The Surgeon's Lady (18 page)

She nodded, wasting no time in pulling back the shawl around her shoulders, unbuttoning her nightgown and putting her baby to her breast. “My goodness,” she said, as Rachel began to gulp, her eyes wide with wonder at a superabundance of milk. Nana leaned back in relief. “Pardon my rag manners!”

“No pardon needed. Remember, both breasts per feeding, or you’ll be lopsided. That’s the last wisdom from me, except to keep Captain Worthy at arm’s length if he arrives home sooner than four weeks from now.”

“You told me six weeks!”

“I am a realist.”

Nana blushed. “I wish him here tomorrow.”

“So do I,” Philemon said, “except that I distinctly remember you telling me he would shoot me dead.”

“That passed,” Nana replied, with some dignity. “Go on, both of you.”

Not until late afternoon did they bid goodbye to the last guest. Gran had come from Plymouth on the last mail coach, stammering her apologies. It was nearly impossible to get away from the Mulberry these days, what with all the business, she said, already on the stairs.

Laura knew better than to stop her with conversation. “You may have my room tonight, Mrs. Massie,” she said.

“And that is that,” she told Philemon. “We are sleeping in your house tonight.”

She had second thoughts, when she came into the room under the eaves an hour later. It must have showed on her face. Her husband sat her down on the bed.

“You’re frowning, my love. Let us just sleep tonight. You get the side closest to the wall.” He took off his uniform jacket. “Turn around. I will unbutton you.”

She did as he said, closing her eyes when his fingers touched her bare skin, feeling her heart race a little faster, even though he had frankly declared there would be only sleep in the attic. What he said had intrigued her.

“Why should I be next to the wall? I would think a wife would be on the side closest to the door. You know, to get up when children cry, and…and those kinds of things.”

“Not in the Brittle family,” Philemon replied. He took off his neck cloth and draped it with the uniform, then pulled his shirt over his head. “I’m not sure why he told me that several years ago—I had no matrimonial prospects
then. Papa said, ‘When you marry, let your wife sleep next to the wall. You can protect her that way.’ Absurd, isn’t it?”

“I think it’s lovely,” she said, as she let her dress drop.

“That’s my father. You’ll come to love him, too.” He took off his trousers and reached under the near pillow for his nightshirt. “After you, Laura.”

Too shy for words, she finished undressing. She needed his help for her corset, which he unlaced expertly, then retied much looser. “From now on, please don’t wear it any tighter than that,” he said. “You don’t need it, and it’s harmful.” He loosed the strings again so she could remove it.

She touched his cheek tentatively. A second later she was clasped belly to belly in his arms, not sure if she had reached out first or he. He rubbed her back, then his hands went lower, as he pulled her closer.

She felt her breath coming faster, until she felt light-headed and unable to stop the shudder that went through her. “I cannot,” she cried out.

Philemon pulled away immediately and sat her down. “Calmly, Laura,” he said. “Just breathe. You’ll be fine.”

She could not help the tears that filled her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Forgive me.”

He dabbed at her eyes with his sleeve. “Nothing to forgive.”

Miserable, she crawled into bed. He joined her, then reached over and opened his timepiece, placing it by the candlestick. “I have to be up early to catch the mail coach. Laura, don’t cry. It’s been a long day. I revise that—it’s been a long week. I expect you to stay in Torquay until you are quite resolved to come to Stonehouse.”

He dabbed at her eyes again, and she made no objec
tion when he pulled her close enough for her head to rest on his chest. “I’ve left my spare house key on the bureau over there. Aunt Walters went home to Yorkshire last week for a visit, or she would have been here today. If she is not back by the time you come home, you’ll need the key.”

By the time you come home.
He could not have said anything kinder. She nestled closer to him, and he gave her shoulder an answering squeeze.

“I’ll have the extra bedchamber made up for you, and there will be mine down the hall, of course. Choose either one.” He kissed her cheek. “Good night, Mrs. Brittle. I’ll try to be quiet in the morning.”

She wasn’t sure when she finally dropped off to sleep—it was long after Philemon—but she woke at some point, aware that she had snatched most of the coverlet and bundled herself into it. She turned over to look at Philemon, who should have been shivering, but who seemed oblivious, so deep was his sleep.
My apologies for being a blanket thief,
she thought, looking at him. His nightshirt had ridden up to his waist, as those garments generally did, and there he lay, exposed and relaxed.

In the last few months, she had seen many patients’ privates. It was a necessary part of nursing, and fazed her not in the least. This was different; this was her husband. The sight of him intrigued her and she wanted to touch him there, something she had only done to Sir James when he was invalided and needed her help for every function. This man sleeping beside her was a young man in his prime, and she wanted him.

