Lauren Willig (39 page)

 

 

Seeing Mary, the surgeon stopped short, looking her up and down with professional detachment.

 

 

“Is this the patient?” he asked.

 

 

Considering the bloodstains streaking her gown, his question was not entirely unjustified.

 

 

“The patient is over there,” Mary said, all but shoving the surgeon up onto the dais. “There was an accident. Involving a bullet.”

 

 

The doctor shot her a sideways glance from beneath his wig, as his hands busied themselves untying Mary’s makeshift bandage. “I find such
accidents
generally occur at dawn.”

 

 

“This one didn’t,” Mary said flatly. “My…cousin had taken me to see the troops in Hyde Park. One of the recruits was overexcited, and accidentally fired into the crowd.”

 

 

If the doctor questioned the story or the relationship, he gave no indication of it. He was too busy cutting through the matted layers of cloth covering Vaughn’s chest, peeling them carefully back. Despite his old-fashioned wig, he did seem to know his trade. His eyes were keen as he poked about at Vaughn’s side, muttering to himself as he did. Whatever he was doing caused Vaughn’s hands to clench the sheets, drops of sweat standing out against his brow as he arched with pain.

 

 

“There will be worse to come,” said the doctor, in response to Mary’s indignant stare. “You might want to remove yourself, Miss…?”

 

 

“Isn’t there something you can do for him?” demanded Mary. “To relieve the pain?”

 

 

Rummaging in his bag, the doctor produced a small brown bottle. “Tincture of opium mixed with spirits of wine. Use it sparingly, unless you want him sleeping until the next trump.”

 

 

There was no time for such niceties as glasses. Tipping back his head, Mary lifted the small bottle to Vaughn’s lips.

 

 

The doctor did something else to Vaughn’s side, and he jerked beneath Mary’s hands, sending a stream of thick, reddish brown liquid cascading down the side of his lips. Blotting it with the end of the sheet, Mary examined Vaughn’s face anxiously. His eyes were closed, and his breathing was irregular, but he managed to open his cracked lips wide enough to mouth what looked like “thank you” before his body arched again with pain.

 

 

Mary rounded on the doctor, who lifted a bloody sponge from the wound and dropped it with a cavalier plop into the slop jar.

 

 

“Your friend was fortunate,” commented the doctor, drawing the edges together and skewering them with a thick needle threaded with cotton thread. Vaughn’s body twitched in response. “It’s a good, clean wound.”

 

 

It looked anything but clean to Mary, with blood sluggishly oozing between the jagged edges of flesh. The acrid scent of raw alcohol, mingled with the baser tones of blood, made her stomach churn.

 

 

Tying off a stitch, the doctor admired his handiwork. “The bullet went straight through without shattering.”

 

 

“The bullet
is
gone?” asked Mary.

 

 

“Oh yes,” agreed the doctor, rolling Vaughn over to get to the hole on his back. Taking his scissors, he snipped neatly away at what remained of Vaughn’s jacket and shirt, clearing the area over the wound. “The bullet didn’t have far to travel, just through this area above his collarbone, here. He was quite lucky it wasn’t lower.”

 

 

At Mary’s look, he elaborated, “The bullet went through the fleshy part of his shoulder. Painful, but seldom fatal. Had the bullet struck a few inches farther down, you would have had no need for my services.” The doctor poked professionally at Vaughn’s back. “Had it struck here, it would have gone right through his heart.”

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Four

Oh do not die….

 

But yet thou canst not die, I know;

 

To leave this world behind, is death,

 

But when thou from this world wilt go,

 

The whole world vapors with thy breath.

 

—John Donne, “A Fever”

“Y
ou mean it would have killed him,” she said.

 

 

“Instantly,” agreed the doctor. “Or the next thing to it. As I said, your friend is very fortunate.”

 

 

He glanced speculatively up at her over Vaughn’s body as he pronounced the word “friend.”

 

 

“My
cousin
and I,” Mary emphasized, “are both very grateful for your prompt assistance.”

