“Where’s the duke’s carriage?” Buller said suddenly. “I don’t see where you stabled his horses, either.”
There was a second of silence, then Sordido said, “We sent them on to the duke, of course. In London.”
Buller grabbed Mrs. Sordido’s arm again. But there must have been something in Piers’s eyes that was more frightening than the threat of force. She quailed and said, “Behind the inn, in the shed.”
“No, they’re not,” Sordido said, blustering. “We—”
“You stole the carriage,” Piers stated. “You stole the horses. You likely stole my wife’s clothing.”
“You never said as how she was your wife!” Sordido put in.
“She’s mine. You stole her clothing, and the money they had with them, and I’m fairly sure that you killed the Duke of Windemere’s coachman.”
“We didn’t,” Sordido said, panting. “We’d nothing to do with it.”
“He died from what ailed him,” his wife said, the words tumbling out now. “They came late at night, and he went to bed above the stables, but the next morning, he was in a high fever, all hot, mumbling and coughing. He never really came out of it.”
Piers looked at her.
“He didn’t!” she repeated shrilly. “He raved of this and that, but we couldn’t stand by his bedside every minute of the day. Besides, she was sick, and the smith was down with it too, and his wife. We had our hands full, trying to get the doctor from the next village over to visit. And then the minister came through, and said as how the sick ones had to be isolated.” She lost steam.
“He died,” Sordido added. “He died quick-like. But she didn’t. So we had to put her somewhere.”
“You and your husband, get out,” Piers said. “If you’re on the premises in an hour, I’ll have you put in the dungeons in my castle. They are marginally worse than where you put my wife.”
Her mouth gaped open. “You’re—no, you’re not!” With a fierce wrench, she freed her arm from Buller’s hand. “You can’t come in here and just do as you wish with a person’s property! That’s my inn, my and Sordido’s. We bought it free and clear for fifty pounds, and we’re not going—Sordido!”
“If you leave the inn now, I won’t haul you up before the magistrate.”
“You can’t do that!” she said shrilly. “Sordido, say something! We did no more than our duty with that woman. Out of the goodness of our hearts.”
“You have no heart,” Piers stated. “What you do have is one hour to gather your possessions and get out. I don’t want you within ten miles of my castle. I don’t want you in Wales at all. If you’re not out of here in an hour, I’ll have you deported to the colonies.”
Mrs. Sordido was obviously the power behind the throne, as it were. She had her fists on her hips now. “You can’t!” she screamed. “It’s our property, free and clear. We paid for it.”
“If you’re out of the inn in one hour, I won’t prosecute. If you’re not, I’ll have you before the magistrate by morning light.”
“We can’t,” Sordido said, starting to whine. “It’s coming on night, and what would we do for money? I put everything into this inn, every tuppence I had.”
But Piers was done with the conversation. “Buller, I need you to carry my—to carry Linnet into the inn. One hour,” he snapped at Mrs. Sordido. “In case you’re wondering whether my word carries weight with the magistrate, I just saved his daughter from dying of scarlatina.”
“I did what I could out of pure Christian mercy,” Mrs. Sordido cried.
Piers held up his hand. “She is at the point of death. I am telling you to leave out of pure Christian mercy. Because if she dies . . .”
Mrs. Sordido backed up, scrabbling her apron in her hands. “Sordido!” she cried, turning to run. “Hurry, man, hurry!”
“Carry Linnet into the inn,” Piers said, turning to Buller. “I’ll go ahead and find an acceptable bed. Then give those fools a few guineas and a chit for fifty pounds, and take the carriage straight back to the castle. You can get a few hours of sleep and return in the morning. We need help.”
Buller nodded, and went to the chicken coop, stooping to enter. Piers turned and made off across the yard toward the inn.
He could hear Mrs. Sordido shouting at her husband as she racketed around upstairs.
He made his way directly to the best bedchamber. “Them’s my sheets,” Mrs. Sordido said, appearing in the doorway. “You said as how we could keep our things.”
