Chapter 4
“What an exceptional patient.” Clara checked the neat line of stitches she’d sewn into Hugh’s thigh. Her father would have been proud of the deftness of her work. Steady heart, he’d often said, steady hands.
“I think the gallon of brandy you poured into him helped,” Desmond noted, as Hugh’s head lolled back on the pillows. “Barely had to hold him down.”
“He might not like this, however.” Clara tipped the bottle of brandy so that amber liquid spilled over the stitches.
Hugh cried out, and Gideon pressed down on his shoulders, preventing the wounded man from shooting up from the bed. After a few moments, Hugh subsided, and seemed to fall into a doze.
“What the hell was that for?” Desmond asked. “His leg doesn’t need to get soused.”
“It was my father’s practice to douse a wound with spirits.” Clara cleaned her tools thoroughly with soap and fresh warm water before arraying them to air dry. “He held a belief that it somehow helped stave off putridity, and so, I continued the custom.”
Desmond looked dubious, but Gideon said, “I reckon the lady knows of what she speaks. Between all of us, she possesses the most experience in these matters.”
Clara inclined her head at the unexpected compliment.
“Initially,” she murmured, “the villagers were suspicious that I’d have the necessary knowledge to treat to them.
There was a physician, of course, but the people in the village had little familiarity with women carrying leather doctors’ satchels and utilizing techniques gleaned from Edinburgh universities. ”
“Edinburgh,” Hugh slurred. “Best damn schools in th’ world.”
His head flopped back once more, his mouth opening as he began to snore.
“They came to rely upon me for most of their medical needs,” she went on, once she was certain her patient was asleep. “Especially because I don’t charge them for it.”
“Not a ha’penny?” Desmond asked, surprised.
“Not even a sou. I have no need for their money, so it seems ridiculous to take coin from people who rely upon every cent to survive.”
“Well, hell,” Gideon said, brows lifting.
“I’ve even delivered a few babes, but that is a harrowing prospect, to be responsible for ushering in new life.” Satisfied that her tools were in order, she moved to Hugh and set her hand on his forehead. He barely stirred beneath her touch. “Well, we’ll see in a few hours if infection takes hold.”
At that moment, a scowling Cyrus appeared in the doorway, with Liam hovering behind him. “He’ll make it through the night?”
Despite having just sewn up the gunshot wound of a highwayman, and keeping her head whilst speaking with two other thieves, Clara shrank back. Words evaporated on her tongue, and she found herself looking to Desmond.
“Aye,” Desmond said, “Mrs. Ballantine did a fine job of it.”
“Then we need to get the hell out of here,” Cyrus clipped.
“Can’t do that,” Gideon answered. “If we move Hugh too soon, he’ll get worse. We have to stay put until tomorrow night.”
“Fuck,” Cyrus growled.
Clara flinched. It was one thing to hear the men use profanity in playful banter, but entirely unpleasant when the gang leader used it.
“Language.” Desmond’s gaze flicked to Clara.
Cyrus rolled his eyes. “We’re taking over her fucking house. She better get used to how we talk.”
“He won’t be healed enough to move by tomorrow night,” she ventured.
Cyrus snapped his fingers at her. “You. Mrs. Ballantine.”
She clenched her teeth at the way he’d sneered her name. “Yes?”
“Make sure he stays alive for the next four and twenty hours or else you won’t.”
“Don’t threaten her,” Desmond rumbled.
“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want. And I want to get some sleep after this dung heap of a night. I’m commandeering one of the bedchambers.” With that, Cyrus stalked off, Liam close at his heels.
Desmond and Gideon watched him go, both of them wearing troubled expressions.
Once his footsteps faded away, Clara sagged with an exhalation. “Is he…always like that?”
“He didn’t use to be,” Desmond said pensively. He glanced at her. “You look near ready to drop where you stand.”
“I’m alright.” Even as she spoke, her legs wobbled beneath her. Exhaustion pulsed through her in heavy waves.
“I’ll take first watch with Hugh,” Gideon volunteered. He grabbed a chair from where it stood against the wall and dragged it next to the bed, then dropped into it fluidly.
“Is there anything you need to get you through the night?” Clara asked. “Food? Drink?”
Gideon gave her a gentle smile. It was astonishing, how handsome these highwaymen were. Most likely, their female—and likely male—targets swooned at the prospect of being held up by such attractive thieves. The broadsheets would delight in publishing rousing, romantic ballads about them.
Well, except for Cyrus.