 

 

The surgeon eased the long end of a bandage around Vaughn’s side, coaxing it beneath his back. “A curious man,” he said conversationally, “might wonder how, if your cousin was watching the recruits, he came to be shot in the back.”

 

 

“A clever man,” returned Mary pointedly, “knows better than to ask profitless questions.”

 

 

A veteran of countless illegal duels, the surgeon didn’t need to be warned twice. Tying off the end of a bandage, he patted Vaughn’s side with a professional air. “He’ll need the stitches out in a day or so. You’ll want to give him cold compresses for the fever.”

 

 

Mary looked at Vaughn’s gray face, his forehead clammy with sweat. “What fever?”

 

 

“They all get fever,” the surgeon said cheerfully, closing his bag with a distinct click. “The fever kills more than the bullets. You just have to hope it won’t be too high.”

 

 

“How very encouraging.” Doctors were such nasty little men, all puffed up with their Latin phrases and useless diagnoses. One would think he could at least offer to do something about the fever, rather than just predict it. “Is there anything one can do to bring the fever down?”

 

 

“You could bleed him.” The doctor produced a small brass box from his bag. At a touch, the box sprung open, revealing twelve sharp blades, positioned with all the care modern medical science could afford. “Bleeding will release the corrupt blood and lower the fever.”

 

 

Mary glanced down at the pile of blood-soaked cloth on the floor by the bed, the remnants of Vaughn’s shirt and jacket. “He’s lost enough blood already.”

 

 

The surgeon refrained from giving the appropriate medical lecture. It would only be wasted on a woman. Shrugging, he took up his bag. “Hot and cold compresses, then.”

 

 

Mary looked to the butler, who was waiting by the door. “Your fee will be seen to.” She nodded to the butler. “If you would?”

 

 

The butler moved smoothly forwards to usher the surgeon from the room.

 

 

“If you’re quite sure about the bleeding…,” the surgeon tossed over his shoulder.

 

 

“Quite sure,” Mary said firmly.

 

 

She stayed sentinel by the side of the bed until the surgeon was safely out of the room. Sprawled on top of the coverlet, Lord Vaughn was by no means an inspiring sight. He looked, in fact, rather as though he had come out the wrong side of a barroom brawl, with his coat and shirt half torn away and the dark stain of opium-enhanced wine snaking down his cheek and onto his chest. Blood streaked his chest below the white bandage the doctor had wound around his shoulder, where red already showed in an ominous circle against the white.

 

 

Vaughn’s skin showed surprisingly dark against the white band, dusted with dark hair. There was the line of an old scar near the join of his shoulder, a crescent-shaped slash, as though someone had aimed for his heart and missed. Apparently, this wasn’t the first time someone had attempted to kill Lord Vaughn. Mary shouldn’t have been surprised. A decade ago, London had been more wild, with duels fought by dawn on Hampstead Heath and gangs of toughs ready to prey on inebriated gentlemen. And heaven only knew what he had got up to on the Continent. Vaughn’s chest, seamed, scarred, and lightly muscled, suggested that he had been more than equal to any adventures.

 

 

It would be too absurd for him to have survived so much only to be felled by one little bullet in the domestic dullness of Hyde Park. It was just the sort of cosmic joke Vaughn would appreciate. Only this time, it was on him.

 

 

“Madam.” It was several moments before Mary realized that the insistent noise buzzing behind her ear was a voice, and that it was intended for her.

 

 

Dragging her gaze away from Vaughn, Mary realized that the butler—what
was
his name?—had returned and was standing just behind her.

 

 

He would be entirely within his rights to suggest that she leave. Aside from thrusting her own way into the house, her position was entirely anomalous. Despite her lies to the surgeon, she wasn’t cousin, or ward, or wife. She was a nameless woman—a nameless woman with a tendency for appearing at inappropriate hours of the night, in whose company the master of the house had been severely wounded. And even if she were a proper sort of guest, her presence in the master’s bedchamber would be highly improper.

 

 

Without turning her head, Mary said briskly, “The surgeon says his temperature will rise. Make sure there are cold cloths ready.”

 

 

“Yes, madam,” said the butler.

