“That's just great,” Murphy said in exasperation. “Just great.”
Michael knew what was going through the chief's head-the endless reports he would have to write and the internal investigations he would have to conduct in order to account for all of this to his overlords. And how could he, really? They'd be carting him off to Bellevue in no time.
“And let's not forget that there's still another one out there,” Murphy added. “And he's still on the loose.”
The young lieutenant, Michael thought. Sinclair Copley.
“It's awfully dangerous out there,” Lawson commented. “Unless he made it back to the whaling station, he's probably at the bottom of some crevasse by now.”
“From your lips to God's ear,” Murphy said.
But Michael wasn't prepared to give up so easily, nor did he feel it would be right. Given all that this man had already survived, who was to say he had succumbed to the storm, or the polar extremes? Glancing out the window at the clear skies and the low, drifting snow, he said, “We've got a break in the weather. We could use it to mount a search. If we know anything at all about the guy, it's that he's got a powerful will to live.”
“And there's something else, too,” Charlotte put in. “We've got the most important thing in the world to him. Someone he'll want to get back-no matter what.”
The cold hand that had brushed across Michael's chest earlier suddenly brushed him again, and to his own surprise clamped down like a vise.
“Charlotte's right,” Darryl said. “When it comes to bait, we have the best.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
December 21, 11 p.m.
Eleanor felt like a prisoner who had been returned to her cell. Dr. Barnes had left her yet another of the blue pills and a glass of water, but she did not want to take it. She did not want to sleep anymore, and she did not want to hide in the infirmary any longer… especially because the temptation in the white metal box was too great. (What, she pressed herself, had they called it? A fridge? Was that it?)
Regardless, she'd seen the bags inside-clear like a haggis casing, but brimming with blood. And she could feel the need coming upon her, again. The very walls around her seemed drained of color, and she often had to close her eyes, then reopen them, simply to restore everything to its natural state. Her breath, too, was growing short and shallow. Dr. Barnes, she believed, had noted the change in her respiration, but Eleanor could hardly explain to her the cause-much less the remedy.
And here she was, alone again, or, as Sinclair had often recited from his book of poetry, “All, all, all alone, alone on a wide, wide sea!” Where is Sinclair right now? In the church, sheltered from the storm? Or lost in the snow and ice, searching for me?
She paced the room like a tiger she had seen in the London Zoo, back and forth, over and over again; even then she had felt for the poor beast's isolation and confinement. She struggled to keep her gaze from the “fridge” and her thoughts from straying into the same dismal channels. But how could they not? Her past life had been taken from her completely-her family, her friends, her very country-and her present life was reduced to a sick bay at the Southern Pole… and a ravening need that it appalled her even to think of.
On that fateful night in the Barrack Hospital, after Sinclair had come to her, she had indeed rallied. By the next day her fever was nearly gone. Moira had exulted over her, and Miss Nightingale herself had brought her cereal and tea and drawn a chair up to her bedside.
“We have missed you on the wards,” Miss Nightingale said. “The soldiers will be glad to see you back.”
“I will be glad to see them, too.”
“One soldier, I should think, in particular,” Miss Nightingale said, and Eleanor had blushed.
“Isn't he the man who once barged into our hospital in London,” Miss Nightingale went on, while holding up a spoonful of cereal, “and required stitching up?”
“Yes, mum, he is.”
Miss Nightingale nodded, and when Eleanor had eaten the cereal, said, “And an attachment has formed between you since?”
“It has,” Eleanor admitted.
“My greatest fear, when recruiting my nurses, was that they would become too attached to certain soldiers in their care. It would reflect badly on the nurse herself, and more importantly, it would put our entire mission into question. You know, of course, that we have many detractors, both here and at home?”
“I do.”
“Narrow-minded people who believe our nurses are nothing more than opportunists and worse?”
Miss Nightingale offered another spoonful of the cereal, and though Eleanor had not yet regained her appetite, she was not about to refuse it. “That is why I must ask you to do nothing-and I cannot emphasize this strongly enough-that would bring your service here, or ours, into disrepute.”
Eleanor signaled her assent with a mute tilt of the head.
“Good,” Miss Nightingale said. “Then I think we understand each other.” She got up, carefully placing the cereal bowl on the seat of the wooden chair. “I trust in your judgment and take you at your word.” With a rustle of her skirt, she went to the door, where Moira was waiting. “I'm afraid there has been more bloodshed near the Woronzoff Road. I will need you both to report for duty tomorrow at first light.”
Then she was gone. Eleanor's head fell back on the pillow and stayed there until the night came… and with it, again, Sinclair.
He had studied her face in the candlelight as if he were looking for clues, but seemed happy with what he saw. “You're better,” he said, putting his hand to her brow. “The fever's gone.”
“It is,” she said, resting her cheek against his palm.
“Tomorrow, we can leave this accursed place.”
Eleanor didn't know what he was talking about. “Leave?” Sinclair was in the army, and she was to report for duty in the morning.
“We can't very well stay here, can we? Not now.”
Eleanor was confused. Why not? What had changed, apart from the fact that they had both recovered?
“I'll manage to find some horses,” he went on, “though we might have to make do with just one.”
“Sinclair,” Eleanor said, worried that his own fever might have returned after all, “what are you saying? Where would we go?” Was he delusional?
“Anywhere. The whole damn country is a battlefield. Wherever we go, we shouldn't have any trouble finding what we need.”
“What we need?”
That was when he had met her gaze most steadily, cupping her face between his hands, before speaking. He had knelt by the bed and, in a low voice, told her a story, a story so terrible she had not believed him-not a word of it. A tale of creatures that haunted the Crimean night, and preyed upon the dying. (“I see it in my dreams every night,” he said, “and still I could not tell you what it was.”) Of a curse, or a blessing, that defied death itself. Of a need that never stopped… and to which she was now, like him, a slave. She couldn't believe it, and she wouldn't believe it!
But she could feel the wound just above her breast-it had left a telltale scar-which Sinclair said was the proof.
He kissed it now, contritely, and she felt the hot tears burning in her eyes. She turned her face to the wall, gasping for breath. The room, which had a tall window opening onto the sea, suddenly felt unbearably close and stifling.
Sinclair clutched her hand, but she withdrew that, too. What had he done to her? What had he done to them both? If he was lying, then he was mad. If he was telling the truth, then they were both doomed to a fate worse than death. Eleanor had been raised in the Church of England, but she had never been particularly devout; she left that to her mother and her sisters. But what Sinclair was telling her was even to her mind a sacrilege of such magnitude that she could barely contemplate it… or dwell on the life that it would necessitate.
