“Then you should leave, and we shall find another surgeon,” the countess said.
“Pippa,” Cross said, the words soft but firm, and Mara could hear the edge in them. He did not wish his friend to die.
If only he would realize that Mara did not wish it, either.
“Give him the night,” she begged. “Twelve hours to present a fever—an infection of any kind—and then let your barber at him.”
The doctor’s eyes went wide at the insulting words, and Mara would have laughed if she weren’t so desperate to keep the man and his cruel contraption from Temple. “I wouldn’t treat him now if you tripled my fee.”
Mara hated the man then, so similar he was to the myriad of London doctors who had poked and prodded and pronounced her mother untreatable. They’d left her to die, even as Mara had begged her father to push them. To find someone who would treat her with something other than leeches and laudanum.
Even as he’d ignored her and left her without control.
Bourne spoke, the irony not lost upon her that the marquess was attempting to calm the surgeon’s temper. “Doctor. Please. Twelve hours is not so very long.”
“Twelve hours could kill him. If he dies, it’s on your females’ hands.”
“My hands,” Mara said, meeting the marquess’s eyes, noticing the ring around the right one, now shiny and black, which would not endear her to him. She was amazed he did not look away. “His blood is on my hands. Let me clean it off.”
It was the closest she would come to begging him.
Close enough.
She would never know why, but Bourne looked to Cross, then back to her. “Twelve hours.”
Relief coursed through her, and she was tempted to apologize to the supercilious marquess. Almost.
“I shan’t be back,” the doctor said, acid in his tone.
She was already wringing hot water from a clean cloth. “We shan’t need you.”
The door closed behind him, and the marquess extracted a watch from his pocket. “Twelve hours begins now.” He looked to Cross. “Chase shall have our heads for letting him leave.”
The words did not make sense to Mara, but she was too focused on Temple to care to understand, instead speaking to the countess. “We must do what we can to stave off a fever.”
Pippa nodded once and moved away, heading for the door to call for more cloths and fresh water.
Mara looked down at Temple’s still face, taking in the dark slash of brows, the crooked line of his once-patrician nose, the scars at his brow and lip, the cut from the earlier fight that evening that now ran black across one cheek, and regret bloomed, tight and high in her chest.
She’d done all this to him, she thought, pressing the linen to his brow, hating his stillness.
Now she would save him.
Chapter 13
T hey lied, those who told stories of death and filled them with choirs of angels and a sense of utter, irresistible peace.
There were no angels. There was no peace.
At least, not for Temple.
There was nothing that tempted him toward bright, comforting light, nothing that gave him solace as pain burned through him, threatening his thought and breath.
And the heat. It burned like fire through his chest and down his arm, shooting into his hand as though they’d set the limb aflame. He couldn’t fight it—they held him down and forced him to take it. As though they enjoyed it.
It was the heat that made him realize he was on the edge of Hell.
His angels did not come from above; they came from below, and they tempted him to join them. His angels were the fallen ones. And they did not speak in melodic hymns.
Instead, they swore and cursed and willed him to them with temptation and threat. Promising him everything he’d loved in life—women and fine scotch and good food and better sport. They promised him he’d reign again if only he joined them. Their voices were myriad—rough cockney accents, and deep aristocratic ones, and women. The women whispered to him, promising him immense pleasure if only he’d follow them.
By God, he was tempted.
And then there was she.
The one who seemed to whisper most harshly. The one who bordered on berating him. The one who spoke the words that called to him more than any of the other pretty promises.
Words like revenge . And power . And strength .
And duke .
Of course, he hadn’t been a duke in a very long time.
Not since he’d killed his father’s bride.
Something tickled at the edge of his consciousness at that, something that ebbed and flowed as he heard the others whispering around him, calling to him. It’s only a matter of time.
He can’t hear us. He can’t fight it.
He’s lost too much . . .
And he had. He’d lost his name and his family and his history and his life. He’d lost the world into which he’d been born . . . the world he’d enjoyed so damn much.
But every time he was tempted by the darkness, he heard her.
He will fight. He will live.
Her voice wasn’t kind or angelic. It was strong as steel, and it made prettier promises than any of the others. It would not be ignored.
Bollocks to them.
You’re stronger than any of them by half.
Your work isn’t done. Your life isn’t over.
But it was, wasn’t it? Hadn’t it been over for years? Hadn’t it been over since the day he’d woken in that bloody bed, his father’s fiancée dead at his hands?
He’d killed her.
He’d killed her with his giant fists and his unnatural strength and God knew what else. He’d murdered her, even as he’d murdered everything his life could have possibly been. He’d killed her, and now he was here, dying—finally, finally getting what he deserved.
It was said that at death, one’s life flashed before one’s eyes. Temple had always liked the idea of that, not to remember his childhood on the great estate in Devonshire, but to remember that night. The one that had changed everything.
Somewhere, in the dark recesses of his mind, he’d always thought that this moment, when he hovered on death, he’d be shown that night. The night that had sealed his fate. The night that had promised him entry into Hell.
But even now, he couldn’t remember it, and he wanted to roar his frustration. “Why?”
He didn’t hear his whisper echo in the room.
All he heard was his angry fallen angel taunting him with wicked lies, even as he slipped into delirium.
Because you will live, Temple.
You will live, and I will tell you everything.
She was there, the girl from that night—the pretty, laughing girl dancing away from him in the gardens, and rising over him on crisp linen sheets, all silken hair and smooth skin and eyes that haunted him.
She was there, with the line of boys, dark-haired with eyes like jewels.
She was there, her touch cool in the darkness, her promises tempting him away from the light. Back to her.
Back to life.
She was saving him.
H ours passed and he did not wake, even as he grew more fitful in his sleep—straining against the treatment every time they flushed the wound with hot water.
Mara was shuttled to and from the room, allowed near him only when it was time to clean the wound or change its dressing. Each time she entered, there were new people keeping vigil. Bourne and Cross and Pippa remained constant, joined once the last gamer left by the men who worked the tables of the Angel, dealers and croupiers, and followed by the women who worked the floor of the club—a steady stream of weeping maids and worried companions and who knew what else.