“Because it wouldn’t be right?” I asked. “Given what she does for a living? I know she saves lives, but—”
“It wouldn’t be safe,” Florence said on a whisper.
A shiver ran down my neck, though I couldn’t say exactly why. Nurse Gray had been living with and working for my sister and her family for months and no one had been hurt. Well, Catherine had the accident, but—
An impossibility lodged itself in my mind and refused to be moved.
“Why wouldn’t it be safe?”
Florence shook her head and tried to go back to the dishes, but I couldn’t let her avoid this question. I walked around the counter so I was standing next to her and grabbed her shoulder, turning her towards me. “If there is something going on here that you know about, I should know, too. If my sister is in danger, then she deserves to know.”
“I don’t know anything,” Florence said. “But there are rumors around these parts about Nurse Gray. Stories my mother told me long before that woman came to work for the Cresswells.”
“Stories about what?”
Florence blinked, her gray eyes serious. “Death.”
“She is a nurse. Death is to be expected.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “But there are a great many nurses who are not known as harbingers of death. They are not whispered about behind their backs the way Nurse Gray is.”
Abigail and Margaret had told me Nurse Gray had a lot of spirits around her, and although I still didn’t know if I believed in such things, I’d assumed it was because of her line of work, but what if it was something else?
“What do people whisper?”
“Just that,” Florence said. “They whisper that she cannot darken a doorstep without someone dying. Her profession is to heal, but she only brings death. When Mrs. Cresswell was found out on the moors, bloody and unconscious, I’d thought it was the curse claiming her. Thank the Heavens she survived, but now there is no way to know which one of us is next.”
Florence had been shy when I’d first walked into the kitchen, but I’d clearly broken down the barrier between us. She seemed to have no trouble at all speaking freely now.
“Are there records of Nurse Gray’s employment before coming here? Anything to verify how many people have died in her care?”
“I know only what I’ve heard,” Florence said. She leaned in, looking up at me from beneath her lowered brows. “If I were you, I’d head back to London sooner rather than later.”
I thanked Florence for her input and excused myself quickly. Mostly because the girl’s sudden switch from shy maid to ominous soothsayer made me uncomfortable in more ways than one.
When I’d first come into the house, Catherine had told me she believed the house was cursed and everyone was in danger. Could it be that she’d felt whatever strange phenomenon Florence was discussing? Could such a phenomenon even exist?
Surely, in a profession like nursing, one had to reckon with the fact that some patients were going to be too ill to help. Sometimes—and perhaps even most of the time—people were going to die due to natural causes, and it might just so happen that the nurse was the last one to see them alive.
Could Nurse Gray really be blamed for such a natural occurrence?
I passed by Nurse Gray’s temporary guest room on the way to my own and then retraced my steps, stopping in front of it.
I’d never been inside the woman’s room. Never even seen inside of it.
Nurse Gray spent the majority of her day in Catherine’s room or, occasionally, taking breaks downstairs or in the garden when Catherine needed to rest.
As I reached for the doorknob, I told myself it was nothing more than a curiosity to see the rest of my sister’s house that compelled me to open the door. Nothing more than a desire to see where the woman who had tended to my wounds and helped me in my time of need slept.
Except, when I opened the door and stepped inside, I did not turn on the light. I closed the door silently behind me and pressed my back to it, blending into the shadows.
I’d seen Nurse Gray leave in the car with my sister and the rest of the household, but I still held my breath and studied the bed to make sure there wasn’t a human shape lurking beneath it.
The bed was small and modest, and the blanket was tucked crisply beneath the mattress. I’d expected nothing less from Nurse Gray. There was a trunk at the foot of the bed, a small table next to it, and a single lamp. Beneath the table was a black leather bag with two rounded handles clasped together.
It was the medical bag she carried with her into Catherine’s room every day. The one I’d seen inside several times. Inside was nothing more than bandages, cleaning supplies, and vials of various medications. Nothing unusual or noteworthy.
I turned instead to the trunk.
It was the only other piece of furniture in the room that belonged to the nurse and hadn’t been provided by my sister and brother-in-law. I could tell because the name GRAY was etched into the leather straps that wrapped around it and buckled in the front.
I knelt down in front of the trunk in the dark and undid the straps quietly, lifting the lid and wincing when it banged against the footboard.
It didn’t really matter. If Florence heard the noise from downstairs, she’d assume it was me moving upstairs. I didn’t need to be perfectly silent and covert since the house was mostly empty. Still, guilt gnawed at my stomach and made even my breathing sound far too loud in my own ears.
Identical gray dresses were folded in a stack in one corner next to matching caps. Stockings were rolled up in
