The journey was a nightmare. By the time they reached Ravensbrook House, Enid was hot and cold by turns, and seemed unable to keep her body from shaking violently. Her mind wandered as if she were half waking and half in dream.

As soon as they drew up, Hester threw open the door and almost fell to the pavement, calling out commands to the cabby to wait exactly where he was.

She rushed up the steps and rang the bell violently, then again and then a third time. She heard it jingling in the hall.

A footman came to the door, his expression fixed in furious disapproval.

When he saw a white-faced, bedraggled young woman with wild eyes and no hat, his offense knew no bounds. He was a good six feet tall, as a footman should be, and with excellent legs and a suitably supercilious mouth.

“Lady Ravensbrook is extremely ill in that hansom!” Hester said curtly.

“Will you please assist me to carry her inside, and then send for her maid and anyone else necessary to make her comfortable.”

“And who are you, may I ask?” He was shaken, but not to be stampeded by anyone.

“Hester Latterly,” she snapped back. “I am a nurse. Lady Ravensbrook is very ill. Will you please hurry, instead of standing there like a doorpost!”

He knew where she had been, and why. He wavered on the edge of argument.

“Are you hard of hearing?” she demanded more loudly. “Go and fetch your mistress before she falls insensible faint and may injure herself.” “Yes, ma'am.” He galvanized into action, striding past her down the steps and across the pavement gleaming wet in the lamplight to the hansom where the cabby was fingering the reins nervously, staring down at the doorway as if it were an open grave.

The footman flung the door open and with the expression of a man about to spur his horse into battle, poked his head and shoulders inside to lift Enid, who was now fallen sideways and almost unconscious. As soon as he had grasped her, which even for a man of his strength was not easy, he pulled her out and straightened up, bearing her in his arms back across the footpath towards the door.

Hester took a step down, fishing in her reticule for money to pay the cabby, but he stood up in his urgency to get his horse going, flicking the long whip over its ears, and was already away from the curb and increasing pace before she could go any farther.

She was surprised only for a moment. He knew where he had picked up his fare, and seeing the address to which he brought her, and the liveried footman, he had guessed the truth. He did not want her close enough to touch, or to take anything, even money, from her hand.

Hester sighed and followed the footman, closing the door behind her. He was standing in the center of the hall helplessly, Enid in his arms as lifeless as a rag doll.

Hester looked for a bell rope to pull.

“Bell?” she asked sharply.

He indicated with his head to where the ornamental rope hung. No other staff had come because presumably they knew it was his duty to answer the door. She strode over and yanked the rope more roughly than she had intended.

Almost immediately a parlormaid appeared, saw the footman, then Enid, and her face went white.

“An accident?” she said with a slight stammer.

“Fever,” Hester answered, going towards her. “She should go straight to bed. I am a nurse. If Lord Ravensbrook is willing, I shall stay and look after her. Is he at home?”

“No ma'am.”

“I think you should send for him. She is very ill.”

“You should have brought her sooner,” the footman said critically. “You had no right to leave her till she was in this state.”

“It came on very suddenly.” Hester held her tongue with difficulty. She was too tired and too distressed for Enid to have patience to argue with anyone, least of all a footman. “For heaven's sake, don't stand there, take her upstairs, and show me where I can find clean water, a nightgown for her, and plenty of towels and cloths, and a basin-in fact, two basins. Get on with it, man!”

“I'll get Dingle,” the parlormaid said hastily. And without explaining who that was, she turned on her heel and left, going back through the green baize door and leaving it swinging. Hester followed the footman up the broad, curved staircase and across the landing to the door of Enid's bedroom. She opened it for him and he went inside and laid Enid on the bed.

It was a beautiful room, full of pinks and greens, and with several Chinese paintings of flowers on the walls.

But there was no time to observe anything but the necessities, the ewer of water on the dresser, the china bowl and two towels.

“Fill it with tepid water,” Hester ordered.

“We have hot-”

“I don't want hot! I'm trying to bring her fever down, not send it up. And another bowl. Any sort will do. And please hurry up.”

With a flash of irritation at her manner, he took the ewer and left with the door ajar behind him.

He had been gone only long enough for Hester to sit on the bed beside Enid and regard her anxiously as she began to toss and turn, when the door swung wide again and a woman of about forty came in. She was plain and dowdy, and wore a gray stuff dress of rigid design, but extremely well cut to show an upright and well-shaped figure. At the present she looked in a state of considerable distress.

“I am Dingle, Lady Ravensbrook's maid,” she announced, staring not at Hester but at Enid. “What has happened to her? Is it the typhoid?” “Yes, I'm afraid so. Can you help me to undress her and make her as comfortable as possible?”

They worked together, but it was not an easy task. Enid now ached all over, her bones, her joints, even her skin was painful to the touch, and she had such a headache she could not bear to open her eyes. She seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness, suffocatingly hot one moment and shivering the next.

There was nothing to be done for her except bathe her in cool water at regular intervals to moderate the fever at least to some degree. There were moments when she was aware of them, but much of the time she was not, as if the room swayed, ballooned, and disappeared like some ghastly vision in mirrors, distorted beyond reality.

It was nearly two hours before there was a knock at the door and a small and very frightened maid, standing well back, informed Hester that his lordship was home, and would miss please attend on him in the library straightaway.

Leaving Dingle with Enid until she returned, when it would be necessary to do the first laundry, Hester followed the maid as she was bid. The library was downstairs and at the far side of the hall, around a corner. It was a quiet room, comfortably furnished, lined with oak bookcases and with a large fire burning in the hearth. It took barely a glance to notice the polished wood, the warmth, the faint smell of lavender, beeswax and leather, to know its luxury.

Milo Ravensbrook was standing by the window, but he turned the moment he heard Hester's step.

“Close the door, Miss…”

“Latterly.”

“Yes, Miss Latterly.” He waited while she did so. He was a tall man, extraordinarily handsome in a dark, highly patrician way. His was a face in which both temper and charm were equally balanced. He might be an excellent friend, entertaining, intelligent and quick to understand, but also she judged he would be an implacable enemy. “I understand you brought Lady Ravensbrook home, having observed she was taken ill,” he said, allowing it to be half a question.

“Yes, my lord.” She waited for him to continue, watching his expression to see the fear or the pity in it. It was not a mobile face. There was a stiffness in him, both of nature and of a rigid upbringing of self-mastery, extending perhaps as far back as the nursery. She had known many such men before, both in the aristocracy and in the army. They were born into families used to power and its responsibilities as much as its privileges.