A Lady by Midnight (14 page)

“Sit down,” she ordered. He might be a big, intimidating infantry officer, accustomed to having men march, load, and fire at his command—but she would not be countermanded on this score. She grabbed his good arm and pulled with all her might.

Oof.
He barely budged. Goodness, he was just an enormous lump of masculinity, all muscle and heavy boots. There was a lot of him, as he’d said.

“I’m well,” he protested.

“I’m worried. Humor me.”

Kate coaxed him to the stool and made sure he sat with his back well braced against the wall. Badger came to his heels, sniffing about his boots and making small whining noises.

Once Thorne was seated, she began tugging at his sleeve. “I’m sorry. We have to remove your coat.”

She began with the sleeve of his injured right arm, carefully drawing the red wool sheath down until he could pull his entire arm free. She eased a hand behind his shoulder to help him out of the sleeve. An involuntary tremor passed through his sculpted shoulder muscles—a whispered confession of the danger he faced, despite his impressive size and strength. Kate shivered in response.

While she propped his wounded wrist on the table for examination, he twisted his torso and shook the garment down his left arm. The red coat slid to the floor.

He gave the discarded coat a regretful look. She knew it must pain him to see the uniform crumpled on the ground. But he didn’t bend to retrieve it.

“Perhaps I’m not so well,” he said.

Her pounding pulse accelerated. If he admitted it, he must be very bad off indeed.

A serrated knife lay on the table. She reached for it.

“Be still,” she warned.

With clumsy swipes of the blade, she laid open the linen sleeve of his shirt, rending it all the way up to the elbow. Angry streaks of red blazed from the adder bite. She could follow those streaks halfway up his thick, muscled forearm, even through the covering of dark hair. She needed a tourniquet.

When she raised her head to ask Thorne where one might be, she saw that his face had gone pale. A thin sheen of perspiration covered his brow, and his breathing was uneven. She reached for his unknotted cravat and worked it loose with trembling fingers. He tilted his head back to assist her. As her fingers brushed the freshly shaven skin of his throat, she could see the pulse beating beneath his jaw, as though a butterfly were trapped under his skin.

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “You’re undressing me,” he said thickly.

“It can’t be helped.”

“Wasn’t complaining.”

Once she had the cravat free, she doubled the arm’s-length strip of fabric and wound it around his arm, just below the elbow. She took one end of the fabric and clenched it in her teeth, then pulled the other end with both hands. Her efforts wrenched a groan of pain from his throat. By the time the thing was in place, she was huffing for breath and sweating just as much as he was.

“Where is your medical kit?” she asked, already scanning the room for likely places.

He slid his gaze toward a battered wooden chest on a high shelf.

Kate hastened to the shelf and stretched up on her toes to retrieve the box.

When she turned back, she nearly dropped it. Thorne had the knife in his left hand. His sweat-covered brow was furrowed with concentration and he was pressing the serrated blade against the angry, swollen skin at his wrist.

“Oh, don’t—”

He grimaced and twisted the knife. A growl of pain forced through his clenched teeth, but his hand didn’t falter. Before she could reach his side, he’d turned the blade a quarter turn and slashed through the distended flesh again. Blood flowed freely from the crossed incisions.

He let the knife fall to the table and slumped back against the wall, breathing hard.

“Why’d you do that?” she asked, carrying the kit to the table.

“So you wouldn’t have to.”

Kate was thankful. She knew he’d done the right thing. Releasing the blood—and venom—from the swollen area was necessary, lest it travel to other parts of his body. But the sight of so much blood stunned her motionless for a moment. She had helped Susanna a time or two when she’d treated the villagers’ illnesses and injuries. But that was offering a bit of assistance to a skilled, competent healer. This was the two of them, alone with desperate measures.

He could die.

A wave of nausea passed through her. She rode the crest of it, then put a hand to her belly and willed herself to be calm.

Kate opened the chest and found a clean-looking length of gauze in the medical kit. She used it to dab blood from the seeping wound.

“Don’t bind it,” he said. “Not yet.”

She nodded. “I know. What do we do next?”

“You go back to the village. I either live or I don’t.”

