The Armored Doctor (Curiosity Chronicles Book 2) (12 page)

Like I did in the industrial district.
Jacob bitterly recalled, as he helped Maria take Abigail to the examination table. Then he threw off his coat and went to wash his hands before coming back.

“Is there anything else I can do for Miss Benton?” Maria asked, holding Abigail’s coat in her arms.

“Prepare the guest room. Tell Struthers to get the fireplace working in there. Miss Benton will not be going home in this state tonight.”

“Right away, Doctor.” Maria exited the office.

“I can’t stay here,” Abigail voiced. She took the handkerchief away from her head.

“Now is not the time to be concerned with propriety.” Jacob lit the lamp next to the table. “You have a head wound that needs looking after.” He cupped her chin and tilted her head in the path of the light. A portion of hair was matted over her left temple. He brushed it back with his fingers as gingerly as possible.

She tensed under his touch. “How is it now?”

“The bleeding stopped.” He spotted the origin of blood just below her hairline. “The skin broke neatly. Some bruising and swelling, but I don’t think you’ll require stitches.”

A shudder went through her.

“I didn’t mean to startle you.” He went to a cabinet for antiseptic and cotton gauze. “I’m used to speaking plainly to my patients.”

“It’s fine. I’m a patient tonight.”

“And that’s my fault.” He closed the cabinet after getting what he needed and placing the supplies on a tray. He found her reflection in the cabinet mirror staring at him.

“You didn’t know those men were going to ambush us.”

“It could have been avoided had we left the hospital earlier.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps we could have been attacked in daylight.”

“It’s not as likely.” He carried the tray to the examination table. “I won’t be inattentive like that again, not when you’re with me.” Jacob dotted antiseptic on the gauze. “This will sting.”

He touched the gauze to her brow. Her eyes welded shut. Her jaw clenched. Still, she made no protest as he wiped at the blood and cleaned the wound.

“Almost done,” he said.

She opened one eye suddenly. “I didn’t thank you for fending off those ruffians.”

“If I still had my—forget it.” He set the gauze on the tray and reached for a fresh one and bandages. He felt the weight of her contemplative stare.

“Why didn’t you say anything about your leg?”

“Should I have?” He secured the fresh gauze to her temple and proceeded to wrap the bandage around her head.

“Yes. I would have understood, then, why you avoid the topic of India.” She held her hair up in back for him to tie the bandage. “Is that where it happened?”  She forced him to look directly into her eyes, eyes that held compassion and not the horror he misinterpreted in her expression before.

“Yes.” Jacob knew where this was leading. He did not want to venture there, but after what Abigail went through, she deserved to know why his past influenced him to work as he did. “I don’t tell people about my amputated leg because I don’t wish to be pitied.”

“You defended me tonight. You have my gratitude, not pity. Do Struthers and Maria know?”

“They are part of a very small group of friends and associates who do. Having a walking stick is one thing, but even among my patients, it’s quite another to know that the physician treating them is without one of his legs.”

“I must disagree with you, especially if you haven’t ventured to reveal that fact to them.” Abigail must have seen his surprise at her spirited declaration, for she promptly toned down her voice and added, “What I mean is, I think your patients would respect you all the more, knowing that you’ve gone through what they’re experiencing. Others would, too, if they knew of your sacrifice for New Britannia.”

“It isn’t as though I haven’t considered your point. My life changed after I came home from India. I was expressly told by my father that no permanently disfigured son of his would inherit the family lands.”

Abigail shook her head. “That is regrettable as it is reprehensible.”

Jacob agreed, but he was long past the anger towards his family that she now displayed. “But it was understandable. I was the eldest son whose pastimes involved chemistry and metalworking, not learning how to run an estate. I left Sussex for London to become a doctor and eventually joined New Britannia’s armed forces, where I could at least put both my skills to practical use. I was given orders for Madras.”

“When I was in India, New Britannia and France were still fighting over Madras’ surrounding provinces.”

“That’s where my injuries occurred. I was a medic at a combined soldier and civilian hospital camp outside the city. A handful of rogue legionnaires disregarded the rules of war and released mortar rounds into the camp.” He paused as the memories rushed back.

