Taking a deep steadying breath, she left the tight binding around his ribs intact, but quickly untied the knots in the bloody bandage and carefully peeled it off the wound.
She couldn’t bite back the gasp as she stared at the tear in Daniel’s side. Miranda was no expert, but even she could see that Mistress Beekins had done an excellent job of stitching his flesh together. The ball had ripped a jagged gash through the flesh of his side and along his rib cage. Miranda marveled at the other woman’s skill, for there was no excess of flesh with which to work, and Mistress Beekins’s stitches were uniformly neat and small. Unfortunately, lifting his arm to signal the waltz had spoiled the needlework by pulling a half dozen or so of the long line of stitches out.
A steady trickle of blood oozed through the gap in the pulled stitches, but Miranda was relieved to see that the blood flow had slowed considerably now that Daniel was no longer moving about and exerting himself. He would carry a scar once the wound healed, a scar that would forever mar the perfect display of sinew and flesh covering his torso. But the wound would heal once it was restitched. Unfortunately for Daniel, she would have to do the restitching herself, and Miranda had never exhibited a great talent for needlework.
Gritting her teeth at the thought, she replaced Daniel’s bloodied bandage, then lifted the lamp from the table beside the bed and went in search of supplies. Leaving the door to the bedchamber open so she could hear if he cried out for her, Miranda hurried downstairs, retracing her steps, relieved to find that Ned had lit the lamps along the way from the upstairs bedchamber to the passageway that led to the kitchen.
The house was completely furnished and equipped with most of the personal items and amenities one would expect to find in a fashionable household. And since most fashionable households would at one time or another have need of a sickroom, Miranda prayed this one contained the items she needed in order to do the job that must be done.
Her prayers were answered when she located a tapestry sewing basket and a store of linen, including several oilcloth sheets, and, on a shelf in the housekeeper’s pantry, a bar of French-milled soap. The linen smelled slightly musty from having been stored, but it was clean and serviceable, and Miranda was profoundly thankful that she wouldn’t be reduced to cutting up her silk ball gown or sacrificing her silk undergarments in order to bandage Daniel’s wound. Her dress was bloodstained and might be beyond salvaging, but until Ned returned, it was all she had to wear.
The sewing basket contained pins and needles, several pairs of scissors of varying sizes, and cotton, wool, and silk thread. Gathering the basket, the oilcloth sheets, and an armload of linen, Miranda deposited them on a chair near the door, where she could collect them on her way back upstairs, then carefully made her way to the kitchen. She said another prayer of thanks for Alyssa’s obsession with gardening and her profound interest in creating healing salves, tinctures, and ointments, and for the fact that she recalled more than she had realized of her friend’s teachings. As a result, Miranda knew exactly what she needed to reduce his pain and fever.
She found the jar of dried white willow bark among the assortment of herbs and spices in the spice cabinet in the kitchen. Miranda took a marble mortar and pestle from the shelf beside the spice cabinet, then poured a measure of willow bark into the bowl of the mortar and ground it into a fine powder, using the pestle the way Alyssa had taught her. When she finished reducing the dried bark to powder form, Miranda poured the ground willow bark into a pewter tankard, then filled a copper kettle with water from the kitchen pump. Grabbing an iron trivet from the hearth, Miranda carried the kettle, tankard, and trivet to the chair beside the housekeeper’s pantry and placed them alongside the other items.
She made several trips up and down the stairs depositing the supplies she’d collected and two kettles of water, but Daniel was sleeping heavily when Miranda returned to the bedchamber with her last armload of supplies and began making preparations.
Setting the tankard on the mantel and one kettle of water on the tiled hearth, Miranda pushed the fire screen aside and placed the trivet in the fireplace as close to the smoldering coals as possible. She set the kettle atop the trivet to heat, then poured water from the second kettle into the basin on the washstand.
Clearing everything off the bedside table, Miranda draped a tablecloth from her stack of linens over it, and began laying out all the items she thought she might need—needles, thread, soap, the pewter tankard containing the powdered willow bark, and the basin of water.
