by Joey W. Hill
“Stay down, sir. Please.” She grabbed the arm of a spectator, one who looked like he had his wits about him and no obvious injuries, despite the dust coating him saying he’d been close to the blast. Seeing he carried a pocket kerchief in his jacket, she snatched it and pressed it to the other man’s wound, then clasped the wrist of her spectator and brought his hand up to cover it.
“Keep pressure on his head wound, and stay right here with him until an ambulance comes,” she ordered him. “I know there’s a lot of blood, but if you can do that, he’ll most likely be okay. He’s stable but disoriented. You stay right here with him. If he tries to wander off, you get someone else to help you keep him here or stick with him until an ambulance arrives. Tell me you understand.” She barked that last as a command, and the young man nodded, paling.
Nina spun and waded into the fray. There were men carrying out other men, other passersby getting involved. However, no one other than her had any apparent medical knowledge. She ran from injured to injured, falling into her experience with triage as if she’d never left Singapore.
It was terrible, awful. And yet, she couldn’t deny the feeling that swelled into her breast, that made her almost shamefully giddy. For the first time since Sher’s death, she felt exactly as she should. Nursing was the only thing that had made sense since Singapore, and having it taken away from her so abruptly… She almost cried from the familiarity of it. A fierce rage rose in her, one that said she was goddamned unwilling to be anything less than what she was meant to be, no matter how she had to accomplish it.
If she’d been looking for a sign of that, she couldn’t have asked for a more appropriate one. Though she immediately prayed an apology, in case that sounded like she’d wished for a sign this extreme.
About fifteen wounded men had been extracted from the building. One had been killed by a falling beam right off. Two others had been carried out in ways they shouldn’t have been, which she feared were going to have serious repercussions for the spinal injuries they obviously had, but what was done was done.
By the time the first ambulance arrived, she had everyone evaluated enough to provide the drivers guidance. Several more ambulances pulled in, and she quickly had a circle of men waiting for her direction.
“Good on you, love,” one said as they were loading the last man on. “Jump on and come with us, all right, so you can tell the docs what’s what. Can’t keep track of all of it, and you seem to have it ordered in your head like your market list.”
She’d loved to hear Mrs. C’s reaction to that. She shook her head. “Can’t cook worth a zack,” she told him. “This is easier than putting together a recipe.”
He chuckled, though his gaze was hard, strained, as he took in the mass casualty work he and his fellow drivers were managing around them. “That’s okay. A girl that can keep her wits about her in something like this is worth ten times a good cook, to my way of thinking.”
“Not to me,” his partner said cheerfully, handing her into the ambulance and patting his more ample girth. “I need my Velma’s mutton to be a happy man.”
She settled next to the male who’d been critically injured as the ambulance shot off. Velma’s husband was the driver, and he worked his way skillfully through the congested traffic toward the hospital. As the other responder monitored the patient, she put her hand on the unconscious man’s arm. “It’s all right,” she murmured. “If you have a Velma out there, or even one in your future, you need to hang on for her. Hold on, man.”
When they came screaming up to the hospital, she was braced to be turned away as soon as she delivered her report. However, the first person she saw was a familiar face.
Tracy Miller, one of her classmates from her hospital schooling days, was at the open door, ready to help with the stretcher. Surprise crossed her broad face, followed by quick pleasure in her shrewd grey eyes. “Good timing, mate,” she said, with the blissful practicality Nina remembered with heart wrenching fondness. “Let’s catch up after we get these fellows settled in. Give me what you know.”
Nina nodded and launched into reporting on the man’s condition. From there, she followed Tracy in. She didn’t even think about the fact she wasn’t supposed to be a nurse anymore.
She was always going to be a nurse.
Chapter Thirteen
For the next three hours, Nina worked side by side with the other nurses and doctors, treating the casualties, helping with pre-operating and recovery, standing fast in blood and responding instantly to fired orders, anticipating many before they were hurled in her direction.
“Is she new?” she heard one doctor say.
“No, she doesn’t work here,” Tracy responded brusquely. “Trained down in Sydney with me, worked with the AANS in Singapore. Visiting in the area I expect.”
“If she’s looking for work, lock her in before she can get away.”
Tracy flashed her a grin. “Run, mate,” she advised. “If Dr. Worst here wants you, you’d do better to make a deal with the devil.”
That struck a little too close to home, but she summoned a smile at the teasing nickname they’d given Dr. Worchester.
When she at last stepped out of the hospital, she was startled by the late afternoon sunset. Nero stood by the shiny car that had brought her and Mrs. C here earlier in the day. As always, he dressed in black, except for the pristine white shirt beneath his vest.
She’d washed her hands, arms and face repeatedly over the past few hours, but had thrown a spare gown over her clothes, a temporary hospital garb she’d discarded in the laundry before emerging. As his impassive gaze slid over her, suddenly she was very aware of what a wreck her hair and street clothes must appear. Even as she felt more put together inside her own head than she had in some time. She sighed and gave him a “what of it” look.
“How did you find me?” she asked, as she approached the car.
