AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But it was not the royal banner with its three silver bars marking George’s distance from his brother’s throne.
It was the white bear and ragged staff on a field of red—the banner of the Kingmaker himself, the Earl of Warwick.
She knew, in that moment, there would be no clemency. Warwick dealt only in death.
By the time the terror receded enough for Juliet to remember who and where and when she was, she was back in her bedroom with no memory of having reached there. And although she was afraid, it was not for herself. It was for whatever had happened here that was so terrible it still had the power to frighten after centuries. She lay awake for a long time before her heartbeat returned to normal.
She was woken up before dawn, not by anything supernatural but the simple ding of an incoming text. Followed rapidly by several more.
Duncan. Juliet’s stomach dropped as she saw that he had abandoned his attempts to be persuasive and reasonable. Her silence had finally provoked him to rage, and venom dripped through every hateful accusation and furious charge he flung at her now. Never loved me … social climber … frigid bitch … whore …
Dimly, Juliet wondered how Duncan rationalized those opposite adjectives, but his last text pushed all other thoughts from her mind. It was a photograph, taken through an airport terminal window, of a plane pulled up to a jetway.
A British Airways plane.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
DIANA
NOVEMBER 1918
CASE NOTEBOOK
15 Nov., 1:37 a.m.: Percy Nicholson died. Wrapped and placed the body in an empty dormitory bedroom to await transport to the morgue. Joshua Murray ill: temperature 104, pulse 65. No lung rales.
15 Nov., 5:00 a.m.: Ambulance arrived. Sent George Humphrey and Max Lovell to hospital. Undertaker sent for. Clarissa Somersby continues a high temperature of 104.2.
15 Nov., 3:00 p.m.: Percy Nicholson’s body removed to local morgue. Mrs. McCann fainted. Temperature 102.6. Nearly had to tie her down to keep her in bed.
16 Nov., 7:00 a.m.: Spoke by phone with Dr. Bennett. Lawrence Dean died two hours ago. Hospital overloaded, will try to send a relief nurse to me.
What is this flu that kills the young and healthy so suddenly?
* * *
There had been no shortage of long hours in France—nurses routinely worked forty-eight hours at a time with only snatches of coffee or twenty-minute naps. But Diana had never felt so close to drowning as she did on that fifth day of quarantine. Only she, Luther Weston, and Jasper Willis remained influenza-free. Leaving the boy and his broken leg in a private quarantine meant two adults to care for thirteen patients.
Dr. Bennett had promised to find a relief nurse for her by the end of the day; there were hours that Diana didn’t think she’d make it. As soon as she finished rounds on the ward—taking everyone’s temperature and pulse, checking their breathing and pain levels, treating any bleeding, and administering aspirin and salicin—it was almost time to start over again. Plus ensuring the patients were drinking and taking broth, if able, and changing linens … Diana hadn’t cried on a ward since 1915. She almost broke that streak a dozen times that Saturday.
In France, she’d never known her patients before they needed care. And although she grew attached to a few of them, mostly they moved in and through so quickly that it was all she could do to keep up with the necessities of care for young men that, whatever their age, were officially old enough to go to war. Caring for vulnerable schoolboys, away from their families and trying so hard to be brave, was something else entirely.
Not to mention Joshua. From the moment he’d collapsed at her feet, Diana was forced into the difficulty of professional nursing in the face of personal feelings. She could not allow her feelings for him to dictate differences in how she worked—but God, it was hard! When all she wanted to do was sit by his bedside and will him to get better.
At 5 p.m. the promised relief nurse finally arrived. Miss Bartholomew was an upright, steel-haired retired nurse from Newcastle who appeared almost old enough to have served with Florence Nightingale in the Crimea. But she was sharp and capable of taking temperatures and administering aspirin and fluids. Immediately upon her arrival Diana sent Luther Weston off to sleep for several hours and got Miss Bartholomew adequately informed and up to speed.
When Weston returned to the dining hall at 8:30 p.m. looking remarkably refreshed, Diana didn’t have to be told twice to go to bed. For the first time since Tuesday, she made her way to her own bedroom. She stripped off her stained, limp blouse and skirt and tried to decide whether to bathe first or simply fall onto the bed.
At that moment, her wardrobe doors began to shake and bang together.
The sound of footsteps, many heavy-booted feet tramping in the corridor, men’s voices, the pounding of steel dagger hilts on closed doors and caskets, reverberating through her head and bones and—
“Stop it!” Diana balled up her skirt and threw it at her wardrobe. It hardly satisfied, so she snatched up her bedside clock and threw that as well. “Stop doing this to me! Why me? What do you want?”
She stopped screaming and listened, chest heaving with half-swallowed sobs. She could still hear the ring of steel and boots, but it had faded a little. Diana could almost imagine … something? someone? … pausing to cock their head. As though she’d at last caught their attention.
“Please,” Diana whispered. All at once she didn’t have the strength to stand any longer and she sank to the floor, leaning against the bed behind her. “Please let me be. I’m tired. I’m scared. I just want to save all these boys.”
She knew in the tiny rational part that remained of her mind that she sounded ridiculous. But what did she have to lose?
