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Sir Warren jerked to a halt in the hallway as if he were about to change his mind.
‘Your mother said you could help,’ Marianne encouraged, afraid to lose him now and in front of the sneering women.
‘Yes, of course.’ He lost his hesitation and they resumed their steady pace.
They approached the ladies clustered behind Lady Cartwright and her imperious scowl. Their whispers ceased as Marianne and Sir Warren passed, and Marianne could practically hear the scandal wicking through the countryside. She could stop and explain, but there was no point in wasting the breath or time. Some might understand and forgive her. The rest wouldn’t be so charitable even if she were summoning help for the Archbishop of Canterbury.
‘It’s just the type of inappropriate behaviour I’d expect from someone related to Madame de Badeau,’ Lady Cartwright’s barely concealed voice carried down the hall behind them.
‘She should be ashamed of herself,’ Lady Astley whispered.
Marianne winced, expecting their censure to make Sir Warren change his mind about assisting her. To her astonishment, he turned and strode back to their hostess.
‘Lady Cartwright, would you be so kind as to fetch a sewing kit, a roll of linen, a few towels and vinegar and see them delivered to the study. Lady Ellington has been seriously injured and I need the items.’
Lady Cartwright’s long face dropped as the crow finally grasped the urgency of the situation. ‘Of course, I’ll have the housekeeper see to it at once.’
She grabbed the skirt of her dress and fluttered off in the opposite direction, leaving her daughter and the rest of the ladies to huddle and whisper.
Sir Warren returned to Marianne. ‘Shall we?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Marianne started off again, amazed at his command of Lady Cartwright and the alacrity with which he’d defended her. She wished she possessed the power to wipe the nasty sneers from the women’s faces. After four years, most of the country families still believed she was as bad as the late Madame de Badeau. They couldn’t see past all of the dead woman’s scandals to realise Marianne, despite having the woman’s blood in her veins, wasn’t a brazen tart like her.
‘Does Lady Ellington have a strong constitution?’ Sir Warren asked as they turned the corner.
‘The strongest.’
‘You’re sure? It’ll matter a great deal to her recovery if the wound is deep.’
‘I’m quite sure. I reside with her. She’s my friend.’ And almost the only person who’d accepted her once the scandal with Madame de Badeau had spread. Her support, and the influence of her nephew and his wife, the Marquess and Marchioness of Falconbridge, stood between Marianne and complete isolation from society.
As they continued on to the study, Sir Warren’s presence played on her like a fine piano sonata. She’d never been so conscious of a man before, at least not one who wasn’t ogling her from across a room. He didn’t glance at her once as they crossed the hallway and he hadn’t been inappropriate in his regard, not even when she’d first faced him in the dining room. She wondered at the strange awareness of him and if it meant the penchant for ruin did linger inside her, waiting for the right man to bring it out. After all, Madame de Badeau had been in control of herself for many years, until the thought of losing Lord Falconbridge had pushed her to near madness. If it did exist in Marianne, she’d stand strong against it, as she had all Madame de Badeau’s wickedness, and make sure it never ruled her.
At last, the study door came into sight and she forgot Sir Warren as she focused on her friend.
‘Stay here in case we need you,’ Sir Warren instructed the footman and the man took up his place along the wall.
Marianne hurried forward, eager to know if Lady Ellington was any better or worse, but Sir Warren’s hand on her upper arm brought her to a halt. He gripped her lightly, drawing her back to him. She whirled to face him, fingers curling into a fist, ready to strike him like she used to the lecherous men at Madame de Badeau’s, but the melancholy shadow covering his expression made her hand relax.
‘Miss?’ he asked, the question as soft as his pulse flickering against her skin.
‘Domville.’ She braced herself, expecting recognition to ripple through his eyes and make him recoil from her.
It never came.
‘Miss Domville, I’ll do all I can for Lady Ellington, but you must understand how small an arsenal I possess against the chance of inflammation.’
Marianne began to tremble. ‘Are you saying this to scare me? Because I assure you, I’m already frightened.’
He slid his thumb along her skin, the gesture subtle but comforting, soothing her in a way she’d craved so many times during her childhood at the Protestant School and in the face of Madame de Badeau’s callousness. Deep in the back of her mind, the raspy voice of experience urged her to pull away. She’d learned years ago not to seek solace in others or to accept so familiar a touch from a man. Both were the quickest paths to disappointment. For the first time, for no logical reason she could discern, she ignored the voice and experience.
‘I’m saying this because I have no desire to deceive you about the strength of my skills, or those of any man of my former profession,’ he explained. ‘We’re helpless against everything but the most minor of ailments. Even those outdo us from time to time. It’s a truth many medical men are loath to admit.’