The guinea spun through the air, and she caught it neatly. “And what of the kitchen?” she demanded. “I expect you’d need a pot or two, and I’ve a full larder already set in for the winter.”
He doubted that, but he threw her a couple more. Then: “Get out.”
She ran.
At least the bed linens were clean, and reasonably soft. He pulled back the covers, opened the curtains, and threw open the windows as he heard the sound of Buller coming slowly up the stairs.
Together they laid her on the bed.
“God almighty,” Buller whispered. “What did they do to her? I’ve never smelt anything like it. And her face . . .”
Piers glanced at her ravaged face and skin. “That’s the scarlatina, not the chicken coop. I need water, Buller, lots of it. A pail right away, and several pots on the stove set to boil. And the satchel from the carriage. Once you see those louts off the premises, you need to go back to the castle and fetch help. We’ll be all right without you in the meantime.”
“You’ll be all right?” Buller whispered. His eyes were fixed on Linnet. “I wouldn’t know it was her. I never seen anything like it. She was the prettiest little thing . . .”
“Go,” Piers said, jerking his head. He waited until he heard the man’s footsteps start down the stairs, and then he ripped off the shameful excuse for a nightgown Linnet was wearing. It was ragged and torn; clearly the Sordidos had taken all her clothes when they consigned her to the coop. He threw it in the corner.
Still she didn’t move, her neck and head utterly limp as Piers pulled her filthy hair away from her face, piling it on top of the pillow. So he began talking to her, a slow, steady conversation, telling her exactly what he was doing as he checked her ears, checked her throat, her blackened tongue, her skin. He found signs of leeches at her throat and let fall a curse word that interrupted his soothing monologue.
Buller’s heavy feet sounded on the stairs again, so Piers went to the door. “I need you to bring clean mattresses from the castle, at least two. I’m going to ruin this one, getting her cooled off and clean, and I think there’s a fair chance of vermin in any bed on the premises.”
Buller nodded. “Pots of water are on the stove. The Sordidos are gone. They whipped out when I had my back turned.” He hesitated.
“What?”
“They stole the duke’s carriage, I’m pretty sure of that. And his horseflesh. I didn’t see them go, but that wasn’t the sound of a cart leaving. And they said something about a scullery maid, but there’s no one to be seen around here. The girl must have seen the way things were going and run off.”
Piers shrugged. “They have Linnet’s clothing too, so you’ll need to bring her something to wear. Go back to the castle and get some rest, Buller. I’ll expect you first thing in the morning.”
The coachman nodded, but then waited, his eyes fearful.
“She’ll live,” Piers stated, making it fierce, a statement, not an opinion.
He closed the door to the bedroom, threw off his coat and began the fight of his life.
For her life.
Chapter Thirty-Two
We have to get you clean, sweetheart,” he said to Linnet. She didn’t move. “You’re in a coma, so hopefully you don’t know how filthy you are.” He devoutly hoped so. “I’m going to wash you down the way Nurse Matilda washed Gavan once a week, and if you feel like squirming or shouting the way he did, please do not hesitate.”
Silence.
“Until I have so
me boiled water, I can’t wash the parts of your skin that are raw, as they might get infected.” Unfortunately, that was most of her body.
God, she’d lost so much weight. How could this happen so fast, in a week? She went from a curved, delicious woman to a near skeleton, her hair like straw, her skin . . .
From head to foot she was covered in a layer of grime, all her sores and raw skin layered in chicken excrement. He started with her feet, because they weren’t peeling, and washed every toe carefully.
“Whatever all this dirt is,” he told her, washing her toes for the second time, and realizing that the water in which he was wringing the rag was already turning brown, “I’ll write an article about it after you recover. The miraculous properties of chicken manure. It can’t be worse than the fermented mash, though the smell is certainly more penetrating.”
He kept talking, and talking, though not even Linnet’s fingertip quivered in response. He told her when he was going down to fetch more water, and greeted her when he returned to her room.
