Chapter 13
Edwina moved without thinking, and if she had been completely considering her actions at that moment, would she have darted into his room anyway?
Yes, very probably she would have. After all, every moment she might have wasted in summoning someone else to help James might have resulted in greater injury for him, and she had not made all of this progress merely to see him wounded anew.
Plus, of course, there was her pragmatism. She wasn’t going in there for any improper or scandalous purpose, merely to see to his safety and health, which was what she was brought to McDougal Keep for in the first place.
Not that any of those arguments might have been particularly compelling to any passersby who might have chanced upon the scene.
For if they had, they would have seen an unmarried noblewoman rush over to a fully unclothed man and put her arms around him without a second thought, helping him to his feet and hauling him over to the new bed.
“What are you doing?!” he demanded. “Look away! Put me down! Get out of my chamber at once!”
“Oh, stop being a stubborn fool! And for God’s sake, stop struggling, or I shall drop you and injure you further!” she warned.
He had no recourse for further complaint or resistance, so he simply did what he could to aid her in moving his body, hoping that no one would happen by and get the wrong impression from such a sight as this.
To her credit, if Edwina was in any way embarrassed or titillated by the experience of handling his wet and naked form, she hid it well. She deposited him onto the mattress and turned away immediately, averting her eyes.
“There. Now you may cover your modesty if you wish. I mean, you ought to cover it regardless,” she added quickly, “for the sake of, ahem, propriety.”
James draped the sheet over himself. “I am covered. And thank you for your aid.”
“Gratitude at last!” she exclaimed wryly, turning back to face him again.
“Imagine my delight. You should not have attempted to get out of the tub on your own. You should have told me you wished to get out so that I could have summoned someone to assist you properly. You might have made your leg far worse and set back our progress significantly.”
“That was not my intention,” he insisted. “I merely thought, since I was able to get into the tub myself…”
“Yes, well, from now on, you must leave such things for me to decide,” she snapped. “I know you long for autonomy, and I wish to give it to you by any means available. But I am the expert in healing here, not you, and so you must bow to my knowledge in these matters. Is that understood?”
“Yes!” he shot back. “Gracious, you’re a prickly one!”
“Now, since we happen to find each other in this position,” she continued, doing her best to sound nonchalant, “you should lift the sheet from your leg so that I may have a look at your wound and its progress.”
He did as he was told, and she bent down to examine the injury, nodding gently. “Hmm. Yes, the inflammation has subsided. That means the next thing to do is remove the metal within.”
A flash of fear crossed his face. “I…am still not sure I wish to submit to such a thing.”
She felt a pang of sympathy for him. “You must, James, or you shall be locked in this prison of agony for the rest of your days, and then it will only be a matter of time until you return to the laudanum. You must put yourself in my hands and trust that I will see you through.”
“But even the most skilled of healers cannot ensure a happy outcome for any they minister to,” he reminded her, his voice strained. “How can you?”
“I cannot, any more than they can. I can only tell you that I firmly believe I can free you from your anguish by attempting it and that you have no viable alternative to consider.”
“What if I lose my leg?!” he demanded.
“If you lose your leg, you may yet survive that, as many do, and go on to live a meaningful life,” she replied calmly.
“If, on the other hand, you do not submit to this procedure, then your odds of succumbing to dependency again are far too high, and the laudanum will surely cripple and kill you in time, James. Not even that much time, truly.”
“At least I shall have one final taste of laudanum to see me through the cutting, then,” he laughed weakly. “There is that small comfort.”
She shook her head with great difficulty. “No, James, I am afraid you will not. We cannot risk allowing you to have more of the vile stuff for fear that it will reawaken the desires that we have only just begun to conquer within you. You shall have to endure it awake and alert.”
“What?! How on earth can you possibly expect me to agree to that?!” he balked. “That is far too much to ask of any man!”
Edwina put a hand on his shoulder firmly.
“Listen to me, for as I’ve said, I will not lie to you: It will be a grotesque experience and perhaps even beyond any pain you have ever felt before.
There is no helping that. I will remind you, though, that you have faced far worse than this every time you have gone to battle.
You have risked maiming, bludgeoning, cutting, and chopping.
Every time you have girded on your armor and sword, you have known full well that your leg could be pulped by a war hammer or the bone exposed by the swing of an ax.
You have, each time, been brave enough to face such possible fates with clear eyes and a courageous heart.
You can do so this time as well, James. Particularly since in all those other cases, you did not have me here to assure you that all will be well. ”
James nodded uncertainly. He did not ask what the chances were that he might not survive the endeavor at all. That, in truth, was the very least of his present worries. “When do you propose we do this, then?”
“I can make the necessary preparations as quickly as you like,” she answered. “I can do it today if you wish, though if you feel you need a day to prepare yourself for the ordeal, I understand.”
James thought it over carefully. His initial impulse, of course, was to put off this atrocity for as long as he could, so fearful was he of going through it.
But he had been a warrior, a soldier, a fighter. He knew that such an impulse was born of cowardice, nothing more, and that ultimately, no relief would come of it. Rather, he would merely be prolonging his torment by putting it off and dreading it an entire other day and night.
Even as a cripple, he refused to be a poltroon. He had lost the most important parts of himself these past months… No, that was not true. He had willingly given them away, traded them for a bottle of poison and the oblivion it brought.
Now that he was on the path to finding himself again, he knew he needed to summon all his strength and courage and do the one thing that was hardest for any warrior: submit.
“Very well,” he agreed. “We shall do it today, then. The sooner, the better.”
“A most sensible decision,” she informed him, “and a tremendously brave one. Well done. I shall assemble what I need and be ready within the hour so that you are not agonized by unnecessary waiting. Take heart, James. We’ll beat this thing together yet, I assure you.”
She covered his leg with the sheet again (a tad reluctantly, it seemed) and went to prepare.
James’s head sank back onto the pillow, and he stared at the ceiling, suddenly acutely aware of how damp his body was and how the white sheet had been clinging to it all along, exposing far more of his nude form than he’d previously realized.
Had she noticed?
He could hardly see how she hadn’t, but she had managed not to be at all obvious about it, which he couldn’t help but admire. So many others might have pretended to be scandalized by the sight of it and run from the room, bleating about modesty and propriety.
She truly was a singular lass, the likes of which he had never encountered before.