There seemed more to his admission than a need to discredit himself. Something about his past in medicine drove him to speak when most physicians would be pushing expensive and useless treatments on her. She caught it in the tight lines around his mouth. Was it a failure or a lost patient? Whatever it was, the silent plea wasn’t just for understanding, but for forgiveness. She covered his hand, her chest catching as he tightened his fingers around hers. Despite the inappropriateness of this exchange, she knew too much about pain to leave someone else to suffer.
‘Sir Warren, Lady Ellington means more to me and has done more for me than anyone else and has never expected anything in return except my friendship. I understand the shortcomings of your profession and appreciate your honesty and willingness to help. Whatever happens, I won’t blame you. I only ask you to do your best.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘I will.’
* * *
Warren’s palm went cold the instant he let go of Miss Domville. A trickle of perspiration slid down the arch of his back. He swiped at it, leaving his shirt sticking to his skin beneath his coat. If he didn’t detest the feeling so much, he’d call it fear.
The candles in the candelabrum near the door wavered with the draught as he entered the study. Lady Ellington sat grimacing on the floor, pillows propped behind her. Faint streaks of drying blood ran the length of her arm beneath the soiled handkerchief. Darker drops littered the floor and stained her mauve skirt and the carpet.
Warren paused on the threshold, the brackish taste of mouldy cask water burning his tongue. He took a deep breath, coughing slightly as the scent of burning wood and gunpowder filled his nostrils.
His mother looked up, apology as heavy as concern for the patient in her expression. ‘Warren, thank goodness you’re here.’
Warren pushed forward, forcing his feet to move one in front of the other. He carefully brushed aside the broken porcelain pieces so he could kneel next to the regal lady and better view the laceration. He removed the blood-soaked handkerchief and steadied himself as he examined the gaping wound.
‘How are you tonight, Lady Ellington?’ He tried to sound cordial but the words came out tight.
‘I’ve certainly been better.’ She offered him a weak smile, her wide chest covered in diamonds struggling to reflect the low light.
‘Miss Domville, please bring the candles closer.’
Miss Domville’s dress fluttered behind her as she took the candelabrum from near the door and set it on the table above Lady Ellington. The memory of his assistant surgeon holding a candle over Warren’s head while Warren dug splinters out of a seaman’s neck flashed in the facets of Lady Ellington’s diamonds. Some of the sailors had survived thanks to his skill. Many more hadn’t, no matter how much he’d done for them.
Miss Domville knelt beside Warren. The whisper of silk and her fresh peony scent pushed back the old stench of seared flesh. He offered her an encouraging smile, wishing he could wallow in her faint answering one. He couldn’t and focused on the patient.
‘I’m sorry, Lady Ellington, but the cut is deep and will require sutures.’
Lady Ellington’s pale face went almost transparent. ‘It will hurt, won’t it?’
‘It will, but without them I can’t stop the bleeding.’
‘Don’t worry, Lady Ellington, you’ve faced worse,’ Miss Domville encouraged. The worry he’d caught in her voice in the hallway when he’d cautioned her about believing too much in medical men was masked by her reassuring words.
‘You’re quite right, my dear. We must soldier on tonight as we always do, mustn’t we?’ Lady Ellington reached out with her good arm and patted Miss Domville’s knee. The young lady didn’t stiffen beneath the older woman’s touch as she had with Warren’s, nor did the tenderness of her smile fade.
‘Sir Warren, I brought the items you requested.’ Lady Cartwright’s voice ended the sweet comfort of the ladies’ exchange.
At the door, Lady Cartwright covered her mouth in shock. Warren wasn’t certain if it was for Lady Ellington or the now-stained carpet. He suspected the latter as he took the sewing box and bottle of vinegar from the stalwart housekeeper and set them next to him.
‘Come away from there at once, Miss Domville.’ Lady Cartwright flapped her hand at her guest. ‘Next to a surgeon is no place for a young lady. You’ll only get in Sir Warren’s way.’
‘No, I need her help and her friend needs her comfort,’ Warren countered as he took up the needle and began to thread it with sturdy white silk. His hands were solid on the slender metal, but he felt the tremor rising up through his body. He was determined to finish the task before it swept over him and made him appear weak and incompetent. He took a deep breath, inhaling Miss Domville’s sweet scent. It calmed him more than any drought of laudanum or dram of rum ever had.
When the needle was ready, he handed it to Miss Domville. ‘Hold this, please.’
Their fingers met and she pulled away as if he’d pricked her, the tension he’d sensed when he’d touched in her in the hallway returning. He wished he could soothe whatever worries made her flinch, but it was the patient who needed him now.
He took up the bottle of vinegar, splashed some on to the clean cloth and pressed it to the wound. Lady Ellington winced.
