Lost in Your Arms (3 page)

Chapter 3

“Dying?” Enid covered her mouth. Funny, for all of Mr. Throckmorton’s descriptions, she hadn’t thought MacLean could be dying. Possessed of a child’s energy and a child’s carelessness, MacLean never walked, he ran. He never talked, he yelled. He never smiled, he rolled with hysterical laughter. Death to him would be the ultimate adventure. Sometimes she thought he had wished nothing more than to embrace death in a final, dramatic
coup de théâtre.

“The accident happened four weeks ago.” Mr. Throckmorton led her to the seat she had previously scorned.

She sank down upon it. “What’s wrong? Has he lost limbs? Why . . . dying?”

“The broken glass sliced his face and his chest. He’s suffered a broken leg. The bone, they tell me, stuck through the skin.”

She winced. Compound fractures usually killed a man. “How did he get back to England?”

“A ship transported him, a terrible journey through rough seas. He returned to consciousness at least once a day, but now . . . he’s so weak, those moments are less frequent.” Mr. Throckmorton watched her steadily. “Unless we can give him sustenance, there’s no hope. We aren’t asking you to do the heavy work. He has a nurse, and the doctor comes once a day.”

“Then why am I here?”

“We hope the sound of your gentle voice might bring him back.”

“From the brink of death? There’s little chance of that. I’m telling you the truth. He has no fondness for the sound of my voice.” But Enid fought a losing battle, and she knew it.

“I refuse to give up hope. All of us who know him refuse to give up hope.”

“Of course.” She understood hope. She’d been blessed, or cursed, with a soul wherein, regardless of her travails, hope sprang eternal. No matter how often she scolded herself, no matter how frequently she demanded good sense of herself, she always believed in a better life . . . tomorrow. Her vicar in London had told her she had an unending capacity for faith. She told herself she suffered a relentless supply of folly. “But, if as I suspect, I can’t help him—”

“If you cannot help him and he’s condemned to a death he doesn’t deserve—if that is the case, the family will wish the body transported back to Scotland. As his wife, you, of course, will accompany it.”

Worse and worse. Raising her voice in furious defiance, Enid said, “Lady Halifax needs me. And . . . and the clan MacLean wants nothing to do with me.”

“Stephen MacLean might have left you a legacy.”

Livid with the insinuation that greed drove her, Enid rose and faced off with Mr. Throckmorton. “I was wed to Stephen MacLean, and I assure you he more likely would leave me a load of debt.”

Mr. Throckmorton acknowledged that by saying, “The MacLean family is wealthy. They might be willing to help you.”

“And I would take any help, Mr. Throckmorton, for I supported my husband during the three months of our marriage. It would be nothing more than a repayment long in arrears. But I don’t look for help from the MacLeans. After the wedding, their laird made it clear in the letter he wrote—my husband had no money of his own, and Kiernan MacLean would rather I rot than support such an opportunistic creature as I am.”

For the first time in their conversation, Mr. Throckmorton appeared nonplussed. “I’m sure the laird didn’t mean—”

“He meant exactly what he said. No, Mr. Throckmorton, I am a single woman with nothing standing between me and starvation but my own hard labor, and I’ll not trouble his Scottish relations.”

Mr. Throckmorton drew himself up to his full height and stared down his nose at her.

She stared right back. “If we are done with our discussion, Mr. Throckmorton, I would like to go assess my patient. The sooner he’s returned to health, the sooner I may leave.”

Settling back to his normal size, Mr. Throckmorton observed, “Mrs. MacLean, you don’t intimidate easily.”

“No.” She walked toward the garden entrance.

Mr. Kinman paced beside the carriage, an overgrown,
shambling bear of a man who wore clothes as if they were small, uncomfortable and restrictive. His face lit up when he saw her, and he leaped to assist her into the carriage. “I told you Mr. Throckmorton would explain everything,” he said proudly.

“He certainly did.” Enid settled herself in the carriage.

The carriage dipped as Mr. Kinman swung his great bulk inside. “Do you think you can help MacLean?”

“I’ll have to examine him first.” Furious and upset, she stared straight ahead.