Miranda spread an oilcloth on one side of the bed, topped it with another sheet, then removed Daniel’s bloodied bandage and carefully rolled him onto it. Working quickly, she climbed onto the bed and finished unfolding the oilcloth and the top sheet. It took a mighty effort, but Miranda finally managed to roll Daniel back into place onto the other half of the sheet covering the oilcloth where the lamp provided sufficient light for her to work.
When she had everything in order, Miranda took several folded linen sheets from the stack she’d carried from the pantry and, taking a pair of embroidery scissors out of the sewing basket, sat down on a rocking chair beside the fire. She rocked back and forth as she worked, cutting linen into strips, rolling the strips into bandages, and fashioning larger squares for padding, while she waited for the kettle to boil.
She had torn the first bedsheet into strips and was making larger squares from a second sheet when she realized the kettle was boiling and that it was time to tackle the job at hand. Grabbing one of the folded sheets to use as a mitt, Miranda left the chair, walked over to the fireplace, and retrieved the kettle. Holding the embroidery scissors over the washbasin, she poured boiling water over them. Then she selected a gold needle from a packet and studied the assortment of threads. Silk was best, Alyssa had told her. But Miranda doubted very much whether Daniel would approve of any of the colors of silk from which she had to choose. Still, Miranda threaded the needle with silk thread, then dropped it into the basin of hot water.
“It’s important to clean everything with alcohol or boiling water,” Miranda recited, remembering Alyssa’s insistence that in the case of open wounds or sores, rinsing medical instruments with boiling water or alcohol and washing everything thoroughly with soap and water, including the patient, made all the difference in how patients recovered. Alyssa didn’t know how it worked, she only knew it worked, and that was all that mattered. “Always remember the old adage: cleanliness is next to godliness. Especially to people with cuts and open sores.” Miranda carefully fished the scissors and the needle and thread out of the water with another pair of scissors and placed them on the tablecloth, then dipped a square of linen in the washbowl and reached for the bar of soap.
She lathered the cloth with soap, wrung out the excess water, and carried it to the bed where Daniel lay sleeping.
Miranda washed the blood from around Daniel’s wound and off his stomach, hip, lower back, and the top of his right flank. She tried to work around the waistband of his trousers, tried to ignore the rivulets of blood that had flowed from his wound and disappeared into the mysterious region beneath his trousers, tried slipping her hand and washcloth beneath the front of his garment, but Miranda was nothing if not thorough, and since cleanliness was next to godliness, she had no choice but to slip the buttons from their buttonholes and rid Daniel of the last of his bloodstained evening attire.
Chapter Seven
“A sight to dream of, not to tell!”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772–1834
Seeing Daniel lying on the bed as naked as the day he was born, Miranda revised her earlier opinion of his masculine beauty.
She had been to Rome and to Florence. She had gazed upon the magnificence of Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and his depiction of the Pieta. She had visited Florence and seen his statue of David standing in the Piazza Signoria.
That statue was the standard by which she measured all male beauty, and until tonight, when she’d bared
Daniel’s torso, she had seen nothing to compare with the beauty of the sculptured marble. And if Daniel’s face and shoulders and torso equaled the magnificence of those parts of David’s anatomy, his lower body far exceeded it.
Now Miranda knew without a doubt that the living, breathing, Daniel, ninth Duke of Sussex, put Michelangelo’s David to shame.
She blushed to the roots of her hair as she carefully washed the blood from his body, but she soon overcame her natural reticence in order to satisfy her burning need to do what she had always hoped she might one day have the chance to do—to look upon his body and to touch him, to care for him as a wife and lover would do.
Not like this, of course. Not injured. Not hurt and suffering. But beggars could not be choosers, and Miranda willingly took whatever she could get. If this was the only way she could look upon Daniel and touch him, then she was glad to be of service, glad he trusted her with his secret. So, she took great care in the task, running the warm, soapy cloth over his body, marveling at the way it skimmed over his hard muscles. She didn’t touch him where she ached to touch him, except to wipe away the rivulets of dried blood pooled in the thick patch of hair surrounding the most private part of him.
