The Healing Season. Ruth Morren Axtell

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СКАЧАТЬ will help stop the bleeding.”

      She took it gingerly. He tried to give some words of encouragement, but didn’t want to get her hopes too high. “Try to get some rest yourself,” he said simply.

      She made no reply, so he gave a last look toward the girl on the bed. What she needed was divine intervention, and he was too exhausted to pray.

      Ian departed the room as silently as he’d come.

      Eleanor woke to the sound of low voices. Her maid knew better than to disturb her before noon.

      Her eyelids protested as she forced them open. Two men stood by the bed. Frightened, she sat up, finding herself in a chair. She didn’t remember falling asleep here. Why wasn’t she in her bed?

      Betsy! Recollection came back in a heap of nightmarish images. Her friend had been bleeding to death when Eleanor had found her.

      Aching muscles in her neck and back shrieked in outrage as she looked toward the bed. The tall, young doctor who’d arrived in the wee hours of the night was standing at Betsy’s bedside now, another man beside him.

      He’d come back as he’d promised.

      Had Betsy made it? Eleanor couldn’t see past the two men.

      Standing, she winced at the pins and needles shooting through her feet. What time could it be? It was difficult to judge from the overcast day visible through the small, dirty window. Had she really been able to fall asleep after all she’d seen last night? Eleanor shook her head as she walked softly toward the bed.

      Hearing her approach, the doctor turned. “I’m sorry to disturb your slumber.”

      She passed both her hands down the sides of her head, trying to smooth her hair. She must look a fright.

      “How is she?” she asked, made even more self-conscious under the doctor’s steady gaze, which seemed to miss nothing from her tangled locks to her rumpled, bloodstained dress.

      “About the same,” he answered, turning his attention back to Betsy. “That’s good news, actually,” he added, his tone gentler than it had been the previous evening when he’d barked orders like a ship’s commander. Last night she’d put up with it only because she was so desperately frightened for Betsy’s life. The doctor had seemed so competent, never hesitating in his rapid actions, his hands skillful and steady.

      But this morning was a different story. Betsy was out of the woods, it appeared, and the doctor didn’t look quite so fierce.

      Eleanor wet her lips, considering how to play this scene. The grateful friend…the composed nurse…the weary toiler…

      She studied the doctor a few seconds before turning a questioning glance in the other man’s direction.

      The doctor answered the unspoken question in her eyes. “This is my apprentice, Mr. Beverly.” The man was only a youth from what she could see.

      “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Beverly,” she said graciously, extending her hand. “Excuse my appearance. Dr.…?” She raised an eyebrow to the dark-haired doctor.

      “Mr. Russell,” he supplied for her. “I’m a surgeon,” he added, explaining the lack of title.

      She nodded and addressed herself to the youth. “Mr. Russell can tell you how we spent our evening. I haven’t had a chance to go home and change my garments.”

      The boy was blushing furiously and stammering protestations.

      “I would introduce you,” the surgeon said, “but as we didn’t have time for the niceties last night, I am afraid I am still ignorant of your identity.”

      “Eleanor Neville.” She never tired of the sound of the stage name she’d given herself. It had the ring of quality. The syllables rolled off her tongue with self-assurance.

      “Mrs. Neville,” the youth stammered. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

      “Thank you.” She gave a demure smile. It was obvious he recognized the name.

      The surgeon made no sign that her name meant anything to him. “Has she awakened at all?” he asked her.

      “Once,” she replied. “She was thirsty and I gave her a few sips of water as you suggested with the powder. That was all she could manage.”

      He nodded. “Yes, it’s to be expected.”

      “I haven’t had time to go home yet. I wanted to ask you—can she be moved? It would be much easier to take care of her in my own house.”

      “I’m afraid she has lost too much blood to be moved this soon.”

      Eleanor frowned. “I don’t know how often I will be able to stop in to see her. Perhaps you could recommend a nurse. I could pay her.” She turned an apologetic smile toward the younger man. “I must be at work most afternoons and evenings.”

      As he nodded in understanding, she turned to find the surgeon’s eyes on her. They held a censure that made her wonder what she had said that was so wrong.

      In the light of day she saw that his dark hair was actually auburn, its coppery shade deepened to chocolate-brown in the eyes focused on her. Before she could speak, his attention shifted to his apprentice.

      The two men spent the next couple of minutes discussing Betsy’s case. Eleanor heard words like erysipelas, necrosis, and blood poisoning. Mr. Russell took the woman’s temperature, felt her pulse and finally said to Eleanor, “Continue giving her the ergot. Also, comfrey tea. It will help bring down any inflammation and stanch the bleeding. I’ll be by tomorrow, but if she takes a turn for the worse, send the boy around again.”

      She nodded. “I’ll do my best, but as I said, I must leave her in the evening to work.”

      He looked down at her, and again she felt strong disapproval emanating from those dark irises. “Can you not forgo your evening’s activities for one night?”

      She stared at him for a moment. Forgo her evening’s performance at the theater? What did he think she was—a mere chorus girl? She glanced at the young man, and seeing his cheeks turn deep red, she felt vindicated. Obviously he understood the impossibility of the suggestion.

      She drew herself up. “I couldn’t possibly ‘forgo’ my duties tonight.”

      “Are you so popular with your clientele that you cannot give up an evening’s earnings for the sake of your friend here? May I remind you she is still in grave danger?”

      Her eyes grew wider.

      “Ian,” the apprentice began hesitatingly, “Mrs. Neville isn’t…er…uh…”

      As Eleanor glanced from one man to the other in puzzlement, it suddenly dawned on her. The good surgeon thought she was a prostitute! Her nostrils flared as she drew herself up.

      Abruptly, she clamped her mouth shut on the set down she was about to give him. Putting both hands on her hips, she thrust one forward, shaking back her hair away from her face.

      “Well, СКАЧАТЬ