The mother hurried ahead of him and opened the door wider. He stood on the threshold, stared at the filth within, and turned around.
“Madam, I wouldn’t put a dog in there,” he snapped. “The poor beast would die of infection.”
Uncertain what to do, he walked back to the coachman. “Do you know … is there someplace clean in this pathetic village where I can treat this child?”
The coachman shook the stick at the man lying on the road, who was beginning to groan. “Wouldn’t know, sir. I just drive through to the Hare and Hound. It’s a noisy inn. You wouldn’t want to tend him there.”
“Can anyone here tell me where to take this boy?” Douglas asked, pitching his voice to hurricane strength, a voice used to shouting orders to be heard above the roar of cannons and the shrieks of wounded men on a bloody deck.
“Only one place for you to take Tommy Tavish,” one hardy soul told him, stepping out from the growing crowd. “??’Tis Miss Olive Grant’s Tearoom.”
“Where?”
“Follow me.”
Chapter 4
It’s a rare delegation, comin’down the road. I don’t think it’s luncheon they’ll be after.”
“My goodness, you’re right,” Olive Grant said to her customer.
Olive brushed her fingers against her spotless apron, the lace one she changed to once the luncheon simmered on the hob or roasted in the Rumford. She stepped into the doorway, door open to receive diners, now that the weather had turned warmer, and stared at the crowd coming her way.
Only an imbecile would have gaped in wonder, and Olive was no imbecile. A swift glance took in a tall man carrying a limp child in his arms. She looked closer at the bloody bandage, the foot turning in a direction not generally achievable, and then bones. She gulped and spoke to her scullery maid, not taking her eyes from the strange parade coming closer.
“Maeve! Take that piece of canvas from the scullery. You know the one. Put it on the little bed upstairs. Hurry now!”
Olive took a deep breath and stepped outside in time to hold the door wider as the tall man came inside. Because staring at the wounded child made her queasy, she looked at the man instead. What she saw reassured her. There was nothing in his expression of terror or worry, merely calm competence. She let her breath out slowly, less afraid.
“Someone told me this was the cleanest place in town,” he said by way of introduction.
“Next to Lady Telford’s big house, I daresay this is true,” she said, gesturing toward the stairs. “First door on the right.”
He didn’t hesitate to move swiftly up the stairs, calling over his shoulder, “Hot water, please, and towels.” She held her breath, but he ducked just in time to avoid banging his head on the turn of the stairs.
She hurried to do as he ordered and nearly ran into Mrs. Tavish, eyes wild and hands and face bloody. Olive took the woman by her arm and steered her in the direction of the kitchen, ignoring disapproving glances as she wished some of her fellow townsmen were less judgmental.
She sat Tommy’s mother down and reached for a cloth dipped in the hot water that Maeve, bless her reliable heart, had already poured into a deep basin. Olive squeezed out the towel and pressed it to Mrs. Tavish’s face, thinking to herself that there was as much grime as blood. The woman held the cloth to her face, taking comfort from the warmth.
Olive turned to Maeve. “Pour her tea and make her tidy,” she ordered. “I am going upstairs.”
Olive put several towels in the crook of her arm and picked up the basin. Minding her steps, she hurried up the familiar stairs, avoiding the squeaky treads from habit, and entered the room.
The tall man had taken bandage scissors to the unconscious boy’s trousers. Olive set down the basin on the little table beside the bed and draped the towels over theheadboard. She saw the man’s open leather satchel, which had other scissors and tools she didn’t recognize, or possibly chose not to.
“I am Olive Grant,” she said. “And you, sir?”
“Captain Douglas Bowden,” he said without turning around. “Well, no, I am merely Douglas Bowden now, but I am a surgeon.”
He turned around then and gave her such a direct look, the kind of earnest inquiry she hadn’t seen since her father was alive.
“Are you squeamish, Miss Grant?” he asked.
“Aye,” she admitted, but then set the record straight. “However, I do not flinch from duty.”Honestly, Olive,she thought, exasperated with herself.You sound like a ninny.
He smiled then. “I could have used a plain speaker like you during the war and saved myself enormous amounts of time. I need you now. Will you please keep the twist tight on my neck cloth?”
She looked at his neck, then realized he meant the bloody scrap he must have tightened around the boy’s leg.