‘You might have warned me.’ She scowled, a touch of humour behind the reprimand.
‘It would have hurt more if I had,’ Warren countered with a half-smile. He set the cloth and vinegar aside and took the needle from Miss Domville. He pinched the top of it, careful not to touch her this time. ‘Put your hands on either side of the skin and push it closed.’
Without question or hesitation, Miss Domville did as she was told. A trickle of blood seeped over her long fingers, but she didn’t flinch or blanch. He admired the girl’s pluck. Most genteel young ladies would be swooning on the sofa by now.
Not to be outdone by a young woman, Warren drew in a bracing breath and set to work.
Lady Ellington whimpered with each pierce of the needle and draw of the thread, but she didn’t scream or jerk away. Warren worked fast, eager to cause her as little pain as necessary.
Over his shoulders, an occasional whisper broke through his concentration. To Lady Cartwright’s credit, she kept the other ladies from crowding into the room and interfering. To her detriment, she didn’t staunch the steady stream of derision aimed at Miss Domville.
‘She’ll ruin her dress,’ Lady Preston sneered.
‘She’s acting like a common camp follower,’ Miss Cartwright hissed.
Warren made the final suture, tied it off with a neat knot and used the scissors in the sewing kit to snip the needle free of the thread. ‘You’d make quite a surgeon’s assistant, Miss Domville. You have the steady nerves for it.’
She frowned and glanced past him to the door. ‘Not everyone agrees with you.’
‘Ignore them.’ He handed her a clean towel, eager to see her lovely white fingers free of the red taint.
‘I spend my days ignoring them.’ She roughly scrubbed her skin.
He wondered what had happened to turn the others against her. Perhaps it was jealousy. She was sensuous like a Greek sculpture with shapely arms ending in elegant hands. When her fingers were clean and white again, she handed him the stained towel, avoiding his touch. Then she adjusted the lace chemisette covering her very generous décolletage. The brush of her fingertips across her breasts proved as teasing as it was modest. It made him forget the dirty linen in his palm as he watched her straighten a pin in her golden hair with its faint hints of amber circling her face. It was arranged in small twists which were drawn together at the back of her head, emphasising her curving neck and the small curls gracing it. While he watched her, he was no longer irritated at being drawn back to the sickroom he despised. If he’d known this beautiful woman was waiting in the sitting room for the men to finish their port, he’d have insisted they leave the dining room at once.
‘Warren, perhaps you should see to the bandage,’ his mother encouraged, interrupting his admiration of Miss Domville.
‘Of course.’ Warren took up the roll of linen and wound it over the wound, attempting to ignore the blood covering his fingers and to focus on Miss Domville’s steady presence beside him. As he tied the bandage, a small spot of red darkened the centre, but it spread out only to the size of a thruppence before stopping. ‘There now, Lady Ellington, all is well again.’
Lady Ellington looked at her arm and the dried streaks running down it. ‘To imagine, all this trouble because I tripped.’
‘It was no trouble at all. I’m glad you summoned me.’ He patted her good shoulder, hoping his smile hid the lie. It didn’t and his mother caught it, offering him a silent apology, but he ignored it. The old fear humbled him enough without anyone noticing it. ‘Let’s help her up to the sofa so she can rest.’
The moment Lady Ellington was settled against the cushions, the invisible dam holding the ladies back burst. They flooded into room, surrounding the Dowager Countess in a flurry of chirping and silk. Warren moved back, surprised to find Miss Domville next to him.
‘She really will be all right, won’t she?’ she asked, her fear palpable. She wasn’t the first person to seek his reassurance about a patient.
‘There was no cloth pushed into the wound to fester and, given her robust health, I think she’ll recover well.’ It was the best he could offer.
Pink replaced the pale worry on the apples of her cheeks. He’d experienced the same reprieve the day he’d returned to Portsmouth and resigned his commission. He’d vowed that day never to climb aboard another Navy frigate again, and heaven help him, he wouldn’t.
‘I’ll write out instructions for properly seeing to the wound while it heals and a recipe for a laudanum tonic to help ease any pain.’ He walked to the escritoire, the activity relieving some of the tension of having attended to a patient for the first time since his sister’s death over a year ago. He pulled out the chair, making it scrape against the wood floor, irked that a simple cut could affect him or dredge up so many awful memories. His reaction was as shocking as when he’d turned to find Miss Domville in the dining room asking him to help the same way his mother had asked him to intervene during Leticia’s travails.
Seating himself, he selected a piece of paper from the stack on the blotter. He paused as he laid the clean sheet over the leather. Blood darkened the tips of his finger and the side of his hand. He rubbed at the stains with the linen towel, but the red clung to his skin as it used to during a battle. He tightened his hand into a fist, desperate for water and soap to rid himself of the filth.
