by Susan Lodge
“Indeed she can,” Robert agreed. “Did you teach her how to play?”
“No, I ain’t that good. It was her brother’s old tutor. He was right clever at cards.”
“Not that successful or he wouldn’t have been a tutor,” Robert remarked.
Dickens scratched his head. “No, suppose not, but Miss Avebury has never lost a game. She is blessed with luck.”
Robert’s eyes blazed. “She is not blessed. She is fallible, as she will soon find out if she continues in such dangerous activity.”
“She don’t play for the fun of it, Doctor. Only when she needs money. The first time she won, Miss Avebury used her winnings to supply extra food to the village. It was the year the wheat failed. The second time, she paid the physician’s fees for the Cooper girls when they were taken with smallpox. They died anyway, but he still needed paying. She’s got a heart of gold, and if I can help her in any way, I will.”
Robert began to feel like the guilty party in the whole business. “That may be so, but whatever her motives, there will be no more gambling. I am responsible for her safety. She was lucky she made it back to her cabin in one piece after the attack.”
Dickens nodded. “Aye, but that was a nasty splinter she took. How is her leg, Doctor?”
“Splinter!” A coldness rippled through him. “She was injured?”
Dickens frowned. “She was struck when the first blast hit the deck. I thought you knew. Thought you were looking after her.”
Damnation! He hadn’t even bothered to check her health, he’d been so bloody angry with her.
“It looked painful, Doctor, but it was high in the leg. Maybe she was embarrassed about showing you. Or maybe you upset her so much she didn’t want your help.”
Robert, unaccustomed to being rebuked, snapped back, “Maybe you should get back to your post, and I will go and check on Miss Avebury. I will not inform the captain of your gambling, for her sake, but I expect your help to keep her safe from now on. If you see her anywhere she shouldn’t be, I want your word you will return her, never mind how persuasive she is.”
“Aye, Doctor. You won’t be taking her back to marry that evil bugger Stark, will you?”
That was exactly what he would do. It was what he had been ordered to do.
“She will be transferring to the hospital ship with me, and I have undertaken to deliver her home safely. I will speak to her father on her behalf, and I will do everything I can to persuade him against the match.”
Why the deuce had he promised that?
Dickens nodded. “In that case, Doctor, I will help you in any way I can.”
***
The sight of Hetty Avebury made him ashamed as he entered her cabin. She was pale against the vivid blue of her gown.
Devil take it. He was supposed to tend the sick, not make them feel so bad that they hid their injuries. He should have made sure she wasn’t injured in the attack, but he had been too angry to focus on anything but her stupid and dangerous behaviour.
He tried to keep his voice gentle and his words more of a request than a command, but he was desperate to know the extent of her wounds. “I have reason to suspect you were injured in the action the other evening. I need to examine you.”
She was seated by the small desk in her cabin.
“It’s nothing, Doctor, you need not bother yourself.”
She was clearly still angry with him from their last meeting. But he was not about to let her stubbornness risk her health.
“Stand up.” His voice was quiet but firm.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Stand up and walk over to me. Then I might believe you.”
“No!”
“I do not have the inclination or the time to play games. If you cannot walk, let me examine your leg.” He moved toward her then paused as she levered herself to her feet.
“I can walk well enough.” She took a step toward him on her left leg then slowly followed with the right one. She gave a strangled yelp just as her body crumpled.
Robert swept her up in his arms and carried her to her cot. Her eyes were screwed up in pain as he laid her down, but she wasn’t silent for long.
“Leave me be. I do not want your help.”
Ignoring her words, he gently straightened her legs. A new spasm of pain sent her hands flying, one connecting squarely on his nose. He winced, surprised at the force of her right arm, then dabbed at his nose, rejoicing that she had not broken it.
He turned, poked his head out of the door, and gave instructions to his assistant waiting outside. Perkins reappeared minutes later, laden with hot water and a cloth-covered roll of surgical instruments, which Robert unfurled out of Hetty’s sight.