Miranda took full advantage of his injury and his unconscious state to fulfill her heart’s desire, and although her conscience pained her for baring his body and greedily soaking in the sight and scent and feel of him while he slept, Miranda decided it was a small price to pay for the privilege.
She dipped the washcloth into the basin, rinsed the blood from it, and wrung it out. She couldn’t delay the inevitable much longer. Daniel was as clean and godly as one woman with a washcloth, a bar of soap, and a basin of warm water could make him. And as much as she hated the idea of doing it, his wound still needed stitching. All she lacked was the courage to stab the needle and thread into the bruised and battered flesh around the wound and do what must be done.
Miranda cursed her stupidity in assembling everything she thought she might possibly need from belowstairs and forgetting the liquid courage that might stop her stomach from roiling and her hand from shaking so badly. Ale. Mead. Wine. Sherry. Brandy. Cognac. Whisky. Something. Miranda blew out a breath. She wasn’t much of an imbiber, but as far as she knew, she wasn’t much of a healer either. And when it came to piercing Daniel’s flesh with a needle, she needed all the courage she could get. Suddenly remembering Daniel’s pewter flask, Miranda set the washbasin aside and got up to retrieve it from the pocket of his jacket.
Daniel hadn’t left more than a swallow or two of whisky in the container, and that was fortunate, for Miranda drank it all. Her eyes watered and she coughed as the potent liquor burned its way from her throat to her belly, but even if the flask had been full, Miranda would have drained it. She capped the flask, returned it to Daniel’s coat, and took her place beside the bed, pleased beyond measure to see that her hand had stopped shaking. Seizing the moment, she picked up the needle and thread, took a deep breath, then leaned over Daniel and carefully pushed the needle through his flesh and began to sew.
If he had flinched or groaned or shown any other signs of discomfort, Miranda wouldn’t have been able to continue, but Daniel slept through it all as she doggedly repaired the damage he had wrought to Mistress Beekins’s neat, uniform stitching. Her stitches weren’t quite as neat or uniform as Mistress Beekins’s, but Miranda was pleased with the results just the same. She breathed a sigh of relief as she looped the knot in the last stitch and cut the thread. She didn’t have a salve or ointment with which to doctor the wound, but Alyssa had once told her that salves and ointments weren’t always necessary. So long as the wound was clean and the patient received nourishing food and plenty of sleep, the body would heal itself.
Miranda made a pad from several squares of linen, placed it over the freshly stitched wound, and tied it into place with the long strips of fabric. She unfolded a clean sheet and spread it over Daniel’s lower body, then dropped to her knees beside the bed and prayed Alyssa was right.
The avalanche of tears burning her eyes and clogging her throat took her by surprise. She buried her face in the sheet beside Daniel’s foot and sobbed. Miranda knew her tears were the result of her fear for Daniel and the hours of tension it had produced. She knew crying was a release of emotions held tightly in check, and Miranda thought it was a measure of just how nervous and tense Daniel could make her, for she couldn’t remember the last time she’d hidden her face and wept. But knowing and understanding the reasons behind her flood of tears didn’t lessen their volume or their intensity.
Miranda cried until her tears were spent, cried until her head ached, her nose was stuffed, and her eyes gritty and swollen. She cried until her knees ached and her muscles grew stiff from kneeling on the floor, then pushed herself to her feet and began the task of cleaning up the mess she’d made.
She had a long night ahead of her, for she wouldn’t rest until she knew Daniel would be all right. Leaning over him, Miranda brushed her hand across his forehead. Perspiration still dotted his brow, his face was flushed, and his skin was hot to the touch. He was still feverish, but whether it was from his wound or the amount of alcohol he’d consumed Miranda couldn’t say. Since she refused to wake him from his healing sleep, all she could do was put another kettle of water on to boil and wait.
* * *
“Hot.”
Miranda opened her eyes and sat up in her chair as Daniel rasped out a single word.
