“Just so, sir.” A light of modest triumph glowed in the apothecary’s eye. “So you see, too, sir, why I think Mr. Trevelyan might indeed be inclined to attend to me?”

“I do,” Grey agreed. “And both the army and myself will be grateful, Scanlon, if you can contrive any means of getting that information back to London quickly.” He pushed back his stool, but paused for one Parthian shot.

“I think you should speak to him soon, though. His gratitude may be significantly ameliorated, if Frau Mayrhofer dies as a result of your marvelous cure.”

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

God’s Dice

Eight days passed, and Maria Mayrhofer still lived—but Grey could see the shadows in Trevelyan’s eyes, and knew how he dreaded the return of the fever. She had survived two more bouts of the fever, but Jack Byrd had told Tom—who had told him, of course—that it was a near thing.

“She ain’t much more than a yellow ghost now, Jack says,” Tom informed him. “Mr. Scanlon’s that worried, though he keeps a good face, and keeps sayin’ as she’ll be all right.”

“Well, I’m sure we all hope she will, Tom.” He hadn’t seen Frau Mayrhofer again, but what he had seen of her on that one brief occasion had impressed him. He was inclined to see women differently than did most other men; he appreciated faces, breasts, and buttocks as matters of beauty, rather than lust, and thus was not blinded to the personalities behind them. Maria Mayrhofer struck him as having a personality of sufficient force to beat back death itself—if she wanted to.

And would she? He thought that she must feel stretched between two poles: the strength of her love for Trevelyan pulling her toward life, while the shades of her murdered husband and child must draw her down toward death. Perhaps she had accepted Scanlon’s inoculum as a gamble, leaving the dice in God’s hands. If she lived through the malaria, she would be free—not only of the disease, but of her life before. If she did not . . . well, she would be free of life, once and for all.

Grey lounged in the hammock he had been given in the crew’s quarters, while Tom sat cross-legged on the floor beneath, mending a stocking.

“Does Mr. Trevelyan spend much time with her?” he asked idly.

“Yes, me lord. Jack says he won’t be put off no more, but scarcely leaves her side.”

“Ah.”

“Jack’s worried, too,” Tom said, squinting ferociously at his work. “But I don’t know whether it’s her he’s worried for, or him.”

“Ah,” Grey said again, wondering how much Jack had said to his brother—and how much Tom might suspect.

“You best leave off them boots, me lord, and go barefoot like the sailors. Look at that—the size of a teacup!” He poked two fingers through the stocking’s hole in illustration, glancing reproachfully up at Grey. “Besides, you’re going to break your neck, if you slip and fall on deck again.”