Blair’s lips moved, and she leaned close to hear. It sounded like something in French.
The ambulance lurched into motion and rattled off down the street.
Blair muttered again in French, repeating the same two words over and over. Through burning eyes, he could only see blurred figures. Confused and hurting, he held on to the woman with no idea what was happening or why, or where he was, or who she was.
The hospital at Fort Hays was a large two-building complex with a wooden fence surrounding it. Two soldiers carried Blair inside to a room where they carefully placed him on a bed. Colonel Crouch hurried in, trailed by a man with a goatee, who in turn was followed by a nurse with a tray of equipment. Another carried in a pan of water, some towels, and a washcloth with soap.
“The young lady needs to leave,” the man said to Crouch.
“That might be difficult,” Simmons said. “He won’t turn loose of her hand.”
“Give him some morphine, that will relax him.”
“He’s already had some. We gave it to him before they brought him from the jail. More could kill him.”
The man glared at Simmons. “And what is your name, Doctor?”
“I am not a doctor. We were treating him at home after he broke his leg. The doctor prescribed morphine and instructed me as to administering the correct dosage. The young lady is Lord Prescott’s wife.”
Rowena could say nothing. She listened to the two men, relieved that Simmons was taking care of things. Exhaustion made her knees wobble and her body sway.
Crouch broke in. “This is Doctor Mendenhall, and he will see to Lord Prescott. We have a fine facility here, and he will get the best of care until he can be tried for murder.”
Mendenhall stepped back. “Murder? This man is a killer, and he’s not handcuffed?”
Rowena collapsed across Blair’s chest. “No, please don’t handcuff him. Look at his wrists. The flesh is torn and bruised. Please, Colonel, don’t let them do that. You can see he can’t go anywhere.”
Crouch took Mendenhall by the elbow, and they went into the corner of the room, where they held a brief conversation she could not hear. Simmons hovered near them so he would know what transpired.
He approached her. “They will not handcuff him, but the doctor is holding Colonel Crouch responsible if anything happens. I will wait outside the room, in case Grady’s friend and the judge arrive. They will need to be brought up to date. You sleep, Lady Rowena.”
“Thank you.” She was grateful, but she would not sleep.
She barely got the words out before the doctor moved into the doorway to call down the hall, “Bring this young lady a bed and a gown.” He returned to his patient’s side.
He touched Blair’s hand that clutched hers. “Now, son, let’s let the lady go. She needs her rest and so do you.”
No response.
The doctor tried to gently pry Blair’s fingers loose, but he continued to hold tight.
She leaned down and said his name in his ear. He sighed. “Blair, I’m here. I’m staying. Please let go so I can lie down. I’m so very tired, darling. You’re going to be okay now, I promise. I’ll just be right next to you. You are safe.”
She kissed his cheek. His ebony hair was matted and damp with sweat. She loved him so desperately she could scarcely stand seeing him helpless and in such pain. It was too much to bear. But bear it she would. For him. For herself. For the two of them.
Slowly, Blair’s fingers relaxed and his hand dropped away. Tears rolled from the corners of his eyes.
“I’m not going anywhere. I promise.” She kissed him again and sat in the chair near his bed. “I want him to be able to see me here.”
The nurses and doctor gently removed what remained of his clothing. The doctor asked one of the nurses to help roll him to one side.
“My God, son, what did they do to you?” Mendenhall touched the bruises and abrasions on his back. “Bring some water and antiseptic here. We must clean these wounds.” He glanced at Rowena. “How did he get these?”
She rose, seeing for the first time the damage done by Calumet’s cruel treatment. “That horrid man dragged him on his back out of the carriage and through the mud and snow, up the s…steps.” She faltered, could not go on. Her knees buckled, and Simmons supported her to a chair. “Look what that animal did to him,” she cried. “Someone should draw and quarter him.”
“Who did this?” Doctor Mendenhall asked Simmons.
“That sheriff. I believe his name is Calumet.”
