‘Papa, we have brought you some soup,’ Adrienne told him gently. ‘I’ve made it the best I can and it should do you some good.’

  Radnor regarded her with a strange mixture of emotion in his face. There was pride quite openly, but a flash of anger as well, and a fierce regret that was almost as visible as the ravages of his illness.

  Seeing it, Hester felt very much an intruder who was not meant to witness such an intimate relationship. She thought of excusing herself, but it was part of her duty to make certain Radnor ate as much as he could, and to help if it should cause him any distress. Her discomfort was irrelevant.

  She merely asked Radnor if she could help him to sit more comfortably in order to eat, then realised with anger at herself that that would make her sound like a servant. She was a nurse, not his parlour-maid. And she was here under duress! Briefly, as she helped him lean forward while she restacked the pillows behind him, she wondered what he knew of the circumstances of her being here. Did he realise she had been rendered unconscious by ether, and brought here against her will? That she was now actually a prisoner, with the children as surety for her good behaviour?

  Would he care if he did?

  She met his cold, clear eyes for an instant as she laid him back again, and it was she who looked away. There was something far too perceptive in him, too probing into her thoughts.

  Adrienne insisted in feeding him herself. He was too unsteady to hold the spoon without spilling the soup, which angered him. Hester could see it in the lines of his face and hear it in his grunts as he swallowed. If Adrienne noticed, she affected not to.

  He was also getting breathless. The effort it cost him was apparent to all of them and it humiliated him.

  ‘Perhaps we should stop for a few moments,’ Hester suggested. ‘It won’t get cold.’

  Adrienne hesitated.

  ‘Do as you’re told!’ Radnor snapped at her, and then choked as he caught his breath.

  ‘Papa, I’m sorry!’ she said quickly. She looked at Hester desperately. ‘Do something! He’s choking!’

  Hester had a strong suspicion that it was largely affected. She had seen him manipulate his daughter’s feelings before; this time she was even more suspicious.

  ‘Help him!’ Adrienne commanded.

  Radnor looked at her, and coughed again.

  This time Hester was quite certain. ‘Perhaps we had better not give him any more,’ she said coolly. ‘He is not as well as I thought. It’s a pity. But it won’t be wasted.’

  Radnor glared at her with chilling malevolence. ‘If you want soup, woman, make your own. This is mine. My daughter made it for me.’

  Hester smiled sweetly at him. ‘Indeed she did. I am glad you are well enough to appreciate that.’ She turned to Adrienne. ‘I think after all he is perfectly well enough to finish it.’ She turned and walked out of the room, before Radnor should see the disgust in her face.

  Radnor seemed stronger when he had eaten. Even an hour or two after the soup he rallied, and insisted Adrienne should remain with him during the night. She would only call Hester, or Rand, if he seemed to be in distress.

  Hester watched Adrienne try to settle him. She must have done it countless times before in the long months of his illness and deterioration, but she still seemed nervous. He was helpless to do the most ordinary things for himself, and, like many people she had seen before, he resented it. He felt robbed of dignity, which was easily understandable. But it was in no way Adrienne’s fault.

  Hester watched with embarrassment for them both as Adrienne tried to assist him to the bathroom so he could relieve himself. She held his arm to help him keep balance on his enfeebled legs, without appearing actually to support his weight. He was bent over, and his nightshirt was thus made too long at the front. He was in danger of tripping on it and falling.

  ‘For God’s sake, stand up straight, girl! I’m ill, not an idiot!’ he snarled.

  It was totally unfair. She was obviously doing her best, but she did not complain, nor even try to defend herself.

  He swayed, and Adrienne panicked. She swung around to Hester, her eyes wide.

  ‘Pull yourself together!’ Radnor said to her furiously. ‘Don’t let me fall, damn you! Can’t you do anything right?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Papa. Lean on me more. I won’t leave you!’

  Hester could see Adrienne was frightened and losing control. She moved forward quickly and took hold of Radnor by the other side, steadying him firmly. She felt his muscles tighten as he pulled away from her. Was it deliberate?

  ‘Mr Radnor!’ she said curtly. ‘Lean on me, and let Adrienne open the bathroom door for us.’

