When Beauty Tamed the Beast

Page 55

“Do you remember the plans we made last year in case of epidemic?”
Prufrock nodded.
“Time to put them in force. Get everyone out of the castle who is not essential to patient care. Every patient who’s not actively dying goes back home—unless they have a sore throat, any stiffness, or signs of fever. Send footmen to borrow all the carriages within a few miles to take them off. All the rest go home—get the duke and my mother out of here, Miss Thrynne with them, of course.”
Prufrock’s eyes widened and he trotted back down the stairs without a word.
Piers felt a pang somewhere in the area of his heart for the fact he would never see Linnet again.
But then he turned back to the east wing. Scarlet fever was a killer, and it looked as if the miller had time and opportunity to infect quite a number of people. But Piers was famous for not losing fever patients, even those with scarlet fever, and he meant to battle the disease with every tool he had at hand. He had argued in front of the Royal Society that anginosa did not have to turn into its deadlier cousin, maligna, and it was time to prove it.
Within an hour, he began to hear carriages rolling up the drive and then trundling away again, as each patient who could be moved was sent away. Meanwhile, he and Sébastien began a careful inventory of the east wing, finding to their dismay that the disease had already spread among their own patients, seriously complicating matters.
“It’s the cough,” Piers said. “But I think it may be spread by touch as well. I want buckets of water mixed with alcohol and liquid soap outside every room,” he told the orderly. “Wash your hands constantly.”
Some of his patients, weakened already, might die, but not as fast as patients would die in the outlying towns, if fools tried to bleed them or give them emetics. “Weak tea and broth,” he told the orderly. “We’ll treat the fever by cooling patients as much as possible. Open all the windows, and keep pouring fluids down their throats. I want a notice going out to every church within five miles of Aferbeeg that anyone showing signs of a fever or sore throat should be quarantined immediately.
“We should make sure Penders and Kibbles didn’t miss any incipient cases in the west wing,” Piers said, some time later. “We’ve got six here so far, but I’m hopeful it hasn’t spread to that wing.”
Dismayingly, he was wrong. “How did this happen?” he demanded a few hours later, in frustration. They had five cases in the west wing, all in the early stages of scarlatina anginosa.
Sébastien shook his head. “We’re the only ones who go back and forth. How are you feeling?”
“It’s Bitts!” Piers exclaimed. “God Almighty, it’s Bitts. I wonder if anyone’s checked on him.”
Two minutes later they were on the second floor, in one of the guest bedchambers. Bitts was burning up. “I’m all pins and needles,” he gasped. His man was hovering nearby.
“The important thing is to keep him cool and give him water,” Piers said. “Bitts.”
The young doctor opened his eyes.
“You’re going to make it. You have white spots on your tonsils, not brown. Keep drinking. God knows I’ve lectured you on the need for patients to take liquids, so put all my barking to good use.”
A ghost of a smile touched Bitts’s lips.
“He’ll do,” Sébastien said, striding ahead of Piers. “Why don’t you get some sleep, and then wake me in a few hours?”
Prufrock was waiting for them, halfway up the stair. “His Grace and Lady Bernaise refuse to leave,” he said.
“You’re wringing your hands, Prufrock,” Piers said. “I’ll speak to them.”
“I can hardly force them into a carriage. And Miss Thrynne is with them.”
Piers sighed. “I’ll take care of this,” he said to Sébastien. “Do you remember the lecture we heard that recommended applying the froth from fermenting malt to the throats of scarlatina patients?”
Sébastien shook his head. “Details like that leave me on the way out of the hall.”
“Get Nurse Matilda on it,” Piers said. “We might as well try.” As he outlined the treatment details, there was a pounding on the front door, and they both paused. A footman opened the door, whereupon four—five—no, eight patients entered, two on their feet, the others dragged or carried.
“I’ll take these,” Sébastien said. “You deal with your parents and then get some sleep. We’ll have to take turns.”
Piers nodded. “Try to put anginosa in the east wing and maligna in the west.” He thumped down the stairs, and detoured around the patients, heading for the drawing room.
His mother, his father, and Linnet formed a charming family group. Piers felt a sense of profound exhaustion even looking at them. They were talking of the sculptor Michelangelo, the table before them littered with cakes and cups of tea. They seemed to be in another world, of porcelain and Italian artists, of French perfume and gentlewomen’s voices.
His mother jumped to her feet as soon as she saw him. “I will not leave here, Piers. Not without you.”
“Are you mad?” he demanded, not moving from the door. “We’re in the midst of a serious scarlet fever epidemic, Maman. If you stay here, you’re quite likely to catch it.”
She tossed her head with fine French disdain. “I snap my fingers at scarlet fever. Who will nurse you, if you fall ill? That shall be I.”
“Are you condemning your maid to die for you? Younger people are more likely to develop a severe form of the fever.”
“We sent our personal servants away immediately,” his father intervened. “They’re waiting for us at an inn some distance from here.”
“You cannot stay here,” Piers said stubbornly. “I cannot have you to worry about.”
“I won’t leave without you,” his mother snapped back. He knew where he got the fierce strain in his nature, and it was looking back at him from her eyes.
“The guardhouse,” Linnet said.
He turned to her, barely understanding what she was saying. “What are you talking about?”
“Lady Bernaise could go to the guardhouse, and the servants could leave food for her outside the door. It’s just down the path on the way to the sea,” she told his mother. “You’d be safe there, but close enough so that if Piers did become ill, you could nurse him.”
“I’ll be damned if I’ll allow it,” Piers stated.
But his mother was already rising. “I shall be in the guardhouse.”
“Don’t come near me,” Piers said, giving up. He had other battles to fight, and they were far more important. “And don’t go out the front door. The corridor is full of patients, all of them coughing, no doubt. You’ll have to go out a window.”
He turned to Linnet. She was as delectable, and as remote from him, as the fairy queen herself. Stupidly, foolishly, he tried to memorize her: the sweet little nose, stubborn chin, curling eyelashes, flawless skin. Which just made him think about the effects of scarlet fever. “You must leave,” he said. “Now, quickly.”
“I will.” She had her hands clasped before her. “Oh, Piers—” She took a step toward him.