Chapter Seven
Shouts went up from all the players around the Snapdragon table.
Selena leaped back, terror spiking through her as she batted at the flames consuming the lower part of her gown’s left sleeve.
“Don’t move!” Dr. Scott wrapped Selena in his arms and propelled them both to the floor, where he rolled back and forth, trapping her arm between their bodies. When he stopped moving, Selena lay beneath him, his face just inches from hers, her heart thundering in her ears.
“Are you all right?” Dr. Scott’s blue eyes bore into hers. His breath brushed her lips with the sweet scent of fruit and brandy.
Selena was highly aware of the weight and feel of every inch of the masculine body that lay atop hers. A heat raced through her, even though she sensed that the flames on her sleeve had been extinguished. “I … think so,” she whispered, wishing the contact would never end. But it did, all too soon.
As Dr. Scott helped Selena to her feet, Colonel Blackwood cried, “Good man. In the army, I learned the practice of rolling over to smother flames when clothing catches fire, but I have rarely seen the method put into practice.”
Selena had read about the principle as well and had used it to great effect, two years ago, when Athena had suffered a similar emergency.
Dr. Scott held on to Selena’s left hand and studied her arm, his eyes worried.
The lower section of her left sleeve hung in blackened shreds, revealing red blotches on Selena’s pale skin beneath. Strangely, though, she felt no pain.
“You’ve been burned, Miss Taylor. I’ll need to treat that at once.” Dr. Scott turned to Mrs. Hillman. “Ma’am, if you would be so good as to ring for a servant? I need several things, and I need them at once.”
“Yes, Doctor.” Mrs. Hillman pulled the bell cord.
Dr. Scott directed Selena to a sofa and sat down beside her. “I’m afraid I have to tear your sleeve.”
“Go ahead. It’s ruined, anyway,” Selena told him.
As the doctor ripped the fabric to expose Selena’s flesh, Mrs. Middleton appeared and crossed to Mrs. Hillman. “You rang, ma’am?”
“We’ve had an accident,” Mrs. Hillman replied. “Dr. Scott requires some supplies.”
“Please bring me two buckets, one filled with snow and the other with cold water,” Dr. Scott requested of the housekeeper. “I also need clean white cloths, a fork, a bowl, a jar of honey, and two egg whites.”
“Honey and egg whites?” Mrs. Middleton repeated uncertainly.
“Yes, and please be quick about it,” the doctor replied.
The housekeeper curtsied and hurried from the room.
“I’m so sorry, everyone, but I fear this puts an end to our evening’s festivities,” Mrs. Hillman announced.
“But who won at Snapdragon?” Mrs. Whitlock demanded.
“Does it matter?” blurted out Miss Thompson, her eyes round with apparent dismay at her employer’s unfeeling remark. The moment she’d said the words, she blushed crimson and stared at the carpet, her shoulders hunched.
“We needn’t declare a winner,” agreed Mr. Davis, “but I’d give the honors to Miss Taylor. She withstood the most perilous quest by fire.”
“Hear, hear!” cried Colonel Blackwood. The others voiced their consent.
“I bid you all goodnight,” Mrs. Hillman told the group. “I look forward to seeing you tomorrow on Christmas Day, which I dearly hope will be far less stressful than today.”
The group said their goodnights and departed. A few minutes later, Mrs. Middleton and several servants brought in the items Dr. Scott had requested. Mrs. Hillman hovered, her features etched with anxiety while the doctor tended to the burns on Selena’s left forearm.
“Thankfully, you haven’t blistered,” Dr. Scott remarked, yet he treated the area with care and attention.
First, he immersed Selena’s forearm in a bucket of water, to which he added clumps of snow.
Selena gasped at the icy coldness, but he assured her that cooling a burn was the best and most vital approach to a cure.
After gently drying her skin, he made a poultice by whipping together honey and egg whites, which he applied to the affected skin.
“This will help to soothe the region and prevent inflammation,” he explained.
During the doctor’s ministrations, Selena was too focused on the head of light-brown hair bent over her, the handsome face so close to hers, and the firm hands that gently ministered to her wounds to pay heed to the feeling of the wound itself.
But after he’d finished wrapping Selena’s forearm with a clean cloth and had tied it in place with strips from the same fabric, she began to feel the sting.
“Thank you, Doctor.” Selena gave him a grateful look.
“Are you in pain?” he asked.
“A bit,” she admitted.
