Chapter 5

"I know that I have lived because I have felt, and, feeling giving me the knowledge of my existence, I know likewise that I shall exist no more when I shall have ceased to feel."

Giacomo Casanova

Despite her assurance, Audrey was anxious as she crossed the garden and calculated a route to Markham House, which would avoid encountering anyone who might be observing the earl's home. The rain had eased, and as Audrey exited, she decided to turn right. It would take longer to reach the duke's townhouse, and the grocer, but Julius's caution still echoed in her ears.

She took a circuitous route, stopping each time she turned a corner to peer back down the street she had left. Just to be sure. Soon she had delivered the note, visited the grocer, and found a jar of honey which was added to the earl's account. Then she bought powdered bark and herbs from the nearby apothecary, that she thought to brew for Julius. She needed to do all she could to prevent his fever.

When she returned to the mews in the back, the clouds still glowered above, but the rain had slowed to a trickle. Crossing the gardens, she walked in through the kitchen door and found that the table had been cleared up in her absence. Audrey's valise and her things remained untouched, the maid evidently reluctant to interfere.

Rose looked up from where she was ringing out a towel, which Audrey assumed was the one bloodied by Julius's injury. "It's good to see you back, Miss Gideon. We been worried about you."

"Thank you. I took my time to ensure no one was following me."

The servant pursed her lips, her broad face reflecting her anxiety over the morning's events. "It's hard to think someone would hurt Master Julius, 'e being such a good'un."

Audrey nodded as she assembled her valise back together. The black leather bag had been her father's until he had died earlier that year, and to her it was a sort of talisman, summoning the calm presence of her father to provide her guidance. He had trained her well over the years, but it was still daunting to treat such an important patient with the threat of a fever. Fortunately, Julius was a young, healthy man in good condition.

"It is outrageous. I have some herbs I need to brew for Master Julius. Could you prepare a tea tray with boiling water in a teapot?"

"Aye, Miss Gideon," Rose replied, gathering the things she would need. "Just the hot water?"

"Yes. Thank you. Where is his lordship?"

"Patrick helped 'im to 'is room on the third floor down the west hall."

Audrey knew where that was. She herself stayed on the third floor when Lady Hays acted as her chaperone in the earl's absence.

"Could I have a teaspoon?"

Rose brought one over. Prepared for action, Audrey hoisted her valise and made for the servants' stairs.

On the second-floor landing, she set her valise down and removed her cape, which was wet through and increasingly uncomfortable. Tucking it over her arm, she shivered. Each layer of clothing was damp, and she wished she had something dry. Perhaps there would be a robe in Julius's room and she could have her things dried out. Picking up her valise, she continued up until she reached the third floor. Turning into the west hall, she walked to the door at the end and knocked.

The door swung open to reveal Patrick. His whiskered face was set with lines of worry. "Miss Gideon, you be back! Master Julius is feverish. I have 'im settled in 'is bed, but 'e needs you!"

Audrey nodded, doing her best to look confident as she swept past Patrick. Julius lay beneath the deep green and rich gold covers in the canopied bed, and Audrey shook her head. This was why she could not leave him to the servants to take care of. Crossing the room, she whipped the covers down to reveal his naked torso. Patrick must have assisted him out of his bloodied clothing, and Julius had gone straight to bed in his small clothes. Although she had seen naked bits of bodies over the years assisting her father, Audrey swallowed at the sight. Julius was a fine specimen despite the flush of fever, with a broad, muscular chest and a flat expanse of stomach.

She noted with some surprise that the light dusting of hair covering his sculpted muscles was blond. Audrey had always thought that the mop of wheat curls that topped his head were an affectation bleached by his valet. It would appear that perhaps it was the brown hair on the sides and back that was the affectation.

Removing her kid gloves, Audrey used the back of her fingers to feel his forehead, which was damp with sweat and too warm.

"Please open the windows, Patrick. We need to cool Master Julius down."

The old man crossed the room and raised the mullioned windows. The room faced the garden, so no one would see the open windows from the street.

Julius opened a bleary eye. "You are back."

Audrey nodded. "I am."

"Thank God," he mumbled, closing the eye again and shivering. A flight of gooseflesh erupted across his skin as the cooler air made contact with its heated surface. Patrick fidgeted across the room, clearly at a loss for what he should do.

