Free Never Less Than a Lady by Mary Jo Putney Page B

saturated a cloth with whiskey and wiped down the razor and knife blades.
    His gaze locked on the bottle. “A waste of good whiskey.”
    “My apologies.” She propped him up with a couple of pillows, added a dose of laudanum to a glass of whiskey, and handed it over.
    He swallowed half the glass in one gulp. “You could probably use a good swig yourself,” he said, “but maybe it’s better if you don’t.”
    “I’ll indulge gratefully after you’re sorted out.” She examined his thigh inch by inch, pressing gently on the hard muscles to find the still harder pieces of buried metal. Much easier to think of him as a patient than as a man. “You certainly have a lively assortment of scars.”
    “The surgeon who cut out most of the pieces told me that my battered hide set his personal record.” Randall drank again, this time more slowly. His fingers whitened on the glass when she touched the area around the wound.
    When she finished her examination, she said, “Besides the big piece that’s bleeding so nastily, there’s another piece above your knee. It hasn’t broken the skin, but it feels loose. Active.”
    “So that’s what’s been hurting like bloody hell,” he muttered. “Excuse my language. Will you cut that out, too?”
    She wiped damp hands on her skirt. “I’d like to. From what I know of shrapnel, there are probably other pieces that have become immobilized and won’t cause problems, but this one is trouble waiting to happen.”
    “And likely sooner than later.” He exhaled roughly. “You’ve had cutting experience?”
    “With no proper surgeon in Hartley, I was the one who removed buckshot, pieces of wood, and any other foreign objects that became imbedded in human flesh. Usually male flesh.” She folded a clean linen rag and used the hot water to wash the blood from his thigh. “Men are much more injury prone. If it’s any comfort, I’ve never accidentally removed anything a man wanted to keep.”
    He smiled crookedly. “A great comfort.”
    His color was better, whether it from banter, whiskey, or because he was finally lying down rather than on horseback. “This is going to hurt,” she warned. “Do you think you can keep still? I can ask Mrs. Ferguson for a male servant to hold you down.”
    He grimaced. “I doubt you’ll do anything that will hurt much worse than the way my leg feels already. Just give me the whiskey bottle.”
    “Be careful,” she said as she complied. “The combination of ardent spirits and laudanum can be dangerous.”
    “I’m hard to kill.” He swallowed a mouthful. “In middling amounts, the whiskey and opium put a pleasant distance between my mind and your knife.”
    Feeling qualms, she said, “It’s not too late to send for a proper surgeon.”
    He shook his head. “Proceed, my dear wife. I trust you at least as much as the sawbones who hacked me about on the Peninsula.”
    She smiled unevenly, pleased at the trust but unnerved by the responsibility. “Not your wife yet, and after I get through cutting, you might want to cry off.”
    He laughed, his eyes lightening. “In Scottish terms, we’re already married, Julia. We have presented ourselves as husband and wife before two witnesses.”
    “Married?” Her voice squeaked. She hadn’t been quite ready. Still…“Perhaps it’s just as well. With no proper ceremony, I didn’t have to promise to obey you.”
    “Now I’m the one who is not surprised,” he murmured. “I shall make a note of that. No obedience expected.”
    Ignoring his comment, she prepared for the surgery, placing folded cloths near to hand so she could blot the blood, and packing rolled towels on both sides of his thigh to steady it. His razor and the smaller of Mrs. Ferguson’s knives were the sharpest, so she cleaned them with whiskey again. As she prepared to start cutting, he said, “Talk to me.”
    She paused. “About what?”
    “Anything. How did you learn surgery?”
    “I found the subject interesting.