She climbed into bed with his taste on her mouth. The feel of his body against hers as he caught her before she tumbled down the stairs. The warmth of him. . .

Stop it, Emma Margaret, she reminded herself sharply. There’s no room in your life for such lollygagging. Concentrate on your work, not schoolgirl fantasies.

But she looked at the heavy medical tome on the desk and simply sank deeper into the bed. She felt peculiar, almost dreamy, and she wanted to hug that feeling to herself for just a little while. Oh, she had a thousand plausible excuses not to get up and get her mind back where it should be, but she knew the essential truth. She wanted to curl up in bed and think about Brandon Rohan.

It had been a cold, rainy evening when she’d arrived at St. Martin’s Military Hospital. She’d rolled up her sleeves and put on one of the unfortunate leather aprons they were required to wear, not unlike those worn by butchers to repel blood. There were few women who worked as volunteers at night—most of them were required to earn their living in the dark hours, either on the streets or in a house and they couldn’t afford the time. Yet the nights were hardest for these poor lost boys, and that was when she was needed.

“You’ll need to go stay with Number Thirty-seven,” the nursing sister told her. “He won’t make it through the night and he’s restless. See what you can do to soothe him. The rest are all doing as well as can be expected.”

She’d nodded. Number Thirty-seven had come in with a new shipment of the wounded from the Afghan Wars. The worst ones died on the trip and were buried at sea. Few in his condition survived this long, though there were a handful who held on until they reached their home shores—only to die once they’d accomplished that. Death was a strange thing, she’d observed. The body made its own decisions, regardless of medical wisdom, and when a patient decided to die all the brilliant treatment in the world couldn’t save him.

Number Thirty-seven was one of those. He had no name or memory, in fact the thirty-seventh in that condition to die like that. She wove her way through the parallel rows of beds to the alcove near the fire—the place the patients ghoulishly referred to as “the Styx” in reference to the Greek river leading to hell. It was believed that moving a mortally wounded patient there eased the others, but in truth it only made the entire process more mysterious. Death was a fact of life, Emma knew, and it was only through these checks and balances that things began to make sense.

The boy was still and silent when she sank down on the stool beside him. He was very bad indeed—the entire left side of his body had suffered terrible damage, including his face, but he had managed to survive the long trip home despite it. He’d spoken very little since he’d arrived, and she had known he wouldn’t be with them long.

She reached out and put her hand on his thin, almost claw-like, one—not bothering to wonder at her compassion for these poor, lost boys. As a rule, she despised men, but these were the wounded who needed nurturing, not unlike the women she lived with in Melisande Carstairs’s vast house. Their need put everyone on an even footing, and she looked at him with tenderness.

He’d opened his eyes then, looking up at her. They were clouded with pain and acceptance, and he pulled his hand from hers. “Don’t waste your time on me, sister,” he said. “The living could use your sweetness more than I.”

If she’d taken his dismissal, things would have gone very differently in her life, but her contrary nature had kicked in, She caught his hand in hers, holding it tightly. “I’m not a sister,” she’d said. “I have no medical training—I come in here to help.”

“Then help me by leaving me alone.” His voice was far from strong. He would die that night—she recognized all the signs. Except that she wasn’t going to let him.

And he wasn’t a boy, though they all seemed like boys to her, helpless and dying. He was probably near her own age, and he didn’t have the hard look of a life of toil. He didn’t belong in this hospital—somewhere he had family looking for him, and they would never know he died.

He wasn’t strong enough to pull away from her, and she could see his frustration. “Go away,” he choked out.

“Stay,” she said to him.

Her single word seemed to startle him, and he looked at her in shock, no longer struggling. “Why?” he whispered.

It seemed as if the two of them were alone in the vast building, the moans and snores simply background like the crackling of the fire. “Because I did,” she said simply. “I stayed. Dying is easy. It’s making a good life, despite all the terrible things you’ve done, that’s hard.”

“You don’t know the terrible things I’ve done. The things you do in a war. You can’t even imagine it.”

She’d been thinking of herself, of her choice to sell her body, because at one point it had been a choice. His words hinted at things that were far, far worse.

“You can’t change what you’ve done,” she said. “You can only accept responsibility and move forward.” Her hand tightened on his. “You do not strike me as a coward, Thirty-seven.”

She almost thought she saw his grim mouth curve at the name. “I am everything despicable,” he said flatly, his voice weak. “If you knew what I’d done you would agree.”

“Tell me, then. And I will tell you honestly if death is what you deserve. There are a great many men here who are fighting to survive. My time could be better spent with them.”

“Go then. I told you to.”

“Tell me,” she repeated. And he did.

In fact, that had been the last time she could remember even coming close to tears. He made his confession in a rough whisper, holding her hand in the darkness, and while he talked he held off death. He talked for hours, alone in the darkness with her, and when he was done the sun was coming up, a faint glow coming in the windows set high in the walls, and he had made it through the night.

Death had left him—he seemed as if a huge weight had left him as well, and his eyes were clearer when he looked up at her. “You’re a harpy, you know,” he said, his voice stronger. “What’s a man to do to get a little peace in this world?”

“Not die,” she replied flatly, hiding her emotions.

He had surveyed her, considering. “I will make a bargain with you. I won’t die today. Come back tonight and convince me to last another day.”