Rose appeared in the open doorway with the tray that Audrey had requested. Audrey had her place it on the dressing table, where she poured out an ounce of water. Searching through her valise, she found her vial of white willow bark. She needed to do research, but meanwhile he could drink the bark to help fight the fever until she prepared a better formula. Mixing a spoonful of it into the water, she returned to Julius's side. Rose and Patrick stood together, both wringing their hands while they awaited directions. It was plain that the servants were worried about Master Julius and eager to assist.

"Rose, I will need a fresh supply of boiled water every hour. Perhaps … broth. I would like some broth brought up."

The maid nodded, looking relieved to have a specific task.

Audrey cupped Julius's head, raising him so she could help him drink his brew. His eyelids fluttered in response. "I need you to swallow, Julius." She placed the cup to his lips, and he obeyed, swallowing it down in a couple of gulps.

"'Tis foul," he murmured, falling back onto his pillow.

Straightening up, Audrey found Patrick still waiting for instruction.

"I need to raise him to remove the bandage."

The servant nodded, hurrying over to lift Julius, who mumbled in protest. Audrey unraveled the bandage, putting it aside. She collected her jar of honey and the teaspoon she had brought up from the kitchen. Returning to the patient's side, she sat in the armchair that Patrick had brought over, opened the jar, and scooped up the honey to dribble it over the reddened sutures. Then she used the back of the spoon to smear it, careful to ensure the entire wound was doused with the sticky paste.

Audrey rose to wash the sticky substance from her hands at the washstand before returning to the bed. Patrick helped lift Julius again and, after covering the wound, she reached around his firm torso to wind the bandage in place—secure, but not too tight.

"No one must be aware we are here."

The servant nodded, still waiting for something more as he gazed at the feverish patient lying in the bed. Julius was a character who left an indelible impression on all he met, and Patrick's worry was evident as he rubbed the back of his neck with a pained expression.

"Is there a robe for me to change into? My things are damp and I need to get dry." A strong breeze blew in from the gaping windows, chilling her in her damp gown. Audrey wished to prepare a new brew that she would formulate from her father's notes, but if she did not dry off, she might battle a fever of her own.

Patrick nodded, crossing to the wardrobe and pulling out a banyan robe and loose-fitting pants. "I'll be in the 'all." He exited, closing the door behind him.

Audrey retrieved the garments, and standing behind a dressing screen, she undid her gown, contorting her arms into awkward positions and fighting with the dampened buttons, exhaling in triumph when the weight of it dropped into a pool around her feet. She pulled on the pants, rolling the top down twice to shorten their length and tying them off with the tapes. Next, she pulled the banyan on, knotting the sash around her waist. Picking up her things, she walked back to the door.

Patrick took her things to dry, along with directions to bring the broth and tray up at regular intervals. She also requested cloths and cold water to use on the patient. Audrey needed to keep Julius drinking fluids through the night and to cool him down with dampened cottons.

Propping the door open to aid with the breeze rushing in from the window, she returned to her valise and dug around for her copy of Culpeper's Complete Herbal. The book had her father's neat notes written throughout. Some of the printed lines were crossed out, with her father's findings written in their stead. She needed to brew a herbal tea for her patient, but first she must determine which ingredients would be best for the situation he was in.

Taking a seat in an armchair by the window, she picked up one of the books that was stacked on the mahogany table, raising her eyebrows in curiosity—Aus den Memoiren des Venetianers by J. Casanova. She was holding volume one.

The memoirs of the infamous Venetian adventurer seemed somehow appropriate, given the room's resident. She could envisage Julius making his escape out the second-story window of a paramour's boudoir. Not only was he handsome, he had an irrepressible air to his flippant fashion and affectations. His choice to investigate a murder to aid his friends seemed both in and out of character, but she did not know him all that well.

Putting the book back on the table, Audrey licked the tip of her finger and began to leaf through the pages of her own book to read her father's notes, with the valise on the table next to her.

On page 128, she read about oak. "The same is singularly good in pestilential and hot burning fevers; for it resists the force of the infection, and allays the heat: It cools the heat of the liver, breaking the stone in the kidneys, and stays women's courses …"

Pulling the little bottle of ground-up oak bark from her valise, she continued to skim through the pages, noting that My Lady's Thistle could be of aid applied as a compress. "The seed and distilled water is held powerful to all the purposes aforesaid, and besides, it is often applied both outwardly with cloths or spunges to the region of the liver, to cool the distemper thereof, and to the region of the heart, against swoonings and the passions of it."