“I have medication in my bag upstairs. Or a shot of brandy often does the trick.”
Selena quirked a half-smile. “I’ll take the brandy.”
“After all that, I’ll have one as well,” announced Mrs. Hillman as she sank down in a chair with a sigh.
“So will I, if you don’t mind.” Dr. Scott chuckled.
While Mrs. Middleton and the servants removed the medical paraphernalia from the room, Dr. Scott poured out three glasses of brandy from the bottle on the sideboard, handed one each to Mrs. Hillman and Selena, and kept one for himself.
“Cheers,” the doctor said. After they had downed the brandy, he added, “A good night’s rest is in order, Miss Taylor. I’ll remove the poultice from your arm tomorrow, and you should feel better in a couple of days.”
“Thank you,” Selena said again.
Mrs. Hillman picked up her fan from an end table and waved it at her face. “I need to sit here for a few minutes before I move another step. Doctor, Selena, please go on up without me.”
After they both bade Mrs. Hillman goodnight, Dr. Scott turned to Selena. “May I escort you to your room?”
Selena realized that her wish for a chance to speak to Dr. Scott privately had just been handed to her.
“I would appreciate that.” As their eyes met, a tingle swept down from her chest to invade her very core.
It rattled her that a simple look from this man could set her senses spinning—it was the exact same response she’d had to that man she’d met the summer she’d turned twenty—the man who had betrayed her so cruelly.
Had she really only just met Dr. Scott that very morning? It seemed impossible to believe.
Be wary, she again warned herself as they both picked up candles from the sideboard and ventured from the room.
*
Dr. Scott’s and Selena’s footsteps echoed along the floorboards as they headed towards the front of the house, their tapers providing the only illumination in the shadowy corridor.
“Doctor,” Selena said, “there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”
“Oh?”
“Earlier today, when we were all discussing Mr. Clarke and the question of whether or not he might have had a large sum of money in his possession …”
He glanced at her sharply. “Yes?”
“Everyone else seemed to accept that he had just been boasting due to drink. But I’m not sure I agree.”
“Oh?” he said again. His flickering candle flame cast eerie shadows across the angles and planes of his face.
“Alcohol consumption might loosen a person’s tongue and cause them to lie or boast. But—as a doctor—don’t you think it equally possible that it could cause a person to speak in a more unfettered fashion? That is, to cause them, perhaps unwittingly, to spill their secrets?”
He went quiet for a moment. “Speaking as a doctor and purely from a hypothetical point of view … it’s possible, yes.” His tone held an edge of bitterness.
It suddenly occurred to Selena that he might have had previous involvement with a similar matter. Could that be why he’d seemed so moody earlier? Had the incident reminded him of a past, unpleasant personal experience?
“Well,” Selena said as they walked on, “what if that were so in this case? The sum Mr. Clarke named was so specific. Fifty-two hundred pounds. I can’t help wondering if it was all true.”
She glanced at him. That hard look had returned to his face, as if he had gone somewhere else in his mind again.
Did he think her mad for even bringing this up?
Then his lips tightened, as though he had made a difficult decision.
He said, “I admit, I have been wondering the same thing about Mr. Clarke.”
“Have you?” Excitement rose in Selena’s chest. “My mother used to say, ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
’ And I smell smoke, Doctor. Earlier this afternoon when I was in Mr. Clarke’s room, packing up his things …
I found a letter that confirms he was raising funds for The London General Hospital. ”
He stared at her. “A letter from whom?”
“A woman—I think her name was Mrs. Stout. There was also a cheque made out to bearer for a hundred and fifty pounds. The envelope was addressed to Mr. John Clarke, which I’m guessing was his formal name.”
Dr. Scott’s scarred brow lifted at that and his eyes darkened. “Interesting.”
“We know that Jack Clarke gave two hundred pounds to Mrs. Hillman,” Selena rushed on. “But what if he had far more than that with him? What if he had fifty-two hundred pounds, which—as he said—he’d removed from his safe to safeguard it from his scheming business partner?”
Dr. Scott huffed out a scornful breath. “Do you really believe that? That he took the money to protect it?”
“I do.” She stared at him. “Why else would he have taken it?”
He paused, then said matter-of-factly, “Perhaps he stole it.”
“Stole it? That makes no sense. Why would he steal from his own fundraising venture? Besides, he said the money was in his own safe.”
The doctor’s lips tightened. “Apparently so.”