Page 36 of The Sound of Seduction
Andre’s instructions were sharp. Together, they maneuvered Stan’s still form, lifting him just enough to place his feet into the ice-water bath. He was alarmingly limp in their grasp, heavier than Wendy would have imagined in his unconscious state. Somehow, she managed to keep her grip steady, her movements firm yet careful. Andre, for all his briskness, softened slightly as the task came to completion, his trained efficiency revealing the smallest glint of hope.
“Perhaps this might bring relief,” he said.
But his unspoken fears pressed down on her as they adjusted the basin beneath the bed. It wasn’t just fever that hung in the air but something heavier, darker. Wendy had seen the coma claim others, and too often, it refused to give them back.
Andre poured the remaining ice alongside the water and leaned back as if to appraise the battlefield. “If it lasts,” he muttered, half to himself, “it could shut everything down. Heart.Lungs. Brain.” His jaw tightened. “And I’ll not have the prince die here. Not with his sister sleeping in the room above us.”
Stan wasn’t just a prince, Wendy thought, irrational anger spiking beneath her worry. He was a man—her prince, her treacherous heart whispered—but his life hung by a thread so fine, a spider might have as well spun it. She adjusted another fresh compress to his forehead, her fingers brushing against his hairline. He didn’t move, didn’t give any sign of life beyond the fragile rhythm of his chest.
“Am I missing anything?” Wendy asked, her voice low but steady as her fingers worked another damp cloth over the prince’s fevered brow. Despite the calm she projected, a knot twisted in her stomach. There was no room for error, not tonight. Hadn’t he suffered enough already?
Andre adjusted the basin of melted ice water by the bedside before straightening. His steady eyes turned to her, interpreting the strain in her question.
“No,” he said firmly, though there was a gentleness beneath the word. “You’re doing everything I would do.”
She hesitated, her hand stilling for a brief moment. “Were you there?” she asked finally, biting her bottom lip. “When he was injured?”
Andre exhaled a long breath, wiping his hands on a linen towel. “Yes. It was madness,” he began, his voice quieter as he recalled the events. “The attackers came out of nowhere. He fought them alone, drove them back until they ran. Brave as hell.” Andre’s lips twitched with something close to respect. “One of them got lucky, sliced his shoulder with a filthy blade in the struggle. He never faltered. Just—” He paused, his jaw tightening briefly. “His sister and her ward were in danger. He shoved them into my arms and ordered me to take them to safety.” A ghost of tension flickered across his face. “It happenedfast. Too fast. And through it all, he stayed on his feet. Didn’t so much as wince on the carriage journey back to London.”
Wendy’s fingers pressed a cloth against Stan’s temple, her hands steady despite her pounding heart. Andre’s recounting painted an agonizing picture. She could almost see Stan—defiant, untiring even as blood soaked through his shirt, even as the hours passed before Andre could finally clean the wound and stitch him up. Her chest tightened.
“But now…” Andre’s voice snapped her attention back, and she realized with a start that he’d been studying her—noticing the way her hand had pressed too long in one spot. “This battle,” he said softly, gesturing to Stan’s pale, sweat-slicked form, “is one he fights alone. No weapons in his hand this time.”
Wendy nodded, unable to speak. Her throat felt thick. Admiration flared in her chest, unbidden and overwhelming. His bravery, his strength—none of it surprised her. He walked through fire for others when most would turn away—it was why he’d come to London to face Baron von List. She knew enough to understand the urgency. Yet the thought of him here, defenseless against the sickness tearing through him, made her eyes burn. She blinked rapidly, brushing another fresh compress over his brow. No tears. Not now, not tonight, not when her hands were his only armor.
Andre must have seen her falter because his voice broke through her thoughts. “We keep him cold. Keep the fever from baking him alive,” he said, and then, softer, “You’re doing well. I’ll come back to look after him or should I take over for a while now?”
“No.”He’s my prince.
Andre nodded as he left but she didn’t need the reassurance, though there was some strange comfort in it. She’d learned to steel herself against the worst in her years of her training, practiced keeping a trembling hand steady while her brotheroperated on patients far worse off than this. But here, with Stan burning under her care, every touch, every decision struck deeper than she’d admit.
Swallowing hard, Wendy wrung out another compress and placed it methodically over his brow. She gently smoothed it as her lips tightened into a firm line. No, not her prince. But tonight, she would be his guardian for every drop of sweat she wiped, for every furious whisper of fever she soothed, for every icy measure purposed to cool him. Whether he lived or died, she would not falter. Not once. And if her hands trembled when they finally stilled, that was no one’s concern but her own.
Then something happened.
The sudden rigidity in his body froze Wendy in place. His muscles tensed as if an invisible force had seized him, his head jerking sideways on the damp pillow. Her hand hovered over his chest before trembling fingers sought his brow. It was still burning. Still perilously hot. Yet this movement—this spark of life—was unexpected.
If he was dreaming, she thought wildly, wasn’t that proof it wasn’t a coma after all? Or was he waking up?
Her throat tightened. “Stan?” she whispered, her voice trembling as she gently replaced the compress on his temple with a fresh one. The cool fabric brushed his flushed skin, and she thought she saw his head shift slightly toward it. He moved again, faint but deliberate, his lips parting with a dry, chapped smack. “Stan, it’s Wendy,” she tried again, leaning closer. “Can you hear me?”
For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of her own shallow breaths and the faint trickling of the water as she wrung the compress. Then his lips moved again—a low murmur at first, unintelligible and drowned in fever. She bent lower, her ear just above his mouth, the scent of sweat and heat filling the space between them.
“…One… two… three…” The words came in fits, broken by uneven breaths. “…Follow… me.”
Wendy froze, her heart catching mid-beat. She clutched the compress, pressing it too tightly to his skin as gooseflesh raced up her arms. Her stomach churned at the words’ familiarity and the unmistakable strain in his tone.
“That…” she breathed, blinking rapidly. “That’s what you said. At the ball.” Her voice caught at the memory, vivid despite the weeks that had passed. The way he had spun her with such purposeful grace, the warmth of his arms around her, the way he had whispered that very line. But this time it wasn’t a flirtation. This time it sounded like a plea. Was he calling for help?
His eyelids fluttered briefly, a glimmer of his lashes catching the candlelight before they fell still. “Stan,” Wendy urged, her free hand brushing a damp curl from his forehead. A lump rose in her throat. Sometimes, patients needed to be called back, needed a tether to hold on to as they climbed out of the haze.
“Stan, please,” she pleaded, her voice soft but firmer now. “Don’t leave me. Fight. You are stronger than this.”
But there was no reply, no movement, nor the faintest flicker of recognition. He had slipped back into the depths, his breathing shallow, as if retreating further from her reach. Tears pricked her eyes, but she clawed them back before they could fall. This wasn’t her pain to carry—it was his fight, his battle, and all she could do was keep his body cool and his time short for as long as fate allowed.
Still, as she wrung the compress one more time, her trembling lips bent close to his ear, her voice raw and small. “Don’t leave me, Stan,” she whispered again, though she wasn’t sure whether the words were meant for him or herself.
Chapter Seventeen
