by Julia London
Over my dead body are my breeches coming off with this female in the room, Ivo thought grimly.
On the other hand, his shoulder appeared to be infested by devils wielding tiny pitchforks and his ribs were aching as though he had been kicked by a horse, not merely by four brainless louts. He knew from past experience that this process was easier if the patient was relaxed, so he nodded. ‘As you think best, Doctor.’
Miss Newnham was, to do her justice, both gentle and deft and did not fuss about, which usually ended up causing more pain. His coat came off eventually, his waistcoat was simple by comparison, his neckcloth was already untied and after five minutes he was down to his shirt. The makeshift pad that Miss Newnham had applied to his shoulder fell away and he saw she had used something with good lace on it. He would have to replace that, it was clearly beyond repair.
Miss Newnham, who appeared to have no inhibitions whatsoever, was pulling the shirt out of the back of his breeches, the doctor, thank goodness, was tackling the front. He dragged it over Ivo’s head and stepped back.
‘A military man, I assume,’ Jamieson remarked after half a minute’s steady scrutiny from narrowed eyes. ‘You will have a matching pair of shoulders now, sir. What was this one?’ He touched cold fingertips to the old scar above Ivo’s right collarbone.
‘Splinter from a gun carriage that was hit by shot,’ he said tersely and glanced down to the left as a line of blood tickled, creeping down his chest. He could almost feel Miss Newnham’s gaze on his back. The effort not to move made sore muscles tense painfully.
‘If you could arrange for some warm water to be brought, ma’am?’ Jamieson asked.
That, thankfully, sent the woman out of the room. A maid came in with the water a few minutes later and Ivo closed his eyes, sent his consciousness as far away as he could and submitted to the doctor’s probing.
‘Nothing broken,’ Jamieson said eventually. ‘I’ve cleaned out that shoulder wound—not deep, nothing critical hit—and put two stitches in it. The ribs are badly bruised, but I am not a believer in tight bandaging so I’ve not strapped them. Your back will be black and blue before much longer, but there are no serious marks in the kidney region. Everything all right down below?’
Ivo had done what he could to protect down below. There would be bruises across his thighs and shins, but that was all.
‘Perfectly,’ he managed to say. Reaction was beginning to set in now, he could feel his overstretched muscles and nerves quivering with the need to tremble.
‘Here is a clean shirt. Let me help you into it.’
That was almost too much, but he hung on and the doctor did not attempt to tuck it in. Somewhere there was that strange scratch-scritch sound he had noticed in the chaise. His ears must be ringing from a blow at some point in the fight.
‘Now, time we got you into a bed, I believe,’ Jamieson said.
‘My wallet. Should be in my inside coat pocket.’
The other man held up the coat, searched the pockets. ‘Nothing here, I’m afraid. They must have got it when they attacked you.’
‘I have taken rooms for us,’ Miss Newnham said from behind him. The scritching sound had stopped. ‘Do not worry, brother dear, my reticule was quite safe, so we have no cause to worry about funds.’
Uno, dos, tres... Eyes closed, Ivo counted to ten in Spanish in his head. ‘Have you been in this room throughout?’
‘Of course, dear. Now, what do we owe you, Doctor?’
He told her, Ivo made a mental note, there was the clink of coins and then, oddly, the sound of tearing paper.
‘You might like that,’ she said.
‘Why, that is... Marvellous! Thank you, ma’am. What talent. Good day to you, sir. Rest and remain in bed for a day or so if you become at all feverish. You’ve got enough scars on you to know by now how to treat wounds sensibly, I imagine.’
The door closed behind Jamieson as Miss Newnham came around to face Ivo. ‘Your room is just at the head of the stairs on the right. Shall I get one of the grooms to help you?’
‘What were you doing in here?’ he snapped. ‘And what did you give the doctor besides money? And, yes, I can manage a flight of stairs by myself.’ He hoped. ‘Better than being dropped down it by that clumsy lump of a groom.’
Miss Newnham walked away behind him, then came back with a slim, flat book in her hand and flipped it open, holding it for him to see. There was a pencil sketch of the room, of his naked back, of Jamieson bending over him. It was rapid, vivid and anatomically accurate. Shocking, in fact, for a young woman to have produced. ‘I did a quick portrait of him, as well. That is what I gave him.’
‘Was that your pencil I could hear? Were you drawing in the carriage?’
In answer she turned back a page in the sketchbook. There he was, slumped in the corner of the chaise, eyes closed, hair in a mess, clothing disordered. She turned back another page to a portrait of a discontented female, tight-lipped and sour. ‘That is Billing. You can see why I sent her home. She was sending me into a decline, so goodness knows what effect she would have had on you in your weakened condition.’
Copyright © 2020 by Melanie Hilton
ISBN: 9781488055966
A Royal Kiss & Tell
Copyright © 2020 by Dinah Dinwiddie
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