“An ungainly progress,” he told her. “I had to hoist the pail up each stair first, and then hoist myself after. Now we’re starting the hard part, darling. It’s going to hurt. You’re covered in dirt, and I have to clean your skin. With soap, which will make the open blisters hurt all the more.”
Mercifully, she didn’t seem to feel it, although the pain would have been torment to a conscious patient, as they often screamed at a mere touch. He kept checking her eyes to see if her lids twitched, indicating discomfort. And he listened to her chest again and again, finding the deep rattle that reassured him she was breathing.
At some point he simply poured the now-tepid water over her, desperate to get her clean, but terrified to rub skin that was open and raw from the scarlatina rash. It didn’t work. The dirt clung to her body, giving way only to soap and water.
Darkness fell. He lit the one lamp he could find, without closing the windows. She’d been locked in that coop for days; fresh air could only help.
“You’re cooler now,” he told her. “The fever’s come down, though whether that was because of all that water or just the course of the disease, I don’t know. The fever does come and go, we’ve found.”
He had slowly worked his way up her body, past her breasts, her arms, her neck.
“I’ve reached your face, Linnet. This is going to be torture. Gavan would scream bloody murder.”
Her hair, thick and rank, had fallen back around her face, so he pushed it away again. It was matted with sweat and water and dung. “I have to cut it off,” he said. “Speak now, or never.”
She lay unmoving, and Piers found himself swallowing a cry, a sob, some involuntary response that he hadn’t allowed himself since the early days of his injury, when he learned that crying over pain made it worse.
Who would have thought that there was worse pain in the world?
He made his way back down the stairs to the kitchen, and returned, hauling another pail of water and a knife. “It has to go,” he told her. “It will grow back. But right now it’s likely harboring God knows what sort of vermin.”
It wasn’t easy, cutting hair with a none-too-sharp knife. He hacked it off as close to her scalp as he could, and attacked what was left with soapy water, treating her face as gently as he could. By the time he was finished, water was running off the bed, rivulets streaming across the floor in all directions. “I think we’ll have to double Nurse Matilda’s wages,” he told her. “This is harder than what I do with patients.”
He turned her over, carefully, supporting her neck as if she were a day-old infant. Her back was cleaner, but the rash was more violent, blisters breaking at his touch.
“There’s nothing I can do about the pain,” he said, his voice ragged. “Damnation, Linnet, I need another bucket of water. I’ll be back.”
Walking back through door with fresh water he found her so still, so corpse-like that his heart stuttered. He stumbled to her bed, grabbed her wrist . . . the pulse was still there.
By the time he finished washing her entire body, the rivulets of water on the floor had merged into a sudsy pool. “It’s running through the floorboards to the room below,” Piers told her. “Likely the first time this floor has been so clean. Now what am I going to do?”
She was clean, but he couldn’t dry her, not in a sodden bed. He turned her over again, carefully arranging her arms by her sides. “Dead of midnight,” he told her. “I’m going to have to take the lamp, dearest. Can’t see a bloody thing without it. I’ll look for another lamp, but I have a nasty suspicion that the Sordidos took anything moveable. There’s not a candle to be found in the kitchen.”
He picked up the lamp and his cane, and hobbled from room to room. There were no more lamps, and in fact, only one room still had linens. “Bloody hell,” he said aloud. He went back to Linnet. “You weigh less than those mattresses.”
Not even an eyelid flickered.
He looked down at himself. His clothes were filthy and covered in chicken excrement. He couldn’t touch her like this. “I’m taking my clothes off,” he said, conversationally. “I know you always liked to watch me. Did you think I didn’t notice that you were peeking at me?”
She didn’t answer, but in his head he heard her laughter.
“There’s some clean bedding next door that Mrs. Sordido unaccountably missed,” he explained. “I have to carry you there, and unfortunately you’re more ungainly than a bucket of water.”
When he was naked, he leaned the cane against the bed, took a deep breath, and slid an arm under Linnet’s neck and the other under her knees. For a moment he just held her while he gathered his strength, her cheek pressed against his chest as that sob fought to escape again.
