Mary's Christmas Knight Read online

  A shot of morphine to the other arm, one more on his hip, and his panicked breath eased into a pitiful wheezing. Less than heroic, doping a man senseless so he could drown in peace. Unpalatable business, but still better than days or miserable weeks of burning infection.

  His lips moved, spattering his chin with more blood. Mary leaned close, trying to hear. “Sing,” he rasped. “Sing.”

  “Sing?” She blinked, jarred with the unlikely request. She glanced at Mr. Warren, who shook his head, conveying unwillingness. All she could see of the other man was his hair and the back of his coat. “All right. I will sing.”

  A poor moment to protest her less-than-admirable singing voice, but it seemed a shame this man would leave the world with her caterwauling in his ear instead of her sister Madeline’s golden-chime-voice. Or Aunt Sophia’s magical-reed-like soprano, or Uncle Wil’s chocolately-velvet tenor… Mary had never liked singing, mostly because of the poor counterfeit that came from her mouth.

  “Sing,” he pled, sounding like heenk.

  Mr. Warren glared, making her even more self-conscious when she should be concerned with indulging a dying man’s wish.

  Mary cleared her throat, and Sussex Carol popped into her mind. It would work well enough with her alto-ish voice. She tried to sing. “On Christmas night—” a bubble stuck in her throat, making her voice croak. She swallowed and sang a little more gently. “On Christmas night true Christians sing, to hear what news the angels bring…”

  The second verse failed her memory. Something about music and echoes. She recalled, “And from the darkness we have light, which makes the angels sing this night.” Her weak, trembling tone made her want to cringe. Poor man; deserving of comfort and distraction but likely finding little in her feeble attempt. His lips moved, and she racked her brain for the rest but came up blank.

  Bless Lieutenant Baxter, who cued, “Glory to God, his peace to men, both now and evermore.” His voice might have been even worse than hers, but he sang along, giving her the fortitude to go on.

  She held the patient’s hand and repeated all the verses she and the lieutenant could remember. By degrees, the grip on her hand slackened, the patient’s breathing shallowed then stopped. Mr. Warren listened with a stethoscope to the chest, long after Mary felt the familiar yet surreal sensation of departure she could never describe, since it was a matter of cosmos and otherworldly realms.

  Patients died as a matter of course, and this unnamed man wasn’t the first soul she’d eased into passing, but she never grew accustomed to it. Each took a piece of her soul with them, she was certain. She might not have much of it left.

  “May he rest in peace,” said Mr. Warren, who began clearing away the equipment.

  Mary muttered, “Amen,” and went to fetch the orderly, who must notify the coroner. Oddly, the constable sat in the office, resting an elbow on the receiving desk and frowning in his best impression of Ebenezer Scrooge. Surely the cab driver would not be arrested? Everyone knew the icy roads were dangerous, and even if the driver had been careless, he couldn’t be charged with murder? Perhaps manslaughter.

  “Mr. Gilbert,” she addressed the orderly. “Mr. Warren says you must send for the coroner, right away.”

  “Happy Christmas,” he replied, and Mary said nothing back to his sarcasm.

  She went upstairs, thoughtful and subdued, but not under a storm cloud. The violent reminder of life’s fragility weighed on her mind as she washed the room. The other man, whose name she didn’t know, sat slumped against the wall. Once the body was taken away, she burned the soiled linen, tossing her bloody apron in as well. Disposing of possibly infected linen was hospital policy, but the apron burning was meant as a sort of tribute to the stranger, who left the world at the stroke of midnight on December the twenty-fifth.

  Scrubbing the bloodstains from her sleeve made some of the eggplant-colored dye in the velvet wash out, and it fairly murdered the beaded embroidery. She hadn’t meant to stay and work a shift that evening, but when she came to bring Mr. Warren’s present and the wassail to the patients, it became apparent the night nurse wasn’t coming. Some duties paid no heed to holidays.

  Tom Hart raised an arm and beckoned her. Steeling herself against another pathetic show of agony, she went to his side, sans laudanum bottle, just in case he managed to pull her heartstrings. “Mister Hart? May I help you?”