  He half turned to glare at her. He had more strength left than she had expected. ‘Think you’re coming in here to watch me relieve myself, woman?’

  ‘Someone needs to hold your nightshirt up for you,’ she retorted. ‘If you try it you’ll fall over. You might even spend the night on the floor, or worse than that, break a hip. Or both.’

  Adrienne stifled a sob and shot a glance at Hester filled with both loathing and despair. ‘I’ll help you,’ she whispered to her father, then to Hester: ‘Please go. You leave him no dignity at all! How can you be so . . . cruel?’

  Hester lost her patience, not with frailty or the fear of indignity, but with the mixture of love, hate and dependence that each of them seemed to have for the other.

  ‘There is no indignity in being human,’ she said, anger at the stupidity of it making her voice sharp. ‘We are all born naked and screaming. We all function essentially the same way. We all need each other from time to time, dressed in robes and bleeding inside, or naked and weeping. Nobody takes your dignity away. Either you keep it, or you give it up yourself by behaving like a fool.’ She turned to Radnor. ‘You are no different from any other man. For goodness’ sake stop making such a performance out of relieving yourself. Nobody cares!’

  Adrienne gasped.

  Radnor seemed to consider for a moment whether he would retaliate or not, and decided against it.

  Five minutes later he was back in bed, ready for the night. Adrienne, exhausted, was sitting by his side with a book in her hands, quietly reading to him while he appeared to be falling asleep.

  Hester awoke in the morning with a moment of fear. As she remembered where she was, a sense of loss overcame her. She lay still, thinking of Monk, and of Scuff. Did they know yet what had happened to her? What had Magnus Rand said to them?

  Then she heard sounds below her, footsteps. What she felt was unimportant. What mattered were the three children and the promises she had made them.

  She swung her legs out of bed and stood up. She was stiff, and still tired, but there was nothing wrong with her. She had a battle to fight every hour, every minute. If Radnor could be saved, well and good, but she must keep the children alive until she could find a way for all of them to escape.

  She washed and dressed in the same clothes as before. She had nothing else to wear. Then she went down to the kitchen. It was dark outside still, with just a paling in the east to say that dawn was coming. Then she realised what the sound was that she had heard. The gardener was cleaning out the kitchen grate and rebuilding the fire. He snapped the front of it shut and stood up slowly, facing her, half a foot taller than she, and powerful, even without his gun.

  ‘You’d best not even think of it,’ he said quietly as she glanced at the back door. ‘I could bring you down in a moment, and then what would those little ones do, eh? Miss Radnor in’t going to look after ’em. She’s too busy with ’er father.’ He gave a twisted half-smile. ‘Cooker’ll be hot in five minutes. There’s oatmeal in the wooden bin over there, and plenty o’ good milk. An’ there’s eggs.’

  Hester looked at his bony face and his big knuckled hands. He’d probably killed chickens and rabbits with them, with a quick twist, and thought nothing of it. He would do whatever Rand told him to. There was no imagination in his eyes, and no pity.

  ‘A good idea,’ she agreed. ‘Thank you for getting the fire going.’

  He grunted and turned away. He had been prepared for anger, or pleading. Agreement caught him off balance.

  She made plenty of porridge, sufficient for all of them, including Rand himself. Then she left it simmering while she went to get the children up, washed and dressed, and then brought them back to the kitchen.

  She served them porridge with plenty of milk. They were all sitting at the wooden table eating when Rand came in.

  ‘And what do you think you are doing in here?’ he demanded when he saw them. ‘You eat in your own place! Mrs Monk, I will not have this . . .’

  She stared straight back at him. ‘If you do not allow them fresh air and as much food as they need, what you will have is sick children whose blood is no use to you,’ she answered him tartly. ‘I presume you have not gone this far in order to fail over such an obvious detail?’

  For an instant there was surprise in his face, and something that could even have been appreciation. Then it vanished. ‘See that they are finished and in their room in one hour. I shall require you to assist in taking their blood. Radnor is still failing.’

  She stared at him, at his clever eyes whose colour she could never be sure of, then back at his precise mouth, which seemed to have no curves in it, no passion.