The words were so absurd, she choked on a wild laugh. “Are you mad, Thorne? I’m not leaving you.”

She rifled through the bottles and jars in the medical kit, straining to read the faded labels. None of the contents looked familiar. “You said you own four books. I don’t suppose any are books of physic?”

He nodded toward a shelf. Kate dashed to it and found a well-thumbed military drill book, a Bible coated in dust, a bound collection of geographical magazines . . .

“Aha.” She seized on a large black volume and peered at the title.
“Treatment of Ailments and Injuries in . . .”
Her hope dwindled as she read the remainder aloud. “ . . .
in Horses and Cattle
? Thorne, this is a veterinary book.”

“I’ve been called a beast.” He closed his eyes.

Kate decided she didn’t have the time to be particular. She quickly paged through the book until she found the section on bites and stings. “Here we are. Adder bites. ‘The sting of the adder is rarely fatal.’ Well, that’s reassuring.”

Although she would have felt a great deal better had it read “the sting of the adder is never fatal.” To say adder bites were “rarely fatal” seemed to her the same as saying “adder bites are
occasionally
fatal,” and Thorne did pride himself on being an exception to ordinary conduct.

But there was a lot of him, she reminded herself. And all of it was young, healthy, and strong. Very strong.

There were several possible remedies suggested in the text.

She read aloud, “ ‘First, squeeze out the blood.’ We’ve done that, haven’t we? Good.” She made an impatient swipe at a lock of hair dangling in her face and continued. “ ‘Take a handful of the herb crosswort, some gentian and rue, boil together in a thin broth with Spanish pepper and some ends of broom, and when that is done, strain and boil with some white wine for about an . . .’ ” She growled. “About an
hour
?”

Drat. She didn’t have time to go scouting for a dozen different herbs, much less boil them for an hour. She didn’t even dare leave Thorne for the time it would take to run to the village for help.

She glanced at his face again. God, he was so pale. And his arm was entirely swollen now. Despite the tourniquet, those streaks of red had reached his elbow and beyond. His fingers were purple in some places.

“Do be calm,” she said, even as anxiety pitched her voice. “I’ve several more remedies to go through.”

She went back to the book. The next suggested remedy was to wash the affected area with salt and . . .

Urine.

Oh, good Lord. At least
that
substance was obtainable, but still. She couldn’t. She couldn’t possibly. Or perhaps she could, to preserve a man’s life. But she’d never be able to look at the preserved man again.

She sent up a fervent prayer that the third remedy would prove suitable to save both his life and their combined dignity. She read aloud with rapidity. “ ‘Lay a plaster to the area, with a salve made of calamint pounded with turpentine and yellow wax. And give the animal some infusion of calamint to drink, as a tea or mixed in milk.’ ”

Calamint. Calamint sounded perfect. If only she had some.

Kate went back to the medical kit and peered at all the contents of the bottles. She uncorked a vial stuffed with a dried herb that looked promising. When she held it to her nose and sniffed, she supposed it smelled as much like calamint as anything.

She looked around the room. There was a great deal to be done. Light a fire, boil water, melt wax, pound the salve, make a tea. And Thorne was tilting dangerously on that stool she’d given him. At any moment he’d topple the small pedestal table and crash to the floor.

She decided his wound had bled long enough. The extreme swelling had slowed the blood flow to an ooze, anyhow. She wrapped a bit of linen about his wrist as a loose bandage, then made her way to his good side.

“Up,” she directed, sliding her shoulder beneath his unbitten arm. “We’re going to take you to the bed.”

As she helped him to his feet, she could feel his eyes on her. His stare was heavy and intent.

“Am I causing you pain?” she asked.

“Always. Every time you’re near.”

She turned her face away to hide her wounded reaction. “I’m sorry.”

“Not what I meant.” He sounded drunk. With his healthy hand, he nudged her jaw until she faced him. “You’re too beautiful. It hurts.”

Wonderful. Now he was hallucinating.

Together, they shuffled toward his narrow bed. It was only a distance of a half-dozen feet, but it felt like miles. Her spine hunched under his formidable weight.

