Chapter 24 #3
“Not now, Ewen. We must fix Dr. Andrews’ shoulder.”
“’Tis about Dr. Andrews’ shoulder, miss.”
“Yes, Ewen?” Arabella knew she sounded very irritable when she wanted to be calm and accommodating.
“I need to tell ye alone, miss.”
Arabella was vexed. The boy was not helping, and now he was distracting her, and Alasdair was hurting. And Alasdair had said the sooner the shoulder was put back in place, the better. She walked over to the window.
“What is it, Ewen?”
Ewen leaned and spoke in her ear.
The whisky was beginning take hold of Alasdair. Despite the terrible pain of his shoulder, warmth spread from his chest up to his head.
Where was Arabella?
Aye, she was at his side now.
“Ye shouldnae be here. Ye have to leave.”
“I won’t leave. You know I won’t.”
“Husband’s orders,” he said and hiccoughed, which jolted his right shoulder and made him wince in pain. “Or doctor’s orders. Either one.”
“Yes, either one. That’s right.” She put a hand under his chin and peered into his eyes. “Are you ready, Doctor?”
She had her hand on his face. She was standing very close to him. He could feel Paterson pick up the sheet and pull it up to chest level.
“I’ll count,” Ewen said from somewhere behind him.
Andrews picked up Alasdair’s right arm, and the pain was agonizing even though the pulling had not even started.
“One, two,” Alasdair could hear Ewen counting.
And then a sweet smell and Arabella held his face in both of her hands and she crowded her body into him and put her mouth on his.
And she was kissing him. In a totally unconstrained manner.
She was kissing him the way she had in the carriage before he had warned against impulsive acts.
Before she had handled his cock and made him spend and they had disagreed about romance.
She was fierce with her tongue and teeth, and he was worried she was going to stop, this wild female sweetness who was giving him all her attention, so he curled his left arm around her and pulled her to him tightly, and his right arm hurt like the devil, but he was also hard as Aberdeen granite in his trousers, and then he heard and felt a pop and his right shoulder stopped hurting.
Not completely, but the pain went from excruciating to bearable in the blink of an eye.
“Stop!” he yelled into Arabella’s mouth.
Arabella took her mouth from his.
“Nae ye, darling, please,” he said, looking up at her. “Them.”
The butler Andrews gently put Alasdair’s right arm at his side. Alasdair felt the sheet relax on his chest.
Arabella pulled away from Alasdair and stood in front of him. The right shoulder now looked the same as the left, with the same delicious rounding of muscle at the top.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“Ye come back here next to me, darling.”
“You are drunk, Dr. Andrews. What do we do with your arm? Oh, dear,” she turned to Andrews, “we should have asked him before we had him drink the whisky.”
“I’m nae incapacitated. We make” Alasdair hiccoughed, “a sling and a swathe to keep the arm still.”
Paterson had gotten off the bed. “I ken how to do that, miss. May I use this sheet?” He looked at the butler Andrews, who nodded.
In very short order, Paterson had ripped the sheet in thirds, and Alasdair was in a sling and swathe.
“Thank you,” Arabella said to Paterson. “And thank you, Ewen.” She turned to the butler. “And, of course, thank you, Andrews.”
“Yer welcome,” Alasdair said with his eyes closed. He lay back on the bed.
Ewen grinned and said, “Aye, yer welcome, miss. Can I borrow a book?”
“The books in this house are Lord Morpeth’s, Ewen, and right now,” Arabella cast a glance at Alasdair, “I don’t care to ask the baron for anything. But wait.” She had a thought. “My friend was to loan me a book.”
Arabella went down the hall and knocked on Rebecca’s bedchamber door. Rebecca answered the door herself and drew Arabella inside the room.
“Oh, Arabella, is the doctor well? I couldn’t find the first volume of Kenilworth for the longest time, and when I finally got downstairs, I was told . . . And then I heard some screams. Is he all right?”