  She found herself agreeing obediently. She could not afford his anger.

  The porridge had lost its flavour, but she finished it anyway, and took the children back to their room, locking the door behind her as she left. Her mind was racing all the time, seeking ways of escape, and finding nothing.

  Rand came back when he had said he would. He was exact in everything. He never made an unnecessary gesture, never mind an ill-thought act.

  ‘We will begin, Mrs Monk,’ he told her. ‘Watch me and do exactly as I tell you. You are an intelligent woman and a very good nurse. Please do not waste both our time by pretending not to understand.’ He met her eyes for a moment, as if making certain he had her attention. ‘We are going to draw blood from the older two children, about three-quarters of a pint from each,’ he continued. ‘I shall mix the lemon juice and the potash with it in exact proportions, and you will observe. Please do not be stupid enough to affect displays of emotion. If you do, I shall be obliged to hurt you. If harm comes to the children it will be the result of your stupidity.’

  He looked at her steadily and there was a degree of respect in his face. ‘I know something about you, Mrs Monk. I did not choose you at random among the nurses. You have seen surgical operations; indeed, you have performed some yourself when there was no one else. You do not lack either skill or nerve. Do not fritter away these people’s lives with moral histrionics. Do you understand me?’

  She understood him perfectly. He saw it in her face and turned away without waiting for a verbal answer.

  First she watched him make a mixture of lemon juice squeezed and refined until it was absolutely clear, then mixed with potash, to exact measurements. He put it in a small glass jar and sealed it.

  Next she followed him to collect Maggie and bring her back to the room upstairs where they would draw three-quarters of a pint of her blood.

  Hester inserted the needle herself because she knew she would be gentler than Rand. His chemical knowledge was superb, his measurements precise to the minutest drop, but he had no concept of gentleness, nor did he seem to understand fear.

  At least that was what she thought, until it was Charlie’s turn. This time Rand seemed to find it difficult to watch, not because he had another task, but she heard his slight indrawn breath as she touched the point of the coarse, hollow needle to the vein in Charlie’s thin arm. It was barely healed from the last time.

  Hester spoke to Charlie quietly, apologising for what she was doing, but telling him what a marvellous gift he was giving to other people, to the science of medicine, and to knowledge in general. All this time she heard her own voice she was wondering if she should be telling him such a thing. She did not want him to think she liked this or thought it right, but she needed Rand to think she believed it.

  She was intensely aware of Rand only a foot away from her, standing so close to make certain she did nothing whatever except exactly what he had told her to. Whatever she said or did, he would never trust her. Nor should he, except not to cause unnecessary pain.

  She drew the plunger back gently and watched the scarlet liquid fill the glass tube. It revolted her that she could be part of such a procedure, but at least she would hurt Charlie less than Rand would. His smooth young face was white as he watched too.

  Hester could feel the warmth of Rand’s body almost touching her, and the very slight hiss of his breath.

  When she had finished she passed the vial of blood to him, and he took it without looking at Charlie, or thanking him. Either Rand was concentrating so intensely that he was already oblivious of other people, or he was in the grip of some emotions that required all the self-mastery he could call upon. For a moment Hester thought it was the latter, and then she changed her mind. Why did she think Rand even had emotions?

  She smiled at Charlie and touched him gently. ‘Thank you,’ she said. Then she added, ‘Come and lie down for a while. Look after each other. There’s plenty of water, so please drink it. I’ll try to find something special for lunch.’

  He gave her the best smile he could manage.

  When she returned from taking Charlie back to his bed, she found Rand waiting for her impatiently.

  ‘Time is of the essence, Mrs Monk. I thought you knew that.’

  ‘So is the health of our . . . providers of blood!’ she snapped back at him. ‘If they don’t do well, neither does Mr Radnor, and more importantly, neither does the experiment.’

  ‘I am glad you appreciate that it is all one effort.’ He sounded slightly mollified. ‘Please help Adrienne finish preparing Mr Radnor. I will show you exactly what is necessary with the blood another time. It is good that you should understand.’