It was an odd sensation for her, one she had never experienced. She felt her own body grow warm as she
watched her husband.
Maybe Nana is right,
she thought, as she carefully covered Philemon and settled against him again. His arm went around her, and she wondered, red-faced, if he was awake. It must have been a reflex; his breathing was as measured as ever.

He was up in the morning before the room was fully light. She lay there quietly, her eyes closed, listening to the homely sound of him washing his hands and face, and smothering an oath when he bumped his head on an overhead beam by the washbasin. She started to laugh, and kept laughing when he grinned at her, made a rude gesture and sat on her. Her laughter turned into a shriek when he suddenly growled into her neck.

She gave him a push. He landed on the floor, then tipped his head back to gaze at her. “I hope your mother didn’t hear that,” she whispered, trying not to laugh.

“She’s two floors down,” he said cheerfully. “Kiss me. It will make up for what I declare are splinters in my ass. If the Brittle buttocks get infected, you will be removing the splinters, and not my mates or, God forbid, Owen Brackett. There are some things I will not explain.”

He dressed quickly, ordering her to stay in bed. She sat up, rumpled in sleep, and watched him, her arms clasped around her knees. She had never thought of him as handsome, but in the growing light, he was precisely that: solid as a road mender, with character in his profile, and his hair that pleasing brown that would look even better if he had more of it.

“Would you grow your hair longer for me?” she asked.

“Not even for you,” he told her as he put on his uniform jacket. “I work with too many louse and flea-bitten patients
and don’t like little visitors in my bed. You’ll appreciate that someday.”

I expect I will,
she thought,
when I am brave enough to share your bed, and all that should mean.
The thought stirred her body again, and she wished she had been brave enough to hold out her hand to him and ask him to stay awhile, to let her try again.

But there he was, dressed and already shouldering his duffel bag. He came to the bed and kissed her. “Don’t stay away too long, madam,” he said. “Please don’t.”

Then he was gone, treading quietly down the stairs, as he had probably done many times, heading to sea or to hospital. She lay back in his bed, supremely unsatisfied with herself. She rolled over and tucked her hand under his pillow, where she felt a small piece of paper. The sheet had been torn from his prescription book, with its printed lines.

Good Lord, he does have eyes that never close,
she thought, mortified and amused at the same time.

S
omehow, when he had told Laura to take her time in coming to him at Stonehouse, Philemon had not thought he would be spending Christmas alone, not to mention New Year’s. As 1809 faded into 1810, he began to dread the sight of his empty house after a long day or night of work.

At least it wasn’t day
and
night of work, he had to admit. He was discovering that winters were slower at Stonehouse. The season of active military campaigning was at a lull, and the beds were filled more often now with pneumonias, catarrhs that developed into the lacerating kind of bronchitis that only deepwater men seemed to suffer, and accidental injury.

The rain. The sleet down the back of his overcoat. As much as he hated himself for it, he started to remember Jamaica’s constant warm weather, then—God help him—the amazingly compliant women of all colors that seemed to drift about the island like lovely butterflies. More than once every few days he woke up with an ache relieved brac
ingly by cold baths, which led to a tendency to snap at well-meaning colleagues.

Throughout all this, he continued to write encouragement to Laura in Torquay. The result was to create in him a duplicity totally foreign to his nature, one that made him as uncomfortable as the cold baths that lowered his sexual temperature. He left his house with a frown and returned at the end of his working day with a scowl.

There was one bright spot he yearned to share with Laura. It was the day he signed Davey Dabney’s release papers from the hospital, and put him on a post chaise to Edinburgh. Davey had argued about the post chaise, but he only had to hand him a letter from Laura, directing precisely that.

“She won’t have you uncomfortable, all the way to Edinburgh,” he told the former foretopman. “God knows Edinburgh is uncomfortable enough. Only Scots thrive there—the rest of us count the days.”

He knew better than to approach Sir David about his idea to turn Davey into an apothecary, but climbed right over his administrator’s head and directly to Admiralty House, then the Navy Board. The way had been greased for him by Oliver Worthy, who, on Philemon’s request, had written his own lengthy letter to Lord Musgrave, detailing the plan.

It was innovative, to be sure. Davey would be maintained on navy rolls for the duration of his studies, with his salary supplemented by Laura Brittle’s generosity. Oliver expressed his own praise with a return letter from Ferrol Station off Spain, which was balm to Philemon’s eviscerated esteem.

He doubted his genius, flogging himself mentally. He couldn’t even get a bride into his bed.

When February loomed on the calendar, and he knew he could not stand another minute of this misery, he received help from a surprising source.

He made few trips to the administration building, the sting of Sir David’s earlier tongue-lashings before he married Laura still fresh in his mind. He was fully aware that Sir David knew of the wedding, and probably also knew Laura had never left Torquay. Philemon did not feel able to cope with a smirk from Sir David, should he chance to see him in the hall.