“I thought he was not stupid, but it turns out he is a fool, like many men. However, I am hoping his arm will be fine,” Arabella said.
“May I borrow the Kenilworth and let the lad who has been traveling with us read it? I assure you he quite worships books and will be as careful as can be with it and will return it tomorrow and likely ask for the second volume.”
“Certainly,” Rebecca said and picked up the book and gave it to Arabella. “You can ask anything of me, as you know.”
Arabella met Ewen and Paterson in the hallway and gave Ewen the book.
She had promised herself she wouldn’t blush. “Thank you again, Ewen. For your . . . er, idea. And thank you, Paterson, for pulling so well.”
The butler Andrews was still in her bedchamber. He had taken off Alasdair’s boots, and Alasdair still lay crosswise on the bed, his knees bent and legs hanging off the edge, his eyes closed.
“I am glad Dr. Andrews’ shoulder is in place,” the butler Andrews said as he gathered the whisky, the glass, the basin. “I worried we would not be successful.”
“As did I. Thank you again for your help. And for bringing the whisky.”
“That was clever of the boy to think of having you distract the doctor. I do not think the whisky alone would have been enough.”
Arabella looked down and felt her face grow hot.
“But you should tell the coachman and the boy to stop calling you miss. Someone might misunderstand, Mrs. Andrews.”
Arabella looked quickly at the butler Andrews, who had his usual grave expression on his face.
“I—”
“And I am glad to see you found your wedding ring sometime between entering the house two nights ago and yesterday’s breakfast.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Please let me know if you or your husband require anything else, Mrs. Andrews.” He laid the barest trace of an emphasis on the word husband, and she was not sure whether or not she had imagined it. But, clearly, he knew they were not married.
Arabella nodded, and the butler bowed and closed the door behind him softly. She walked over to the not-stupid fool who was lying on her bed.
His eyes fluttered open as she approached, and he reached towards her with his left arm.
“Come lie with me, darling.”
“This is very dangerous,” she said and sat on the edge of the bed on his right side, a few feet from him, out of his reach.
“Dangerous? Nae. Ye are the one who keeps wanting me to get in bed with ye.”
“I quite like you when you’re drunk.”
“I’m nae drunk.” He raised his head. “Why do ye say that?” He laid his head back. “Ye are awfully far away.”
“You’re acting drunk, and you had four fingers of whisky in one go.”
“I’m a Scot. I’m a man.” He rapped on his chest with his left arm. “I can handle my whisky. I am, perhaps, tipsy. I meant, why do ye like me?”
“Why do I like you when you’re tipsy?”
“Aye.” He patted the mattress next to him on his left side. “At least come to this side of me, my good side, my good arm.”
She did not move. “Do you really want to know?”
“Aye.”
“I’ll tell you, and then I want you to go to sleep.”
“Aye.” And he yawned as if to show he meant it.
“Because you’re affectionate when you’re drunk.”
“Tipsy.” He closed his eyes.
“When you’re tipsy.”
“I’m always affectionate. With ye. Arabella.”
“Go to sleep.”
He fell silent.
It was true, he told himself. He wasn’t drunk.
But the alcohol and the pain and then the merciful liberation from the pain, along with her wildness, had released some shackle within him.
He wanted her close, as close as possible.
What he would do with that closeness, he did not know.
But he had no care for the future. He only knew he wanted her with him. Now.
Suddenly, it seemed stupid not to call her Arabella. She wanted it from him, so why would he not give it to her? And, of course, to have her kiss him like that. What man would reject that?
I would, he realized. I did. She would have given me everything in the carriage that morning before the snow.
He thought about sitting up, but it seemed impossible to do so.
Damn me. Damn that man I was two days ago. Damn the man I was just an hour ago.
Oh, now he felt drunk.
He might have dreamt it, but at one point he thought Arabella bent low over his chest and put her nose and mouth against his chest and inhaled.
But when he woke, the room was empty.