Chapter 24 #2
“You’re hurt. We’ll go to my bedchamber. You’ll tell me how to help you. Can you make it there?”
His face was even more white than before, and the pallor made his eyes very green.
“There’s nae a thing wrong with my legs,” he said.
But he walked very slowly and completely cradled his right arm in his left. He winced with each jar of his body as he took the stairs.
The butler Andrews suddenly appeared behind Alasdair and Arabella on the stairs.
“What can I do, Mrs. Andrews?”
Arabella turned to Alasdair questioningly.
Alasdair said through his teeth, “Ice or snow. Two strong men. And a bedsheet or a rope.”
“Please send for Paterson,” Arabella said. “Our coachman staying with the grooms. And is there another man who can assist him?”
“Yes, Mrs. Andrews. I am capable of helping.”
“Of course you are, Andrews. Thank you.”
The butler bowed, and Alasdair continued his slow upward climb, Arabella next to him until they reached the top of the stairs and then she ran ahead to open the door to her bedchamber for him.
In Arabella’s bedchamber, Alasdair very gingerly sat on the edge of the seat of the wing chair as Arabella, under his instructions, held the tails of his coat out so he did not sit on them.
“The tailcoat will be the most difficult article of clothing to remove,” he said. “But we cannae cut it. ’Tis my only one here.”
With Arabella holding the end of the left sleeve and Alasdair resting the right arm on his lap, he was able to extract his left arm.
Then Arabella moved the coat around his back, and, very slowly, trying to jostle Alasdair as little as possible, she drew the right sleeve and the entire coat over his right arm.
“That was very gentle, very good,” Alasdair said, but he had grimaced several times, and his face was still very white.
The tartan scarf fell to the floor when she unbuttoned his waistcoat. She sucked in a breath. What hope she had held in her heart when she had hemmed that length of wool for him back in Dunburn. And now that hope was all gone. Ruined by her temper.
When she picked up the scarf and put it on top of his folded tailcoat, she looked at his face, but it was unchanged. She was sure his mind was wholly concentrated on controlling his own pain.
In comparison to the tailcoat, the waistcoat was easier to remove—no sleeves.
The shirt was next. Alasdair pulled his left arm out of the sleeve by bending his own elbow towards his trunk as she held the cuff.
Shirt gathered towards his neck, Alasdair’s chest exposed.
She was close to him, her breasts almost brushing his face as she lifted the shirt over his head.
Maybe she was an aberration, and Alasdair was right. Maybe women as a rule did not feel lust. Only she did. She and Catherine, her shameful mother.
Because, even now, when Arabella was angry, when she was sure they had no future together, when he was hurt and she was worried, the appearance of his bare chest aroused her.
She wanted to press her hands to it and feel him, his muscle, his ribs, the beat of his heart.
And the smell of him made her want to bury her face in the copper hair of his chest and breathe deeply.
She bit her lip. She was wanton like her mother. She was bad like her mother. No wonder she had been seduced so easily two years ago.
But maybe her thinking was wrong. What of Mary, her half sister?
Mary had walked with Arabella on the shingle in Cornwall and spoken of many things regarding the mysteries between men and women.
Mary felt desire, too—strong desire from what she had said.
If Arabella were an aberration, Mary was one, too.
And Mary had none of Catherine’s blood in her.
Alasdair’s head was down, and he was purposefully not looking at her bosom even though it was right in front of him. Oh, if only he would lift his head and look at her and she could kiss him.
But it would do nothing for his pain. And it would only remind him she could never be a good wife for him since she could control neither her lust nor her temper.
She very carefully brought the shirt down over his right arm and removed it and stepped back.
Standing in front of him, Arabella could see how the right shoulder was too squared off, too bony in comparison to the smooth roundness of the muscle of the left shoulder.
“Is it broken?”
“Nae, I dinnae think.” He finally raised his head and looked at her. “The shoulder is a joint where a ball sits into a socket. The ball has come out of the socket. It must be put back in. The more quickly, the better.”
“Will,” she faltered, “will you be able to use the arm again?”
Her blonde brows were knit together, and there was a small crease just over the bridge of her little nose. Her voice trembled when she asked about his arm. She was worried. For him.
Her worry gave him some hope they would get beyond this horrible time. When he was out of pain, he would fix this mess between them. He would apologize for any and all wrongs, and she would be his Arabella again.
He wished she would step back where she had been just a moment before.
