Marry Me (21 page)

“I know what it means. And he’s right.” Rhyne pushed some peas into her potatoes and took a forkful of both. “Why do you think the engagement ended because of you?”

In answer, Whitley held up her hands so that Rhyne had a clear view of her scars. “He blames himself. After the accident, he did not like to leave me alone. I cannot say that I minded. I was afraid. Sometimes I still am, but I think you know that.”

“I do, but I don’t know why.”

“Neither do I,” she said, slumping back in her chair. “Confusing, isn’t it?”

Rhyne nodded. Her gaze dropped to Whitley’s hands resting on the edge of the table. “Do you blame your brother?”

“No. What happened was entirely my fault, but Cole believes he should have better understood my nature and taken precautions.” She waited for Rhyne to ask the question. When none came, she sighed. She could better resist the application of thumbscrews than silence. The latter was true torture. “Very well, if you must know …” Whitley pretended she didn’t see Rhyne’s brief smile. “Our home in New York had a carriage house in the back that Mama allowed Cole to make over for his own use. He created a laboratory there. I didn’t–don’t–understand most of what he did there, but I know that what he was studying opposed Dr. Erwin’s teachings. It was one source of their conflict. I suppose you can imagine that Caroline Erwin was the other.”

“Did your mother tell you that?”

“She confided in her friends. I was at the door, remember?”

“It’s a wonder one side of your head isn’t flat.”

Whitley grinned and placed a hand protectively over her right ear. “It’s a wonder, isn’t it?” When she’d coaxed a faint smile from Rhyne, she let her hand fall to her lap and continued in a more serious vein. “Mama fell sick suddenly. Pneumonia. It was complicated, Cole said, by disease she carried with her from the hospital. That was always his argument against our mother going there. It was the same one Papa used when he was alive, and it had the same effect. Which is to say it had no effect at all. She could not be kept away from good works. She called it an obligation of privilege.”

Whitley fiddled with her unused spoon, turning it over and over in her hand. “I was twelve when she died. She didn’t make Cole and me promise to look after each other; it was just understood. Cole and Caroline delayed their wedding. I can’t be sure, but I think that was Cole’s idea. He had to make so many difficult choices with his time. There was the hospital, his studies, the estate attorney, his fiancée, and me. Something–or someone–was always demanding his attention.” She tapped the tip of her nose with the bowl of the spoon. “You probably will not believe it, but I was the least demanding.”

But not the least needy, Rhyne thought. “Cole probably required a lot of looking after.”

“See?
You
understand.” She set the spoon down. “He worked such long hours. If he wasn’t at the hospital or studying, then he was in his laboratory. He saw Caroline less, slept less, ate less. He always made time for me, but I liked it better when I could do things for him. It felt like a contribution, not a chore, and it seemed to me that I was honoring my mother and her good works.”

Whitley’s gaze fell to her plate. She stared at it until the delicate red poppies blurred, then she blinked and looked up to find Rhyne watching her. There was no coercion in Rhyne’s candid stare, but Whitley realized how much she wanted to talk about
that
night.

“Cole left the house much as he did this evening,” she said. “Like his hair was on fire. On that occasion he was rushing to meet Caroline at a charity ball. Her father was going to be honored, and the entire affair was arranged by the Howells, a family of considerable influence in society. Mrs. Abernathy and Mrs. Green–they were our hou–”

“I know who they are,” said Rhyne.

“Oh. Well, they retired for the evening and left me to do the same. When I was readying for bed, I saw that Cole had left a lamp burning in the carriage house. I didn’t go there often–Cole doesn’t like interruptions–but I knew that an unattended lamp posed a danger to his experiments and the chemicals he kept on the shelves. It was a warm night and only a short walk to the carriage house, so I didn’t concern myself with putting on a robe. I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t be able to get in because Cole kept it locked, but I thought I might find an open window or a key above the door. I looked for both and found neither. I only tried the door as a last resort.”

She shrugged as if this were of no consequence. “It opened.”

Rhyne wanted to wince. She was aware of desiring a different ending to Whitley’s story than the one she was about to hear.

“I might have taken the lamp and left,” said Whitley,

“but you know that I did not. Cole left things in such a disarray that I could not help but want to clean up after him. In my mind I imagined how pleased he would be with my efforts, and Mama would have done as much for him, I was sure of it.”

