The Lady in the Tower (5 page)

“It’s. Fine.
Now, shall we finish our walk?”

She bit her
lip. Should she insist they return to the carriage? That would certainly
improve his current physical state, but she suspected it would hurt his pride.
“How did it happen?”

“Doesn’t
matter.”

Jane blinked
at the metaphorically slammed door in her face. “It does to me.”

One eyebrow
lifted. “Why?”

Why indeed?
She had no answer, except that she wanted—no, she
needed
to know.

“Come, Lady
Kilkenny
. We waste time.” He walked on, leaving her no
choice but to follow him.

They turned a
corner and were instantly in a busy thoroughfare filled with shoppers, hawkers
and conveyances of all kinds. Thornton ignored the crowd they now threaded
through, until a soot-covered hawker brushed past, his foot catching on
Thornton’s cane. For a heartrending moment, she thought he might fall, but he
regained his balance and sent the man a withering look before he limped on.

That was it
for Jane. She halted in her tracks, grasping his coat sleeve as she did so. “I
beg your pardon, Sir Richard, but I’m developing a blister on my heel.” She
twisted her left foot as if it pained her. “I must prevail upon you once again
for transport. I hope you don’t mind.”

His gaze
narrowed. “You’ve a blister? So soon?”

“These shoes
are not made for walking.” She held his gaze steadily, noting how sharply blue
they were. It took every ounce of will she had not to flinch from his gaze.

“Hmm. They
seem fine to me.”

Jane lifted a
brow. “Are you so well versed in women’s footwear?” Without giving him a chance
to answer, she made for the landau. It had been forced by traffic to pull up to
the side of the road across from them. She was about to cross the street when a
shout startled her.

“
Outtatheway
,
heya
!”

Thornton
pulled her back just before a fast-rolling, high-wheeled curricle raced by. She
heard him mutter, “Idiot driver,” under his breath, a moment before she heard a
child’s cry and a horse’s terrified whinny.

Jane found
herself pinned to Thornton’s broad chest, his arm tight about her. His
aftershave teased her senses with the scent of evergreen and spice. More shouts
split the air. A crowd had developed in the street, clogging more traffic. The
curricle and its driver were long gone.

“Jesus,” Thornton
breathed.

“What—?”

He put her
aside, albeit gently, and pushed his way through the crowd. Jane followed, but
it wasn’t until she joined him that she realized what had happened. A child,
aged perhaps five to six years, lay crumpled in the dirt. Thornton knelt beside
the child, but barked at her over his shoulder. “Tell Sam to bring my bag.”

Jane hurried
to the landau. The coachman was already pulling a black bag from under his
seat. Jane paused long enough to retrieve her own satchel, before reaching up
to the servant. “Sam, I presume? I’ll take that, please.”

The servant
was older, perhaps late forties, with red wavy hair and a bristly mustache.
“Aye, miss.”

She noted he
had a starched stiffness to him that said former military. “Sam, please direct
traffic away from this spot. I’d hate to have more victims in the street.”

He saluted and
jumped down. Leaving Sam to manage the crowd, she returned to Thornton’s side
to hand him his bag, then, heedless of the mud and muck, knelt opposite him,
with the child between. Blood from a head gash seeped down the child’s face,
obscuring the features. She opened her own satchel. “The shoulder’s
dislocated.”

Thornton
nodded, running his hand down the child’s limbs. “Right arm fractured.”

Jane brushed
matted hair away from the child’s face. Shock had set in, leaving the small
visage white and ashen. With the blood and dirt, it was hard to tell the
child’s gender. “That wound will need stitching, but not here.”

“Agreed.” He
measured the pulse. “
Thready
but expected.”

“
Wh-wha
’ . . .
owww
!
” The child’s
eyes flew open. “What you
doin
’
t’me
?
Lemme
go!”

Jane kept a
firm hand on the good shoulder. “What’s your name?”

He moved, a
sob torn from him. “T-toby.”

A
boy then.
“Toby, you were hit by a curricle.”

His eyes
filled with tears. “
Ever’thin
’ hurts.”

“You’re lucky
to be alive,” Thornton said. “We can’t do much for the pain right now, not with
that head wound.”

Toby rolled
his head back and forth, tears mingling with blood. “It hurts, it hurts. My
da’s
gonna
wallop me good.”

Jane reached
into her satchel to remove a piece of peppermint candy. “Here, Toby. I want you
to suck on this, don’t chew it,
understand
? It will
help the pain.”

Thornton
frowned at her but she ignored him. She laid the sweet on the child’s tongue.
“Don’t chew or swallow it, now,” she warned. “Just suck on it.”

Though
obviously still in pain, Toby obeyed, his mouth moving as he shifted the candy
from one side to the other, the flavor distracting him.

Quietly,
Richard said to her, “I don’t want to move him with that shoulder out of
place.”

“I agree.”
Which left them no choice but to relocate it now. They shared a look and Jane
nodded. “Toby? I want you to look at me now, do you understand? We’re going to
fix you right up, so your father won’t notice what happened. Did you like the
candy? Would you like more?” When the child’s wide eyes locked with hers, Jane
continued to ramble, doing all she could to keep the boy’s attention centered
on her. As she spoke, she carefully slipped her arm under the boy’s thin body
to hold him steady against her, careful of the broken arm.

Thornton
grasped the boy’s shoulder and, with a twist, locked it back into place. It was
over in a matter of moments. Toby barely had time to cry out at the sudden,
wrenching pain and the deed was done. Jane had to admire the clean efficiency
of it all.

Toby, on the
other hand, fainted. Considering all that remained left to be done, Jane was
thankful for the small favor.