“Perhaps,” she said, planning on doing just that. She stood up. The day was beginning, and she needed to return to Melisande’s household to see what needed to be done. Whether he lived or died, she would still be back.

“And one more thing. Give me something to live for?”

She eyed him warily. “What is that?”

“Kiss me, sister.”

She’d frozen. “I told you, I’m not a sister. And I’m not someone who kisses strange men.” She wasn’t someone who kissed any man. The men who had bought her favors hadn’t been interested in kisses—to them paying money had precluded the need for kisses, or kindness, or tenderness. The dismal, unlikely truth was that she had never kissed anyone.

“I’m not a strange man. You know me better than anyone in this world.”

She could sense rather than see the wariness in him. He was testing her—his injuries, the terrible things he’d told her should have made most women recoil in horror.

If she hesitated, she wouldn’t do it, and she knew he would be dead when she arrived that night. Leaning over, she cupped his bandaged face gently in her hands and pressed her mouth to his.

His lips were cracked and dry from fever, and when she drew back he’d closed his eyes, tension leaving his body. There was even the faintest trace of a smile on his mouth. “Tonight, Harpy,” he’d said.

She’d wondered then whether she’d misjudged things. Whether he’d wanted the kiss as a last blessing on earth, and she half-expected that there’d be a new soul in the Styx when she arrived the next night. She was right.

The man lying in the alcove was a stranger, one whose amputation had turned septic, who’d been secured to the bed with straps to keep him from tossing himself onto the floor. She stood at the entrance, her eyes barely seeing the poor man, as grief filled her heart.

“Don’t waste your time with him, Emma,” Sister had said as she pushed past her into the little room. “Thirty-seven’s been asking for you.”

She’d managed to compose herself by the time she found him at the far end of the row of beds, a rough curtain shielding him from the others. “You decided to delay your departure, I see,” she said caustically from the foot of his narrow bed.

His smile was faint but clear. “My own harpy! I’m counting on your torment to keep me alive.”

“I’m more than happy to oblige.” She sank down on the chair beside him. And so had begun almost two weeks, where he had slowly improved, where each night he had demanded a kiss, insisting he wouldn’t be alive when she returned if she didn’t give him one.

She knew it was hogwash, just as she knew he didn’t belong in the rough wards of St. Martin’s Military Hospital. He had the voice of a gentleman, and she had yet to meet anyone who could falsify those tones. She had kissed him anyway, the soft brush of her mouth against his—harmless, innocent. Until the last night, when the kiss became something quite different.

He’d grown stronger, he’d been sitting up in bed, and she’d moved her chair closer, night by night. For some reason she continued to hold his hand—the human touch kept him tethered to this earth, she thought, never realizing it kept her tethered to him. Until the last night, or early morning, when she rose to leave him, and leaned over to give him her chaste, affectionate kiss.

Instead he’d caught her arm, tugging her off balance, and deftly managed to slip his hand behind her head to hold her in place while he deepened the kiss, pushing her mouth open with his, using his tongue.

She’d been too shocked to react, had simply let his kiss her, long and slow and hard, so thoroughly she felt. . . she felt. . .

His grip loosened, and she stumbled back from him, her hand to her mouth. “Harpy. . .” he’d said, laughter and concern in his voice, but she whirled and ran, through the crowded ward without a backward glance.

For six days she didn’t return. Six long days while she relived that kiss, the feelings that had flooded her body, the disgust, the fear, the longing, and then she knew she couldn’t stay away any longer. She’d returned to the hospital in the middle of the night, and for a panicked moment she hadn’t been able to find him.

He was in a small room off the hall, a room with a bed and a table and nothing else, and in the lamplight she could see he slept deeply. There was laudanum on the small table, in reach if he needed it, and she knew from experience that he’d been using it too freely.

She climbed onto the bed, careful not to jar him, but he slept on, the siren drug keeping him captive. She lay against his undamaged side, watching him. His hand lay on the bed, and she took it in hers, held it while he slept, and it was hours before she drifted off, content just to watch him breathe.

When she had awoken he was gone, the bed empty, and the kindly sister was looking at her in pity.

“His family came, Emma,” she had said. “He remembered who he was. His family was in Somerset, but we sent a message, and they arrived this morning, full of relief and tears and rejoicing.”

Emma had felt nothing, nothing at all. “Did he say anything?”

Sister had shaken her head. “He was still sleeping when they took him – I don’t think he knew you were here. He’d been missing you—kept asking for you, but I told him we never knew who’d be helping. I thought it would be better not to say anything to the family.”

“Very wise,” she’d mumbled, climbing off the bed.

He had forgotten her, had her lovely boy. The moment his memory had returned her existence had been relegated to a trifle, not even worth a word of thanks or farewell, and she could thank God he’d been too deeply drugged to realize she’d been there last night.

She hadn’t been surprised. Apparently, he was the son of a marquess, a lord himself. No wonder he’d wanted to distance himself from the dingy hospital and the soiled doves who worked there.

She’d been grateful, so grateful that his leaving had prevented her from making a very great mistake. He had gone, and she had accepted it, determined to move on with her life.

Until she found him again, in the house of Melisande’s lover, and known, to her joy and despair, that her life wasn’t through with him yet.