“Mrs. MacLean!” Mr. Throckmorton hurried out of the garden to the open door of the carriage. “Let me assure you—you’re performing a service for Her Majesty’s government. You will be paid. Regardless of your husband’s legacy, you’ll not be left destitute at the end of your service.”

Mr. Kinman looked shocked to hear money discussed, but Enid wanted to sag with relief. “Thank you, Mr. Throckmorton. That’s good to know.”

“While you’re here, if you need anything, anything at all, you are to ask Kinman.”

“Glad to do anything,” Mr. Kinman said gruffly.

“We placed MacLean in one of the estate’s cottages. I am going to be married the first of September.” Mr. Throckmorton gave a brief, genuine smile, then sobered at once. “The cottage is quieter and more conducive to a recovery than the house, which is bustling with every kind of tradesman.”

The cottage is easier to defend
, Enid found herself thinking. And she remembered how, on the train from London, two guards had stood outside her compartment.

Mr. Throckmorton and Mr. Kinman were worried about something—or someone.

Had they lied to her? Was she in some kind of danger?

But she didn’t ask those questions. These were men. The best of men believed a woman should be protected from unpleasant truths, and the worst of men believed women would gossip if told a secret. She judged Mr. Throckmorton and Mr. Kinman to be the best of men, and if they had lied once, they would lie again.

So she said only, “Don’t worry, Mr. Throckmorton. I will protect myself—and my patient.”

The carriage drove to a charming stone cottage surrounded by a white picket fence and covered with pink climbing roses. Leaning close to the window, Mr. Kinman scanned the area. “We transformed the attic into a sickroom. London sent us the best doctor to care for MacLean, but I don’t believe—”

The carriage lurched to a stop. Before Mr. Kinman could finish, Enid stood. Before the footmen could descend, she opened the door. Now that she understood the extent of MacLean’s injuries, she was anxious to see for herself what kind of dire situation she faced.

She noted how the footmen scurried to set the step, how Mr. Kinman steadied her from behind as she descended. Servants stood on either side of the gate, curtsying and bowing as she passed. Enid nodded, but she didn’t stop. Only the wounded man inside mattered now.

She crossed the threshold into a large, bright room. The windows were opened to the summer breeze. A table with benches stood by the fireplace, where a
small pot bubbled and steamed. A bed occupied one corner. Yet nothing interested her here; all her concentration focused on the wooden stair that rose in the middle of the room, straight and broad, to the dim opening in the ceiling. She put her foot on the bottom step and thought where these stairs would lead her. Back to Stephen MacLean and the turmoil of being his wife . . . or his widow.

As she climbed, the atmosphere grew still and stifling, rife with the smells of illness. She stepped into the attic. Curtains hung over the windows, allowing in only slivers of light. As her eyes adjusted, she saw the bed and the still form lying there. The floorboards creaked as she groped her way to MacLean’s side.

As Mr. Throckmorton had promised, bandages swathed his face and chest. The counterpane covered the rest of him. He lay so still, so silent, that she couldn’t even see the rise and fall of his chest. Fearfully, she leaned over him and touched his arm. He was still warm. Still alive. “MacLean,” she said.

No response. His flesh was
too
warm; the muscles beneath her hand hung slack. Death hovered very near, and in a rush of fury she strode to the window, flung the drapes aside and opened the sash. Sunshine and fresh air rushed in.

A female voice squawked, “ ‘Ey!”

Enid turned on the unnoticed attendant as she rose from her place in the corner.

“Ye can’t do that!” the beefy, drowsy-eyed woman said. “Th’ doctor—”

“Is a fool if he commanded this,” Enid finished. She heard a thump of boots as Mr. Kinman topped the
stairs. “Go open that other window. You can’t rouse a man if he doesn’t know the sun is shining!”

Mr. Kinman’s mouth hung slack, but he slapped it shut. “I don’t know if I should.”

“Mr. Kinman, do as I say!”

He did.

Returning to MacLean’s side, she pulled the heavy covers back.

“ ‘E’s got a fever!” the attendant protested.

“I would say he does. Who wouldn’t, wrapped like some Egyptian mummy?”

“Look, miss, I don’t know ‘oo ye are, but I’m tellin’ ye—”

“I’m his wife.” Enid spaced the words, made them a threat.

