Chapter 20
Saffron woke with a start. The moon made a square on her bedclothes. Nothing moved in her room, but something was moving outside her door.
Alarm rose the little hairs on her neck. She got to her feet, and arming herself with one of her heavy textbooks, she crept to the door, and—
The arm hefting the weight fell to her side. No one was outside. She felt suddenly quite silly. She must have had another bad dream of sabotage at the ruins.
But a door opened down the hall, and Saffron opened her door just enough to see who was moving about at this hour.
Dr. Yenmeck’s balding gray head was immediately recognizable as he emerged from the room. Concern was written into the deep lines of his face as he carefully shut the door Saffron knew to be Martin Neill’s.
That was not good. The doctor being summoned in the middle of the night could only mean Martin was very ill.
She closed the door softly. Though she worried for Martin, she couldn’t look in on him, not in the middle of the night. She was struck by the need to seek out Alexander, to share her sudden fear for Martin, but that was likely an equally poor idea.
She hobbled back to bed. A few more months, maybe a year, and Alexander would be in her bed, waiting for her to return and confide her worries. That was a comforting thought, and one that drew her back into sleep.
When Alexander found Saffron in the breakfast room, he shook his head. “No, Saffron. You cannot come to the agora yet.”
“I can,” she said, shooting him a withering glare he couldn’t quite tell was serious or playful. “If I wanted to go, you couldn’t stop me. But I’m not here to insist on going to the dig site, anyway.”
He sat in the chair to her right. She’d clearly been there a while; her plate was empty but for crumbs and her cup of half-finished tea was no longer steaming. “Did you get tired of your room?”
“Yes,” she said with feeling, and held up a finger. “But I’m here because you need to check on Martin before you go to the site this morning. He is very ill and I’m worried about him.”
His brows rose. “A hangover doesn’t warrant me busting into his bedroom—”
“Hangovers don’t warrant doctors being summoned in the middle of the night.” She explained Dr. Yenmeck’s visit in the wee hours of the morning. “I want you to see how he is.”
“If the doctor’s been to see him—”
“I want you to go,” she said firmly, lowering her voice, “because I want to know his symptoms.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“A certain person on our team enjoys pulling pranks, Ashton. I want to be sure Martin’s sudden illness wasn’t caused by someone slipping him something they shouldn’t have.
He’s more likely to tell you the truth of how he’s feeling than me,” she added, unnecessarily shifting her dishes about the table.
“No one wants to detail the contents of their washbasin after a rough night, do they, least of all to a woman?”
Alexander couldn’t argue with that. It would take but a moment to ask Neill about anything strange he’d eaten, and it would put Saffron’s mind at ease. And possibly his own.
When he made it to Neill’s room, it was very dark, just a candle lit next to the bed, and it reeked of sick.
“Are you all right, Neill?” Alexander asked, coming next to the bed. By the light of the candle, Alexander could see Neill blinking up at him. “Do you mind if I turn a light on, open a window?”
“My eyes are a bit off,” Neill said weakly. “The light makes it worse. I think it’s all the smoke. I’m never around so much smoke at home.” He tried to laugh, but it ended on a groan. “I just ate something funny, that’s all.”
“What did you eat?”
“Just the same as everyone. But they all say sometimes when you go somewhere foreign, the water can—” He took a sharp intake of breath and clutched at his side.
“Easy,” Alexander said, looking about for something that might help him. Several medicine bottles littered his nightstand and dresser, all in English but none Alexander recognized would help stomach pain. “Dr. Yenmeck came you see you? What did he say?”
A gagging sound had Alexander hurrying to the bedside. He held the basin while Neill retched, and ignored the pitiful whimpers that followed.
“He said—” Neill reached with trembling hands for a soiled handkerchief on the nightstand and patted his mouth with it. “He said I would be fine after a day or two, if I can just have to enough to drink.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“I’ve tried.” His voice broke. “It just keeps coming back up. I feel like I’m going to die.”
Suddenly, Alexander had to wash his hands. He could cope with the acrid smell of vomit and the moans Neill made as he lay back on the pillow, but it was like he could feel the tiny organisms crawling on his skin.
He forced himself to move slowly toward the door.
“I’ll send a maid with tea and broth.” He paused to crack the window open.
“Drink it all, even if it comes back up, Neill. I’ll send for Dr. Yenmeck again.
” If the boy couldn’t stay hydrated, he’d need to be admitted to the hospital for fluids.
Dehydration was a killer in these circumstances.
He left the room, intent on his purpose, but Clark was descending the stairs just then.
“Clark,” Alexander barked, striding to him.
Clark paused, darting a glance down the stairs.
It gave Alexander a little smug pleasure to think he might actually try to run away. But Clark’s crude comments last night, though worth punishment, were not why he needed to speak to him now. “Did you give Martin Neill anything to eat or drink or smoke last night?”
Clark frowned. For once, he looked genuine. “Neill? No. Why?”
“He’s very ill,” Alexander said. “I wanted to make sure this wasn’t another of your pranks gone wrong.”
With a sneer, Clark replied, “I didn’t give the boy anything. Why waste my time?”
Immediately, Alexander’s temper flared hot. “Why waste your time sabotaging Miss Everleigh? What has she done to deserve it?”
A shrug was all the response Alexander got.
And that was fine; Alexander had to move on.
Between Neill being ill, Saffron being injured, and Clark clearly uncaring at the mayhem he’d caused, his team was a wreck.
The expedition, which should have been an easy two months of work, was going off the rails, and it was up to him to course correct before it became a disaster.