When he returned to her side, her anger had subsided. The bluebell eyes now pleaded silently.
She brought her arms up, shielding her body as he bent over her. He stilled her with a firm, gentle grasp and addressed her quietly.
“Now listen to me, Miss Avebury. You need medical attention, and as I am the only doctor aboard, you have to accept my help. You don’t have to be grateful. You don’t have to like me. You just need to cooperate. No one wants to see you in unnecessary pain. I will be as gentle as possible. All you have to do is lie as still as you can.”
He reached down to the hem of her gown, and she flinched as he folded her skirts back to reveal the length of her right leg. Unwinding her makeshift bandages, he examined the injury. He was alarmed at the sight of the angry wound, but his voice remained gentle even if his comments were not.
“You really are the most stubborn individual, Miss Avebury. You should have told me about this injury at once. The wound is festering. It must be harbouring remnants of splinters. God damn it, do you want to lose a leg?” He regretted the words as soon as he spoke them, and her whole body tensed with fear.
She almost screamed her reply. “Don’t you dare take my leg off! I’d rather die!”
“That is an alternative, of course,” he replied. He patted her arm and tenderly smoothed a strand of copper hair from her face. “However, I am not going to let it come to that.” And he hoped to God it wouldn’t. ‘Take this. It will dull the pain.”
He lifted her head to help her drink a small glass of laudanum. Then with a reassuring smile, he waited for it to take effect.
Her anger subsided and she lay there with puzzled eyes. “I am sorry to be such a burden to you. I am grateful and…I do like you,” she whispered.
He felt like a brute. In the middle of her pain, she considered his feelings. She liked him. The words curled around his heart. He looked into dewy blue eyes.
“I am very glad to hear it. Do not worry; I will take very great care of you. I give you my word.”
She half smiled. “And you always keep you word, as I remember.”
She looked like a broken flower, and he would never forgive himself if he could not save her leg. But he had seen these wounds many times and the odds were not favourable. Fear rippled through him at the prospect of deciding between losing her leg and losing her.
Making her as comfortable as possible, he began to probe the wound. He was accustomed to the screams and groans of his patients, but every time she let out a strangled cry he felt the pain of his own knife. She was only conscious until the first splinter was removed.
“Trust me, Hetty,” he muttered as he watched her eyes close, and she sank into a merciful stupor.
***
Images jangled in her head, rolling around in space. Stark was laughing at her. Her father was laughing at her. She was cold, chilled to the bone. Diana was there, holding her down in cold water. She couldn’t surface, and her eyes looked up through a murky film. Later, a snake slithered over her legs. She batted at it, but it loomed and crawled up her body. Its eyes were Stark’s. Screams echoed around her as a fire roared through her limbs.
“Hetty,” someone called.
A cool hand pressed against her cheek. It was her hero. He had found her in the midst of the i
nferno. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear his voice.
“Hetty,” he called again.
Her lips moved, but no sound would come. She struggled to reach him in the darkness, but her limbs were heavy. Someone pulled her backwards. The voice was just an echo. Then there was nothing but darkness and peace as the black void reclaimed her.
Chapter Nine
Robert had left Captain Derwent’s command two days ago and transferred to the hospital ship. With him he had taken his servant, Miss Avebury, and a few other patients who had been injured in the French attack.
From the moment he had boarded the hospital ship, his duties had been relentless. The length of the lower decks was filled with the human debris of the latest battles around Cadiz. There were two other surgeons on board, but even so, he took only snatches of rest.
Robert looked down at the patient he had just operated on; the treatment intended to relieve pressure on the man’s brain. Now all he could do was wait. Thomas Brown, like his name, was bland and easily forgettable, ideal for an infiltrator. A false name, no doubt, but as Captain Derwent had warned him, he was an important patient.
He glanced at the person called Guvere seated nearby. The man’s eyes watched over his patient, like a cat savouring the sport to come from its injured prey.