“Here.” Miranda reached for the pewter tankard of water and powdered willow bark she’d mixed while he’d slept and moved to the edge of the bed. She sat down beside him, anchoring the sheet into place at his waist, preserving his modesty as Daniel thrashed against the bed linens.
“Hot,” Daniel muttered. “Too hot.”
“I know,” Miranda answered, shifting her position, supporting his head and shoulders as she placed the rim of the tankard against his lips. “But you must stop thrashing about the bed,” she told him. “Else you’ll tear your stitches once again.”
“Burning.”
“Drink this,” she urged. “It will make you feel better.”
“What?”
“Willow bark and water.” she told him. “Drink it all down like a good boy and I’ll cool you off with a nice sponge bath.”
“No willow bark,” he complained.
“Yes, willow bark,” she insisted. “Alyssa says it’s good for you. So drink this and I’ll give you a cool, refreshing bath you’ll enjoy.” She bumped the tankard against his lips once again.
Daniel grimaced and tried to refuse the medicine, but Miranda gave him no choice. Tipping the tankard, she forced him to drink—or to drown.
“Good with the bad, Your Grace,” she reminded him. “Dark and light. That’s the way life works.”
Daniel drained the tankard, then blinked up at her, his surprise at finding her beside him clearly evident. “Miranda?”
“Yes, Miranda.” She set the tankard aside and eased Daniel back down on the pillows, then stood up and turned her back to him and crossed to the window. She opened the window a crack to allow the cool night air into the room, then filled the washbasin with tepid water and reached for a clean cloth.
Miranda managed to hide her disappointment when she returned to the bedside and placed the bowl on the table. She dipped the cloth in the water and wrung it out, then firmed her lips together, focused all of her attention on the center of Daniel’s chest, and began gently sponging the perspiration from his upper torso. He’d been surprised to see her sitting on the bed beside him. Daniel had clearly expected someone else.
“Miranda?”
She recognized the note of urgency in his voice and looked at his face. It was a grayish green color, and the drops of perspiration on his forehead seemed to have tripled. “I’m here.” She took a step toward the head of the bed.
“Sick.” Daniel rolled to his side and braced himself on his elbow and forearm, hung his head over the side of the bed, and
heaved the contents of his stomach all over Miranda’s silk skirts.
“Blast it, Daniel!” Miranda exclaimed as she viewed the mess he had made of her dress. “First you bleed all over me and now this!” The beautiful pale green ball gown her modiste had fashioned to fit her to perfection so Miranda would be certain to catch the Duke of Sussex’s eye had caught everything except his eye. She knew he couldn’t help it, but that did nothing to change the fact that Daniel had bled upon it and been ill upon it, but hadn’t appeared to notice how the style flattered her figure, displaying her bosom and her long legs to perfection, or how the pale green color complimented her auburn hair and made her eyes look green. Her lovely ball gown was ruined, but Miranda barely had time to mourn its destruction. She scrambled to locate the chamberpot as Daniel was ill once again.
Miranda held his head until his retching subsided, then wiped his face and neck with a cool cloth. The stench filling her nostrils nearly overpowered her. Her stomach roiled in protest, and Miranda struggled to keep from disgracing herself as she poured the water from the wash bowl into the chamber pot, then placed the lid on it and slid the pot under the bed.
She helped Daniel lie back against the pillows, then filled the tankard with warm water and offered it to him.
“No more,” Daniel gasped.
“It isn’t willow bark,” she told him. “It’s warm water. To rinse your mouth.”
Daniel rinsed his mouth and spat in the basin Miranda held for him. The effort it took exhausted him. His teeth began to chatter as he lay back against the pillows. Miranda recovered the chamber pot, lifted the lid, and dumped the water from the basin into the container, covering it with the lid and pushing it back under the bed. She pulled the single sheet up to Daniel’s chin, then unfolded the coverlet at the foot of the bed and drew it over Daniel’s torso. She tucked the sheet and coverlet tightly around Daniel’s shoulders.
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