Free A Bouquet of Thorns by Tania Crosse

fancy pen and ink set on the top of the desk. Her hand trembled as she picked it up. Could she possibly . . . without scratching . . .
    â€˜Rose, they’ve just turned in at the gate!’ Florrie’s anxious whisper came around the door.
    Rose’s heart tripped over itself. She replaced the knife. Everything looked as it had been. She scuttled out of the study, her mouth slackened in defeat. When would she get another chance?

Five
    R aymond Power blinked his eyes and lifted his head slowly from where he had fallen asleep over the table. He hadn’t been home to his own bed for two nights. How could he, when Seth Collingwood was not only in agony from his flogging, but was wheezing and coughing with frightening violence? Had the doctor done the right thing? Only time would tell. His conscience wouldn’t allow him to leave the prison infirmary until he knew, and so once again he had stayed at his post all through the night. His neck was stiff from lying in such an awkward position and he wasn’t quite as young as he used to be. He stretched, wincing softly, but then was racked with guilt at the low moan that came from the end bed, for surely Collingwood was suffering far worse than he was.
    He had kept the poor devil floating on morphine since his punishment, stitching the lacerations to his back with the same delicacy he had once used on a young girl who had cut her cheek badly. Then he had bound the fellow’s torso to compress the swelling flesh and also reduce the pain from coughing, changing the bandages each day to help prevent infection. The scars would fade to a reasonable extent as the years passed – if he survived – but he would be marked for life.
    Dr Power bent over him, taking his pulse, which was near normal now and, he felt sure, a little stronger. He would normally have someone who had been flogged lying on his front, but Collingwood was in more danger from his lungs and so the physician had him propped up on several soft pillows. His face was like putty, and when his wandering eyes half opened, they stared out blankly from ink-smudged sockets.
    â€˜I didn’t hurt her . . . I swear.’ The words were barely breathed on a sighing whisper, his pale lips not moving so that the sounds were slurred and almost inaudible. But the agitation was clear in his feeble voice, and he whimpered as he drew in a series of tiny, snatched breaths, every one of which caused him pain. He moaned weakly again and his eyelids drooped closed, but Dr Power knew that there was consciousness behind the deathly mask.
    He leaned over so that his mouth was against the convict’s ear. The medical assistant was dealing with another felon who had lost some fingers at the quarry, and the doctor didn’t want anyone else to hear.
    â€˜I know you didn’t, lad,’ he whispered back. ‘But you must be careful what you say. We mustn’t get Mrs Chadwick into any trouble, now, must we?’
    To his amazement, Collingwood’s eyes flashed wide open for just a moment with a depth of comprehension that took Dr Power by surprise. There was a strength and intelligence in this fellow that shone through his broken body, and yet again the good physician was inclined to believe that there had indeed been some grave miscarriage of justice here. And Rose Chadwick had obviously spent some time with the fellow, and he was sure she wasn’t the type easily to be taken in.
    â€˜You need to start taking in some fluids,’ he said, his voice at a normal level now. There was a jug of water and two feeding cups on a crude table between Collingwood’s bed and the next, and the doctor filled one of them, holding the spout to his patient’s lips. He always had deep misgivings about the water that came from the open leat and was doubtless the cause of the frequent bouts of diarrhoea from which all the prisoners suffered. In the infirmary, he instructed his assistants to boil all drinking