With that strong a recommendation, there seemed little hope that Turner's discouraging opinion could be dismissed as quackery. He didn't even try to replace the medicines with his own concoctions, as every other doctor Trev had ever known had done. After the examination, he sat with Trev in the parlor, writing instructions in a businesslike manner, before he finally looked up and said in an even voice that the duke would be wise to help his mother to put her affairs in order.

His meaning struck Trev like a blind-side blow in a sparring match. He had thought tentatively of future concerns, of course. He'd even sent his letter just yesterday to the French Chapel Royal in Little George Street, to request the attention of a priest to his mother's illness. Merely as a comfort, because he knew she must have been unable to attend any mass herself for some time. Certainly not for any idea of immediate danger. But to have it said so frankly, by a medical man… Trev found he could not seem to grasp the news. He only sat motionless, gazing at the physician's pen as it scratched across the page.

When he finally composed himself far enough to protest that she had been improving since he arrived, Dr. Turner merely nodded. That was characteristic of such cases, the doctor said; the patient underwent a sudden burst of energy and activity just before the final crisis, caused by migration of blood from the lungs to the heart. The winded speech and high color in his mother's cheeks were a sign of this phase. It might last a few days or a month, but she was much debilitated, and the doctor did not think she had a great deal of strength to spare.

Dr. Turner had brought with him a nurse, and a surgeon to assist with bloodletting. Trev was not fond of surgeons. He recalled too well the sensation of faintness and nausea that had accompanied the bleeding treatments his grandfather had insisted upon until Trev was old enough to bodily rebel. He had not let a knife or lancet touch him since the age of eight, and he didn't intend to allow it again, however impru dent and eccentric that might be. He didn't think his health had suffered a jot from keeping his ill humors shut up inside, though he was willing to admit it might have contributed to his dubious character.