The Bareknuckle Groom - Holly Bush Page 0,48

when its dirtied. There are towels beside the basin. Here, MacAvoy. Hold this needle.” She looked up at Lucinda after snipping off a length of thread. “You’d best call me Aunt Murdoch, girl.”

“That would be far too familiar,” Lucinda said. “I wouldn’t wish to insult you.”

“Insult me? You’re daft! Call me Aunt Murdoch, or you will insult me.” She chuckled to herself.

Aunt Murdoch threaded the needle and knotted the end. Lucinda was not sure if she could watch the woman stitch his skin, but she took a deep breath and forced herself to glance occasionally to where she pulled the cut together and pierced each side with a needle, taking her time and making the stitches small and even.

“Don’t hum while you’re stitching him,” MacAvoy said. “It reminds of when Mrs. McClintok sews up the stuffing in the goose for Christmas dinner.”

“Does he need a doctor?” Lucinda asked.

“He might,” Aunt Murdoch said. “Depends how many of his ribs are broken and if his brain is rattled beyond repair.”

“Christ, Murdoch,” MacAvoy said as she worked her way down James’s side, feeling his ribs and eliciting startled cries from him.

“Tell Muireall to get the doctor,” she said.

MacAvoy opened the door and found Payden Thompson and the other young man leaning against the wall opposite James’s room. “Tell Muireall to get the doctor.”

Lucinda could hear the young men jump up and clatter down the steps. A few moments later, Muireall Thompson came into the room. “I’ve already checked. Dr. Maxwell is delivering twins on the other side of town. He could not be here until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.”

Lucinda rose. “May I have paper and pen?”

Muireall went to the desk in the corner of James’s room, opened a drawer, and pulled down the front of the desk. “Here,” she said and laid paper and a pencil on the felt.

Lucinda sat down and wrote a note, folded it, and handed it to Muireall. “I need to get this note to Dr. Clay Gibson at the Medical School. He is our family physician.”

“You’ve just moved here from Virginia. How long have you known him that he will climb out of his bed near midnight and see a patient he’s never seen before?” Muireall asked as she eyed the paper.

“My father agreed to finance a new surgical ward at the hospital. The doctor’s address is on the front. He will come.”

Muireall lifted one eyebrow and turned to the doorway. “Boys, find me a cab or a carriage. I’ll go right away.”

“At this time of night, Muireall? Let me go,” MacAvoy said.

“I’ve got a carriage I hired out front in the street. He is reliable. Let me see if he will go,” Lucinda said.

“Michael Laurent?” Muireall asked. “He’s in the kitchen, having just finished a meal. It was too cold to let him stand outside.”

“Oh dear! I hadn’t thought of that. Thank you,” she said.

“Payden, show Miss Vermeal to the kitchen so she may speak to her driver.”

Lucinda gave Michael the note after he said he would convey the doctor to Locust Street if the man wished. Lucinda thanked him and was talked into sitting down at the kitchen table and having a sweet roll, fresh from the oven, by the Thompson housekeeper, Mrs. McClintok. She drank tea and ate, all the while listening to the lilting talk of the woman about inconsequential things. She’d never eaten in a kitchen before and decided she may like it. She liked the big, scarred tabletop where she sat and where Mrs. McClintok was cutting vegetables at the other end and then dropping them into a large pot on a modern stove.

“He’s going to need broth when he wakes up. He always does, especially if he’s loosened a tooth. He loves my chicken soup.” She smiled as she stirred.

Lucinda climbed the steps to James’s room and opened the door. He was thrashing on the bed, and MacAvoy and the eldest Miss Thompson were trying, unsuccessfully, to hold him still while Aunt Murdoch applied an ointment to cuts on his hand. She hurried to his bedside.

“James,” she said and ran her fingers over his forehead. “James. Lie still so your aunt can help you.”

“Lucinda?” he whispered.

“I’m here, James.” She sat down beside his bed. “Lie still. You’ll injure yourself more than you already are.” He reached out blindly for her, and she took his hand. “I’m here.”

“Dr. Gibson is here, Muireall,” Elspeth said after opening the door.

“Bring him up, please.”

Dr. Gibson entered the room, looking a bit rumpled and somewhat