Alongside the lines, her father's notes guided her as to the efficacy of the printed treatments. She could imagine his voice in her ears as she assimilated the recommended alterations based on Papa's experiences.

She pulled out My Lady's Thistle and set it down next to the oak. Methodically, she formulated a treatment plan for the coming hours until she had her ingredients for the tea she was brewing. And when the compresses arrived, she would be ready for those, too.

Collecting her bottles, Audrey prepared the mixture in the teapot and poured out a cup. Tasting it with a tentative sip, she pulled a face. It was both earthy and grassy … not to mention bitter.

Hmm … Perhaps adding a little honey would not go amiss.

Once the brew was ready, she returned to Julius's side and made him raise his head to drink it while she could. If he became insensate, she would have only the compresses to place over his liver while she washed him down with the cold, wet cloths. It was imperative to have him swallow as much of the medicinal concoction as possible while he was still responsive to her directions.

It was her first time treating a feverish patient without her father standing by her side, and Audrey had to fight back the nervous apprehension that this caused. There was no time for her emotions. She must remain resolute and see to her patient's needs. She had assisted her father countless times, and he might not be there to help, but his training was embedded in her very blood and she had his notes and journals to guide her through the coming hours.

Besides, what choice did she have?

She could not allow some physician to treat Julius with a barbaric bloodletting which would almost certainly result in his death, considering how much blood he had already lost.

When it came to doctors, common sense was all too often left to wither on the vine in favor of their autocratic dogma. Papa had eschewed such dogma, testing the efficacy of treatments firsthand for the benefit of his patients. Then, too, Lord Stirling had sought treatment from Papa for over three decades, so she had to believe that in the earl's absence, she was following his wishes in regard to his heir. She needed to trust herself and follow her father's fastidious notes.

Nevertheless, the weight of responsibility was a heavy mantle upon her.

Julius was hot.So hot, he was burning. He could feel the flames licking at his heels, and the roar of the fire blasting him in the face. If it did not relent, he would be burnt to a crisp—trapped in hell, he must be.

It was payment for allowing his friends to suffer.

His new chum, Abbott, being forced into a marriage born of scandal while Julius stood by, helpless to prevent it.

The little baroness with the bruises adorning her slim throat from her attack a few weeks earlier.

The day Brendan was to be arrested for murder, and Julius could not intercede.

Julius's own cowardice for not following his mother to Paris just because he could not face the ordeal of journeying back to the Continent. Even now, he could feel the deck of the ship rolling beneath his feet to make him bilious. Which was odd because he would not have expected that the seventh circle of hell could be at once fiery and flooded with treacherous seawater.

A soft voice interrupted the howling heat and the terrifying undulation of waves beneath, a chilled cloth dampening his brow. The heat subsided, and Julius drifted into the sweet embrace of oblivion.

Audrey swabbedher restless patient down as he mumbled and moved about. Julius was too hot for her liking, so she rinsed the warmed-up cloth, and once it cooled down, she applied it again. She swabbed away the sweat upon his pallid face, ran it down his lean, muscled arms, which she lifted in turn to run down his sides and torso.

The sheets below him were soaked through with his perspiration. Nibbling on her lip, Audrey thought about what to do, which was when Patrick arrived with a fresh stack of cloths and a bowl of water.

"Should we change his sheets?"

"Aye. I will fetch some and return shortly." The old man placed the tray down on the table. He removed her items from the one she had been using, picked it up, and took it from the room.

Audrey returned to the task of swabbing Julius. She might as well remove as much sweat from his body as possible before they moved him. Then she raised his head to feed him more of the medicinal brew.

"Swallow, Julius."

Even in his delirious state, he must have heard her. Opening his mouth, he allowed her to pour the contents in and he swallowed weakly. She let him back down and, feeling around the wound with her fingertips, she confirmed the bandage was damp with his sweat.

Stepping back, Audrey decided she would apply fresh honey and a dry bandage with Patrick's help before they shifted Julius. Glancing at the clock on the shelf across the room, she noted it was yet a long night ahead of them. Outside, the rain had stopped, but it was still as gloomy as a funeral.

Rubbing her tired eyes, Audrey plopped back in the velvet wingback chair beside the bed, stealing a few minutes to herself while awaiting Patrick's return and before the work began anew. Perhaps she should request a meal for herself. Until that moment, she had not thought about food, but she would need to keep her strength up to take care of Julius through the night.