The Highwayman Read Free Page B

more, but she merely raised her eyebrows and said, “Very well, sir. If not I, then Jackson, my groom, will do it.” Then she said with an air of exaggerated innocence, “He has treated all manner of ailments in horses.”
    At that, he narrowed his eyes at her and gritted his teeth again. Ominously, he said, “I am no horse, madam. I insist that you send for a doctor. If I must have someone digging into me with a knife, I want a real sawbones, not a damned horse-quack.”
    “My dear sir, the nearest...ah, sawbones...is in Leeds and it would be hours before he could arrive. I fear you must choose between me and Jackson.”
    At that, his eyes closed again. He dropped back onto the bed, then gasped at the pain caused by the sudden movement and clutched at his leg once more.
    What in damnation had he ever done to deserve this? He had the dubious choice of entrusting his life and limb to a ham-handed horse doctor or to this female who considered herself to be an expert in the “healing arts.” Likely her expertise consisted of nothing more than waving a vinaigrette or a handful of burnt feathers under the noses of other vapourish females.
    But, loath though he was to admit it, he knew her to be right in one respect. Something must be done, and done soon. Already he felt as weak as a sick kitten, and he was holding on to consciousness by a mere thread. And so, there really was no choice at all, was there? At least she didn’t look to be ham-handed.
    With weary resignation, he growled, “Very well. Get on with it then—you, not that fugitive from a stable. It appears that you have me at your mercy.”
    Until that moment, Jane had kept her gaze resolutely fixed on the man’s face, but now her eyes shifted to his wound, then skittered away again. She suddenly found herself lacking in confidence and more reluctant than ever to do what must be done. She knew that she must, but the thought of touching that bare, hairy, masculine limb with her own hands—without even the benefit of her gloves and his breeches between them—was almost more than her mind could cope with. It would have been difficult enough if he had remained unconscious, but with him awake...
    Abruptly she turned away towards the washbasin, and was grateful to note that Agatha and Melrose had entered the room and were hovering just inside the doorway beside Jackson. Their presence served tobolster her courage and add some much needed stiffness to her backbone.
    She required her companion present to lend at least a measure of propriety to the situation, and as she began scrubbing her hands, she said, “I know this will not be pleasant for you, Agatha, but I thank you for coming.”
    Agatha merely nodded and said, “We are out of laudanum, so I have sent Elsie to procure some. Is there anything more I can do to help?”
    “No,” Jane replied. “Just the fact of your being here is a great help to me. As for the laudanum, we shall need it later, but I doubt it would take effect soon enough to be of use to us now.” Then, turning her attention to the men, she said, “Melrose, I shall need you and Jackson to stand ready to restrain the patient, should it become necessary.”
    Looking very like men on their way to the gallows, the two crossed the room, Melrose going to the head of the bed and Jackson to the foot.
    Jane, after pulling the low bedside table closer and arranging her basket upon it, eyed the two chairs in the chamber. But, judging that either of them would be too low for her purposes, she sat gingerly upon the edge of the bed beside the stranger’s exposed knee. From her basket she lifted a container of Scotch whisky, uncorked it, and was holding it over the wound when a new thought suddenly occurred to her. There was a very real chance that this man might yet die, from infection if not from blood loss, and they did not even know his name. Her mind shied away from the thought of an unmarked grave.
    Determined, before beginning, to discover that