When her perfect, high, round breasts had been where he would most want them to be—inches from his mouth.
They had been both so beautiful and so close that he had had to look away.
But now he wanted them back. He wanted her close.
He wanted to reach his left arm out and draw her to him, but when he began to release his grip on his right arm, the pain surged, and he kept his left hand where it was.
“Aye.” He tried to smile. “Aye, I mean I willnae be able to use it for a few days, but it will all come right as a trivet. Ye will see.”
The butler Andrews knocked and came in. He carried a basin of snow, some folded sheets, a bottle of amber liquid, a drinking glass.
“I have sent for your coachman. I do understand your wanting your own people around you, but I assure you that I and all the footmen are more than willing to do whatever you require of us, Dr. Andrews.”
“Thank ye, Andrews,” Alasdair said and winced. “The snow should go on the shoulder until Paterson gets here.”
“And I have some whisky here, Doctor, for your pain.”
“Nae, thank ye.”
Arabella took the basin of snow from the butler Andrews and scooped up a handful and pressed it against the front of Alasdair’s shoulder.
“Yer hand will get too cold, Mrs. Andrews,” he said.
“It’s just until Paterson gets here, as you said, Dr. Andrews.”
And he was very glad to have her close to him, her tending to him, her pressing the snow into his shoulder.
It was not long before Paterson was brought to the room by a footman.
Ewen MacEwen had also decided to come along.
In those minutes waiting for Paterson, Arabella had to gather more snow into her hand twice, and Alasdair saw her hand had turned red from the cold.
Oh, how he wanted to warm that hand in some way.
“The snow has helped the pain,” Alasdair said, looking at her.
Her brows relaxed a bit when he said that. He carefully rose from the wing chair and walked to the bed where he had couried into her.
“I thank ye.”
As Alasdair sat on the edge of the bed and gave instructions to Paterson and Andrews, Ewen investigated the room.
“’Tis the size of a whole cottage, miss,” Ewen explained. He seemed to like the curtains, particularly. “’Tis like the fur of an animal.” He stroked the velvet with his hand.
Arabella shushed him. She wanted to hear what Alasdair was saying.
“Paterson, ye will put the sheet around my chest and kneel on the bed behind me and pull the ends of the sheets back towards ye with all yer might.”
“Like reins,” Paterson said.
“Exactly. And, Andrews, ye will take my right arm and extend it straight out and pull as hard as ye can. The two of ye will be pulling in opposite directions, and the shoulder should pop back into place.”
The butler Andrews nodded. Paterson looked at the ruffled counterpane and said, “Begging yer pardon, miss,” and took off his boots before he got onto the bed. He knelt behind Alasdair and looped the sheet in front of his chest and gripped the two ends tightly.
Alasdair took a deep breath.
The butler Andrews took hold of his arm, and Arabella could see Alasdair was close to screaming.
“On three, pull,” he said through his teeth. “One, two, three–”
He did scream then. And though the men pulled with all their might, when the butler Andrews finally relaxed his pull on Alasdair’s arm and Paterson relaxed his reins made of a bedsheet, the right shoulder was still bony, still squared off.
Through his tears, Alasdair said, “I am sorry, Arabella, I should have sent ye out of the room.”
He had called her Arabella. Finally. Maybe he didn’t hate her.
“Nonsense,” she said. “I wouldn’t have listened.” She stepped up to him and touched his left shoulder gently. “Why didn’t it work?”
“I’m too tense in the shoulder girdle. The pain keeps the muscle from relaxing.”
“Perhaps the whisky, Dr. Andrews,” the butler Andrews said and went to get the bottle he had set down on the table.
“I’d rather keep my wits about me,” Alasdair said, trembling.
“I’d rather get your arm back in its socket,” Arabella said.
She moved her hand on his left shoulder towards his neck and the triangle of muscle that lay between the neck and his shoulder.
Then she felt the same muscle on the right.
It felt very hard on both sides. Surely, these muscles were not always this rigid.
“Give the doctor a very large whisky, Andrews.”
The butler Andrews poured four fingers, and Alasdair took the offered glass into his left hand and drank it. Three long gulps. Arabella took the glass from him as he shook his head and exhaled through his teeth.
“All right,” he rasped. “Let’s try again.”
“Let the whisky work, Dr. Andrews.” She did not know how he would be able to bear having his arm pulled like that again.
“Miss,” Ewen said. He was standing by the window. “Miss.”