There was no avoiding this visit to admin, though. His chief mate was busy, and his two assistants were on well-earned leave. He was already late with his proposed
materia medica
budget for the next fiscal year. If he went in the side door of the building, he could drop it on the matron’s desk and do an about-face.

He brought the budget over at the end of the noon break, when he expected the office might be empty, and left it on the outer desk. He would have made a silent retreat, except he stumbled over a dustbin some unseen imp must have shoved into his path. He kept his oath to himself, but the damage was done.

Miss Peters came out of the inner office and gave him one of the few smiles he ever saw in admin. He smiled
back, wondering again why Laura had thought Peters intimidating. True, her eyes were a frosty blue that seemed to penetrate the back wall of his retina, but he had only found her unfailingly kind. Resolute, too. Like Laura, she never flinched from jetty duty, when the world was a screaming, moaning, bloody froth. He liked her, but he wasn’t up to conversation today.

She had him, though, and from the look on her face, she meant to keep him. “Do you have a minute, Lieutenant?”

He wanted to invent simultaneous amputations, but couldn’t lie. “Certainly, Miss Peters. How may I help you?”

“I can help you, actually,” she said. “Come this way.” She seated him in a hard chair and sat opposite him, not behind her desk.

She hadn’t worked in a naval hospital long, but she already knew better than to waste a second of his time. “Chief surgeon Brackett told me how miserable you are.”

There was no gilding a lily in Miss Peters’s life, apparently. He could be as honest.

“Aye.” He couldn’t even look at her. “I had hoped I wasn’t so obvious. We all try not to bring our problems to work.”

“Owen tries, too,” she said sympathetically, then realized what she had said. “Surgeon Brackett, rather.” She gathered her thoughts. “I hardly know how to tell you this, except to explain it this way. When I look in a mirror, I know I am plain. When your wife looks in a mirror, she knows she is plain, too.”

“She’s not…she’s beautiful. I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman,” he protested.

“I agree. She was treated so poorly by her—I will not
even call him a husband—by Sir James that she sees defects that aren’t even there.”

“I’ve told her that,” Philemon said, trying not to sound exasperated. “So has her sister.”

Miss Peters put her hand on his arm, steadying him. “We are rational. She is not. Let me give you one reason why, so you may see how deep this runs.”

Miss Peters rose to pace the floor, then paused to stare out of the window at the rain. “As you know, I was your wife’s dresser. There was no intimate detail of her life that I did not know about. I knew how many nights Sir James came to her room. I listened to her cry each time he left, and sometimes before.”

Philemon joined her at the window, unable to sit still.

“After a few months, he took me aside and demanded that I tell him immediately when she finished her monthly flow. I had no choice. He would call her into his bookroom then, stare her up and down, and demand that she do better next month—that she become with child. All the servants could hear.”

“Good God.”

“When each month passed and she did not increase, he would scream at her, demanding to know what was wrong with her, reminding her how much he had paid Lord Ratliffe for her, and what he expected.”

Philemon turned away, sickened. “It wasn’t her fault!”

“I know that, you know that, Laura knows that. But after enough months of cruelty, you begin to doubt even what you know.”

He thought about this, and came to the conclusion Miss Peters wanted him to make. “I think Laura would be quite
happy in my bed, and I think she knows that. Miss Peters, allow me to finish this intimate thought. In addition to all the trauma I know of, she fears she will not be able to produce a child? Sir James pretty well convinced her, didn’t he?”

“Precisely. It’s poppycock. There’s every reason to think you two will have many children, but she is not reasonable about this.”

He nodded. “Thank you for speaking to me. Maybe I shouldn’t feel so sorry for myself.”

“Good,” she replied, returning to her desk, where she flipped through his tardy budget. “Lieutenant Brittle, you have enormous capacity for everything except the written form. When Mrs. Brittle comes—and she will—beg her to take over this aspect of your work. Get on your knees, if it will help. The navy will thank you.”

He knew he had been dismissed, and in the only way Miss Peters could do so and maintain their dignity.
God bless the ladies,
he thought, especially this one. “I couldn’t agree more. Tell me, Miss Peters, do you really think she will come?”

“I know she will. At the risk of piling on more praise than any man probably deserves, you’re an excellent fellow. If your hair were a little longer, you might have found a wife much sooner.”

He laughed and was pleased when she joined in. Then he was serious again, looking into her eyes. She gazed right back.

“How can I get her here?”

Miss Peters began to smile. “I recommend a bad cold, maybe even bronchitis. You know Laura is a champion nurse. All she needs is the smallest excuse to get her over
what must be an enormous hump. Let me know when you are sick enough, and I will send a letter.”