“My thanks for your concern,” Gideon said gently.
His deep gaze held Clara’s, and a shiver of awareness glided along her limbs and settled warmly in her belly.
“Of course,” she said, breathless.
“However,” Gideon said, “I’ve no appetite at the moment, and Hugh’s drunk enough for both of us.”
He nodded toward the slumbering Scotsman, who was more passed out than asleep.
“Just the same,” she pressed, “if you require anything to eat, you’re welcome to the larder. No need to ask for permission.”
“Don’t I get the same offer?” Desmond asked with mock-affront.
“First watch always gets special consideration,” she answered.
Desmond sighed, then used the flame of the candle to light another taper. He came around the bed to stand beside Clara. He placed his free hand on her elbow, and she started at his touch.
“Come, Clara,” he said gently. “To bed.”
“With you?” She had no looking glass to prove it, but surely the color leeched from her face.
“I’ll take you there.”
She murmured a protest.
Gideon rose from his seat, frowning as he looked between Desmond’s hand on her elbow and her own worried face. “Mrs. Ballantine?”
“I…” She straightened, though his concern touched her. “I’m alright.”
Gideon gave a small nod before slowly lowering himself back down into the chair. “Call out if you require assistance.”
“She won’t need it.” Desmond led her into the corridor. He paused, and glanced up and down the hallway. “Which way is your bedchamber?”
Those words on his lips sent a thrill of fear through her. Fear and…heat. Followed by a quick throb of shame.
“It’s over there.” She indicated the direction with a tilt of her chin. “Last door on the left.”
Wordlessly, he escorted her to her bedroom.
It wasn’t a long walk, for though the house was far too large for one person, by manor house standards, it was relatively modest, boasting only seven bedchambers, not including where the servants would have slept.
All the same, she felt the strain of silence between them as they progressed down the corridor.
“Never been in a house like this before,” he said.
She lifted her brows, but then, it oughtn’t come as a surprise that he’d have no familiarity with a manor.
“How many people live here?” he asked.
“At present, only one. But it’s supposed to house a family.” The words felt cold in her mouth.
“A big family, I reckon.” He glanced at the doors lining the hallway, each leading to different bedchambers.
“Gentry like to have enough children to ensure they have a male heir, and at least one more boy child, in case something happens to the first.”
“A chilly way to think of children,” he muttered.
“Usually, the only thing aristocratic families lack is sentiment.”
At last, they reached her room. The door was open, and she hesitated outside.
“Go on,” he urged.
She stepped across the threshold. Her stomach clenched when he followed and shut the door behind them. She turned to see him crouching down in front of the fire, stirring it back to life. When flames began to rise once more, he stood and faced her.
By God, he was large.
Her bedchamber hadn’t seen a man inside it for seven years. Arthur had been dead for six of those, and the year before that, well, he seldom joined her in this room. When he had, his visits hadn’t lasted very long.
Arthur had been a sportsman who enjoyed riding and hunting, and he had possessed a trim muscularity that Clara had once considered to be the apex of masculine form.
Yet having Desmond Marsh in this rather small room, with its dainty furniture and stacks of books, she realized that there were many ways of being a man, and clearly, Desmond had claimed one of them all for himself.
He strode around the room, peering at the framed pictures of local wildflowers, then lingered a moment at her dressing table.
There were no bottles of toilet water or scent or pots of rouge, only a hand mirror, a brush, and a chipped basin and ewer.
His fingers lingered over the boar bristles of her brush, and a flush of awareness coursed through her, to have him feel the object she ran through her hair every morning and night.
He moved on from her dressing table, and bent down to examine the stack of books she’d laid beside her bed. She blushed again—something that happened all too readily when he was nearby—when he picked up one of the volumes.
“What’s this say?” He pointed to the spine of the book.
Reluctantly, she stepped closer and looked.
“Folklore of Ancient Britain,” she murmured.
He pointed to another book. “And that one?”
She didn’t have to glance at the spine to know its title. “Tales of Magic and Enchantment for Inquisitive Readers.”
He nodded.
There was no judgment in his expression, and yet she found herself stammering, “I have an…interest in such matters. Folktales, legends, fairy stories.”
She couldn’t tell him about the other books. The ones hidden in the walls of her house. The volumes that gave her so much pleasure, but had also driven her husband away.
“You do live in a house in the middle of the woods, after all.” Desmond’s gaze met hers. “Like one of those girls in the fairy stories my ma used to tell me.”