Chapter Twenty-One
Clive gathered up her limp body, a scream silent in his throat. He could not see well in the dark, but he groaned at the profuse way her wrist bled.
Langley rose from the man he’d tied, hand and foot. He stood to one side of Halsey, who stood cleaning his own blade with a lace handkerchief. He leaned against the doorframe, favoring one leg.
“Halsey!” Langley yelled at him. “You’re hurt! Do you need—?”
“No! A graze, that’s all. Let’s truss up these buggers, good and tight. Get our men to haul them to Hastings’ gaol and get the hell out of here!”
“I know a house nearby.” Halsey hobbled with Clive toward a nearby rock to sit down. “Go ahead. Your lady needs urgent care. Let me bind my wound here.”
“Come with us,” Clive urged him. “You need tending.”
“I am fine. Call upon my cousin in Fish Street. A fine Georgian house, cannot miss it. My cousin will give us one of her bedrooms and call a physician.”
“Who is this? Her name, please.”
“Lady Tracy.”
Langley ran forward to help Clive get Giselle into the carriage. He shut the door on Clive and uttered a few words to the driver, and that man slapped the reins on the horses. “Now we fix you, Halsey!”
Clive could not get to the house and help fast enough.
Horror that he might lose Giselle seared his veins like poison.
He had tied her limbs, but not stopped the bleeding of her wrist. For that he mopped up the streaming fluid by applying the only thing to hand—a rough coach blanket.
In agony, he gathered her cold body close.
“It’s not far,” he crooned for Giselle.
She heard him not.
But he continued to speak to the woman in his arms, speaking of marriage and children, life in London or Richmond or anywhere else on earth she wished to go. “All of it will be ours, my darling. I promise you.”
Less than five minutes later, the hack pulled up to a stone house near the edge of town. A man appeared, curious and officious. The butler, Clive supposed.
“I am a friend of Lord Halsey,” he told the silver-haired gentleman as he opened the carriage door.
“I need help for my wife.” He called her what she was in his heart and for the benefit of any propriety this household upheld.
“We need accommodation and a surgeon or physician.” He secured Giselle in his grasp.
The man, alarmed, thrust up a hand. “One moment, sir. I will call a footman.”
He ran away and returned in a moment. “Do not disturb her, sir, until my man joins us. I’ve called my lady.”
“Lady…?” Clive had trouble recalling the woman’s name.
“Lady Tracy, sir. She comes.”
As if conjured from the man’s words, a woman rushed out.
Young, dark hair loose upon her shoulders and eyes wide at the scene before her.
“Roberts, call James to help us.” She pushed inside, wincing at the looks of the bloody ties on Giselle’s wrist and the stains on her skirts.
“The wound on her thigh has stopped bleeding. A good sign. But these… Not to worry, sir. We know what to do here.”
“A surgeon?”
“Yes. We will send for one. Roberts, we’ll carry her into the downstairs library. My chaise longue will serve. Bring it forth. Get Mrs. Howard to bring us bandages, warm water, whisky, and vinegar.”
She latched on to Clive’s gaze. “The worst is the one to her wrist.”
Which still bleeds. He nodded. “Let’s get her settled.”
*
Lady Tracy’s surgeon was a curt, grizzled, white-haired fellow who limped into the room and, without a word, opened his leather kit and bent over Giselle.
He pushed up her skirts, saw the tourniquets and dried blood, then stretched out her afflicted arm upon the mattress. “We must move her to a proper bed.”
Clive objected. “No. Help her now.”
“Sir, I would like to. She bleeds most here.” The surgeon pointed to her forearm, where the bloody cravat showed bright-red blood still seeping out.
“This wound is deeper than those on her calves and thighs. I must clean the gash and stitch her up. I need her arm extended and flat. I cannot do that here.” He arched a brow and waved a hand at two footmen. “Move her.”
Lady Tracy clapped her hands twice, and her tall, sturdy-looking footmen stepped forward. “You will carry her up to the blue bedroom. Mary,” she called, and a young maid stepped forward. “Get us some sturdy bedding. Big enough to carry this lady. Hurry.”
Meanwhile, the surgeon listened to Giselle’s heart, took her pulse from her good wrist, nodded to himself, and tested the blood flow in her legs by pressing on her ankles. Through it all, he hummed. Not a tune, not a high or low note, but one hmmmm, as if he were a bee.
The maid was fast, gone and back in minutes with a bed quilt.
Two footmen, under the direction of the butler, slid Giselle into the cover they held like a sling. Cupping her into the cradle of it, they gingerly took her up the stairs to a bedroom on the next floor. There they laid her upon a wide bed.
Clive took her hand as the surgeon—Donald Yarborough by name—bound her forearm above and below the wound with thin strips of leather that he had extracted from his bag.
Once he strapped her arm above and below her wound, he removed from his kit a horrendous-looking machine, a tall brass screw with a handle.
“Dear heavens,” Clive exclaimed. “What in hell is that?”
“My Petit screw, sir. From His Majesty’s army tour of the thirteen colonies. Saved many a life.”
“How do you use it?” Clive had never seen such a contraption.
“It screws down on the leather bands. Stops the bleeding, it does. Stand back.”
Clive sat with a thunk in the nearest chair, silent and helpless, watching the man move with a dexterity that belied his years.
“Lady Tracy sent the maids for a pot of hot water. Bring it here,” he instructed James the footman. He mixed salt into a pot of hot water, tested its temperature on his own elbow, nodded to himself, then dribbled the mixture liberally over Giselle’s arm.
At once, she bucked. Her eyes flew open and she made a muted cry.
“Hold her down, sir.” Yarborough was not deterred by her reaction. “It’s the salt. But she comes around, so I can administer a few drops of laudanum. She’ll take the cleansing better that way.”
Clive winced, but held his tongue. The man knew what he was about.
After the application of a few stitches to her arm, Yarborough pushed up Giselle’s skirts, cut them away with long shears, and cleaned her wounds there.
For the next few hours, he repeated the cleansing and the changing of bandages.
Dawn crept into the room as he finished his tasks, asked for yet another bowl of fresh, hot water, and rolled down his shirt sleeves.
“Your assessment, sir?” Clive watched him wash his hands, clean his sewing needle and his iron screw for his tourniquet.
“Her wound to her arm will heal. But it is by far the worst of the four. Those on her legs, as you saw, required only a few stitches. All of them must constantly be bathed in warm water and new bandages applied. All of that will make her scream. A good dose of laudanum will ease her suffering. Do not hesitate to give her another dose. She must not disturb those stitches in her arm, either. Tie her free hand down, if you must. But keep her calm.” Yarborough handed Clive a vial of laudanum.
“If she becomes feverish, wipe her down with cool cloths. Try to make her drink water and strong tea. No spirits. I will return later today.”
Clive caught his arm. “She will recover?”
“She will.” Yarborough gave him a quick smile. “Slowly. She has lost much blood. Her attacker tried to slash her wrists. Always a severe wound. But your lady is healthy. Give her time, plenty to drink, broth and soup. Use the laudanum as she needs. Spare it not. Let her recover in peace and quiet.”
“The laudanum will not make her permanently addicted?”
“After today and tomorrow, diminish the quantity each time you administer it. I will give you a dropper. Rest easy, sir. Your lady will recover well.”