He looked up, ready to bolt from the room in search of cleansing when his eyes caught Miss Domville’s. She glanced at his clenched hands, then back to his face. It wasn’t his mother’s pity in the stunning blue depths of her eyes, but the same bracing strength she’d offered Lady Ellington before he’d begun his work.
He snatched up the pen, his fingertips pressing hard on the wood as he scratched out in shaky letters the directions for mixing the laudanum and alcohol. He pushed back the haunting memories of his cramped cabin below the waterline and focused on the proportions, determined not to get the dosage wrong and leave poor Miss Domville at fault for easing her friend’s pain for good.
‘My, it’s cold in here,’ Lady Astley’s voice rang out above the noise.
A poker clanged in the grate and Warren flinched, running a streak of ink across the paper. The scrape of rods shoved down cannon barrels echoed in the sound, the balls buried deep inside and ready to wreak a destruction his surgical skills could never hope to undo.
‘Ladies, I think Lady Ellington should be left alone to rest until the carriage is called.’ Miss Domville’s firm suggestion sounded above the clatter, silencing it.
Warren, pulled from the past by the steady voice, was surprised by the young lady’s ability to remain composed in the face of so many hostile stares. She reminded him of a seasoned seaman calmly watching the coming battle while the new recruits wet themselves.
Lady Cartwright huffed up to Miss Domville, not content with a silent rebuke. ‘I don’t think you should instruct us on how to behave. You didn’t even have the decency to tell us what was wrong, bursting in on the men and leaving us to think who knows what.’
‘It was an emergency. There wasn’t time for pleasantries.’ The twitch of small muscles around the young woman’s lips undermined her stoicism.
Lady Cartwright opened her mouth to unleash another blow.
‘She was right to summon me as she did.’ Warren rose to defend Miss Domville, tired of the imperious woman. Miss Domville had endured enough tonight worrying over her friend. She didn’t need some puffed-up matron rattling the sabre of propriety over her blonde head. ‘And she’s correct. Lady Ellington needs space and rest. Lady Cartwright, would you call for her carriage? Mother, would you escort her and Miss Domville home? I’ll send my carriage for you.’
‘Of course.’ His mother arched one interested eyebrow at Lady Ellington, who offered a similar look in return before her face scrunched up with a fresh wave of pain.
Lady Cartwright’s nostrils flared with indignation, not nearly as amused as the two ladies on the sofa. ‘I’ll summon Lady Ellington’s carriage. After all, we wouldn’t want to detain Lady Ellington or Miss Domville any longer.’
She struck Miss Domville with a nasty look before striding off in a huff.
The long breath Miss Domville exhaled after Lady Cartwright left whispered of tired resignation. It was as if she’d waged too many similar battles, but had to keep fighting. He understood her weariness. Aboard ship, he’d faced approaching enemy vessels with the same reluctant acceptance.
Her gaze caught his and he dropped his to the paper as if he’d stumbled upon her at her bath, not in the middle of these chattering biddies. Unable to stand the noise any longer, Warren snatched up the instructions and quit the room. In the quiet of the hallway, he spat into his palm and rubbed the handkerchief hard against his skin. It smeared the red across his hand, dirtying the linen as it had stained the rags aboard ship. There’d never been enough buckets of seawater to clean the grime from beneath his fingernails.
He screwed his eyes shut.
This is nothing like then. Nothing like it. Those days are gone.
The war against Napoleon was over, his commission resigned. He was no longer Lieutenant Stevens, surgeon aboard HMS Bastion. He was Sir Warren Stevens, master of Priorton Abbey and a fêted novelist.
A fêted novelist who’d be destitute and a disappointment to his family like his father had been if he didn’t finish writing his next book.
He opened his eyes and scrubbed harder until at last the red began to fade, cursing the troubles piling on him tonight.
‘Sir Warren, are you all right?’
Miss Domville approached him, the flowing silk of her dress brushing against each slender leg. Beneath her high breasts, it draped her flat stomach and followed the curve of her hips. She stopped in front of him, her eyes as clear and patient as when they’d faced each other before.
Humiliation flooded through him. He wouldn’t be brought low by memories. He clutched his lapels and jerked back his shoulders, fixing her with the same glib smile he flashed adoring readers whenever he signed their books. ‘Yes, why shouldn’t I be?’
‘I don’t know. You seem troubled.’ She studied him the way his sister, Leticia, used to, head tilted to one side, her chestnut curls brushing her smooth cheeks. It had looked so dark, matted against her forehead with sweat, her hazel eyes clouding as the life had faded from them. Hopelessness hit him like a jab to the gut.