  “Yer be a saint, Miss Cavendish. A right angel of mercy. If’n I had a bell, sure, and I’d ring for ye, miss.”

  Next would come his teasing, “Now if only I had a bit o’ somethin’ to ease a poor old chap…” Mary retreated a step, mindful of Mr. Warren’s gaze on her. “Why thank you, Mr. Hart. And a Happy Chr—”

  Tom Hart grabbed her hand and she lurched, nearly acting on the instinct to strike.

  He pressed a warm, hard object to her palm. Its smooth, ridged texture kept her from dropping it. Mr. Warren had come running, but halted.

  Squinting in the dim light, Mary opened her palm and saw a wooden bell, carved from field maple. She lowered her elbow, glad she hadn’t struck Mr. Hart. Holding the delicate shape closer, Mary saw a ring of engraved cuckooflowers at the rim, and her initials, MC carved on the wing-shaped clanger.

  “Did you make this, Mr. Hart?”

  Tom Hart smiled, revealing two missing front teeth, and she grinned back.

  “It’s beautiful. What a talent you have. And thank you.”

  “M’ pleasure.”

  “I will cherish it.” A sting of emotion buzzed behind her nose and watered her eyes. The horrible events of the past hour cleared from her mind like fog dispersing before the insistent rays of daylight. She reached for his outstretched hand and gave him a squeeze then put the bell in the pocket sewn into the inside of her skirt. The clanger made a dull tinkling noise then settled on its side as she walked.

  If Mary had lingered, she might have given in and let Tom Hart have an extra dose of laudanum. She was nothing if not merciful.

  The night’s events logged into the register, Mr. Warren closed all his tool cases and locked the drawers of his desk then dimmed the lantern.

  “Good night to you, Miss Cavendish.” His whiskers twitched. He pushed the frames of his spectacles higher on the bridge of his nose. Any glimmer of admiration she might have seen before in his expression had been utterly eradicated.

  She’d almost wished him a Happy Christmas. “And to you, Mr. Warren.” It felt like reading The End at the back page of a beloved book. Cathedral bells rang as if on cue, ethereal and distorted coming from the town square.

  He nodded farewell then left the ward with his hat and coat on his arm. The present sat untouched on his desk.

  Chapter Three

  Behold a simple, tender babe,

  In freezing winter night,

  In homely manger trembling lies:

  Alas! A piteous sight.

  Despise him not for lying there;

  First what He is inquire:

  And orient pearl is often found

  In depth of dirty mire.

  ~John Camden Hotten, 1861

  MARY SNUFFED ALL but the last lamp and was about to leave the ward when she remembered the other man, still sitting against the wall near Lieutenant Baxter’s bed. The latter snored softly, one end of his moustache flapping with each exhalation.

  Since the man hadn’t gone with the coroner, he must not be kin to the deceased patient. Then why had he lingered?

  She fetched a lantern, turned up the wick, then approached, waiting for the man to look up and acknowledge her. His breath neither slow nor even, he couldn’t be asleep. In no mood to be ignored, Mary gave the upturned sole of his boot a short kick. No response. She knelt; the corset ribbing carved into her sides and held her torso at an unnatural upright angle. Tapping his hand that rested on one raised knee earned no response.

  She put a hand on his shoulder and whispered, “Mister. Sir?”

  Finally he raised his head.

  Devastating eyes the c
olor of sea glass, deeply set under a heavy brow, speared through her and stole her breath. She knew those dramatic cheekbones and the absurdly square jaw, dusted with sooty stubble at the edges. Mary gasped and stumbled back. His hair, matted with mud, didn’t quite disguise him. Long-fingered, muscular hands, over-six-foot titan physique—

  “Wesley Samuel Darcy!” He probably had people saying his name like the eighth wonder of the world all the time, but shame on her for being enamored with a famously wicked man. “Sir Wesley Samuel Darcy,” she corrected herself. “Upon my word!” Her hand fluttered to her throat, and she feared she’d drop the lantern. “What are you doing here?”

