LITMIR.BIZ

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the first few passes of her cloth, Tony tensed and arched up. He’d have cried out if Young George hadn’t had his hand clamped firmly over his mouth. She only shot a terse glance at Young George and nodded.

      The flesh around the wound was reddened and risen, forcing the edges apart. A good thing in a way because they couldn’t let the wound close until all the badness had gone. Putting everything else out of her mind, Imogen swabbed, tossing the soiled rags to the floor, and scrambled back to get fresh. More seeped out, and she put her fingers either side of the hole and squeezed. Evil yellow liquid spurted out, and if she hadn’t had a cloth ready, it would have struck her. She ignored the mess, snatched another cloth, and kept going.

      Without warning, Tony’s body went lax and he slumped back, unconscious. Pain or delirium had the better of him. Young George released Tony, and Imogen worked on him more efficiently, now Young George was free to pass the damp cloths and dispose of the old ones.

      Tony’s chest moved up and down in a regular rhythm, and Imogen straightened up, pressed her hands to her aching back, and examined her handiwork.

      Although the wound was red, it was a healthy red. She’d done it, removed all traces of corruption. She wanted to thrust her fist into the air in triumph, yell her victory. At one point, she’d feared she’d have to cut away the flesh, but the infection hadn’t taken hold that deeply. They’d got to it before it had a chance to form the red lines that signified the poison was spreading around his body. She’d cleaned and cleaned until pure blood had welled up, and then she’d concentrated on cleaning and waiting until the bleeding had lessened enough for her to bind it loosely. They weren’t out of the woods yet.

      “You should get to bed, Miss Imogen. The maids’ll be up soon.”

      She glanced at her servant, her friend, the man she’d grown up with. His mid-brown hair was plastered to his skull and his broad face was pale, but triumph shone in his eyes, an emotion that must be reflected in hers.

      “We did it, George.”

      “We did, miss. Now get going, or someone will see you. I’ll stay with him today, if you would be so kind as to tell my da’ where I am.”

      “Yes, of course.” They could say Young George was ill, or busy somewhere else on the estate. That would work fine, especially since the house was busy with its exalted guest.

      Damn, the guest! She’d have to rise, be pleasant, entertain him. Although none of this was his fault, she resented Lord Dankworth for being here. Without that, she could have told her mother she was needed on the estate and disappear for the day.

      She ran a few plans through her head, but none of them worked. If she pleaded illness, maids would check on her through the day and she’d have no opportunity to check on Tony. She trusted her maids, but all staff gossiped, except for the Georges.

      She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him there while she entertained Lord Dankworth. On her way back to her room, she considered bringing Tony out of hiding and installing him in a bedroom. But her mother would probably talk, and she didn’t know if she could trust Lord Dankworth. He was a prominent Jacobite, but that could mean anything. As many factions lay inside as out, and she didn’t know him well enough.

      No, Tony was safer where he was, although if his condition worsened, Imogen wouldn’t hesitate to bring him out of hiding and call a physician.

      Her mind still racing, she ripped off her clothes and threw them in the corner of the room, ready for the laundry. Her gown was reasonable, but the petticoats and stomacher were probably ruined, soiled with blood and pus as well as heavily creased. She shoved them in a corner of the clothes press. She’d have to deal with them herself if she didn’t want questions asked. Scrambling into her night rail, she made her preparations and then waited.

      She must have fallen asleep, because when the knock came at the door, she glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece, and to her shock, it was ten in the morning. She had never lain in that long before. Startled, she jerked awake and put a hand to her tousled hair.

      A maid put her head around the door. “Madam, your lady mother asks if you are ill?”

      She laughed. “No, indeed. Tell her I am well, and I will be in the parlor in twenty minutes.”

      Her mother must have roused early to greet their guest, because she rarely left her rooms before noon, as if she were living in the middle of fashionable London. Not that she’d ever managed to do so. They’d come straight here from Rome when Imogen was a baby. York was the farthest they’d managed, and Imogen had gone there under protest, concerned the laborers wouldn’t plant the barley straight.

      The expense of the visit and the attendant costumes her mother insisted she needed still made her blench.

      Finding something a little above her usual day wear proved easy because of that trip to York and the occasional ones to Lancaster. Although the petticoat to the apricot silk was somewhat creased, if she turned it around it wasn’t too bad. Her hair, brushed out and wound up into a bun, made a reasonable show, and she even found a string of amber beads to wear. She had to tack a ruffle to the edges of her shift. She didn’t usually bother with lace elbow ruffles but her mother would notice if she sported her usual linen ones. Good lace could cost a king’s ransom, but it was pretty.

      Standing before the spotted mirror propped up by her linen chest, she made a reasonable show. Probably not enough for a London drawing room but perfectly adequate for her mama.

      Instead of using the Long Gallery, she went the proper way, down the big stairs to the great hall and through the door at the end to the main rooms of the house. Big mullioned windows let the March sunlight in, and it cast the breakfast parlor—now, sadly, cleared of viands—into a bright, welcoming place. This was one of her favorite rooms in the house, together with the library.

      Voices came from the half-open door of the downstairs drawing room, a grand name for a jewel of a room. The upholstered chairs and the decoration were her mother’s improvements. Modern paneling painted a pretty pale blue covering the old timbers. A harpsichord, usually a dust-gatherer, stood in one corner, but today it was being used. The painted top and sides were opened, and Amelia posed there, playing something pretty.

      Lord Dankworth sat on the big sofa, holding court. The news that the son of a duke must have raced around the district faster than a carrier-pigeon could have managed, because most of their neighbors sat in Imogen’s parlor, drinking tea and consuming dainty little cakes and bread and butter.

      In town, visitors usually restricted visits to half an hour. In the country not so, because people came farther. Never had Imogen longed more for the half-hour rule.

      After greeting everyone, she went to sit with Amelia, to turn pages or some such excuse, but his lordship called her back.

      That was the start of her ordeal. She sat next to him for most of the day, either here or walking slowly around the part of the house her mother considered presentable. She had little option for her mother blatantly pushed them together.

      Nobody commented on her tardy arrival, and when she tried to excuse herself to check on various household tasks, her mother gave a tinkling laugh and declared that the servants were quite good, considering they had such a small pool of available staff to choose from.

      At one point her parent suggested a stroll along the Long Gallery. “For while it cannot rival the glories of a house like Chatsworth, we are tolerably pleased with our poor effort.”

      Climbing up the stairs to reach it, Imogen made as much noise as she dared, raising her voice and stamping her feet, just in case Young George was asleep or Tony was delirious again.

      But all was silent, and she could explain the portraits to his lordship. “This is my Elizabethan ancestor,” she remarked, coming to stand in front of the gloomiest picture, of a man standing against a black background dressed in a dark brown suit. The only light parts of the painting were the man’s lugubrious face and his huge ruff that presented his head like a pig’s head on a plate. Why nobody had painted an apple in his mouth she’d never know,

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