tinged in blue.

  “I’m afraid not, my lord.” She gave him the same answer, and they shared a moment of frustrated concern for Trenwyth. “He’s breathing steadily, perhaps a bit less agitated, but he still refuses to wake.”

  “Well, I refuse to die until he wakes, and that’s my last word.” Anstruther lifted his arms so she could set his tray across his lap, simultaneously wagging his finger toward the ceiling.

  “Have you taken to issuing edicts to God?” she teased.

  “Only to Sarah.” He winked at her. “I’ll leave it to my dearly departed beloved to organize the afterlife for me. If the Lord is so omnipotent, he’ll know ahead of time that there’s no arguing with her.”

  Even in her distracted and fatigued state, the wicked earl was able to pull a laugh from her. “Are you certain it’s a good idea to wax so blasphemous at a time like this?”

  “It’s the only option of vice I have left to me.” His wit was interrupted by a wheezing breath. “I haven’t the capability for much sin in or out of this bed these days.”

  Fighting a smile, she adjusted his pillows, made him another poultice for his chest, applying it with a warm, moist wrap.

  “You take such good care of me, Nurse Pritchard,” he said with uncharacteristic solemnity. “I’d be more miserable under the care of anyone else. I don’t suffer fools, you see, and you’re not just kind, but you’re sharp and not easy to astonish. A rare trait among women of my rank. You remind me of my Sarah.”

  This wasn’t the first time she’d heard this from him, but the compliment never ceased to flatter her, as he clearly held his late wife in such lofty esteem.

  “If you’ll pardon my vulgarity, it occurred to me that you may not have been able to bring me the renderings you promised due to lack of … that is … insufficient funds.” His eyes darted away from her, as his noble reticence to discuss money reminded her of just how distant their worlds were from each other. “I had Cheever procure several sketchbooks, canvases, and instruments by which the commission could be accomplished.”

  His gaze was equal parts hopeful and abashed, and Imogen couldn’t remember ever finding someone quite so charming in her entire life. How could she tell him that his concern over her financial status was only half of the cause for her delay? The extra time she’d spent caring for Trenwyth already cut into her clandestine profession at the Bare Kitten. In the estimation of a highborn man, a few evenings spent at the museum once her shift at the hospital ended should be nothing at all. A pleasure rather than a chore. Had she her druthers, he’d be absolutely correct.

  But her life was exceedingly more complicated than he was capable of imagining. And she barely had the time or strength anymore to lament that she wasn’t the artist she’d hoped to be.

  “Well, you’ve succeeded in astonishing me, Lord Anstruther, but surely it is not appropriate for me to accept such a gift.”

  “Bah.” He made the same face he did when swallowing his bitter tinctures from the apothecary. “When you’re my age and rank, my dear, just about any eccentricity is permitted.”

  That produced another laugh, though this one shaded with regret.

  “I’d compensate you for your time, of course.” He cleared his throat, again uncomfortable at the mention of funds.

  So much gratitude for his kindness welled within her heart, her chest literally ached with it. “It’s not that at all, my lord, only—”

  Dr. Longhurst burst into the earl’s private room without so much as a knock, startling him into a fit of coughs. “Nurse Pritchard! It’s Trenwyth. He’s awake.” Without processing the information, Imogen went to Anstruther, but the old man waved her off.

  “Go,” he wheezed. “I told you … He’d listen … to Sarah.” Again the earl pointed to the ceiling.

  It was almost enough to make a believer out of her as she followed Dr. Longhurst into the hall.

  The door to Trenwyth’s room stood open, and light
spilled from it along with a cacophony of voices. Dr. Fowler was in there, she could tell from his jowly voice as he ordered other staff around the room. William entered before her with a tray of tea and broth.

  All noise was smothered by her blood pounding between her ears as Imogen’s dread surged as powerfully as her euphoria. What if Trenwyth remembered her? He’d recognized her voice as Ginny’s in his feverish delirium. He’d called to her, dreamt of her, clung to her like she was his salvation, and that very admission evoked trills of foreign and ridiculous hope.

  But … what if in consciousness, she was nothing more to him than a whore? What if he revealed her secrets to a room full of her employers? Of men. She’d lose everything.

  Just as quickly as the fear presented itself, she excised it. How could she consider herself at a time like this, when a man she’d fought to save had miraculously pulled through?

  Because it was not only herself she had to consider. She had her mother to support, and her sister to protect. They had no one else. They relied on her absolutely.

  Dr. Fowler had sent for Trenwyth’s sister, Lady Russell, but she was traveling with her husband on the Continent, and they’d not heard a word from her.

  Which meant … Cole had no one either.

  Not true, Imogen decided. He had her, and there was no chance she’d let him go through his dreadful recovery alone. She’d nurse him back to health. She’d be a source of strength, knowledge, and of encouragement. No part of her would be denied to him. Her assistance, her body, her hands, her heart if he wanted it.

  Imogen knew he’d owned a part of it since that night they’d spent together. It would take little more than a kind word and that devastating smile to coax the rest of it into his strong hands.

  Hand. He only had the one. She’d help him get used to that as well. She’d fetch and carry what he could not. She would—

  All sentient thoughts scattered like a flock of startled birds when she rounded the frame of his door.

  Had Imogen passed him on the street, she would not have recognized him. Certainly, there was the jaw she’d shaved smooth only this morning. Aristocratic angles and masculine stubbornness clenched against a sip of tea William held to lips that remained pressed together. His hair wanted a cut, though she’d washed and shaped it after a fashion. It fell across eyes that bore no resemblance to the molten fire she remembered. They were now more feral than fierce, but dull too. Dull and empty. As if everything that had once made him Collin Talmage, Duke of Trenwyth, had been taken, leaving only this coarse and rather lupine creature in his stead.