“She, alone, diagnosed you,” Longhurst reasoned. “We all thought you had typhus. She fought for you. For your survival. And won, obviously.”
Trenwyth’s head swiveled on his neck with almost unnatural slowness until he’d speared her with a glare that froze the blood in her veins. “Did she?”
It wasn’t gratitude that arranged his features, but accusation.
Longhurst’s regard, in contrast, glowed with uncharacteristic warmth. “She is to be commended,” he murmured.
No one said a thing for an uncomfortably long time.
Conscious of her drab uniform and the severe knot of hair beneath her cap, Imogen smoothed her apron as she stepped forward, trying again to catch Trenwyth’s eye. “If the tea isn’t to your liking, I could bring you another—”
“I want nothing from you,” Trenwyth said shortly without looking at her. “I despise tea. I’ll take coffee.”
Stung, Imogen stepped back. This wasn’t at all what she’d expected.
“Stimulants are not recommended for recent surgery patients,” Longhurst informed him. “Perhaps in time—”
“Where is my man?” Trenwyth’s cold copper eyes searched the faces of all those gathered in his room. All but hers.
“Who?” Fowler asked.
“Sean O’Mara, my valet, did he return from…?” For a moment the duke looked confused, then resolute as though he’d remembered something, until the shadows and spite settled back around him like a cloak. “Is he alive?” he asked tightly.
“He’ll be sent for straightaway, Your Grace.” Longhurst bowed to him, watching him intently. “He’s now employed with Scotland Yard under Sir Carlton Morley. In the meantime, allow Nurse Pritchard to administer your opiate tincture. For the pain in your wrist.”
Trenwyth’s lip curled back from his teeth in a cruel sneer. “That plain-faced twit won’t come near me, and neither will you, sawbones.”
“Beg your pardon?” Longhurst said in a way that made it clear that pardon wasn’t being begged, but demanded.
“You won’t drug my wits from me, not when I’ve just regained them.” The duke met Longhurst’s challenging gaze with dark censure.
“But your arm,” Imogen couldn’t stop herself from protesting. “The pain will be unimaginable once the Laudanum we’ve already administered completely wears off. Worse than it is now. You’ll want to take all precaution against it.” It must be pain causing him to act like this. For he was not the Trenwyth she remembered.
His eyes were slivers of disdain when he looked at her again. “I don’t have to imagine what it’ll be like. Think you I’m afraid of pain?”
Imogen pictured the many scars and wounds that, even now, turned his entire topography into a map of torment. Of course, after being through so much, how could he possibly remain unchanged?
“No, Your Grace, but perhaps something topical? I could—”
“You’ve done enough. Get out.”
Longhurst took a protective step toward her, his brows drawn down with mystification. “Your Grace?”
“Everyone. Out.” The teacup William had returned to his tray shattered on the wall above her head, showering her with lukewarm droplets. “Get me O’Mara,” Trenwyth roared, upsetting his tray with one powerful swipe.
Molly shrieked and fled to the hall.
As Longhurst and William surged forward to subdue the furious duke, Fowler grabbed a speechless Imogen by her elbow and dragged her into the hall.
“Pack your things, Miss Pritchard, you no longer work for St. Margaret’s Royal Hospital.”
Still too stunned for words, she blinked dumbly up into the bags drooping from Fowler’s bitter eyes for a moment too long. “But … what have I done?”
“You are being dismissed for gross insubordination.” His s’s protracted like that of a viper as though he took reptilian pleasure in the words.
“You mean with the duke?”
“You were told to leave it alone, to leave him alone, and you deliberately went behind my back and convinced Longhurst to perform a procedure without my permission.”
“But he survived because of that,” she argued.
“Doesn’t matter, what if the next patient dies because you now think that since you were right the once, you know more than the attending physicians? The London medical community is already afflicted with too many angels of death, Nurse Pritchard, we don’t need one more.”
He referred, of course, to the nurses who often euthanized their terminally or chronically ill patients. Some called them angels. Others called them murderers.
She was neither.
“Please, Dr. Fowler,” she begged. “I’ve never done anything like that. This is the first and—I promise—the only time I’ve ever disobeyed an order. I won’t do it again. I swear. Just don’t let me go. I have a family to support.”
“You should have thought of them before you made a fool of me.” He released her roughly and she stumbled. “Molly, fetch me all the orderlies and nurses on the floor. We’ll need help subduing Trenwyth, and someone will need to escort Miss Pritchard off the premises.”
“Yes, Doctor.” Molly cast her an unpleasant look as she scrambled to comply.
Imogen’s eyes latched onto Lord Anstruther’s door down the hall. “Can I at least be permitted to say good-bye to—”