Page 97 of Again, Scoundrel

Violet awoke to the soft glow of morning breaking the horizon line. She’d been with Darius for a full day and night. She yawned and stretched, her muscles cramped and aching. And then she shot to her feet. Darius was awake and staring at her.

“I presume,” he said, with a single eyebrow raised in exactly the same manner as his father and brother, “that we are somehow acquainted? I did wake with you in my bedchamber, after all.”

She was again astonished at how similar they looked. The same eyes from their mother, the same smile and raised eyebrow from their father.

“I’m Violet Goodwin,” she said and then added, “your nurse,” because she didn’t want Darius forming any untoward notions about what she was doing in his bedchamber. “And an acquaintance of your brother. We met at the Somerville dinner.”

“You’ll forgive me for not bowing,” he said, as if they were standing in a ballroom and not in his sickroom.

“Of course. You are looking a great deal better, my lord.”

He glanced down at his bandaged body that really did resemble a mummy. “It’s a wonder how one could tell.”

Violet suppressed her smile and moved to his bedside. She lay a strip of linen across his forehead and her hand atop it. The fever had broken.

“I’ll have a look inside your mouth now,” she said. “If you’ll please open your jaw.”

Darius stared at her for a long, incredulous moment. “I’ll do no such thing, Miss Goodwin.”

Violet found herself wishing he was unconscious again. Looking after patients who had sought out her care was one thing. Looking after a Marquess’s heir who did not seem interested in her ministrations was something else entirely.

“You’ll do it now,” she added in her most governess-like voice. “My lord.”

He frowned at her but opened his jaw for examination as requested. She peered inside and let out a sigh of relief. The gray membrane of diphtheria was receding.

“I am quite improved, I take it,” Darius said when Violet closed his mouth and smiled.

“You are. Although I’ll need to check your sores next, to be certain.”

“Not on your life. And I mean it, Miss Goodwin.”

“I need to change your dressings, my lord. Keeping them clean will keep the fever at bay.”

“No.”

Violet stared at him. “How do you think the bandages got there in the first place?”

He just raised that silly eyebrow at her. Too much like Alistair for her comfort.

It’s a family tic, she thought.

An infuriating family tic.

“Tell me, Miss Goodwin,” he said. “How is it that you’re acquainted with my brother?”

“We’re friends.”

“Are you? I wasn’t aware my brother had any friends of your persuasion.”

“And what persuasion is that?”

“Female,” Darius said shortly. “Now, if you’ll call my family, I’d like to speak with them.”

“They’re in isolation,” Violet said.

“Not any longer they’re not.”

“I’m afraid they are, my lord. As are you and I. At least until you can rise from that bed and negate my order.”