A Lady in the Smoke Read Online Free Page B

home, where our scullery maids piled the dishes for washing and stacked the clean ones to be put away. Tonight, this table had become a place to lay the patients.
    The doctor from the field was bent over the table, stitching an ugly gash in a man’s shoulder by the light of a lantern. He was wholly absorbed in the task, and I remained very still, not wanting to distract him. He’d stripped to his white shirt, undone his collar, and rolled the sleeves above his elbows to work. His hands moved skillfully over the wound, the muscles in his forearm shifting under his skin, his fingers making tiny repetitive movements, the silver needle catching bits of light.
    The patient was a large man, with a thick mane of dark hair and a cruel cut across his forehead in addition to the one across his shoulder. He groaned and muttered a few words in French. The doctor murmured,
“Ne vous inquiétez pas, vous allez être bien,”
groped for the cone that had slipped sideways off the man’s nose, and replaced it. Then he picked up the lantern, held it near the shoulder for a moment, put it down, made a few more stitches, and then picked up the lamp once more to study the gash.
    The cone on the patient’s nose began to slip sideways again.
    He’d told the man,
Allez être bien.
But everything didn’t look fine to me.
    I pushed the door all the way open and stepped inside, my hand already reaching to replace the cone. “May I help you?”
    He glanced up, and it took a moment before he recognized me. He bent over the man’s bloody shoulder again. “Are you prone to fainting?” His voice was pleasant, but dubious.
    A fair question, considering that the last time he saw me I’d fallen unconscious at his feet. But I’d helped our groom Martin stitch up our horses many times—and Athena had gashes worse than this when she came to us.
    “Not usually, no,” I said evenly.
    Without looking up, he said, “Good. Can you hold the light here, and keep the chloroform on?”
    I wrapped my fingers around the handle of the lantern and carefully adjusted the cone. I watched his hands; even Martin’s fingers didn’t move so nimbly with a needle.
    “Bring the light this way, please.”
    I lifted it so it hung above the wounded man’s shoulder.
    That’s when I saw the patient’s face. It was the man who’d helped Mama and me off the train.
    I let out a gasp before I could stop myself, and the doctor looked up. “You’re all right?”
    “I’m fine. It’s just—this man—he helped us off the train. And then ran to another carriage. He must have been going to help them too.”
    “Yes, well. That’s probably why he ended up here.”
    I bit my lip and prayed that he’d recover.
    Ten or twelve more quick stitches, a knot.
    “That’s enough chloroform for now. Thank you.”
    I removed the cone and watched as he twirled the needle and thread into a small efficient loop like he’d done after stitching my wound. He barely glanced in my direction as he handed me a square of cloth. “Can you hold this to his head while I check his leg?”
    I did as he directed.
    Together, we worked through the long night.
    —
    The pale gray light of dawn was filtering through the scullery windows by the time we’d finished. The clock had chimed half past five, and the doctor had stitched nearly two dozen wounds and set three bones, tying them up with bandages ripped from the hotel’s white sheets. The proprietress, Mrs. Mowbray, had called to us through the closed door to offer them, but she had not brought them in herself. Instead, she sent a maid, who entered with her eyes screwed tight. She thrust the linens at me and left again before I could thank her. Despite the wretchedness of the situation, I’d almost smiled. The maid from upstairs wasn’t the only one who couldn’t bear the sight of blood.
    The doctor sighed and arched his back, rolling his head from side to side. My back and shoulders ached too, but there was also a feeling of satisfaction;