His Badge, Her Baby...Their Family?. Stella Bagwell

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СКАЧАТЬ time. I’ve left it at the Bull and Horn.”

      When he made no reply, merely set his mouth in a firm line, she tugged on his arm. “Come on. There’s no time to waste.”

      “Very well, but only back to the dispensary. I’ll leave you there and return here.”

      That’s what you think, she thought as she hurried down the street.

      Eleanor regretted her rash impulse to assist Mr. Russell as she knelt by his side, watching him wash out bloody gashes and sew them up. She brought him pitchers of water, helped bind up wounds with the rolls of bandages, tried to hand him whichever instrument he called for from his large square bag.

      She struggled to keep from fainting each time she encountered a serious wound or fracture.

      How could anyone bear such pain? she cried inwardly, trying her best to hold a patient still as Mr. Russell dealt with a deep cut or an ugly-looking laceration.

      She focused instead on the steadiness of Mr. Russell’s nerves as he set broken bones, stitched up wounds and soothed crying children.

      Those were the worst to behold. Eleanor could hardly stand their cries as, in their mothers’ arms, they writhed in pain, from the injuries inflicted on them by the angry mob. But Mr. Russell’s hands were so sure and capable. Gentle yet strong, never hesitating to use force when needed, but able to manage the most minute, even stitches across someone’s brow in record time.

      Even when bloody, his hands managed to look pale and clean.

      She poured water over them between patients and gave him a clean cloth to wipe them dry.

      “Thank you,” he told her each time, his eyes scrutinizing her as if he wanted to make sure she was holding up.

      His assistant Jem finally arrived when they were nearing the end. It had taken him a while to get the children back and then escort the other actress home.

      Finally it was over. No more pitiful cries, no more victims to be pried from beneath a stall or cart. She wiped the perspiration from her brow, feeling light-headed all of a sudden. She closed her eyes, willing the sensation to pass.

      “Let me get you to your carriage.” She heard Mr. Russell’s voice as if from far away as he supported her by the elbow. “You look done in.”

      She shook her head and took a deep breath. “It’s nothing. I just felt dizzy all of a sudden.”

      His eyes narrowed. “I’ll warrant it’s because you haven’t eaten anything.” He turned to Jem. “You’d better get back to the apothecary.”

      Without giving Eleanor a chance to interrupt, he began walking and she was forced to follow him as he hadn’t let go of her arm. “There’s a coffee shop near the dispensary. I’ll get you a cup of tea.”

      A cup of tea. “That would be lovely,” she said with a grateful smile.

      He didn’t even glance her way, but helped her into the chaise and gave the coachman instructions.

      Eleanor leaned against the back of the seat and closed her eyes. It probably had been foolish of her not to eat the meat pastry he’d offered her earlier. But she’d never dreamed how her afternoon was going to end.

      She didn’t speak during the ride. She kept her eyes shut and tried to recover her strength. Mr. Russell was going to think she was a ninny. So much for her valiant show of stalwart nurse.

      When they arrived at the coffee shop, Mr. Russell sat opposite her at a small, round table and ordered a pot of tea and a plate of sandwiches.

      He poured her a cup and laced it with milk and sugar without asking her how she took it.

      She made no protest but held it in her hands a moment, breathing in its delicate aroma as she surveyed the doctor over the rim. He placed a couple of the sandwich quarters on a small plate and moved it toward her.

      “There, have those with your tea and the faintness should pass.”

      “Yes, Doctor.” She began at first to nibble at one corner of the roast beef sandwich, but soon found she was famished despite—or because of—all she’d experienced in the past few hours.

      “Here, have some more. You could use them,” he said as he put the platter close to her.

      She stared at him in surprise. “Aren’t you having any?”

      “You forget, I ate earlier.”

      “So you did.” She continued eyeing him until he looked away. She detected a faint coloring across his cheeks and wondered at it. Had her scrutiny made him uncomfortable?

      She tapped her fingernail against the tea mug, pondering as she watched him sip his tea.

      “How do you stand it, day after day?” she asked after a few moments when it seemed as if he was unaware she was even there. She was not used to being ignored.

      “Stand what? Ah…the blood, you mean?” he asked.

      She nodded. “All of it. The screams of agony. The exposed—” She shuddered in memory. “I even saw someone’s bone.”

      He toyed with a spoon. “You get used to it.” He grinned at her, revealing a dimple in one cheek, and she marveled at how young he suddenly looked. “That wasn’t always the case. I got quite sick the first few times I watched my uncle perform an operation.”

      “Your uncle. He’s an apothecary?”

      “Yes. More of a surgeon-apothecary. I apprenticed with him a few years before going to Guy’s training hospital. By then I felt quite the veteran among the first-year students. You could always tell the novices. They would faint around the operating table their first time.”

      “The medical profession runs in your family?”

      “Not entirely. Only my uncle and myself. My father was a Methodist lay preacher.”

      She nodded, envisioning some man preaching in the open air. “Are you also a surgeon-apothecary?” she asked. The little bit of history he offered her made her suddenly hungry to know more about him. He hadn’t hesitated to risk his life to stay and take care of the injured during the riot.

      “Strictly speaking, I am a surgeon, since I am a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, which conferred the license on me, and who frown on any dilution of medical practices.

      “Even helping your young friend the other night would not come under a surgeon’s duties, even though I performed a surgical procedure on her.”

      “Then whom should she have called upon?” Eleanor asked, horrified at the notion that a man of the medical profession wouldn’t attend someone during an emergency because it didn’t fall under his purview.

      “A midwife or an accoucheur, if a man had been required.”

      “But you came. Why?”

      “Because in actual practice I am a surgeon-apothecary-midwife, as you have been able to witness over the last few occasions. СКАЧАТЬ