Whitley picked up her glass of water and rocked it back and forth. “There were half a dozen beakers just about this size crowded beside the sink. All of them had water in them so I emptied them into the water that was already in the sink. I swept, cleared the table, straightened the shelves, and then I went back to wash the beakers. The sink was deep and the water came up to my elbows when I dipped my arms in.”

She set the glass beside her plate and held out her hands and wrists to study them. “I don’t really remember what happened after that. Cole had to explain it to me.”

“I reckon you’ll have to explain it to me.”

“Do you know what vitriol is?”

“I never heard of such a thing.”

“That’s the old alchemy name for sulfuric acid. I learned all about it afterward. That’s what was in the beakers. It would have been worse for me if there hadn’t been any water in the sink, but that diluted it some. Still, you can see what acid does to the skin. I fainted, but Cole doesn’t think I fell to the floor right away. He thinks I tipped forward and got hung up on the edge of the sink before I dropped. Since there was no one around to see what happened or wash me off, the acid just kept burning. Most people think it was a fire, but it wasn’t. Sometimes I say it was because they understand it better. Not everyone can understand vitriol.”

“What made you think I could?”

“Because I’ve seen you studying some of Cole’s books. Not
that
one,” she added, just to be clear that she knew
Burnside’s Illustrated Anatomy
never left the shelf. “I think you’ll go learn all about it the same as I did.”

Rhyne’s smile was appreciative. “I suppose I will. Was it Dr. Monroe that found you?”

“You can call him Cole, you know.”

“Did Mrs. Abernathy call him that?” asked Rhyne. “Did Mrs. Green?” She watched Whitley roll her eyes. Cole’s sister never quite admitted defeat, but she did at least recognize the futility of further discussion.

“Yes,
Cole
found me. He arrived home hours later. It was his custom to look in on me before he retired. That night was no different, and when he saw I wasn’t in my bed …” She lifted her hands helplessly.

“He must have been frantic.”

“I don’t like thinking about it,” Whitley said quietly. “It makes my stomach all uncomfortable, like I’m going to–” She stopped herself. “The lamp in the carriage house was almost out of oil by then, but there was enough of a glow for Cole to see. He forgot that he left it burning, so he guessed that’s where I had to be. It didn’t take him long to understand what happened once he found me. He tended to my burns before he carried me back to the house, and he hardly left my bedside after that. Caroline finally convinced him to hire someone to care for me, change the dressings, and help with the therapy. Later, when I was better, she suggested Amelia Starcher’s Seminary.”

“It must have been difficult for your brother to send you away.”

“He only did it because he convinced himself it was right and proper.” She shrugged. “And it wasn’t so terrible.”

“Whitley. I know you disliked it there.”

“I
despised
it, but that doesn’t mean something good didn’t come of it.”

“Oh?”

Whitley could not rein in her smug smile. “Cole convinced Caroline to end their engagement. I know it was because she didn’t support his decision to take me out of school. I didn’t have to listen at a door to learn that. Some things are easy to figure out even if you’re only fourteen, which is how old I was by then. Besides, she talked about me as if I wasn’t in the room with her, or worse, as if I couldn’t understand.”

“She didn’t appreciate that your guile was the equal of her own.”

“No, she did not. Wait. What do you mean by that?”

“Just that I think you had something to do with the broken engagement.”

“Now how would I have done that? I was only fourteen.”

Rhyne laughed. “You can’t have it both ways. One minute you’re braggin’ that you’re fourteen like you’re going on forty, and the next you want me to believe you’re fourteen like you’re going on four. You’re about as slippery as rainwater and as cagey as an old fox.” She pointed her fork at Whitley. “But I like you just fine for it.”

“How kind you are to say so.”

Rhyne grinned and resumed eating, not at all concerned that her food had grown cold.

“Put him on the table,” Cole directed as he led the way into his surgery. He began lighting lamps and setting out his instruments.

