“I know you’re hungry, and so is your mam,” Douglas told him. “If you can stand the pain for a little while, we can probably convince Miss Grant to bring up some food for you and your mother. Draughts and food don’t mix well.”
Douglas saw the deep gratitude in Tommy’s eyes and found it difficult to continue. Good thing he needed to make a slight adjustment to the splint just then, an adjustment precisely long enough to allow him to collect his feelings.
“That’s better. Can’t leave these little things untended,” Douglas said finally. “If you eat something now, you and your mam, you’ll have to wait another hour before I give you that sleeping draught. Personally, I think that best, if you can manage the pain, lad.”
“I can manage,” the boy whispered.
“Excellent.” Douglas knew better than to look at Miss Grant, so he fiddled with that splint again. When he finally looked in Miss Grant’s direction, she was gathering up bits of bloody lint that needed no attention at the moment.What silly beings we are, he thought, grateful for human kindness.
Miss Grant was obviously made of sterner stuff than he had thought, considering her reluctance around blood. She turned to Mrs. Tavish. “I have so much to do. If my scullery maid and I bring some food up here for you and Tommy, could you feed him while we are busy elsewhere?”
Perfect, he thought,perfect. The two of them can eat without an audience watching them wolf down a meal. “Iwill echo that, Mrs. Tavish.” Douglas indicated the scissors, suturing needle, bistoury, and catgut. “I’ll take all this downstairs while you eat and I wash my instruments. They must be cared for immediately. Will you help us by feeding Tommy?”
Mrs. Tavish nodded, her eyes less haunted. He saw something in them of anticipation and maybe even hope. He doubted supremely that anything good had happened to her in years.Let it be a handsome bit of food, Miss Grant, he thought.
Miss Grant clapped her hands. “Brilliant! Maeve and I will only be a few minutes. I so appreciate your help, Mrs. Tavish. Come, Maeve.” She left the room with her scullery maid.
Moved to the depths of his heart, Douglas gathered together the untidy pieces of his profession and put them in the leather satchel. “I’ll be up in an hour with that sleeping draught,” he said, and he left the room. He gave a nod to Mrs. Tavish. “Mind he doesn’t gulp his food. I’m relying on you.”
He saw the poor woman straighten her back. “I can take care of my son,” she said with a touch of pride, probably another emotion in short shrift in the Tavish household.
Grateful for the ladies, he went downstairs slowly. His heart softened again to see a dining room full of people eating, served by what looked like friends who had come to gawk a bit, then stayed to serve meals to Miss Grant’s customers, in lieu of her absence. He went into the kitchen in time to see the proprietor dabbing at her eyes as she loaded two plates with more food than either Tavish had probably seen in donkey’s years.
“A little less on each plate. I try not to overfeed starving folk,” he admonished. Strange that he thought he knew her heart already, and so he told her. “Miss Grant, I have not known you outside of an hour, but I am confident youwill find a way to give Mrs. Tavish more to eat. I hazard a guess that you are probably even a bit of a bully, when it comes to nourishing the starving.”
She nodded, tears in her eyes. “Do you ever want to help the whole world, Captain?” she asked.
“Only my entire life,” he assured her. “We’ll start small here in Edgar.”
What in blazes am I implying?he asked himself, horrified, as Miss Grant and Maeve covered the plates with cloths and left the kitchen. Hungry himself, he looked in the largest pot and salivated to see meat, onions, and potatoes in a brown sauce. He found a bowl and spoon and helped himself.
“You’re useful and you cook,” he said softly. He finished and left a handful of coins on the serving table.
He stayed in the kitchen, nodding to the earnest ladies serving Miss Grant’s noontime meals to what probably constituted her usual clientele, older men and women of modest means who relied on the capable woman with the soft heart. He didn’t see more than small coins left on tables.
Miss Grant and Maeve came into the kitchen in short order. She quickly put the scullery maid to work gathering dishes from the dining room and then sat down at the serving table. He watched her struggle, and then handed her his handkerchief.
She kept the cloth to her face for a long moment and finally blew her nose. “Mrs. Tavish couldn’t even wait until we left the room. Oh, Captain, she almost fell on that food!” She put her hand to her mouth until she gained some control. “And Tommy—he’s in such pain, but he is hungrier.”
“It’s a poor village,” he said.
He took a liberty and got another bowl from the cabinet. He filled it with stew and set it in front of Miss Grant. “You’re an excellent cook, by the way,” he told her.
“Just a simple stew for the middle of the week,” she replied, but he heard the pride in her voice. “I cook mainly for pensioners, Highlanders who aren’t too prideful, and the odd visitor who drops by and saves a little boy’s life.”
“So I am the odd visitor,” he teased.
She laughed. “Oh, you know what I mean!” Her face grew serious and she set down her spoon. “I do not know where you are going, Captain, but I do hope you can remain here a few days for Tommy.”
“Certainly I will,” he replied, startled that she would think anything else. She blushed and he realized she had never had any dealings with doctors. “It’s what sawbones do, Miss Grant,” he explained. “I would no more leave now than walk barefoot on spikes.”
“Thank you,” she said simply and picked up her spoon again.
“Highlanders?” he asked. “Here?”
“They were dumped on Edgar two years ago, and no one quite knows what to do with them. I feed some, but the others are so proud, or shamed.” She shook her head and he saw her frustration. “We don’t understand them.”
Dumped here?Douglas realized he knew nothing about Scotland. He left Miss Grant to eat in peace and went through the dining room, looking for the coachman. One of the diners told him the man was long gone. His luggage had been left in the tearoom’s snug entry hall.