The air whistled with the sound of mortars flying. Screams tore through the camp. Gunpowder burned Jacob’s nostrils before he saw black smoke rise.

He was on the ground, his hands riddled with broken glass. He could no longer feel his right leg, only immense pain. His skin stung and his eyes burned from a liquid that splattered across his face. He could feel the heat from the burning tent flaps as he crawled away from them. But he heard the patients still trapped inside. They were dying even as they screamed for help. And there was nothing he could do to save them…

“Doctor? Doctor, can you hear me?”

Abigail’s voice and her touch penetrated his senses. The vision dispersed. He was in his office again. At his address in London, thousands of miles away from Madras.

“You should be seated,” he told her.

“I got up because you looked like you didn’t know you were here.” She slowly loosened her fingers from his. Jacob felt the absence of her touch just as poignantly as he did the initial contact of her hand. He wanted to reach for her and keep her close, but controlled the urge.

“It doesn’t happen often, but the past comes back to me. I can’t predict when it does.”

“It must have been brought on by our discussion.” Abigail sat on the divan. “That attack was a terrible thing you suffered.”

He felt like every secret he had was laid bare before her, but as uncomfortable as that was, it also brought a sense of release. She surprised him by her unwavering resolve to listen without being frightened off. “Not many in the camp survived the legionnaires’ incendiaries and the experimental weak acid they used. A mortar round shattered my leg. The acid, originally used to dissolve vegetation surrounding the provinces, got near my eyes and weakened the retinas. It’s where the scar comes from.” He touched the faint webbing of scar tissue on his face. “That’s why I must wear lenses that tint in bright light.”

Abigail’s eyebrows curved in confusion. “I feel as though you told me some of this before, but I can’t remember when.”

Jacob remembered. She had been in his college office, where the effects of the nitrous oxide still coursed through her system. He didn’t think she would be able to recall aspects from that day a month ago.

What if she remembered that kiss she gave him while under the laughing gas’ influence? Or worse, that he returned it while completely sober? Surely it would disrupt their current arrangement. Abigail would be beside herself for embracing him, a near stranger at the time and now, since she learned of his amputated leg, a disfigured man.

She could extend sympathy towards him, yes, but Jacob thought it impossible that she would ever exhibit such passion towards him again in her right frame of mind.

He’d spare her the indignity of resurrecting the memory. And himself from experiencing her rejection if she were to find out.  He changed the subject. “Abigail, you should eat. I’ll see if Maria can cook something.”

Abigail played with the thread of a missing button on her sleeve, probably lost from the scuffle. “You often call me by my first name when you’re tense or excited.”

“Oh.” He grew embarrassed. Her presence was making him forget himself more often than not these days. “I’ll see that it doesn’t happen again.”

“I don’t mind.”

“You may call me Jacob in private, but we’ll maintain formal titles in front of patients.”

Her eyebrows lifted high. “Does that mean my evaluation went well? I’m to stay on?”

Is that what he just told her? He supposed he did. “Yes, but the choice is ultimately yours. I can’t ask you to accept the dangers inherent with visiting the laborer’s hospital.”

Hesitation and a note of caution swept her face, but then it disappeared in resolve. “You explained the work to me before I started. I accepted that there would be risks. We’ll simply have to be more careful next time.”

Yes, they would. Jacob began to think of ways to ensure Abigail’s protection. She needed a device to defend herself. He should get on that right away.

“Jacob?”

“Yes?”

“You have that faraway look again.”

He shook his head to clear it. “I’ll see what’s keeping Maria.”

Out in the hallway, he heard Struthers descend the stairs. He met him at the bottom.

“Have you kindled the fireplace in the guest room?”

“Yes, sir, and Maria put fresh linens on the bed.”

Maria came down the stairs. “How is the young lady, Doctor?”

“She has a cut and some bruising on her forehead, but it will heal within a week.”

“How did she come by such a brutish injury?” Struthers asked.

“We were met by three men close to the laborer’s hospital near St. Giles.”