“You are a nurse,” he said in his studied way. “When I came to find you, everyone in town was talking about the building accident. It seemed straightforward enough. I entered the hospital a couple hours ago, located you, and then came out here to wait.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I could have taken a cab home.”
“Hmm.” He gestured to the backseat. “When I determined you would be some time, I went home and retrieved some items I thought you might need when you emerged. Mrs. C prepared you a sandwich and some lemonade.”
“Oh. Well, that was nice of her.”
“Indeed.” Nero lifted a brow. “She said she was unkind to you, and you did not respond as she expected.”
“Like a catty whore, using my command of the master’s cock to lord it over the rest of the household staff?” She winced at his expression. “Sorry, Nero. I’m used to being around soldiers, doctors and nurses in the thick of things. Language gets pretty rough.”
“Indeed,” he repeated. Then he extended a courteous hand to help her onto the step into the back seat of the vehicle. His gnarled hand was surprisingly strong.
“Do you mind if I ride up in the front with you?” she asked.
“No, Miss Nina.”
“Just Nina’s fine. Unless it breaks a rule of some sort. I can’t keep them all straight.”
He shook his head, putting a hand out to stop her when she reached for the front door handle. He opened it for her once again. Then he reached in the back and moved the small basket of food and drink up by her feet where she could more easily reach it.
As he circled around to the other side to get in behind the driver’s wheel, she opened the lemonade and drank from it. When she stopped, she’d drunk half, her body informing her she’d fallen out of the habit of watching her hydration and nourishment, a critical thing for a nurse, especially during a high casualty event.
She thought of the two chaps who’d driven her to the hospital, in particular the one with the pretty blue eyes and lots of thick, sandy hair. His flirtatious teasing hadn’t detracted a bit from his skill and serious focus on his charges
. The firm set of mouth and chin had said he’d do his best to give all the wounded he transported to the hospital a fighting chance to survive.
His eyes weren’t as blue as Alistair’s, but the connection between her and him over something they both understood had warmed that cold ball in her chest. At the hospital where she’d worked before all this had happened, there was a good chance a man like him would have asked her out to dinner. It had happened there, more than once, with the other doctors or male staff.
But she’d always politely declined. When they asked her, she’d thought of Alistair. His touch, his expression. It wasn’t that she’d been holding herself for him. Just so many things hadn’t been quite right for her since she’d come back. While flirting for a few minutes in an ambulance had a reassuring familiarity to it, the idea of a dinner or dancing, where she had to act happy and vivacious for a prolonged period, had been too daunting.
Nero was watching her. “Perhaps eat some of the sandwich, too,” he said, his voice a little growly. “You look a little pale.”
Only a few days ago he’d watched her throw up in the bushes without comment or succor. But he’d also brought her a fresh blouse.
“Are you nice to me because you’re supposed to be, Nero? The others I can kind of work out. Either indifferent, jealous, or disapproving. But you seem on the fence. Undecided.”
“I tend to let the actions of others determine my opinion of them, not my preconceived notions,” he said stiffly.
“Do they teach you to talk like that in butler school?” She opened the sandwich and sank her teeth into the bliss of meat, cheese and a sauce that was the perfect complement to both. Mrs. C might not be the nicest person, but she knew her trade.
A slight smile touched Nero’s mouth, relieving the sternness of his expression. “Lord Alistair says my education far surpasses his. I am a third-generation butler. My grandfather worked in the Duke of York’s home until he was wrongly accused of stealing and shipped to Australia as a convict. He taught my father his trade, who in turn taught me.”
She’d stopped chewing. “The Duke of York?”
“Yes. I’d say I have some grand stories of that, but true to the honor of our profession, my grandfather revealed none of what he ever saw, to my father or to me.” He slanted her a glance. “The Inquisition, if it had still existed, could not have pried anything from us.”
“Sounds like you’d make a far better InhServ than me.”
“I did apply, but Lord Alistair said I wasn’t pretty enough.”
She chuckled at that, especially when she saw that light smile touch his lips again. He wasn’t insinuating anything dirty, the way Mrs. C had.
“Oh, I almost forgot. I’m so sorry. I didn’t get a chance to pick out the bread or scarf because of everything that happened, but I’d found these before.” She fished the bag of rainbow-colored lollies out of the small purse she’d carried with her to the market. “I do admit, three or four are missing. One of the wounded was a little girl who’d been on an errand for her mother. Only some superficial cuts, but while we were waiting on the mother, I gave her a handful to help her feel better.”
“They went for a good purpose, then.” He took one hand from the wheel to accept the bag and considered the colorful lollies, before handing them back to her to hold. “You are very kind, Nina,” he said quietly, returning his gaze to the road.
She studied him. “You still haven’t answered the question. Or did you? Is that why you’re nice to me? You understand the box I’m in?”
“Yes, and no.” The sun had now set so she saw his pensive expression in silhouette. But she caught the flash of pain, too real to be mistaken.
“You don’t have to tell me.” It was the most natural thing in the world for her to inject reassurance into her tone. “I don’t want to pry.”
He tilted his head, an acknowledgement. Another mile or two passed in silence before he spoke again.
