Certain of her imminent and utter devastation, Imogen attempted a perfect curtsy, though her unsteady legs only executed an adequate one. “Your Majesty. Dr. Fowler.”
“I noted in your file this morning that you claim to have previously been afflicted with typhus.” Dr. Fowler looked down his beakish nose at her, his eyes flashing with unspoken warnings.
“I have, sir.” She glanced down at the floor, unable to meet anyone’s eyes for very long, lest they read her shameful secrets hidden there.
“Typhus tends to spread in an institution such as this, and it would not do to risk an epidemic. As you’re the only staff nurse that has overcome the disease, you are now immune to it. Therefore I’m assigning you as the Duke of Trenwyth’s personal nurse.”
So many emotions, from gladness to panic, crowded into Imogen’s throat, preventing a reply.
“She seems like a very correct and demure person, Dr. Fowler.” Queen Victoria regarded Imogen from clear, round eyes, her shrewd assessment as cutting as her words were kind.
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” Imogen managed not to stammer.
“It is of the utmost importance, Nurse Pritchard, that Trenwyth receive only the best of care. He is a hero of the empire, and we mandate that he survive. Are we understood?” The queen enunciated every one of her syllables with solemnity and abject clarity.
Bugger. Imogen swallowed the unladylike curse and nodded, again robbed of her ability to speak. Little more than half of those afflicted with typhus survived the disease. Would she be blamed if Trenwyth succumbed?
“I’ll do my utmost not to fail you, Your Majesty.”
“One hopes that’s enough,” the queen clipped.
“Dr. Longhurst is in with His Grace; give them a quarter hour to finish washing and dressing him before you enter.” Dr. Fowler’s uncompromisingly stern voice always gave her a case of the fidgets, and Imogen clutched her skirts to avoid them now.
“Of course, sir.” Should she curtsy again?
“Above all things, we must be proper,” the queen agreed. “Come, Dr. Fowler, we will discuss a few details of a delicate nature in your office.” By the time she’d finished talking, she was halfway to the stairs.
“Just so, Your Majesty.” Casting Imogen a voluminous look, he hurried after her, barking at the staff to resume their duties.
As they dispersed, Imogen exchanged a look of sheer amazement with Gwen, deciding to use her quarter hour wisely. Hurrying three doors down from her nurse’s station, she turned the latch and slipped inside, panting as though she’d sprinted a league.
“Ah, my dear Miss Pritchard!” Everyone in the world should hear their name enunciated with such warm and earnest enthusiasm, Imogen decided. It did wonders for the soul.
“Lord Anstruther.” She greeted him, with mirroring pleasure as she bustled into the paradoxically opulent gloom of his private quarters. The frail, septuagenarian earl all but disappeared into the bed beneath a pile of blankets. His head and thin shoulders, swathed in a dark silk dressing gown, were scooped into a sitting position by a mountain of pillows. “How do you fare this morning?” Imogen queried with a sad smile, reminded of what a merciless brigand time was to them all. “Describe how you feel so I may record it on your chart.”
“Like a steam engine has taken residence in my chest, but never you mind that.” He lifted a hand to wave in front of him, and Imogen made a note of how blue the paper-thin skin of his fingers had become. “I assume you’ve brought me your copy of the reclining bacchante sculpture?” He made a grand show of tilting his head this way and that, as though to spy something hidden behind her.
Bugger, she’d promised that she’d sketch Jean-Louis Durand’s scandalous sculpture for the earl on Saturday, when it was her habit to visit the Grand Gallery. They had it on loan for a very short time before it was returned to its French salon. A fellow artist, Anstruther had lamented to her that he was too unwell to visit the unveiling, and Imogen had said she’d do her best to immortalize it for him in all its indecent detail. Instead, she’d been forced to put in an extra shift at the Bare Kitten.
“No, my lord, and I do apologize. I was unable to find my way to the gallery.” She was equally unable to stand his disappointment, so she busied herself with his assessment so she didn’t have to look into his soft brown eyes. “I came to inform you that I won’t be in to see you for a while, as I’m going to be nursing someone with typhus, and I dare not bring that misery to your room.”
“Typhus, you say?” His brows were two silver-white bushes separated by surprise and inquiry.
Imogen leaned down to take his pulse, but covered the gesture with an air of conspiracy. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but His Grace, the Duke of Trenwyth, is here in this hospital.”
“Trenwyth? You mean they found that scamp? Little Collin Talmage?” His thin face split into a wrinkled grin.
She tried to keep the skepticism from her features. No one with eyes in their heads could call Trenwyth little.
“I’ve been worried about the boy,” the old man confessed. “Lived next to Trenwyth Hall my entire life. I knew his grandfather, by Jove, I even knew his great-grandfather. Outlived them all, and what do you think of that?” He curled his mustache between two fingers before he broke into a fit of coughs that concerned Imogen a great deal. “Typhus, you say? Aren’t you putting yourself in a great deal of danger on his behalf?”