  “Bleeding to death, obviously.” His fathoms-deep voice distracted her from processing his sarcasm. Even flat and irritated, the delicious burnt-sugar tone rubbed down her spine then worked its way back up as a shiver. Sir Wesley Samuel Darcy made an extravagant living off that voice, as well as a sordid reputation. Up close, she understood why.

  “Bleeding?” Mary looked him over, finding him covered in dark, wet spots, uncertain which were mud and which might be blood. “Where?”

  “It hardly matters. I have half a mind to remain here until whatever is left leaks its way out. Clearly you are in agreement.”

  Mary scowled then met his cold stare, even cooler because of the icy-sea color of his remarkable irises. Months and years of detached admiration culminated in a weird, unlikely moment. Stood to reason a shockingly beautiful man, so talented on the stage and so scandalous in the papers, would be so predictably droll in person. He probably murdered paramours and seduced heiresses only on Sundays and was quite boring the rest of the week.

  Deciding not to like him made it easier to return his stare with all the indignation he was due. “Well, a very Happy Christmas to you too, Sir Wesley.”

  He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, looking every bit the arrogant arse he no doubt was. Mary stood and glanced at the clock, which announced she’d missed the start of midnight mass.

  With a sigh, she rolled her sleeves, went to the sink, and scrubbed to her elbows with antiseptic yet again. The soapy solution bit at her already raw skin. She unlocked the cabinet doors of a rolling supply cart and loaded a suture kit and syringe in the crook of her arm. Kneeling, she spread a clean cloth beside him and laid out the tools. “Will you divulge the location of your injury, or shall I poke around with the needle until I find it?”

  “Follow the pools of blood.”

  Turning the wick on the lantern higher until it flickered macabre shadows on the wall, she laced thread through the eye of the needle on her first try. Despite her plethora of shortcomings, poor eyesight wasn’t among them.

  Still he hadn’t moved. She poked him in the shin with the needle. He jumped then regarded her with slitted eyes, saying nothing.

  She sighed. “Must we do this on the floor, or is there a chance of moving the procedure to the bed, like civilized people?”

  He made a sound like humf. “There is seldom much civilized about it whether I do it on the floor or a bed. But I’ve never had any complaints.” His vainglorious smirk turned into a salacious leer, which she found unnecessary.

  “My, my. I do believe I’ve just been scandalized by a bawdy joke.” This time she poked him in the ribs with the needle. “Oh, my poor maiden ears.”

  She aimed for his other side with the needle, and he grabbed her wrist. “Stop that, wench.” The strength in his grip stalled her heart — he could crush her bones if he wanted to. Her skin felt fragile beneath his steely-hard hand.

  A bruise was probably flowering over her wrist right then. “Brilliant. You’ve numbed my hand.”

  “It’s your left.”

  “I’m not right-handed.”

  He muttered a rude curse.

  Out of a perverse sense of abandon, likely catalyzed by having her Christmas hopes and dreams dashed to pieces, she said it back at him. “And you can go do it to yourself, for all I care.”

  Sir Wesley raised a brow, then improbably, he cracked a smile. Not a nice one — his beautifully carved mouth pulled into a cruel line. “Who are you?”

  “A decent left-handed surgeon, but a questionable right-handed one.”

  He released her wrist, her veins throbbed, and she resisted the urge to shake out her hand.

  “I’m starting to worry this emergent laceration of yours is located on your backside, or else you wouldn’t be so surly about presenting it. Never fear, for I have likely seen many a worse and better one.”

  His snort of laughter woke Lieutenant Baxter, who eyed the scene warily. Despite his trussed leg, he appeared willing to fly out of bed to her defense. She stilled him with a glance, communicating it hadn’t come to that yet. Her friend gave a slight nod then feigned closing his eyes, likely watching through his eyelashes.

  “As much as I hate to disappoint you, madam, it is my left shoulder that has suffered injury.”

  Mary hoped she showed no reaction to being called madam. Having passed her twentieth year, she wasn’t precisely a blooming ingénue. Besides, if he’d been paying any attention at all, Sir Wesley would’ve heard both Tom Hart and Mr. Warren call her Miss Cavendish. Clearly the insult was intended.