“My daughter was a nurse in the Great War,” he said.
“Oh. Oh.” The verb tense registered, and she reached out, touched his prominent knuckles. “I’m so sorry, Nero.”
His attention stayed on the road, his expression quiet. “Your sympathy is appreciated, but she is not dead. Not technically. She was captured. Treated badly. She returned home…broken.”
“Oh, Nero.”
“The doctors suggested we put her in a sanitarium,” he said at length. His jaw tightened, and the flash in his eye revealed a far more dangerous side than she suspected most butlers possessed. “I visited one of those horrible places. The only people who deserve that are the monsters who did this to her. I keep her at home. A home nurse stays with her while I work, for the care she requires is constant. Lord Alistair’s salary allowed me to hire one to help. But if my daughter sees any tools of your trade, she…becomes very unmanageable. The doctor must dress like a visitor, and examine her without examining her, so to speak. Same with the nurse. She wears my wife’s clothes. The scent helps her. My daughter thinks she is her mother. She…”
He stopped, and his gaze slid over her. “You have blood on your clothes, the scent of smoke in your hair. Yet you look happier than I’ve seen you in three days. It’s truly a capricious world, isn’t it?”
She bit her lip. “Ah, Nero. It’s a bloody messed up one.”
He grunted. She paused, mulled whether to ask. “Your wife…when did she pass away?”
"About ten years after she left us.” His lips tightened and his voice became flatter, but Nina could hear the swells of emotion that he so ruthlessly pushed down. “May, that was her name…she couldn’t bear the pain of what happened to our only child. She left in the middle of the night a few months after I decided we would be caring for Dorothy at home. I never saw her again. The hospital where she died contacted me.”
“Oh, Nero.” She repeated it, sympathy overwhelming everything else, all the more powerful because of how evenly he delivered the news, without any indication he desired sympathy. But she could well imagine the days, hours and minutes of pain he’d endured as his daughter’s mind was lost and his wife abandoned him to manage that loss alone.
She saw his throat work as he swallowed, though his face remained quiet. “I received postcards from her at first, but after several years, not so much. I pledged my service to Alistair, to the vampire world, because he helped care for my daughter. At first, I thought that was his condition of service, that I must be in his household according to his terms in order to continue to receive the financial help that is so desperately needed for her care, for the nurse who must be with her. But he showed me that was not the case.
“One morning, she was having a terrible day, but because of my fear of losing his support, I came to work, though I was sick with worry. He picked up on it, asked me about it. I tried to act the butler about it, telling him it was a home issue and all was fine, but he pried it out of me." He smiled faintly. "A butler is inscrutable, Miss Nina. If we show an emotion, it is fully intended and planned for its impact."
She thought of the day at the car, her throwing up, and his expression betraying nothing of his thoughts despite the extraordinary moment. "You're very good at it."
"That is so. But did I have ten times the skill at it, I can tell you our lord is that much more intuitive. When he determined the truth of the matter, he told me that I should be at home with my daughter. And that any day she had need of me like that, I would not be required to attend him. "There are things that matter, Nero," he said. "And things that matter.”
Our lord? And then she realized. “Crikey, you’re marked.”
“Third marked.” He nodded, unperturbed. “I was in my early fifties when Lord Alistair did that. But our relationship…he made it clear I was not a ‘third mark’ in the traditional sense of his world. I would continue to serve in the capacity of a second mark household staff member.”
As she digested that, he added, "Lord Alistair proposed it as a way to increase the chances I could outlive my da
ughter, care for her until her death. But we have an agreement. My wife, despite her inability to be with us, has never stopped being the love of my life. When my daughter passes…Lord Alistair has agreed he will end my life for me, so I can be with them. I've no interest in a world without both of them.”
“So you don’t think it will ever…get easier to bear?”
He glanced at her, a searching look, and his expression became granite, as if he knew he should tell her something that wasn’t true. But in the end, he didn’t, and she was grateful for it.
“Not if the ones who hold my heart are where I can't be with them. It leaves the whole world tombstone grey. Wherever they went, that's life to me. As Lord Alistair well knows. As I think you know, too.”
She did, but it surprised her to hear him mention Alistair. Then she recalled the starkness she’d seen in Alistair’s face when he leaned against Stanley’s back.
They drove in companionable silence for a while. She offered him some of the sandwich and he declined, but she split one of the biscuits Mrs. C had sent. An oatmeal raisin with nuts that was a meal itself.
Nero had opened up to her because of their shared circumstances. She suspected no one but her, Alistair and possibly Mrs. W knew about Nero’s circumstances. She was also sure the lollies and scarf were for his daughter. Nero dealt with the pain by doing. The same way she’d immersed herself in her work for the past three years. By continuing to move, one didn’t have to stop and think.
Lives were going on around her, with their own worries and challenges. She wasn’t alone in that.
She revisited the moments before the scaffold collapse and explosion. She’d wanted to keep walking, not be back in an hour. Not be back at all, and she’d fleetingly considered some improbably optimistic outcomes if she’d followed through on that desire. In an ideal world, she could still see Alistair, have something of him in her life. But it wasn’t an ideal world.