Still in his grease-spattered dressing gown and worn slippers, and sporting a striped night-cap, her father chose that moment to arrive. “Ye’re spending too much time out in all weathers, Daughter,” he exclaimed, thumping her back.
Mortified by his ridiculous appearance and his usual lack of decorum, Eala nigh on swooned when Dr. Pendray took hold of her wrist. Heat from his elegant fingers raced through her body. She feared her face must be as red as a winter beetroot.
“Ye are a wee bit hot, Mistress Calhoun,” Pendray said, his deep voice echoing in a very private place.
I’m on fire.
“And yer heart’s racing.”
To put it mildly.
“Perhaps, you should remain here,” Raincourt added.
“Nonsense,” her cantankerous father thundered. “’Tis her duty to help tend young Evan.”
It was tempting to smirk at his obvious fear her beneficial marriage to Evan might be slipping away. Feeling weak in the knees, Eala excused herself from the table. Conflicting emotions swirled in her heart as she clung to the banister on the way upstairs to her chamber. The prospect of spending several hours with Dr. Pendray was exciting, but it meant being an unwilling witness to Evan’s continued struggles. Not to mention the screeching bairns.
As Phreine assisted with her winter cloak and boots, she came to the conclusion she was a sinful wretch—a woman who lusted for a stranger while her betrothed lay in pain.
* * *
It was inevitable Ambrose be jostled against Eala when the berlin left the High Street and eventually struck out over the rolling moorland terrain. The friction of her hip against his was sweet torture, but she must think it odd he seemed to need to apologize for something that wasn’t his doing.
“Sorry,” he rasped again, frustrated with himself when she turned those languid brown eyes on him.
“’Tisna yer fault. Dr. Raincourt’s driver kens the way. He’s trying to avoid the potholes, but ’tis nigh on impossible.”
He began to wonder what was wrong with him. He sat in a cramped carriage beside a woman whose betrothed lay at death’s door and all he could think of was suggesting they run off somewhere and…
The dependable, stolid Ambrose Pendray who’d never lusted after any female, had suddenly become a rutting fool.
He wanted to take her in his arms and offer comfort, but his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. The only word he seemed capable of uttering wasSorryand, if he said it again, he was going to leap out of the berlin…
He inhaled deeply when the carriage came to a stop. His heart sank when he saw the hovel where his patient had found refuge. A strong wind might topple the flimsy structure that leaned like a drunken sailor—or carry away the sparsely thatched roof. Two skeletal urchins clad in filthy rags were toting a battered pail full of water across the yard. They looked frozen to the bone, their noses pinched, ears red.
“Here we are,” Eala murmured.
The despair in her brown eyes broke his heart. Clearly, she loved Evan Bruce a great deal. Gritting his teeth, he resolved to do everything in his power to make sure the young man survived wounds Giles had described as severe.
Grim Reality
Eala took courage from her companion’s strong grip when he offered his hand. “May I help ye down, Mistress Calhoun?” he asked.
“Thank ye, Dr. Pendray,” she whispered, praying the world would set itself to rights when she saw Evan again. It was a faint hope. Deep in her heart, she acknowledged she didn’t love him. The touch of his hand had never produced the wanton feelings aroused by the recently arrived surgeon. Every press of Ambrose’s warm thigh against hers had been sweet torture. She’d never feared drowning in Evan’s gaze, didn’t even recall the color of his eyes, whereas Dr. Pendray’s blue…
“Please,” he replied, retrieving his medical bag from the berlin, “call me Ambrose.”
It was highly improper—she was an engaged woman, after all. “Then ye must call me Eala,” she declared, distracted when Dallis Molloy appeared in the doorway, wiping chapped hands on her pinny.
“Who’s this?” the farmwife demanded in her usual belligerent tone, loudly enough to be heard above the constant barking of an enormous mongrel tied to a sturdy wooden post in the yard.
Given that Ambrose carried a medical bag, the question struck Eala as daft, but she fisted her hands, determined to stay calm. “Dr. Pendray has come from Edinburgh to tend my betrothed.”
Eyeing Ambrose up and down, Mrs. Molloy harrumphed. “Another Jacobite, are ye?”
If he was offended, he hid it well. “Nay, I’ve come at Dr. Raincourt’s request. Those of us with the skills to heal must do what we can for folks who are suffering, regardless of their religious or political affiliations.”
She stared at him as if he had horns protruding from his head, then, her attention diverted, she screeched in Gaelic at the bairns toting water before turning back to Ambrose. “Nay long for this world, that one. If ye ask me, ye’ve had a wasted journey.”