Sunlight filtered down through the oak tree overhead, dappling the carriage blankets atop the spongy grass. Margaret continued to moan, her back arching, her breaths coming in short gasps. Lottie mopped the perspiration from her sister’s forehead.
The doctor opened the small jar and stirred a spoonful of powder into the bucket of water.
“Chlorinated-lime,” he said, noting her questioning look, “to ensure everything is disinfected. I’m an oddity among physicians, I know. But I believe in the importance of cleanliness when dealing with patients, particularly during childbirth.”
He dipped both hands into the mixture, rubbing them thoroughly. Shaking his hands dry, he unfolded one of the bedsheets the footman had brought and draped it over Margaret’s legs.
“I need to check the progress of your bairn, Lady Frank, so please forgive this indignity.” The doctor’s tone was soft and gentle. “You will only feel a slight pressure.”
Lottie’s eyes widened.
Gracious, childbirth was proving a cleansing experience—scrubbing their lives of decorum and catapulting them into a sort of reluctant familiarity.
The doctor lifted the sheet, gently pulling on Margaret’s ankles to open her knees. The curls of his periwig dragged across Margaret’s calves, causing her to shriek once more and jerk her legs away, pushing her feet into the blanket, as if to sit up.
The doctor sighed, rocking back on his heels, hands atop the satin justacorps covering his thighs.
“I am truly here to help.” His voice held a decisive bite this time. “But in order to help, I must determine the position and progress of your bairn.”
Margaret raised her head and glowered at him, hair sticking to her damp cheeks. “I want a proper physician. Or, at the very least, a competent midwife.”
The doctor closed his eyes, perhaps praying for patience.
Though, in this, Lottie could understand Margaret’s reluctance. The necessary intimacy of this situationwasshocking.
“Iama proper physician,” he said through clenched teeth. “I graduated as a fully-fledged Doctor of Medicine from the University of Edinburgh just three years past.”
Lottie swallowed. The doctor was as young as she had supposed.
Margaret turned weary eyes to Lottie. “Was there no other doctor in town?”
“Believe me,” he interrupted, “I dinnae want tae be here anymore than yerselves. But your choices, my lady, were myself dressed like this or one of the other three physicians in town who are currently drunk as wheelbarrows. Proper roaringfou, they are.”
“Are you quite sure you are not drunk yourself?” Margaret flicked her eyes over his gaudy attire.
“My lady, I am dressed like this preciselybecauseI am sober, not the other way around.” He sighed, leaning forward and sliding his hands down to his knees. “My story is quite simple. I was returning to Edinburgh and stopped in Ripon to visit a school chum who has a surgery there. My friend wished to celebrate my return to Britain, as I have been abroad for a pair of years. He invited his friends and proposed a drinking game. He would add something vile to each finger of brandy, and the man who refused a drink had to don another piece of this monstrosity.” The doctor swept a hand down the front of his violet justacorps. “I dinnae drink alcohol. Therefore, I lost every round.”
“How can you be a gentleman—aScotno less—and not drink—” Margaret cut off mid-sentence, her body arching in agony.
Lottie shook her head. “Please forgive my sister, sir. You are not seeing her at her best.” She mopped Margaret’s face once more. “We have had a trying afternoon.”
“Aye. I think we all have.” He managed a grim smile.
“The lack of propriety for this situation has been a shock,” Lottie said. “We all supposed Margaret would be in the privacy of her own boudoir when she gave birth. Not atop a blanket beside a boggy meadow.”
Poor Margaret was lost in her pain, curses dropping from her lips, breaths coming in short pants. The doctor slipped his hands under the sheet, and this time, Margaret allowed him to examine her progress.
“Ye are coming along nicely, my lady. I can just feel the baby’s head beginning to descend in earnest, though it is not quite yet crowning. It shan’t be more than another hour or two, I reckon. I see no point in moving you and attempting to reach habitation. How came you to be here?”
“’Tis a bit of a tale.” Lottie wiped Margaret’s brow. “We left London three days ago to return to my sister’s home outside Darlington to begin her confinement. We spent last night in Ripon but were two hours on the roadway this morning when her waters burst. The pains came hard and fast, and we were attempting to return to town, but poor Margaret could not tolerate the jolting and rocking of the carriage. We stopped and she paced her way across the boggy meadow—” Lottie motioned to the marsh before them. “—and then did not have the wherewithal to return to the carriage. The servants brought blankets and rushed to fetch a doctor.”
The doctor dipped his hands into the lime mixture to wash them, frowning as the cuffs of the justacorps dragged in the water. “Is this Lady Frank’s first child?”
Margaret grunted, moaning and cursing again. Her labor pains were certainly lasting longer with less time between them.
“’Tis her second, sir,” Lottie answered. “Her first is a sweet girl, Anne, who is at home with her nurse. But it has been nearly six years since my sister last gave birth. We had supposed her barren, so this child is truly a gift.”
“I’m grateful, then, tae be part of this joyous occasion.” The doctor nodded and took a seat on the opposite side of Margaret, settling onto the blanket there.
