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 some 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.