“Disgusting.” The nurse assisted him in cleaning Blair’s back and removing bits of debris with tweezers. The other nurse washed his battered face, cleaned his eyes out, and rubbed salve over his wrists and bandaged them, while Mendenhall removed the remnants of the tattered splint and examined his leg. The entire time Blair kept eye contact with Rowena, though he said nothing and his expression remained frozen in one of total dismay.
Two men arrived, rolling a bed. “Where do you want this, Doc?” one asked.
“In the corner, and pull that screen over so the young lady can undress. Have a nurse bring her the smallest gown we have.”
****
She was gone. Wouldn’t be back. Finally lost her. But he’d known it all along, hadn’t he?
Blair opened his eyes to total darkness. So still without her, as if no one lived but him, and he wasn’t totally sure of that.
Where was he? What had happened?
The Siege of Paris. Must be in the hospital.
Lysette was gone. Would he ever find her? He sat up, attempted to swing his legs off the bed. No good. The pain was too much, like someone had stuck a hundred hot knives in the flesh. Odd, couldn’t remember that injury on the battlefield. It was his back, not his leg. What in creation was going on?
Outside there should be sounds of fighting. Paris falling to the Prussians. But nothing. Nothing. Was it over, the battle lost? And him laid up. He drifted into a welcome darkness.
A hospital in Paris.
She is a pretty little thing, this Lysette, too small to care for men in such dire straits. Yet she bathes me and the others, cares for our wounds, soothes us when we cry out in our sleep.
She comes from Paris. That’s where we are, she tells us. In a hospital in Paris. How horrible it must feel to her to have the enemy at the gates, ready to slaughter her family and friends and neighbors. And the greatest fighting unit alive cannot stop them. We are failing every day, and soon the army of Prussians will take the town. Napoleon III is going down to defeat after a four-month blood bath.
Back must have been hit by flying lead. Soon be a prisoner.
The pain, oh, God the pain. Can’t seem to be rid of it.
All my comrades lying dead in rivers of blood. Roger cut down before my eyes.
“Please God, help us all. Que Dieu nous aide tous.”
She came to him then. The angel of his dreams. Lysette. He relaxed into her arms. She would carry him away, and he could have some peace at long last.
Chapter Fourteen
A loud groan startled Rowena awake to absolute darkness so still she could hear her own heartbeat. A smell of sickness, alcohol, medicines. The hospital. At Fort Hays. But who had cried out, or was it only a dream? Perhaps one of the many poor souls being treated here for various diseases and injuries.
Blair was here, in the same room.
Still groggy with sleep, she sat up and dropped her bare feet to the cold floor. Feeling her way to his bed, she patted his still form, held her hand there a moment to feel the rise and fall of his breathing. If it had been him crying out, he was silent now.
She turned to go and he grabbed her arm, said something she didn’t understand, followed by the name Lysette. “Que Dieu nous aide tous.” He muttered the unfamiliar phrase several times.
“It’s French,” Simmons whispered from the other side of the bed, startling her. “He was in Paris a good long while, and probably learned to speak it in the hospital. The girl, Lysette, I
heard she was killed in the streets before I took Lord Prescott from there.”
An unknown fear caused her teeth to chatter. “But why is he speaking it now? Something is wrong.” She leaned down, kissed his cheek. “He’s hot, burning up. I think he has a fever.”
“I’ll get a nurse.”
“Yes, please hurry.”
Blair rolled his head, uttering short phrases that sounded much like what he’d said soon after the accident, only a little different.
“Shh, darling. Everything will be all right.” She sat in the chair Simmons had vacated and clasped his other hand in hers so that he held her arm and she held his hand.
It seemed like forever before an older nurse bustled in carrying a lamp she set on the bedside table. A circle of light cast the woman’s wavering shadow across the room. When she couldn’t loosen Blair’s grip on Rowena’s arm, she hurried to the other side of the bed and took his temperature.
“He thinks he is in hospital in France,” Simmons told the nurse. “He must be delirious.”