“You’re not going to take my leg, are you, Doc?” It was the question Ezra Reilly had been asking since he awoke from the blast that had knocked him twenty feet down the mountain. No one, not his four litter-bearers, or Cole, was answering it any longer. The truth was, no one knew if the leg could be saved. The early reassurances no longer seemed sincere, especially after Cole refused to give them. Ezra’s leg was grotesquely twisted above the knee. The thigh was swollen to twice its size because of the fracture.

“You fellas got all the cord, didn’t ya?” asked Ezra.

“Shoulda been no reason for the spark to jump like that. Must be something wrong with the fuse.”

“Someone got it all,” Will reassured him. “Everyone knows you’re real careful with the explosives. Wyatt’s got everyone looking through the debris for what might have caused the dynamite to fire early.”

“It’s the cord, I’m tellin’ you.” He closed his eyes and moaned softly as his leg was jostled. He missed the exchange of glances around him, the ones that guiltily wished he would just pass out. “Goddamn, but it hurts. You got somethin’ for me, Doc? Maybe some whiskey? This is no time to be stingy.”

George Barkley put a restraining hand on Ezra’s shoulder. “Quiet yourself, Ezra. The doc’s sure to have something better than whiskey. Ain’t that right, Dr. Monroe?”

Cole turned away from where he was preparing the vaporizing mask. “Another moment.”

Will Beatty asked, “Should I go find his wife, Doc?”

“That’s probably a good idea, Will.” He remembered Will’s story about having to keep a bucket in his lap while Doc Diggins performed surgery on Sheriff Cooper. It was better to have him out of the room.

Ezra shook his head violently. “Don’t want her here! Let her be. Don’t want her to see me like this.”

“Virginia will turn every woman in town on me if I don’t bring her here,” Will said, backing away from the table. “Won’t take me but a few minutes.” He was gone before Ezra could make another protest.

Cole went to the sink and began to wash his hands. “Any of you men ever assist in a surgery?”

George Barkley looked at Eugene Hammond who looked at John Cromwell. George spoke for all of them.

“Nope.”

“I require a volunteer.”

“I’ll do it.”

All three men pivoted sharply in the direction of the door. Ezra craned his neck to see who had spoken. The effort made him groan and his head fell back.

“Is that Runt?” he wanted to know.

George and Eugene parted so Ezra could see. “Sure is,” George said.

Rhyne ignored the men and went straight to Cole’s side. “I can help. I’ll do whatever you tell me.”

“That’s the best offer I’ve had.” He glanced back at the others. “Show them where they can wait. Tell Whitley to make coffee for them. I don’t mind if they want a whiskey to go with it.”

Rhyne thought they might argue, but when she turned and pointed toward the door they began filing out. She knew it wasn’t anything she’d done that made them compliant. Coleridge Monroe fairly radiated authority, confidence, and the urgency of action, a commander in his own right, at least in this theater of operations.

“I’ll be right back,” she told Cole. She laid her hand gently across Ezra’s brow as she passed him on her way to find Whitley.

They emerged from the surgery two hours later. Cole’s apron, the sleeves of his shirt, even the tips of his shoes showed evidence of the bloody trial. Rhyne stayed back, slightly to one side, and let him talk to the men and lone woman that had crowded into the waiting area.

“There was a compound fracture of the femur … the thigh bone,” he said. “I was able to set it, but he’ll probably have a limp. That’s the good news.” His pause was slight. “I was unable to save his hand. Ezra never understood how badly it was injured. He had enormous pain in his leg, but almost none in his hand. I’m sorry. I stopped the bleeding, cauterized the wound, but there was nothing to save but a–” His gaze fell on Virginia Reilly, a pale, blue-eyed woman with softly rounded features that gave no hint that she grasped the enormity of what he was telling her. He amended what he had been about to say. “There was nothing to save.”

Virginia nodded shakily. “Right or left?”

“His left hand.”

“I suppose that’s something,” she said. “Odd, how it happens. He’s right-handed.”

Pastor Duun laid his hand on Virginia’s shoulder. “He’s going to live. There’s God’s blessing. And there’ll always be something for him to do at the mine, one-handed or two.”

“There will never be two again.” Virginia’s laugh was a trifle hysterical. “Were you thinking I’d go back to whor-in’, Pastor, if my man couldn’t work?”

“Now, Virginia,” Duun said calmly. “Don’t put words in my mouth. I wasn’t thinking anything of the kind.”