“Well, how would you take care of one that is smaller?” Honoria demanded. “A wound, I mean.”

Mrs. Wetherby wrung her hands together, panicked eyes darting from Honoria to Marcus. “I don’t know,” she sputtered. “A compress, I imagine. Something to draw out the poison.”

“The poison?” Honoria echoed. Good God, it sounded positively medieval. “Summon the doctor,” she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. “Now. And then come right back. With hot water. And towels. And anything else you can think of.”

“Shall I bring your mother?”

“My mother?” Honoria gaped at her, not because there was anything particularly wrong with having her mother in the sickroom. Rather, why was Mrs. Wetherby thinking of it now? “I don’t know. Whatever you think is best. But hurry.”

Mrs. Wetherby nodded and ran from the room.

Honoria looked back at Marcus. His leg was still exposed to the air, the furious gash facing her like a seething frown. “Oh, Marcus,” she whispered. “How could this have happened?” She took his hand, and for once he didn’t pull away. He seemed to have calmed down a bit; his breathing was more even than it had been just a few minutes earlier, and was it possible that his skin wasn’t quite so red?

Or was she so desperate for any sign of improvement that she was seeing things that weren’t there?

“Maybe,” she said aloud, “but I will take any sign of hope.” She forced herself to look at his leg more closely. Her stomach roiled dangerously, but she pushed down her distaste. She needed to start cleaning the wound. Heaven only knew how long it would take the doctor to return, and although a compress would be better with hot water, there didn’t seem any good reason not to start with what she had.

Marcus had flung the wet linen she’d been using to cool him across the room, so she went to his bureau and retrieved another pair of his unmentionables, trying not to notice anything about them other than the fact that they were made of reasonably soft linen.

She wound them into a loose cylindrical shape and dunked one end in the water. “I’m so sorry, Marcus,” she whispered, then touched the wet cloth ever-so-gently against the wound.

He didn’t flinch.

She let out the breath she’d been holding and looked at the cloth. It was red in spots from his blood, and yellowish, too, with the infection that was oozing from the wound.

Feeling slightly more confident of her nursing abilities, she adjusted the cloth to a clean area and again pressed it against the wound, applying a tiny bit more pressure than the first time. It didn’t seem to bother him overmuch, so she repeated the procedure, and then again, until there was very little clean cloth remaining.