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“Winifred, I’m going to remove your clothes and sponge you off.” She nodded but her eyes remained closed.
Zane pulled her shirtwaist off her shoulders, then unlaced her corset and unbuttoned her skirt. He drew it off, along with the single lace-trimmed petticoat she wore.
“Not very romantic,” she murmured.
“Don’t talk.”
He hesitated, then stripped off her chemise, but left on her ruffled drawers. Damn, she was beautiful. He dipped a towel in the water and laid it over her chest.
“Feels good,” she muttered.
Yan Li hovered at his elbow. “Help?”
“Yes. When I lift her up, pull the blankets off the bed. Leave just the sheet.”
Sam stepped in as Yan Li finished. “Maybe make soup?”
“No soup. Got any cold lemonade?”
The Chinese man grinned. “Make fast, Boss.”
When he was alone with Winifred, he drew down the sheet and bathed the hot skin of her neck and chest, moved over her bare shoulders and down her arms, then her legs. If he weren’t so worried about her, he’d stop to admire them—long and slim and well-shaped.
He dipped and sponged until Sam brought the lemonade and discreetly withdrew. Gently Zane helped Winifred sit up and pressed the glass to her lips. “Lemonade,” he explained.
She drank greedily. “Good. More.”
Oh, thank God, she could still swallow. He set the empty glass outside the door and went back to sponging her down.
“Zane,” she whispered. “So hot.”
He shoved up the window, praying for a cool breeze. No luck. The afternoon temperature had soared. He slammed it shut and loosened his shirt collar in the stifling air. Then he pulled the chair close to her bedside, rolled up his sleeves and set himself to saving Winifred’s life.
At times Winifred opened her eyes and saw Zane’s face above her, other times it was Yan Li or Sam who bent over her, soothing her sticky skin with cool water or helping her sip some refreshing liquid.
In her dreams she saw Papa, and then Mama, too, only she was young and Cissy was still in diapers. Orchestra conductors turned from their podiums to cue her; piano students played scales, over and over until she wanted to scream but found she could not make a sound. Then her father’s nurse was speaking to her about Papa but she couldn’t hear the words. The gardener brought bouquet after bouquet of yellow roses, and Papa’s cook, the one he never liked, kept urging her to drink.
Her chest ached. Her head throbbed as if something heavy were smashing into her temples. Her eyelids burned underneath. Once she heard a man’s voice and the word “hospital.” Another man said “No.”
And once a pair of tiny hands patted her arm and said her name, “’infred.”
Oh, she wanted to wake up! Other times she wanted to sink into the soft blackness that settled around her.
On the day she finally opened her eyes, Zane stood over her, his stethoscope in his ears, the cool metal part pressed against the center of her chest.
He glanced into her face. “You’re better,” he said.
“How long have I been here?”
“Four days. And nights.” His voice sounded grainy, as if he hadn’t spoken for years and years.
“How did I get here? I remember boarding the train, but I don’t remember getting off.”
“You did. You were very sick, Winifred. And you’re going to feel weak for some time.”
“When is the wedding?”
He frowned down at her. “What wedding?”
“You know, Sarah Rose and Rooney...”
“Ah, I remember now. The twenty-ninth.”
“What day is today?”
Zane’s frown deepened. “Hell, I don’t know. You arrived on the seventeenth... I’d say maybe it’s the twenty-first?”
“I will be better by then, won’t I?”
“Better, yes. Strong, no. We’ll see about attending the wedding.”
She laughed. “You sound like my doctor at home.”
“I am your doctor, Winifred. And right now this is your home.”
Men were so strange at times, she thought. Zane wasn’t anything like Dr. Marcus in St. Louis. Zane was much more...well, outspoken. Pushy, even. He had undressed her, she realized, right down to her corset and chemise. Dr. Marcus would never...but of course she didn’t have pneumonia then.
Or did she? She’d caught a chill two days before she left, but the doctor had never listened to her chest through a stethoscope.