Thoughtful, he went to the door. He coughed. He pressed his hand to his forehead and coughed again, then quietly closed the door behind him.

As it turned out, he didn’t need to pretend. Maybe he could blame his self-inflicted cold baths and the rain down his neck, or more particularly, the visits he paid to tend the laundresses’ sick children. By the end of the week, he ached everywhere except his earlobes and had to prop himself up at night to get any relief from coughing.

Owen wanted to relieve him from most of his duties, but several mates were on leave and it was impossible. Philemon dragged himself to work, wielding his knives and lancets only when he had to. Sleep was torture, his appetite nil, his throat putrid.

After nearly a week in utter agony, Philemon was finally banished by Brackett. Brian Aitken, only just returned from ten days’ leave in Dumfries, insisted on helping him home.

He didn’t notice the small light in his bedchamber, mainly because rain plummeted down and he had given up hoping. Brian saw it, remarking that it wasn’t safe to keep a candle burning while he was not there.

“It’s my madam,” Philemon said. “She came.”

Laura opened the door. He felt like falling to his knees in gratitude, but his mate would only have interpreted that as a reason to turn him around and plop him into a proper hospital bed in Stonehouse, the last thing he wanted now. He let Laura help him up the steps, enduring her soft scolding because he loved her.

“I’ll take him, Brian,” she said. “Please tell Captain Brackett that he will not leave his bed until he is better.”

“Laura, we are shorthanded,” he protested, but in vain. He tried to crane his neck around for a glare at his mate, but only caught the corner of the traitor’s smile. He was too sick to care. “Aye, aye. Do your duty, Aitken.”

“And I will do mine,” Laura said, smiling at him with the generosity of heart that had attracted him to her in the first place, right after her lovely surgeon’s hands.

He knew better than to protest as she took off his overcoat—a sodden thing that never dried out, not in this weather—and handed it to Aunt Walters, who muttered and scolded all the way back to the kitchen with it.

“Bring me some broth, my dear,” Laura called after her, “and that wheat poultice from Gran.”

She took his hand and led him up his own stairs, then sat him in a chair while she removed his clothing, layer by layer. He was happy to rise and lean on her as she unbuttoned his trousers and stripped him bare. She toweled him so vigorously he knew she removed at least one layer of his epidermis. She had him into a nightshirt and tucked in bed with a warming pan before he started to shiver.

He shook his head over food, and she didn’t press him. She propped him up so he could breathe, then draped his neck with the wheat poultice.

“Nana swears by these and so does Gran. By the way, Oliver is home. Nana is over the moon, and Rachel has a fearsome frigate commander as a new conquest. He is porridge.”

He muttered something. He wanted to tell her how
grateful he was for her presence, and how much he loved her, but nothing came out except babble.

She was kind. “Shut up, Philemon,” she murmured in his ear. “You’re pathetic and I love you. You must stop shivering.”

His ears were barely working, but he knew he did not imagine the rustle of clothing. In another moment she was in bed with him, naked and warm and holding him close as he shook. In a gesture he thought altruistic beyond belief, she put her bare legs on his cold ones. She even pulled him onto his side until they couldn’t have been closer. He wished he had enough energy to do what he really wanted to. No, not that. What he really felt like doing was pulling grave dirt over himself.

Not that, either. Gradually, she warmed him. For the first time in days, he abandoned himself completely to sleep.

When he woke in the morning after a complete night of rest, Laura still stuck to him like a barnacle. Again, he yearned to put her on her back and make love to her, but there was no way any such sport would happen, not while he still felt nine-tenths dead. The fact that the thought even flickered in his brain gave him hope. Maybe he would live, after all.

He opened his eyes. Laura, her expression kind, gazed back at him. He kissed her neck, pillowed his head there, and went back to sleep.

He didn’t wake up again until afternoon. The wheat poultice was gone, and so was Laura. He didn’t want to open his eyes. Maybe the whole thing had been a dream.

He wasn’t sure how many days passed; it hardly mattered. He enjoyed the best nursing care of his life. No
wonder invalids in Block Four never wanted to get well. He was content to be waited on, fed, cleaned and tidied by his beloved wife. “The only thing you haven’t done is burp me,” he said one afternoon, which made her laugh and throw a pillow at his head.

He caught it and tossed it back. He wasn’t sure what happened then, but in record time she was in bed with him, after locking the door, shucking her clothes and divesting him of his nightshirt, too.
What a talented woman,
he thought, as he ran his hands experimentally over her breasts, enjoying the heft of them and their warmth.

His warmth, too. A man of science, he was not surprised that his illness in no way affected his urge to make love. There was not a thing he could do about his erection, but Laura didn’t seem to object. She looked at his body with interest. She touched him, and then was gently running her hand up and down his growing shaft as he explored her body, so beautiful in the half-light of a drizzly afternoon.