Chapter 8
The first cut through Henry’s coat sounded louder than the ballroom orchestra had done.
His valet worked the scissors beneath the right sleeve seam, lifting the cloth away from Henry’s shoulder with two fingers before closing the blades.
The superb dark wool parted from the cuff upward in short, costly bites.
Each movement tugged at the lining and sent a fresh line of pain from the scar beneath Henry’s shoulder blade into his neck.
Hot water steamed in a basin beside the dressing table.
Camphor sharpened the air above the smells of damp wool, lamp smoke, and the dying fire.
Three folded lengths of linen lay warming before the grate, while Margaret stood near enough to hand them over and far enough that Henry could not pretend she had taken command of the treatment.
The valet reached the elbow. “Mr. Weston will describe this as murder, Your Grace.”
Ordinarily Henry would have answered that tailors were accustomed to mourning clothes. The jest rose by habit and stopped before speech. Making the coat ridiculous would invite everyone to agree that the pain was equally unimportant.
“Do not make it amusing,” he said. “Cut the seam.”
The valet looked at him once through the mirror. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Margaret did not praise the admission. She unfolded one of the heated cloths, tested it against the inside of her wrist, and replaced it near the fire when the temperature failed her judgment.
Henry sat upon a straight-backed chair angled before the dressing-room hearth.
The position had been chosen because he could rest his right forearm upon a pillow without lifting the shoulder.
His boots remained on because bending to remove them had proved impossible, his cravat had been cut loose, and every breath pressed his shirt against skin gone tight around the old wound.
The ballroom had required him to stand, listen, dance, bow, and appear undisturbed while Croft’s newspaper paragraph travelled through the donors. None of those actions alone had caused the spasm. Together they had accumulated until the shoulder ceased accepting commands.
He had known it was worsening during the dance.
He had told Margaret it remained manageable because the word admitted a condition without surrendering authority to it. He had believed he could finish the evening, remove the coat alone, and endure the consequences where no one would be obliged to arrange themselves around him.
The coat had refused the plan.
The scissors reached the shoulder seam. The valet slowed, working beneath the embroidered edge where cloth, lining, and padding had been cut to disguise the slight drop of the joint.
Margaret moved to Henry’s left. “The lining has caught.”
“I see it, Your Grace,” the valet said.
“I was speaking to His Grace.”
Henry looked down. The torn lining had twisted against his upper arm, and his left hand had closed around the chair seat strongly enough to whiten the knuckles.
“Yes,” he said. “It has.”
Margaret knelt beside the chair without touching him. Her moss-colored ballroom gown spread across the carpet, the hem carrying a rosemary leaf and a streak of floor wax from the assembly. She eased the lining flat with the tip of one finger.
“Cut below my hand,” she told the valet. “The strain is drawing upward.”
The valet altered the angle. The next cut released the cloth without pulling the shoulder, and the sleeve fell open from cuff to collar.
Henry breathed again.
Margaret rose at once rather than remain kneeling in the posture of devotion. She carried the warm linen from the grate to the dressing table and left the rest to the man accustomed to dressing and undressing him.
The valet peeled the left side of the coat away first. Henry lifted that arm without difficulty. The right side required time, the ruined sleeve opened fully and drawn from beneath rather than pulled downward. Even so, the fabric brushed the scar and forced his breath between his teeth.
The coat came free.
The valet laid it across a second chair, where the cut sleeve hung toward the carpet. Its pale lining and careful padding were exposed beneath the lamps. Henry had worn coats designed to make his body appear balanced for so long that seeing the construction opened felt indecent.
Margaret looked at the coat only long enough to ensure no further assistance was needed.
“Waistcoat next?” she asked.
“The buttons can be managed,” Henry said.
“With which hand?”
“My left.”
“Then manage the first.”
He set his fingers to the top button. The left hand obeyed, but drawing the waistcoat across his chest pulled the injured shoulder forward. Pain tightened until the room lost its outer edges.
His hand stopped.
Margaret waited. The valet waited more professionally, though Henry could feel both of them declining to complete the task before he asked.
“Help me,” he said.