“No,” he said out loud, straightening up. He turned on his strong leg, and pitched forward on the bad one. “I won’t fall,” he reassured Linnet. Her arm fell free and swung before them. Step, lurch, step, lurch. Another step and he was through the door into the corridor.
“This gives new meaning to the need for wall lamps,” he said to her. Step, lurch, step, lurch. “Damn, I’m going to have to sit down.” His voice was a ragged gasp. But if he sat down on the floor, he would never be able to get up, not without his cane and with her in his arms. So he leaned against the corridor wall, head back, took deep breaths, and tried to ignore the pain exploding past his leg into his hip.
“A few more steps . . . perhaps three, only three, and then the door will be there. I’ll turn in. Three more to get you to a dry bed.”
Pain lanced through him as if in answer.
He shoved himself away from the wall and took a step. Another lurch, a step. “That swimming is coming in handy,” he said to her, getting the words out between grunts of pain. “You’re a feather in my arms.”
Not precisely true, but good enough. Finally, he made it to the doorway, the bedchamber lit only by moonlight streaming in the window. He hobbled across the floor, managed to place her on the bed, and pulled the sheet up.
“If you’ll excuse me, my lady,” he said, the words coming in short bursts. And without further ado, he crumpled to the floor.
Some time later, he raised his head. “Have to retrieve that cane of mine,” he told her. Walking was out of the question. So he crawled, stark naked, out of the room, down the corridor, onto the wet floor of the bedchamber. Found the cane and got himself upright.
Profanity didn’t help. The pain in his leg was excruciating, so much so that even the drenched bed looked inviting. “I have to get back to her,” he said aloud. The moon was traveling across the sky. “Water. Linnet has to drink water.”
He’d saved one precious bucket, so he slung his satchel over his shoulder, put the wire handle of the lamp over his forearm, and picked up the bucket. It was too much to carry; he knew it immediately.
But it had to be done, even if a man found himself grunting every time his weak leg moved forward. If not crying out.
She lay under the sheet, as
still as death. “That corridor,” he said from the door, panting. “I’ll never forget it, Linnet. It’s the inferno, hell itself. I’m afraid that I can’t make any more trips downstairs. I’m done for the night.”
Since she showed no sign of disagreeing with him, he got the lamp onto the table somehow, the satchel over to the bed. Only half the precious water remained in the bucket. “Lurching is not recommended for water carriers,” he told her, pulling her chin down slightly and dribbling some into her mouth.
“That will do for now. Ointment next,” he said, opening the satchel. “Frankly, I doubt that any of these work. But they don’t hurt, as far as I can tell. Back first.” He rolled her over and carefully applied ointment all over her rash. “Poor bottom,” he said, dabbing carefully. “Or do you prefer buttocks? I can’t remember. Now your front.”
Some time later, he scrabbled around in the satchel again and pulled out a jar. “Penders’s rose water. I’m going to clean off your throat and tongue,” he told her. His voice was rasping now. It was a messy business, not helped by the fact his patient was in a coma.
“But if you weren’t in a coma, I would be hurting you,” he told her. “I couldn’t bear that, Linnet. Not after the way I already hurt you.”
She was clean and sweet-smelling now. But she looked like a fragile baby chick. What hair she had left was standing straight up, and for some reason that made her head look large, and her neck too frail and slender to carry such a weight. Her closed eyelids were blue.
His doctor’s instinct told him what he couldn’t put into words. The patient was close to death.
He turned down the lamp, looked at her again, and finally extinguished it. Moonlight was enough . . . moonlight and the thread of her pulse.
Carefully, carefully, Piers hoisted himself onto the bed, lying on top of the sheet so he didn’t touch any open wounds. But he had to hold her, so he tucked the sheet around her neck and then wrapped an arm around her waist.
And if the sobs escaped then, if the sheet grew salty and wet, there was no one to see but the moon.