“Will he live, Doctor?” Although the man from Government Intelligence was soft-spoken, his words were emotionless.
“I have done all I can. Time will tell whether the treatment was successful.”
Guvere stood and walked to Thomas Brown’s bedside, watching him with small, intelligent eyes. “He has the answers, Doctor. This man is the key to many puzzles. Keep him alive, and you will have done your country an immense service.”
Of course he would do all he could, just as he would for any patient. They were all broken bodies waiting to be put together, each with a history and secrets. He would keep them all alive if he could.
He wiped the man’s blood from his hands. “I will do my best but remember, Guvere, I am a man, not God.”
Guvere returned to his chair to resume his vigil, and then Robert turned his mind to his next patient. He made his way to the cabins in the stern accommodation where he had installed Miss Avebury.
***
Robert bent over her and listened. Her breathing was almost rhythmic now. Satisfied, he relaxed back into the chair beside her and rested his eyes.
Her fever, induced from the infected wound, had lasted three days. He had taken out several deeply embedded splinters and drained and cleaned the area, hoping he had done enough to stem decay of the tissue. Not removing the leg had been a gamble. Thank God, it had paid off.
The crisis had come yesterday afternoon, and it was not until the first pink rays of dawn filtered through the ship that he had finally left her sleeping peacefully. She had scared him, her life flickering like a candle. He had waged his own private battle, fighting to keep her with him. As the fever had raged, he had bathed her body in cold water, but at one point she had looked so close to death that he had thought his heart would break. But she had pulled through, and he had never been more thankful. He could not quite understand why this young woman had become so close to his heart.
He smiled at her last words to him. She liked him. It was absurd how happy that remark made him.
Well, he liked her, too. He liked the way her nose wrinkled when she was thoughtful and the way her eyes darkened when she was annoyed. He liked the way she took an interest in the progress of injured men and the way she patiently listened to Lieutenant Haines’ endless anecdotes.
Most of all, he liked that her smile could light up the darkest corners of a room. Miss Avebury was a very likeable person. So why was her father intent on making her miserable by marrying her off to Stark?
He would make it his business to find out.
***
Hetty's eyelids fluttered then opened fully. She turned her head and focused on the doctor. His eyes were closed, and the light growth of stubble and absence of a neckcloth indicated that he may have been there for some time. The lines around his mouth and eyes were deeply etched, but to Hetty, he looked heroic because she owed her life to him. Despite the anger and hurt he had caused, his presence gave her reassurance. She felt safe with him, and at this moment, feeling safe was what she needed most.
She started as he suddenly unfolded from the chair and bent over her.
“Feeling better, Miss Avebury?”
Miss Avebury. It sounded different the way he said it now. She wondered if she had imagined that he had called her Hetty. She had not given him permission to use her given name. Perhaps it had been part of the nightmares. Yet the voice had comforted her, called her back. She would like to hear him say Hetty again, just to be sure.
“Much better, Doctor.” Her voice came out in a hoarse whisper. Then she felt a wave of panic at the absence of excruciating pain. She focused on the blanket covering her leg but couldn’t get out the urgent question.
“It’s still there, Miss Avebury. The splinters are all removed, and the wound is healing nicely. You will need to rest for a few days, and hopefully, if you do what you’re told, we should keep any further infection at bay. You will be a good patient and give me no trouble, I trust?”
“Absolutely, Doctor.” Gratitude and relief filled her eyes with tears. “Thank you! And I am sorry for being so much trouble. Have I been sleeping long?” She took in her unfamiliar surroundings. “I seem to have inconvenienced someone with a change of cabin.”
“You have been fighting a fever for three days, and it is a change of ship we have undergone. We are heading back to Portsmouth.”
Hetty’s insides somersaulted. Portsmouth! She could not go back. She wasn’t ready. She needed to sail in the opposite direction, away from the miserable future planned for her.