Without speaking she scurried away, and was gone what seemed like forever before she returned with a man they hadn’t seen before. He leaned over Blair. “Nurse, get some more blankets so we can sweat this fever out of him. And bring some acetylsalicylic acid powders.”
Blair's grip on her arm loosened, fell away. Frightened, she turned loose his hand to touch his forehead. “Please, what is wrong with him?”
“From what Mendenhall told me earlier, he’s been through hell. No doubt suffering from shock and exposure. Why is he speaking French? Is he French?”
“No, no, he isn’t. Do you understand what he’s saying?”
“Yes, I believe it’s ‘God help us all.’ And something about everyone is dead. ‘All are dead,’ it translates. Where has this poor boy been?”
“To hell and back,” Simmons muttered. “To hell and back.”
“Looks to me like he’s still in hell, so let’s get him started on his way back.”
Rowena buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
Blair began to thrash about, throwing his arms and kicking. The nurse held his bad leg down.
She had to stop crying. Surely he had heard her and was upset.
“Let’s restrain him before he injures himself further.” The doctor leaned down and brought a strap from under the bed. He and the nurse secured the leather straps across his chest, hips, and legs.
“Please don’t do that. Please.” Foolish to think she could protect him, yet she lay across his chest.
“Remove her, sir, if you would. He’ll only do himself more harm if we don’t restrain him.”
She beat her fists against Simmons’ chest when he lifted her away from the bed. “Here, here, dear child. You must not carry on so. They are trying to help him, and you will only make yourself ill.”
She collapsed, and he carried her to the bed previously brought in for her. In a faraway voice, she heard him speak. “Doctor, could she have a small dose of laudanum, just so she can sleep? She has been awake and by his side every moment except for a few hours, since all this started.”
“I do not wish to sleep.” Did she say it aloud? What if when she woke Blair had died and she would not have been with him? Finally she gave in and took a few sips of laudanum. After a while she drifted off and remembered no more.
****
A god-awful pain in his leg awoke Blair to a room filled with a silvery light. Silence. Strange smells in the air. Familiar, yet not. Where was he? A hospital in Paris drifted in and out of his memory. But no, there was something else. Someone else. He was wrapped in so many blankets he could scarcely breathe, and drenched in sweat. And he could not move. Strapped down. A prisoner. The Prussians had taken over the hospital.
“Get me up from here.” The shouted voice was one he did not recognize. Surely not his own.
Warmth touched his cheek, and he opened his eyes. Sunlight poured into the room against walls so white they hurt his eyes. Someone’s face hovered over him. A familiar voice, then another.
“He’s awake.” The woman kissed his forehead “Good morning, darling. Feeling better?”
He struggled to touch her, pull her close, but could not move. “Where am I?” His voice was weak, confused. Sunlight around the face blotted out the features so he could not see who she was, this woman who called him darling.
A hand covered his. “You’re in Kansas, Blair.”
He tightened his grip, tried to make sense out of her reply. “Please, is that in France? Turn me loose. I can’t move.”
“Come help me,” her sweet voice said. “Help me take these off.” A kiss on his cheek. “Lie still, we are removing the straps. Blair, dear, please lie still.”
The voice, soft and sweet. Lips like warm satin against his skin. The straps fell away, releasing the pressure. His throat was parched so dry he could not ask for water. She knew, though, and lifted his head to hold a glass to his mouth. He gulped the cold liquid until it hurt his teeth and he pushed it away.
Who were these people? Certainly not Prussians, nor Frenchmen. He searched his memory but came up with nothing. Confused and frightened, he locked his gaze on that of the woman who had called him darling and kissed him. If he kept her in his sight, everything might be all right.
“His leg needs to be re-splinted.” A male voice. “I’m going to give him an injection of morphine now.” Before he could object, a none-too-gentle prick had him drifting away, her gentle hand on his forehead.
