“I’m nay afraid with ye here,” she whispered in reply.
A Long Night
Ambrose’s tutors had warned that a career in medicine would mean many sleepless nights, but he’d never imagined a situation like the one in which he found himself.
Worry for Evan was reason enough for wakefulness—checking to see if he was too hot, too cold, still unconscious, dead?
However, a beautiful woman lay close by, so near yet so far—a lass he craved and longed to hold in his arms.
The peat fire eventually drove the chill from the bothy. The glow reflected in Eala’s eyes. “Are ye awake?” he whispered.
“Aye,” she replied hoarsely. “I doot I’ll be able to sleep.”
“Will yer father wonder where ye are?”
She snorted softly. “’Tis likely he doesna realize I havena returned home.”
He chuckled. “He’s a character.”
“Ye could say that.”
Ambrose pitied her poor relationship with her sire. “My father and I get along well,” he told her. “We respect each other.”
“’Tis the reason ye’re a finemon,” she replied. “Ye aspire to be like yer father.”
He’d met Eala scant hours before, yet she knew him. “Aye. Although ’twas Dr. Giles Raincourt inspired me to become a surgeon.”
He found himself telling her about how Giles came to live with the Pendrays when he was a boy. He proudly recounted the family’s long history of rescuing abused orphans and providing them with a secure home and an education. “’Twas my Uncle Munro started it. He married an Englishwoman, an apothecary. She’d taken pity on Giles whose parents died in a fire. He became her apprentice.
“My father eventually married an orphan who arrived from Edinburgh, Faith Cameron—my mother.”
He thought better of explaining the seemingly overwhelming obstacles Munro and Sarah had overcome to be together. For that matter, his own parents’ path to true love hadn’t been smooth. A kernel of hope sprang to life in his breast. Perhaps there was a chance for him and Eala.
Then Evan moaned and tried to kick off the cloak. Ambrose reluctantly removed his arm from Eala’s grasp and sat up to tend his beleaguered patient.
* * *
Eala scrambled to her knees and pressed her weight on Evan’s shoulders when he began to writhe.
Ambrose rummaged about in his medical bag, finally producing a small vial made of dark glass. “I’m hesitant to give him a wee dose of laudanum after all the whiskey he drank. However, if we dinna calm him, he’ll rip open his wound, and I canna do anything to repair it here.”
Eala grasped Evan’s head while Ambrose forced a few drops of the medicine between his lips. He held his patient’s mouth closed so he had no choice but to swallow.
It seemed to take an eternity but, eventually, the laudanum worked its magic.
Overheated by the effort to keep Evan still, Eala sank back, relieved to get off her knees. A bitter memory surfaced when she saw the deep lines etched in Ambrose’s brow. She’d seen that same worried frown on the face of the doctor who’d tended Meagan Calhoun. “My mother took laudanum. It helped with the pain. At first. Then she died.”
Kneeling on the other side of Evan, Ambrose looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry. I dinna ken how I’ll cope when my mother passes.”
Eala wanted to tell him she hadn’t yet recovered from her mother’s death, but the atmosphere in the bothy was dire enough without adding to the gloom and doom. “Yer mother sounds like a wonderful person. I’d love to meet her.”
“She’d like you,” he replied.
* * *
The truth of his words struck Ambrose full force. Faith Pendray had a way of divining a person’s inner strengths. She would take to Eala right away. Throughout the ordeal, the lass had shown grit and determination.
Finding himself unable to tear his gaze away from hers, he held up the vial. “Aye, laudanum dulls the pain, but ’tisna a cure for anything.”