The woman shrank back. Then her confidence rebounded, and she advanced on Enid. “Ye’re th’ wife? Ye’re ‘ere t’ talk t’im, not tell yer betters ‘ow t’ do their jobs.”

Her odor made Enid step back a pace. “Mr. Kinman, remove her, please. She smells of gin, she sleeps at her post, and this room is dirty and disorganized.”

Mr. Kinman bowed and took the woman’s arm.

“Ye can’t remove me. I work fer Dr. Bridges!” the female yelled as she followed Mr. Kinman. “Ye’ll hear about this!”

Enid didn’t listen to the fading protests. Instead she leaned over the prone body of her husband and examined him. His forehead and the side of his face were bandaged, but no matter; she would never have recognized him. His nose had been broken. Swelling disfigured every visible part of his features. Blood seeped
through the linen strips on his chest, and as she slowly pulled the covers back, she saw that the bandages extended all the way to his stomach and below the loose, short breeches he wore. His leg . . . his leg was splinted and raised on pillows, and every bit of him stank of sweat and sickness.

What had they been thinking, to treat him like some wayfarer felled on the road of life? If this was the best Her Majesty’s government could do, then philistines and charlatans populated Her Majesty’s government. Going to the stairs, she shouted, “Mr. Kinman!”

“Ma’am?” He sounded amazed by her ferocity.

“I want hot water immediately!”

“Yes, ma’am.” He came to the bottom of the stairs and stared up at her with something akin to awe. “Mr. Throckmorton is on his way, ma’am.”

“Good. I have a few words to say to Mr. Throckmorton.” Indeed she did. As she peeled back the first of the bandages, she practiced those words. “If you want to save a man’s life, you don’t hire some slattern of a nurse and use some ignorant bumpkin of a physician. Incompetent, uncaring . . .”

Dear heavens. Her hands slowed as she revealed MacLean’s face. She would never have recognized him. The explosion had obviously come from the right side, for that side of his face had been sliced and cut by a dozen shards. Each injury had been neatly stitched, but the swelling and bruising disfigured his cheek. He’d lost his earlobe, but his scraggly beard hid any injuries to his jaw. The fever had cracked deep grooves into the fullness of his lips. “MacLean?” Leaning close to his face, she looked again. She touched him using just her fingertips. That heat wasn’t just his temperature.
That heat was his will to live. If he could have moved, he would have grasped life in both hands and held it tightly.

She would have to do it for him.

But she didn’t like the look of his wounds. “Mr. Kinman!” she called.

“Ma’am?” He had sneaked up the stairs and even now moved toward her on tiptoe, towels draped over his arm, extending the basin as if afraid to bring it closer.

“Put it on the bedside table.”

He did.

She peeled away the bandages from MacLean’s neck, chest and arms. Some of them stuck, and she glanced around. “Clean rags,” she said. “Towels.”

Mr. Kinman thrust them at her, then scuttled as far away as he could be and still remain in the room.

Dipping the rag in the warm water, she stroked MacLean’s still face and sought some remnant of the man he had been. Beneath the swelling she discovered the broad cheekbones and forehead and angular jaw that had made her husband such a handsome man. But his nose, smashed as it was, looked larger and sharper than she remembered. The passage of time, the effects of the explosion, her own memories betrayed her. “MacLean, what have you done?” she murmured.

She dropped the crimson-stained bandages onto the floor in an ever-increasing pile. “Mr. Kinman, I need a bucket to dispose of these, and when I’m done washing him, I’m going to need help changing the sheets.”

Mr. Kinman made an odd noise, and she glanced toward him.

With horrified fascination, he gazed at the dreadful
wounds she had revealed. Color washed from his cheeks, his eyes rolled up like those of an unbroken horse, and he hit the floor with a thud.

Too bad. She could have used the assistance. But she didn’t have time to worry about him now. Mr. Kinman would stir by himself; her patient lay motionless beneath her hands. “Your friend is useless, did you know that?” she asked MacLean in a conversational tone. “A pleasant man, and probably good in a fight, but he’s fainted clean away. I’m amused. Are you?” She watched MacLean for any sign that her words reached him.