“I see.” Her words were clipped, and the doctor flinched.
“I have to take you back, Miss Avebury. I’ve given my word to deliver you safely to your family. But I will speak to your father on your behalf. I will somehow make him see that this marriage to Lord Stark is wrong.”
Fatigue washed over her. She couldn’t think about Stark or her father. The doctor’s words could not quell her anxiety; she wanted to stay where she was. The ocean soothed her. It acted as a barrier, shielding her from her problems. She gave him a weak smile.
“It’s just – I feel safe when I’m at sea.”
“Safe?” He folded his arms and amusement flickered in his eyes. “You are a strange woman. You nearly had your leg blown off and almost died of fever. Avebury Hall must indeed be formidable.”
“I have felt more human warmth on this ship than I have in the last five years at home,” she answered softly.
Closing her eyes to hide the threatening tears, she leaned back against the pillows, feeling Portsmouth beckon her back with a malignant finger.
***
The next time Doctor Withington visited her, Hetty had recovered enough to feel self-conscious by his examination of her wounded thigh.
“It’s going to leave a rather hideous scar, I suppose.” She sighed.
“Don’t be so vain,” he chided, as he secured the ends of a new dressing. “The infection has cleared, which is the important fact. The marks will fade. You will not be able to make them out in a few years’ time, and they are hardly in a prominent position.”
Hetty blushed. “No, luckily it is well-hidden.” She stretched her fingers out and absently studied the back of her right hand.
“How did you acquire this?” He gently took her hand and ran his finger over the faded white line that stretched from the base of her thumb to her wrist.
“An accident. I was six at the time. Anthony, my stepbrother, stabbed me.” His fingers stopped, and so did the pleasant sensations they created. Don’t stop. “Do you think it is very noticeable?” she asked, willing him back to a closer examination.
Robert frowned. “An accidental stabbing?”
�
��Yes. My hand got in the way. He was trying to stab Beth with the kitchen knife at the time.”
“Good God!”
“He didn’t mean to hurt me, but he did and there was a lot of blood. I was confined to my bedchamber for a week after the incident.”
“To recover?”
“No, as a punishment. But I crept downstairs later to rescue Beth from the bonfire.”
“Beth was on the bonfire?” he asked faintly.
Hetty nodded. “Yes, the one the gardener had prepared. But I was able to rescue her before he set it alight.”
“Thank goodness. Was Beth a servant?”
She looked up, surprised, then smiled at his horrified expression.
“My mother made Beth for me when I was three. She was my constant companion. She had the loveliest blue silk skirts and a bonnet with tiny pink rosebuds embroidered on the side.” Hetty sighed, a little weepy at the thought of her mother. “I still have Beth, although her skirts and bonnet had to be renewed and one of her blue eyes replaced. They do not quite match now.”
“Ah, I see. Beth was your doll. But even so, why did your stepbrother act so cruelly?”
“He was home for a while after he was expelled from school, and he was bored very easily. I was by the stream playing with Beth when he came and sat next to me. My mother had gone for a few days to visit a sick relative, and my nursemaid found a reason to return to the house when she saw Anthony approach. He was never very kind to the servants. I was quite proud when he sat down, because he rarely noticed me. He asked if Beth and I wanted to play a new game. One of truth and torture. The game sounded quite exciting and grownup, but I hadn’t realised Beth was the one to be tortured. First he stabbed her hand. Then he cut off her foot. I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I grabbed Beth just as he tried to stab her in the chest. Unfortunately, the knife caught my hand. When he saw what he had done, he just laughed and ran off with Beth. I finally discovered her on the bonfire. Luckily, the gardener had not lit it that night.”
“Why were you punished?” Robert asked softly.
“Anthony was very good at talking our father around. He spun a story of how I took the knife from the kitchen and hurt myself when he tried to take it from me. He had a gash on his face and said I had thrown a stone at him, which I had done, of course, to stop him hurting Beth. His bruise was impressive.”