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freeze.”
    “You’re supposed to. It’s part of the treatment. You know this. You took cold baths at Glen Echo.”
    “I hated them.”
    “It quiets your raging humors.”
    “There will be more than my humors raging if I get into a freezing bath in a cold room.”
    “I’ll put coal on,” I said, glancing to the plaster stove, no doubt as decoratively ineffective as the one in his room. “Now get in.”
    “No.”
    I glared at him. “Mr. Farber, I have had a very trying morning. I have just spent two hours drawing you a bath. I have a bruise on my shin, and my fingers are crushed. If you don’t get in of your own accord, believe me, I shall make you.” A strand of hair fell over my forehead and into my eye, ruining whatever semithreatening stance I’d managed. I let it lie, still glaring at him, while he glared back at me. Truly, I was angry enough to try to make him get into the bath, though I had no real idea if I could budge him.
    Thankfully, he rose and stepped over to the tub. He didn’t take his gaze from mine. And then, before I realized what he meant to do, he lifted his nightshirt over his head and pulled it off, dropping it to the floor.
    I had never seen a fully naked man before. My charges at Glen Echo had all been women. My gaze moved involuntarily to the part of him I was curious about before I jerked my gaze upward again in embarrassment, and noticed the mottled brown bruises and contusions crisscrossing his ribs, a deep purple one wrapping around his hip—and then I realized his knee was so rainbow colored and swollen it did not look like a knee at all. Even after a month, the bruises were livid, deep-tissue tears and hematomas. I had not suspected such damage.
    “Most women don’t look so horrified when I undress,” he said.
    “Oh dear God,” I breathed. “What did they do to you?”
    “Well, they wanted my money, and no witnesses, and I was in no state to stop them, as you know.” He swayed, grabbing the lip of the tub, and I realized his knee would not hold him for so long. I hurried over.
    “Let me help you.” I put his arm over my shoulders, taking most of his weight as he got into the tub, forgetting my embarrassment in compassion. He lowered himself into the water, splashing over the marblelike floor.
    He shuddered. “Damn, this is cold.”
    “It will help—”
    “Calm my raging humors. Yes, I know.” His skin was covered with gooseflesh.
    “And it will help with the swelling too. And quite possibly the pain.”
    “Do you know what would really help with the pain?”
    “Mr. Farber—”
    “I think you should call me Samuel. Now that you’ve seen me in my natural state.”
    “I had no idea they’d hurt you so badly.”
    “Please tell me that means you’ve changed your mind about the laudanum.”
    I shook my head. He was shivering. I felt bad about that too. “I’m sorry. I am.”
    “This is only punishment.”
    “It’s beneficial—”
    “It’s torture. Bring me some goddamned laudanum!” He slapped his hand in the water, splashing more onto the floor, onto my gown.
    “No. And acting like a child is not going to help.”
    “You said yourself it looks horrific. Imagine how it feels .”
    “I do. I can.”
    He opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again. He said, slowly and with great restraint, “I can’t sleep for the pain. I can’t bear it when I’m awake.”
    “The laudanum only makes you more sensitive. Ten more minutes in the bath. Then I’ll bring arnica. I think we’ll forget aboutrubefacients today.”
    “Rube—what?”
    “Liniment. And rubbing. You should be familiar enough with it.”
    “The burning salve, you mean.” His chin dipped to his chest, his hair coming forward to hide his face. “Please God, not that. Not today.”
    The pain in his voice, the resignation . . . it made me want to do whatever he asked. How was it possible to look at such pain and not be moved?
    But I’d been so moved before, and look how