A delicious smell awoke him. Food cooking. He was so hungry his stomach growled. Distant conversations. Movement back and forth. A cool, wet cloth rubbing his face. Peaceful sounds and muted movements. A blessed dreamless sleep. Enticing. One could easily become dependent on it.
“He’s awake.” A woman. The same voice.
“Sir, how do you feel?” He knew that voice. Simmons. What was he doing here?
“Where am I?” He grabbed the arm, held on. A dream, it had all been a dream, and he still lay in hospital in Paris. Lysette, that was her name. He spoke to her in French, asked what day it was.
Someone sobbed. “Blair, darling, it’s me, Rowena.” Again the sweet calming touch.
“Please, sir. You’re going to be all right. You’re in hospital at Fort Hays. We’re taking good care of you. You can let go. It’s okay.”
“Let go?” He was clutching the hand that lay against his forehead. Holding it as if it kept him from tumbling into nothingness.
A kind, sweet voice. “I promised I wouldn’t leave you, Blair, and I won’t.” He let her go and tried to ask what day it was in English…but the words would not come. All he could do was stare at her.
Do not look away. Keep me safe. He wanted to say this to her, but nothing would come from his mouth.
Someone else entered the room, bringing the delicious aroma of food closer. His mouth watered. “You must be hungry.” Another strange voice, one he could not place.
“Where is she?” he shouted, frightened deep down in the darkness of his soul. Lost, adrift. Dear God, was he dead and this hell? Frustrated, he lashed out, knocked away the tray. “Damn you, what have you done with her?”
Clattering, shouting, shuffling. And pain. Fingers locked around his throbbing wrists, holding him down.
“Watch his leg,” someone said.
What in hell was happening to him?
“Everything will be all right, sir.” Hands on his shoulders, pushing him down, making him feel as if he were drowning.
“No, no. Don’t strap me down again. Don’t. I will be good.”
“They won’t. I won’t let them. But you must lie still before you injure your leg again.”
The voice, so familiar yet unknown, mesmerized him and he relaxed, caught her gaze, and trusted her.
****
Rowena sat beside him, wearing the nightgown they had brought her, touching him, letting him know she was there. His beautiful hair, plastered to his head by sweat and the filth they’d dragged h
im through. And in his eyes, when he awoke, a terrified panic. A reflection of the horror of the war, as if he were still on the battlefield. She continued to massage his temple and hold his hand tightly.
A nurse came in, hovered close by.
“May I wash his hair?” Rowena asked.
The nurse gave her such a look of profound sorrow it brought tears to her eyes. “Of course, dear. I’ll bring a wash pan and warm water and soap. That would make him feel so much better, I think. How dreadful. You know, each time we have a patient like him I want to lay my hands on those who invented war, and tear their very hearts from their chests.”
“Well, do me a favor and include that awful sheriff in your punishment. He did this to him.”
The nurse patted her shoulder. “I’m so very sorry. I’ll be right back.” She hustled away, the sound of her footsteps echoing down the long hallway.
Blair opened his eyes, looked all around, then found her and locked on once again, dark eyes pleading. Still saying nothing.
“It will be okay, sweetheart. You will be okay.”
Whether he understood, she could not tell.
The nurse returned, pushing a cart with towels, a bowl and pitcher, and a bar of soap. “I’m sorry this is the only soap we have, but it will clean his hair just fine. Would you like me to do it?”
Rowena turned back toward the bed to find him watching her intently. “No, I’d like to.”
“I’ll help you move him a bit so we won’t get the bed wet.”
Together they shifted him sideways so his head lay near the edge of the bed, and folded a towel there to soak up the water. Rowena slid the chair around to hold the wash pan. “Blair, I’m going to wash your hair. Lean back a bit so you won’t get soap in your eyes.”
He obeyed, tilting his head off the edge of the bed. She poured the warm water through his hair, then lathered the soap in her hands and worked her fingers through the matted, gritty strands. All the while, tears poured down her cheeks. She couldn’t seem to stop them.
Rowena's Hellion Page 23