“I will help you,” she repeated. “I am—”
“You are important. I know.”
Did he? Of course not.
“I will prove it to you. I will live. I will walk. I am—”
“Important. Yes.”
Her strength was fading fast. She could not sort through his words to gain meaning, and she did not dare try to find the English words now. She would have to live and then convince him. Or at least get better enough to escape. Someone, somewhere would be interested in her skills. She was not worthless.
Chapter Thirteen
“Good God, youlook awful.”
Max sat down at the breakfast table and wondered why he’d bothered to shave before coming down. His father would make him out to be disreputable, no matter how dapper he appeared.
“It was a long night, Father.”
“I don’t doubt it.” The man looked down at the newspaper. “Did she survive?”
“Yes, she did,” Max said, his tone churlish. “In fact, the surgeon said he is hopeful.”
“I heard him depart. And even if I hadn’t, it’s all the staff talks about.”
Max looked up, startled. “Surely not with you. Chiverton wouldn’t allow it.”
“Gads, no. But I’m neither deaf nor blind. I see them casting fearful looks down the hall. I hear the maids whisper about you sitting vigil in her room. And the honey pot was missing this morning.”
“It’s not missing. It’s upstairs to help her drink her medicine.”
“Yes,” his father drawled. “I heard all sorts of nonsense about that from my valet.”
Max covered his reaction by drinking his tea. Then he nodded to the footman as eggs and toast were set before him. He was either desperately hungry or too tired to eat. Meanwhile, his father continued to needle him with difficult questions.
“Have you decided what to do with the gel? I’m sure a place for her could be found in Devonshire, especially if she has some trade. What did her father do?”
“He was a doctor of some kind.”
“Well, that’s no help. Heathen medicine will have filled her head with all sorts of superstitious nonsense.”
Though Max had thought something similar yesterday—especially when he was collecting mold in the stable—this morning he found the sentiment narrowminded. “You don’t think they could have stumbled upon something that we don’t know? A plant, perhaps, or tincture that isn’t available to us?”
“Of course, they did. Opium. But we’ve got it now, refined it, and sell it back to them at great profit. We have the scientific method of inquiry, and until the heathens adopt that, they’ve got nothing to teach us.”
“What makes you think they don’t have a scientific method of inquiry?”
“They didn’t figure out opium, did they?”
“But maybe they figured out something else. We won’t know until we ask.”
His father arched a disdainful brow. “Then ask, if you wish to waste your time. Write letters to them, for all I care. But the girl is not going to help with any of that.”
I am important!
Yihui’s words echoed in his thoughts. Indeed, they’d echoed throughout the night while he cooled her brow and wondered what he was going to do. He shouldn’t be irritated with his father for voicing the exact same things that had tortured him through the night, but he was. Mostly because he knew the sentiment was wrong. He just couldn’t prove it.
“She has value,” he said firmly.