“He’ll choke
on that sweet,” Richard said.

Jane tilted Toby’s
head to the side and the candy fell out.

“You used the
candy to take his mind off his pain.” Richard nodded. “Clever.”

Jane smiled.
“You’re not the only one with a few tricks in his bag.”

“Apparently
not.” Richard grinned. “Ah, here’s Sam.”

Sam maneuvered
the landau beside them, effectively keeping traffic and onlookers from
interfering. She closed her bag. “Your clinic, I presume? It’s closer.”

“That does
seem the sensible choice.”

She nodded.
“How is your leg? Can you lift the child?”

Using his cane,
Richard stood. “Of course.” He leaned the cane against their landau and then
bent and lifted the child in his arms.

“Hmm,” she
muttered, taking great delight in turning
his own
habit against him. He limped to the door just as Sam opened it.

Jane gathered
up their respective bags, collected his forgotten cane, and climbed inside.

A few days
later, Jane sat at her desk, pen in hand. Her presentation was less than a
fortnight away, and she still was nowhere near finished with it, let alone
prepared to share her theories with London’s medical community.

As she sat
there, ink drying on her pen once again, one thing was perfectly
clear—her lack of preparation was all the fault of one Sir Richard
Thornton. She couldn’t stop thinking about the man. When she tried to think
about her paper and her coming presentation, all she could see was his face.
When she tried to stress the steps of her experiments, she remembered the grace
of his hands as he set Toby’s fractured bones.

Why can’t I
stop thinking about him?
Perhaps because he continues to
confound me at every turn
?
She’d wanted
to think him arrogant and aloof, interested in medicine only as a way to gain
riches, and yet without thought for his own safety or glorification, he’d
sprung into action when a small boy was injured.

Adding to her
confusion was that she’d discovered his offices were in Cheapside, on the edges
of the East End, rather than in Town proper.
Hardly the
location for a physician intent on garnering a wealthy clientele.
The
office itself had been a messy amalgam of old newspapers, scientific journals
and scholarly articles. The clinic, on the other hand, had been scrupulously
neat and clean, stocked with enough medical tools and equipment that Jane had found
herself nearly drooling.

But that
hadn’t been the best part. That had come later, after she’d stitched the gash
in Toby’s forehead. While Thornton set the boy’s broken bone, she went to the
tools of her trade: scalpel, needle and suture. Under Thornton’s watchful gaze,
she’d stitched the gash closed. Afterward, as she washed up, Thornton measured
her handiwork.

He took his
time checking the suture before finally speaking. “Remarkable. I doubt he’ll
have much of a scar, if any. The stitching is impeccably small.” He looked at
her in what could only be called wonderment. “Where did you learn to do that?
I’ve seen your father’s work and it was nowhere near as precise.”

The praise
warmed her considerably and she said with a mischievous grin, “Perhaps I’ll
show you one day.”

“You must,”
he’d replied.

Pleased, she’d
asked to accompany Richard as he went to find the boy’s father, but on this
point he remained absolutely unequivocal.  “It’s not a safe place.
Besides, one look at you and the poor man will surely think his son dead.”

She followed
his gaze and grimaced. Blood covered the front of her pelisse, and her skirts
were caked with mud and muck from the streets. “Very well,” she conceded. “I
trust you will keep me informed of Toby’s progress.”

“Of course.”
And then, without another word, Sir Richard had asked Sam to drive her home.
The silence had been heavy and awkward, Richard’s face stern as if his thoughts
were far from pleasant. As he’d handed her into the carriage, she’d thought he
was about to finally say something, but he merely bade her an abrupt good
night.

In the two
days that had passed, he’d kept his promise and had sent a note each morning
outlining their patient’s progress. He’d given nowhere near the detail she’d
wanted, but from Thornton, a short note was probably tantamount to an epic. She
could not fault his ability; Thornton
was
an excellent physician. He had
the bedside manner, however, of Genghis Khan.

And yet none
of his notes had mentioned her, or how well they’d worked together, or anything
personal
. For some reason, that pained her.

Swallowing
back frustration, Jane dutifully turned her attention back to the task at hand:
a conclusion for her article. Consigning Richard Thornton to the devil, she
took a sip of tea that had gone cold, and delved back into her writing.

A full hour
later found her no closer to a resolution. She was on the verge of pulling out
her hair when Jennings arrived with an announcement she had morning callers.
Jane jumped to her feet. “Finally! I thought he would never co—I mean, of
course, thank you, Jennings.” She hurried to the mirror over the fireplace,
where she grimaced to see her hair. As she fixed it, she said, “Who came with
Sir Richard? Is it a small boy with his arm in a sling? Toby must be feeling
much better if he’s up, although I shall tell Thornton how risky such a thing
is.”

“My lady, it’s
not Sir Richard at all, but Her Grace and Lady Tyndale.”

Disappointment
poured through Jane and she had to fight to keep a smile on her face. “Oh! How
lovely of them to visit.”

A curious look
on his face, Jennings bowed. “If Sir Richard visits, I shall tell you at once.”

Jane nodded
and allowed the butler to open the door to the sitting room. “Thank goodness
you’ve come,” she said in way of greeting. “I’m near my wit’s end.”

“Oh?” Kat
said. “Whatever for?”

Briefly, Jane
explained her conundrum, but left out the part about Richard Thornton.

“Perhaps you
simply need a fresh perspective,” Catherine offered.

“What do you
mean?”

“I think the
duchess is suggesting an outside consult,” Kat said.

“Outside
consult?” Jane frowned. “You mean with another surgeon?”

“Yes, I’m sure
a surgeon would do,” the duchess continued in a thoughtful tone. “But maybe a
physician would be even better.”