Using all her weight to keep him down, she jabbed one arm out toward the pitcher of water, trying to resoak the linen. “You’re going to hate me tomorrow when you realize what I put on your face,” she told him, slapping it back down on his forehead. She hadn’t meant to be so rough, but he wasn’t really offering her any opportunities for gentle movement.

“Calm down,” she said slowly, moving the cloth to his neck. “I promise you, if you are calm, you will feel much better.” She dunked the cloth again. “Which really pales in comparison to how much better I will feel.”

The next time she managed to get the wet cloth on his chest, which she’d long since ceased to notice was bare. But he didn’t seem to like that; he pushed back against her, hard, and she went tumbling off the far side of the bed, landing on the carpet with a jarring thud.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she muttered, ready to come back with all she had. But before she could scoot around the bed to the water pitcher, he thrust one leg out from under the covers, catching her in her belly.

She stumbled, flailing her arms forward in a desperate attempt to catch her balance before she hit the floor again. Without thinking, she grabbed the first object with which her hand connected.

Marcus screamed.

Honoria’s heart slammed into triple speed, and she let go of what she now realized was his leg. Without anything to hold her up, she fell back to the floor, landing hard on her right elbow.

“Owwwww!” she cried, letting out her own shriek of pain as electric spasms shot down to her fingertips. But somehow she pushed herself to her feet, clutching her elbow to her side. The noise Marcus had made . . .

It had been inhuman.

He was still whimpering when she reached the side of the bed, and he was breathing hard, too—the kind of short, shallow breaths people made to ward off pain.

“What happened?” Honoria whispered. This wasn’t the fever. This was something far more acute.

His leg. She had grabbed his leg.

That was when she realized her hand was sticky.

Still clutching her elbow, she turned her free hand over, twisting until her palm faced up.

Blood.

“Oh, my God.”

With an unsettled feeling in her stomach, she stepped toward him. She didn’t want to startle him; he’d already knocked her down twice. But the blood . . . It wasn’t her blood.

He’d pulled his leg back under the covers, so she carefully lifted the blanket, pushing it back until his leg was bare to the knee.

“Oh, my God.”