He counted the seconds, her pulse, her breaths, until her eyelids flickered.
She shifted.
So soon?
“Nora?” He leaned in, touching her dry, cold skin.
She panted softly and looked at her arm. “You did it?” Relief tinted her strained words.
“Only two ounces,” he admitted. But she was speaking again. Something she hadn’t done for two hours. His head hummed with unformed questions.
Nora gave a small nod and closed her eyes. “More. Aunt. Pritch…” Her dry tongue crackled in her mouth, and she gave up attempting speech.
“I will,” he promised. “How much?”
“Six,” she whispered.
Six ounces? Too much. He’d kill her. But when he took her pulse, he found it slowed to one hundred beats per minute. Still far too high, but at least countable. He couldn’t deny the marked change. How could such a small amount…
Fumbling with doubt, Daniel filled the entire syringe—four ounces of solution this time. The cut edges of the vein stuck together, the thick blood clotting faster than usual. Trying to ignore Nora’s sharp intake of breath, he reopened the wound, exploring until the blood began to run again. “Please tell me you know what you’re doing,” he begged as he inserted the tiponce more and reluctantly released the clear fluid into her faltering body. Nora shivered as the liquid traveled into her arm.
After several long minutes, she shuddered and then sighed, the muscles of her face loosening.
“Nora!” He jumped forward, fearing she’d taken her last breath.
“Better,” she mouthed. And then: “Give me something to drink.”
Chapter 41
Nora peeled her eyes open slowly, perplexed by the thin light coming through a window on the wrong side of the room. She closed them and tried again, giving her mind a moment to orient.
It didn’t work.
“You’re awake.” The strident, out-of-place voice jarred her.
Nora focused on an unfamiliar peach silk comforter covering her narrow bed before turning toward the sound. “Aunt?”
Her identification was correct. Aunt Wilcox herself was alive and resting in the next bed. But this was no hospital ward.
“Where are we?”
“The nursery. Insulting, I know. Daniel thought he could care for us better in here since there were two beds and a water closet. Your Mrs. Phipps just left to get more towels.”
Nora shifted her body—a mistake. Her muscles whined from cramps and disuse. “What nursery?” Aunt had no children.
“Mine, of course,” Aunt snapped. “You were talking when Daniel and Dr. Croft carried you in. I thought you’d remember.”
“Horace is here? And Mrs. Phipps?” The details were as disjointed as a jigsaw puzzle scattered across the floor. She dug into the recesses of her mind, remembering the sensation of being lifted and the sound of groans. Were they her own?
“They’ve all been here since yesterday. And Sarah.”
“Yesterday?”
The door swung open, and Mrs. Phipps’s lined face emerged from behind a tower of towels. “Nora!” She threw her bundle into a chair and whisked to Nora’s bed, her hand cupping Nora’s chin. “Thank God! You’ve been asleep for more than twenty-four hours. I wanted to wake you, butthat man…”
She only used that moniker for Horace, and only at his most irksome. Nora almost laughed, but her sore, groggy head forbid it. “What’s happened?”
“She doesn’t remember,” Aunt said, her voice tainted with annoyance.