  She had not said that she cared in the least about how he treated the blood. But she noted that he seemed to want her interest – or was it merely that he had noticed it already? She was annoyed with herself for feeling interested, and then for being careless enough to let him know. Morally it repelled her, and yet the possibilities of the good it could do fired her imagination. Thousands, soldiers, ghosts from the past thronged her mind.

  ‘Yes, Mr Rand,’ she said obediently, and turned away so he would not see her face. He saw too much, too easily, and she could not read him in return.

  She found Radnor propped up on several pillows. There was definitely more colour in his face today and even a spark of interest in his eyes. Adrienne was beside him, watching every movement, listening to each word as always. Was it comforting to him, or did it irritate his patience? Could it be possible that it was both?

  Radnor looked Hester up and down with a bright, assessing eye.

  ‘What makes you nurse, Mrs Monk?’ he said curiously. ‘Have you no family of your own to look after, no man to keep you? You’re not bad-looking but you’ve a sharp tongue and men can get very tired of that.’

  Hester looked at him with surprise. He was definitely feeling better, and yet somewhere beyond the desire to provoke her, even hurt her, she saw a dark fear. He wanted to live. More than that, he resented that she, whom he considered a lesser being, was healthy where he was not.

  She smiled slowly. ‘During the Crimean War it was a desire to be of use, and a deep respect for the courage of many of the men. Anger at the foolishness of others, I suppose.’ She met his eyes squarely, staring back just as hard as he. ‘Now I am filling in for a friend, temporarily. When she returns I shall go back to my usual occupation. If I survive, of course. I am here under duress, as you perfectly well know. But I admit Mr Rand’s experiments are interesting. There is much to be learned.’

  Radnor nodded very slowly. ‘You like to learn. So do I. Learn all you can. Knowledge is the wealth of the world, beauty is its joy. See the beauty in everything! Learn all you can, sit up all night under the stars and discuss everything there in all the sublime possibilities of the mind.’ He smiled as if in memory he were tasting it now. ‘Eat the fruit of life till the juice of it runs down your chin. Laugh at the absurd until your sides ache and you can’t get your breath. Grasp it! Hold on, till they have to prise your fingers off it when you’re dead. Wear colours, woman! Not that damn blue-grey.’ He looked her up and down again, his lip curling with contempt.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll wear scarlet, like a soldier’s uniform,’ she replied, still without looking away from him. ‘So the blood doesn’t show.’

  He nodded and smiled at her slowly, but the fear was back in his eyes. ‘I’m dying, but at least I was alive. Have you ever been alive, woman? Really alive? You with your skinny body and prim dress, your back stiff as a ramrod! Ever loved a man, except from a safe distance? Eh?’

  ‘Yes. And I may love tomorrow, and many tomorrows after that. You won’t. When you get up, pay attention and get prepared to take more blood,’ she told him with a faint, chill smile.

  ‘How dare you speak to my father like that?’ Adrienne said firmly, jerking forward in her chair and rising to her feet. ‘Remember who you are, and your position here!’

  Hester stared back at her. ‘I am a prisoner here because you need my skills in order to have some chance of saving your father’s life. I remember that. I think it is you who seem to have forgotten it.’

  Radnor brought his hands together in a faint dry rubbing of skin, but it was intended as applause. ‘Not your match,’ he said to Adrienne. There was a smirk of malicious satisfaction on his lips. ‘In fact, you are nowhere near as much fun!’

  Adrienne winced, but she remained standing. She did not look back at him, or answer. She insisted on helping Hester prepare his arm by sterilising his skin with surgical spirit, then make him as comfortable as possible so he would not find it difficult to remain perfectly still.

  Rand came back. The apparatus was wheeled into place and the procedure began. The needle was inserted into Radnor’s arm. Hester knew that it hurt, but he refused to register it, even in his eyes. Only his breathing altered for a moment, then returned to normal. She respected his courage, though little else. His will to live was almost tangible in the room, like the energy in the air when a storm is building. She understood how Adrienne would be desolate if he died, and yet guilty because part of her would also be relieved. Like a great tree, he sheltered those close to him at the same time as he took the sunlight, and also sucked the soil dry of its goodness.