 

 

“He should probably have port, to thicken the blood. And brandy, for the pain. Not at the same time,” Mary added as an afterthought. “I doubt he would like that.”

 

 

“Indeed, madam,” agreed the butler. As a door, cleverly cut into the paneling, eased open, the butler added, “I have taken the liberty of calling his lordship’s man to make his lordship more comfortable.”

 

 

“There’s little hope of that,” said Mary, but she allowed herself to be shepherded away from the bedside to make room for the valet.

 

 

The valet limped his way to the position she had just vacated, emitting noises of distress. Whether the clucking was over his master’s condition or the state of his boots was largely unclear. Placing a basin of hot water on the nightstand, he set about wiping the dried blood from his master’s chest with a care that satisfied even Mary’s anxious eye. Over one arm, he had a pile of clean linen cloths, which he used to wipe Vaughn’s chest clean. The tattered remnants of Vaughn’s coat were eased away, to be replaced with a clean linen nightshirt.

 

 

The butler stepped discreetly in front of her before the valet could reach Vaughn’s unmentionables.

 

 

“If I might be so bold…”

 

 

Mary prepared to do battle for her right to stay, regardless of Vaughn’s state of undress.

 

 

“…perhaps madam would be more comfortable in a fresh garment?”

 

 

Of all the things Mary had expected the butler to say, that had not been one of them.

 

 

Her dress did itch awfully. Vaughn’s blood had seeped straight through the thin muslin to the chemise beneath. The fine lawn was sticky with it. The damp patch chafed unpleasantly against her chest. And then there was the broad stripe across the front of her dress at her knees, where she had knelt beside him, and several lighter streaks in the area of her torso where she cradled him to her in the carriage. There were dark crescents beneath her fingernails and a casual glance in the mirror revealed alarming streaks across her face.

 

 

“Thank you,” Mary said, in a tone that was almost an apology. “I would like that very much.”

 

 

The corners of the butler’s lips shifted in what, in another man, might have been a smile. For a moment, he looked almost human. “There are garments that might be of service in the countess’s chambers.”

 

 

He tilted his head in the direction of a connecting door Mary hadn’t noticed before, set into the paneling on the opposite side of the room, next to the massive marble mantel.

 

 

“No.” The reaction was instinctual. The notion of wearing
her
clothes made her skin crawl. “No, thank you—I don’t know your name.”

 

 

“Derby, ma’am. If madam would prefer, there is a dressing gown in his lordship’s dressing room that might serve the same purpose while madam’s dress is being freshened.”

 

 

“Thank you, Derby. That will do very nicely.”

 

 

While Derby took himself off through the door in the paneling, Mary ascended the dais and occupied herself in scaring away Vaughn’s valet. It took only a few moments of concentrated glowering before the valet scurried away, ceding his place by Vaughn’s side.

 

 

He had tucked Vaughn neatly up among the linens, with a blanket pulled all the way up to his chin and a tasseled nightcap perched on his closely shorn head. Given the obvious newness of the nightcap, Mary had no doubt that this was a victory the valet had not achieved while his employer was conscious. In proper deference to Vaughn’s feelings, she plucked off the nightcap and tossed it beneath the bed. Then she rolled down the covers at his throat, giving him more room to breathe. She might not know anything of nursing, but smothering the patient surely wasn’t the way to go about it.

 

 

Behind her, Derby laid a robe of heavy silk brocade neatly across the back of a chair.

 

 

One didn’t fraternize with servants, but Mary heard herself say, “The surgeon says the wound is a clean one. He should recover quickly.”

 

 

Derby’s stern features relaxed in an expression that was first cousin to a smile. “I am sure madam will ensure that it is so.”

 

 

And with that, the door clicked shut behind him.

 

 

Mary took up the robe he had left her, but she found herself oddly reluctant to leave her post by the bed, as though if she failed to keep proper watch, someone might slip in and steal Vaughn away. Instead, she sat by the bed and watched as the angle of the light through the window slowly shifted across Vaughn’s bedspread, moving in tandem with the hands of the clock on the mantel. The fierce orange light of late afternoon lit the edges of the coverlet with a demonic glow before it, too, faded into dusk.