Twenty-Eight
The room was blazing with light, as bright as Lady Morpeth’s room the day Alasdair had first examined her. The drapes were open and bright sunlight, the first Alasdair had seen in days, poured in and joined the lamplight. He hoped this was a good omen.
Lady Morpeth and Lady Lyndmouth had been escorted from the room, told there was nothing they could do, they must go lie down in their own rooms and rest.
“Because he will need yer strength afterward,” Alasdair said with a confidence he did not feel.
Every footman and groom had been called upon. Lord Morpeth was a large man and would need a great deal of holding despite straps binding him down, despite the dangerously large dose of morphia that Alasdair intended to give him.
Paterson assisted the head groom with using some of the leather straps from the stable to tie the delirious Morpeth to the bed.
“I was a surgeon’s assistant for a time. In the Royal Navy, Dr. Andrews, as ye were. The blood willnae bother me. I can help hold Lord Morpeth.”
Alasdair looked up at him hopefully. “So ye might be able to help if my right arm fails me with the most delicate work?” Arabella could leave the room and be spared this misery.
“Nae.” Paterson shook his head and held up his right hand. Alasdair cursed silently, in his thoughts. He had never noticed that Paterson had no right thumb. Paterson grunted and went on, “Cannon. One of ours, misfiring.”
“Ye have done very well without it,” Alasdair said and clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, I will appreciate yer help in holding.”
“The lad Ewen wanted to come, too, but I locked him in with the cows to keep him away. I must remember to let him out when this is done.”
“Aye.”
Alasdair now allowed himself to glance over at Arabella. Like him, she had shrouded her clothes in an apron from the kitchen. She was sitting in a chair for the moment and drinking tea that the butler had brought for her.
Dauntless Arabella.
He thought briefly of taking her back into Lord Morpeth’s dressing room and kissing her. Because he longed for her. And because she would never permit it afterward. Not when she no longer needed him to save Lord Morpeth. And certainly not when Morpeth died and he had allowed her to be part of it.
But kissing would not help focus his mind. Or hers.
It was time.
Alasdair took off his sling and gave a large draft of morphia to Morpeth, his head held up and immobile by the largest footman and Paterson. Morpeth swallowed and did not choke. Alasdair only hoped the dose was not so large that it would stop Morpeth’s breath.
His shoulder ached without the sling. He turned to Arabella and she stood. He did not know how to address her. So he said what was in his heart.
“Arabella, my love.” She looked up at him, astonishment in her eyes, the same astonishment that had been there when he had first kissed her. Did she know him so little still?
“Let us wash our hands.”
“Yes, Alasdair.”
“I don’t know why but washing hands before surgery seems to improve the recovery of patients.”
She watched how he scrubbed his hands with the bar of soap that had been brought from Lady Morpeth’s boudoir by Nurse Gastrell earlier. He rinsed his hands carefully and she followed him.
“’Tis unnecessary for ye to see this part. I will tell ye if I come to need ye.”
Her face was a bit pale but she stood taller. “I have to see what you do with your hands, in case I must manage something myself.”
They walked together to the bed. Half a dozen men holding Lord Morpeth and half a dozen men holding lamps surrounded the bed. There was a space for two people on the right side of Morpeth’s abdomen.
Alasdair took a deep breath. He selected a small boning knife. Using his left hand, he created a tension in the skin over the man’s right lower abdomen.
“Hold him well, men.”
And he cut. The men did very well, and although Lord Morpeth moaned, his torso moved very little under Alasdair’s knife. Alasdair knew the morphia helped but he also thought that Morpeth’s strength was near its end.
