The sleeping forms of the very ill lay about the room. Some had caregivers, allowing their laps as pillows, but most rested heads or even cheeks on the filthy floor. “Oh, you poor dears.” Her voice was just a murmur.

“I’m afraid we are all very ill, or soon will be.” The soft form she had nudged shifted, and an older man struggled to sit up.

Scarlet immediately rose to assist him and felt heat from his body through his clothing. “Oh, sir. You have a fever.”

He chuckled a little, which turned into a great fit of a hacking cough. When he finally regained control, he leaned his head back against the wall and took in great, rasping breaths of air. “Yes, I’ve had the fever for two days now, many of the others for longer.”

“What can be done? How may I assist you?”

He turned to her, and she recognized a familiar twinkle in his eyes.

“Do I know you?”

“It’s difficult to tell in the dark, but you do seem familiar, remind me of the wife of a dear friend.” He inclined his head to her, as if in a bow. “I am Antoine de Gramont.”

Her heart pounded, and she said, “Antoine VII? Duke of Gramont?”

He turned to her, his body weak but his eyes alight. “Could you really be? You are not Rupert’s wife, Scarlet?”

“Oh, Antoine! I am.” She leaned into him, squeezing his weakened frame to her own. Tears wet her cheeks. “But you are alive. I heard they had taken you, one of the first. We all thought you dead.”

“Scarlet, my dear friend. It is you. God has answered my prayers for a bit of sun in my last days on earth. But I pray you are an angel only and not really before my eyes.” His head turned away from her, and he began mumbling to himself.

“Antoine.” She shook his arm.

He turned back to her. “Oh, Scarlet, there you are. Perhaps I shall see Rupert today, no? Shall I deliver a message from his wife?”

A sob caught in her throat. “Yes. Please give him my love.” Her eyes searched his face, memorizing what she could see in the dark. He and Rupert had been dear friends, Antoine spending a full summer three years past at their estate with his family. She had been devastated to hear of his capture and sudden death, one of the first, and England had reeled from the atrocity of it all. Soon after, she and Simon had created her league and planned their first rescue, always regretting she had not stepped in sooner to save dear Antoine.

Antoine’s breathing fell into a rasping rhythm beside her, his head tilting to the side and bobbing forward now and then. She moved closer to him and pulled him toward her, resting his head on her lap.