At last they reached the edge of the mattress. She managed to turn them so that when she removed her support, he sat down on the edge of the bed. Without much urging from her, he reclined onto his back.

There. That took care of head, shoulders, and torso. Now, to get his legs on the mattress, too.

“I feel strange,” he said dreamily. “Heavy.”

“You
are
heavy,” she muttered, straining to lift one of his massive boots from the floor and heave his leg onto the bed. Goodness, lifting him felt like lifting a statue carved of granite. Once she had the first leg in place, the second came easier. Badger leapt onto the bed and curled between his boots.

She leaned over him to place the pillow under his head.

“I can see down your bodice,” he remarked.

A thrill shot down her spine, leaving her body through the soles of her feet.

Really, Kate. This isn’t the time.

She laid the back of her hand to his forehead. Hot to the touch.

“You’re feverish. I need to strip the rest of your shirt, to cool your body and ease your breathing.”

She reached for the knife, wiped it clean of blood, and used it to make a notch in the neckline of his shirt. Then she grabbed both sides and ripped it straight down the front, pushing the halves to either side and working the remaining sleeve down his good arm.

When she’d bared his chest, she startled. He didn’t seem to notice her shock, and she wasn’t sure whether his insensibility was a fortunate thing or a very bad sign.

But since he didn’t notice . . . she openly stared. His chest was hard, sculpted muscle covered with tanned skin. She saw a liberal sprinkling of dark hair, a few healed scars . . .

And tattoos. Several tattoos.

Kate had heard of such things. She knew many sailors had patterns or pictures inked into their skin, but she’d never seen an example in person, to her recollection. Definitely not this close.

Not all of Thorne’s tattoos were patterns or pictures. There was an abstract design of some kind on his upper right chest, encircled by a medallion just smaller than her palm. On his shoulder was a tiny, crudely drawn flower—rather like a Tudor rose. A row of numbers marched up the underside of his left arm. And on the side of his rib cage, she found a pair of letters: B and C.

So primitive. So
fascinating.
She couldn’t help but lay her fingers to those letters and wonder what they meant. The initials of some former sweetheart, perhaps? She knew he’d had lovers, but the notion of Thorne with a sweetheart seemed absurd. Almost as absurd as the spike of jealousy twisting in her chest.

But when she touched his skin, the scalding heat reminded her of the larger task at hand. Keeping this immense, stubborn, tattooed man alive.

She tried to rise from the bed, but his good arm shot out to catch her. He still had some strength in him, apparently, and he used it to pull her close.

“What is it?” she asked.

“You smell so good.” His eyes were closed, and his voice was a low, rummy drawl. “Like clover.”

She swallowed. “I don’t even know what clover smells like.”

“Then you need a good roll in it.”

She laughed a little. If he was making jokes, he couldn’t be beyond hope.

Then his muscles seized and his eyes rolled back as he thrashed on the mattress. She put her hands to his chest and leaned all her weight on them, holding him to the bed.

He fell limp, panting. His hand found and tangled in her loosened hair. “Katie. I’m dying.”

“You’re not dying. Adder bites are rarely fatal. That’s what the book said. But I need to make you some salve, and a tea.”

He held her fast, forbidding her to move. “I’m dying. Stay with me.”

Desperation pressed on her, but Kate forcibly held it at bay. She reminded herself of what Susanna had once told her—big, strong men always made the worst, most infantile patients when forced to a sickbed. If they took sick with a cold, they moaned and complained as though they were at death’s door. Thorne was simply overreacting. She hoped.

She stroked a touch over his perspiring brow. “You’ll be fine. I’ll just go make you some—”

“You don’t know me.”

“I do. I know you far better than you give me credit for. I know you’re brave and good and—”

“No, you don’t know. You don’t recall me. But it’s best. When I first arrived, I worried. Feared you might place me. At times, I almost hoped you would. But it’s . . .” He drew a raspy breath. “It’s best this way.”

“What do you mean?” Kate’s every nerve jumped to attention. “It’s best what way?”

“You’ve done so well for yourself, Katie. If she could see you, she’d be . . . so proud . . .” His voice trailed off and he closed his eyes.

What did he just say?