The valet unfastened the waistcoat from top to bottom. Margaret turned toward the fire and adjusted the warming linen, granting him privacy without pretending a shirt and waistcoat made the moment intimate.
Once the waistcoat had been removed, the valet opened the shirt collar and loosened the first button. He did not strip the garment farther. Instead, he folded the cloth away from the upper shoulder and inspected the skin around the scar.
“The muscle is hard across the back,” he said. “The scar itself is not opened.”
“It does not generally reopen for the convenience of observation,” Henry replied.
Margaret glanced over her shoulder. He heard the defensive humor in his own voice and disliked it.
“The muscle is in spasm,” he corrected. “The worst pain runs from the upper edge toward the neck. Pressure directly upon the scar will worsen it.”
The valet nodded. “Hot linen first. The camphor after, if the heat eases the muscle.”
He had treated Henry through enough nights of convalescence to ask no unnecessary questions. He wrapped the first linen against the shoulder without rubbing, secured it loosely with a longer cloth across Henry’s chest, and withdrew his hands.
Margaret approached only when the valet stepped back.
“Too hot?” she asked.
“No.”
“Too heavy?”
“No.”
“Does it pull where it crosses the chest?”
Henry tested a breath. “Slightly.”
She looked at the knot beneath his left arm. “May I loosen it?”
“Yes.”
Her fingers worked beneath the cloth without touching bare skin. She gave the bandage half an inch more room, then waited while he breathed again.
“Better?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She returned to the fire.
There was no reverence in her movements. She treated the linen as linen, the knot as a problem, and Henry’s answer as information rather than courage. The absence of pity should have relieved him. Instead, it exposed how much effort he had wasted preparing to resist it.
The valet replaced the cloth twice. On the third application, the worst rigidity began to yield, leaving the shoulder hot, exhausted, and capable of movement only within a narrow range.
He uncorked the camphor liniment.
Henry smelled it before the stopper had cleared the bottle. The scent belonged to months of narrow rooms, interrupted sleep, and men speaking over him because pain had made him an object of treatment. His body tightened in anticipation.
Margaret saw the reaction. “Do you want the camphor?”
“It helps.”
“That was not the question.”
Henry looked at the bottle. The liniment stung, but the heat it produced often allowed the muscle to release enough for sleep. Refusing because the smell carried old humiliation would give the humiliation more power than the medicine.
“Yes,” he said. “Use it, but not across the upper ridge of the scar.”
The valet warmed a small amount between his hands. “I remember, Your Grace.”
Henry inclined his head. “Proceed.”
Margaret turned away while the valet worked the liniment into the muscles below and beside the scar. There was pain, then heat, then a gradual loosening that felt nearly as dangerous as relief. Henry kept his right arm supported and stated when the pressure moved too high.
The valet altered course without apology.
When the treatment was finished, he fastened the shirt collar loosely and poured water from the ewer into a glass. From a small medicine case he took the laudanum bottle that had accompanied Henry since convalescence.
“Ten drops,” Henry said. “No more.”
“The smaller dose Dr. Langley permitted for a severe spasm,” the valet confirmed.
Margaret looked at Henry. “Will ten affect your judgment?”
“Not immediately. It will dull the pain and may make me drowsy.”
“May?”
“It has varied.”
“That is useful.”
Her tone suggested the information would be entered into an account under uncertain liabilities.
The valet measured the drops into the glass and diluted them with water. Henry watched the brown tincture disperse before drinking it. The bitterness clung to his tongue, followed by the sweetness of opium and the knowledge that within the hour his thoughts might soften at the edges.
He returned the empty glass.
“No second dose,” he said.
“Not without sending for Dr. Langley,” the valet agreed.
The man set fresh water within reach, arranged the pillows upon Henry’s bed, and inspected the fire. His hands paused over the cut coat.
“I shall send this to Mr. Weston in the morning.”
“Not tonight,” Henry said. “No servant is to carry it through the House while the residents are clearing the ballroom.”
The valet folded the ruined sleeve over the body of the coat. “It will remain here.”
Margaret stood beside the bedchamber door. The room beyond held a broad bed, a low fire, and the banked stillness of a household finally surrendering to night.
The valet looked between them without curiosity. “Shall I remain until the draught takes effect?”