“Paterson, ye will put the sheet around my chest and kneel on the bed behind me and pull the ends of the sheets back toward ye, hard.”
“Like reins,” Paterson said.
“Exactly. And Andrews, ye will take my right arm and extend it straight out and pull as hard as ye can. The two of ye will be pulling in opposite directions and the shoulder should pop back into place.”
The butler Andrews nodded. Paterson looked at the ruffled counterpane and said, “Begging yer pardon, miss,” and took off his boots before he got onto the bed. He knelt behind Alasdair and looped the sheet in front of his chest and then gripped the two ends tightly.
Alasdair took a deep breath.
The butler Andrews took hold of his arm, and Arabella could see that Alasdair was quite close to screaming.
“On three, pull,” he said through his teeth. “One, two, three–”
He did scream then. And though the men pulled with all their might, when the butler Andrews finally relaxed his pull on Alasdair’s arm and Paterson relaxed his reins made of a bedsheet, the right shoulder was still bony, still squared off.
Through his tears, Alasdair said, “I am sorry, Arabella, I should have sent ye out of the room.”
He had called her Arabella. Finally. Maybe he didn’t hate her.
“Nonsense,” she said. “I wouldn’t have listened.” She stepped up to him and touched his left shoulder gently. “Why didn’t it work?”
“I’m too tense in the shoulder girdle. The pain keeps the muscle from relaxing.”
“Perhaps the whisky, Dr. Andrews,” the butler Andrews said and went to get the bottle he had set down on the table.
“I’d rather keep my wits about me,” Alasdair said, white-faced.
“I’d rather get your arm back in its socket,” Arabella said. And she moved her hand on his left shoulder toward his neck and the triangle of muscle that lay between the neck and his shoulder. Then she felt the same muscle on the right. It felt very hard on both sides of his neck. Surely these muscles were not always this rigid. “Give the doctor a very large whisky, Andrews.”
The butler Andrews poured four fingers into a glass and Alasdair took it in his left hand and drank it. Three long gulps. Arabella took the glass from him as he shook his head and exhaled through his teeth.
“All right,” he rasped. “Let’s try again.”
“Let the whisky work, Dr. Andrews.” She did not know how he would be able to bear having his arm pulled like that again.
“Miss,” Ewen said. He was standing by the window. “Miss.”
“Not now, Ewen, we must fix Dr. Andrews’ shoulder.”
“’Tis about Dr. Andrews’ shoulder, miss.”
“Yes, Ewen?” Arabella knew she sounded very irritable when she wanted to be calm and accommodating.
“I need to tell ye alone, miss.”
Arabella was vexed. The boy was not helping and now he was distracting her and Alasdair was hurting. And Alasdair had said the sooner the shoulder was put back in the socket, the better. She walked over to Ewen.
“What is it, Ewen?”
Ewen leaned and spoke in her ear.
The whisky was beginning to affect Alasdair. Despite the terrible pain of his shoulder, a certain degree of warmth spread from his chest up to his head.
Where was Arabella?
Aye, she was at his side now.
“Ye should not be here. Ye have to leave.”