“That area is no place for a lady,” Maria scolded Jacob. “What were the two of you doing there at such an odd hour?”

“Maria.” Struthers was clearly embarrassed by her outburst.

Maria caught herself too late, putting her hands over her mouth. “Pardon me, Doctor. I meant no harm.”

“You’re concerned for Miss Benton. I take no offense.” Jacob put her at ease. “Miss Benton’s injury was due to my negligence. We left the laborers’ hospital later than we should because I didn’t mind the time.”

“Please have care for her, Dr. Valerian. She might be capable and brave enough to do a man’s job, but she’s still a woman.”

“You have my word.”

“Will Miss Benton be staying on as your assistant?”

“She will.”

“Wonderful.” The housekeeper beamed. “I’ve never seen that office runnin’ so smoothly or you so…” She averted her gaze. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Struthers’ composed, austere appearance was in the process of unraveling as his wife left. “I must apologize for her, Dr. Valerian. I ask her not to speak every thought. It’s the Celtic blood that makes her so inquisitive.”

“It’s quite alright, Struthers.” Jacob casually wondered if Abigail possessed a similar ancestral line as Maria. The two women were high-spirited and apt to speak their minds to whoever would listen. Which, in Abigail’s case, especially, he was beginning to find refreshing. “We’d better see to Miss Benton’s supper.”

Abigail awoke in a room that she didn’t recognize.

“Good morning, dear,” Maria’s voice sounded from a wooden chair by the door. Abigail then remembered where she was, in a guest room at Jacob’s residence. The night before, Maria brought her supper to the room and lent her a nightgown to sleep in after she had a bath.

“The doctor told me to keep an eye on you during the night.” Maria yawned as she stood up to stretch, still attired in her gray dress and white apron. “He came to peek in on you around six this morning.”

Abigail shifted under the blankets. “What time is it now?”

“Eight. Time for me to bring you breakfast and let Dr. Valerian know you’re awake.” Maria slipped out the door.

Abigail sat up in bed. An ache began at her temple. She tested the area. The swelling had gone down, but it was sore and would be for some time. But things could have turned out much worse if Jacob hadn’t been there to prevent those men from doing her further harm.

She sank back into the pillows, recounting all that she had learned of him last night. If she had not seen the mechanical limb, she would never have guessed Jacob lost his leg. Due to a small limp and his use of a walking stick, she assumed that he sustained a field injury, but nothing as he had described to her the night before.

And it made her respect him all the more. From what she knew of amputations in the field, not many people survived them. The fact that Jacob returned home and opened a practice to help others who had lost their limbs was nothing short of admirable.

She hoped that her initial surprise upon seeing his prosthetic leg didn’t convince him that she felt otherwise.

A tap sounded upon the door. Jacob entered, bearing his walking stick. “How do you feel today?”

“The ache is bearable.” She burrowed under the covers until only her head and neck were visible. Being abed and in a nightgown made having a conversation with him quite awkward. “How are you?”

“It’s been some years since I’ve had to employ martial skills, but I’ll be fine. Not to worry.” A bit of humor crossed his face as he chased away her concern. He dragged the wooden chair Maria previously sat on and put it by the bed. “Let’s see how your temple looks today.”

Abigail stilled as he untied the knot of her bandage. Her skin heated where his fingers touched. Was she turning red? Oh, she hoped not.

He leaned close. The smell of soap and green, lingering notes of bay leaf aftershave pleased her nose. A temptation emerged, a subtle coaxing to reach up around the back of his neck and draw his face down, where she could feel his skin against hers, press her lips upon his.

Where did such an ardent notion come from? Abigail pressed both hands into the mattress. And why was the thought of it so vivid, as though she had once engaged in such an exchange with Jacob before?

Perhaps her head injury was more serious than she thought.

“Your injury looks better today,” Jacob said.

She watched the sun’s soft rays filter through the curtain to shine on his hair. Pale blond strands mixed with a touch of silver produced an intriguing, otherworldly coloring. Angles of shadow and light formed along the clean planes of his face. He was a handsome man, even with the faint scar that patterned over his left eye. In a quiet way, Abigail thought it grounded his refined features.