She lay awake in the grip of frantic anxiety. If Quill had another attack…she’d have to leave him. Or never make love to him. Except that she would die if she never saw his somber eyes laughing at her again. Her thoughts tangled over each other, careening from heart-thumping despair to firm resolution to wild guilt.

As dawn slowly crept through the drapes, Gabby watched Quill’s face like a hawk. Was his skin paler than it had been? When he moaned in his sleep, she froze. When he turned over and then choked, she had the chamber pot ready. She put a wet cloth on his head, rinsed out the pot, ran back to the bed with it. Wrung out the cloth again, cursed herself silently, and rinsed the pot twice more.

When she finally left the room at ten in the morning, Gabby carried with her the image of a chalk-white face, touched by dark shadows. Quill had flinched each time she touched him; his face had twisted in pain as his stomach fought to empty itself again and again. She had watched him fight to maintain dignity before her and had seen the pain defeat him.

He opened his eyes once, only to say, “Don’t blame yourself, love.” Gabby jumped, thinking that he was reading her mind. She blamed herself, oh, yes, she did. She blamed herself with a vicious twist of her stomach every time she thought of it. They had made love, and that made her party to the migraine. If it weren’t for her, Quill would be happily working in his study, instead of lying half dead in the dark.

Blame had the salutary effect of clearing Gabby’s mind of all hesitation. They could not continue like this. She could leave Quill forever—or she could talk to Sudhakar. And between the two possibilities, there was no real decision to be made.

“I THINK IT IS an extremely poor idea.” Gabby had rarely seen Sudhakar so incensed. “No person should be given medicine without his explicit knowledge and consent.”

“Quill will not take the medicine otherwise,” Gabby said flatly. “And I can’t bear his suffering. You haven’t seen it. You don’t know.”

“It is his choice.”

“But he doesn’t understand,” she pleaded. “He is English, and he’s never lived outside this country. It is difficult for him to believe that medicine from India will cure his condition.”

“May cure his condition,” Sudhakar corrected her. “And in fact the primary ingredient is not Indian. The medicine will cure his headaches only if the bodily damage is of a certain type.”

“But if I understand you, it won’t injure him either way,” Gabby insisted. “So there’s no harm in trying.”