  “Then I suppose my luck has finally turned, since I have little inclination to tread the path so many fools have trod.” Mary held up the bottle of morphine. “Last chance for anesthesia.”

  “Difficult to tell whether you’ll kill me with an overdose or your quack surgery.”

  “Take your chances, sir, but choose swiftly. I am tired and out of sorts, which increases your risk of amputation.”

  “Out of sorts? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Now where did I put that hacksaw?”

  With a disgruntled sigh, Sir Wesley levered himself off the ground, leaving prints of mud and sticky half-dried blood in the shape of his purportedly very fine backside. Without an injured man leaning on him to hunch him over, the full effect of his height struck her, her nose level with his breast pocket.

  He bared his forearm and held it out for the injection. She grimaced, still looking at the floor. “I suppose that’s your idea of a practical joke.”

  Sir Wesley looked down at the dual-moon-shaped spots on the floor. “Shall I autograph it?”

  She bit the inside of her cheek to prevent another curse word. “The only signature I want from you is on the bill for services rendered. Which I shall promptly double if you don’t lie down on the bed forthwith.”

  “Forthwith?”

  “Triple.” Mary wielded the syringe and squeezed a small stream out the tip in warning. His eyes sparked a challenge at her — clearly he enjoyed looming over her and looking like Erebus on a pedestal. His assumption that his beauty should cow her only steeled her against it.

  He stared, she glared back, and the few seconds spent in impasse stretched improbably into what seemed like hours, until an unwelcome finger of heat whittled its way through her disdain. His remarkable sea-god eyes seemed to look past her skin into her thoughts, where little traitors whispered bad advice.

  She shook it off, determined. Who cared if he was exceptionally virile and interesting? Her female instincts were completely out of adjustment, alerting her to attraction for a strutting peacock of a man. Hadn’t she had enough unrequited affection for one day? “Is it still Christmas, or has New Year’s come and gone already?”

  Finally he shrugged out of his filthy jacket, pulled his collar loose, and raised his shirt over his head, one-handed. It caught on his head, and unable to raise his injured arm, he froze like an absurd statue with his head swathed in dirty linen.

  She injected the morphine, then went to work.

  It would have been petty to deliberately prolong cutting along the seam of his sleeve in order to remove the tangled garment, thereby prolonging his ridiculous moment. She didn’t do it, not overmuch. Cutting apart his shirt revealed a monstrous chest she had seen once before from her balcony seat, when he’d played Obe
ron the fairy king in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Up close he was a colossus. Shoulders broader than the space it would take to raise her elbows. Block-shaped pectorals the size of lamb roasts, covered with a swirling pattern of crisp dark hair her fingers grazed as she removed cut fragments of the shirt.

  She tried imagining him an inert Rodin sculpture in bronze, but his skin gave under her touch, noticeable degrees warmer than hers. Living, breathing, a wonder and a threat. Having freed his right arm, collar, and ribs, she cut the fabric along the left shoulder seam then down the side to his waist. Impossible not to stare at the columns of muscle over his belly contracting with his even breaths. And the narrow trail of hair that disappeared below the waistband of his trousers, wet and hanging low on his hips…

  Wordlessly he dropped to the bed and caught her staring at his chest.

  “Go ahead, lick it. Or grab on.” His voice came so soft and lazy, at first she thought she’d imagined the words.

  “What?”

  “Go all the way up.” He tucked his uninjured arm behind his head and regarded her with hooded eyes. “I promise, I’ll like it. Especially if you take care with the sensitive bits. I’ll show you where.”

  That’s what she thought he’d meant. Her hand drew back, then almost without permission from her brain, she slapped him hard across the cheek, making a gratifying smack! sound.

  First his face turned white, then a welt the shape of her palm and fingers blistered on his cheek. Her hand tingled and stung. He stared, his expression unreadable, and she stared back, horrified at her violent outburst. Belatedly a wave of anger steamed in her head, reinforcing her indignation. Who does he think he is?

  Lieutenant Baxter’s hoist creaked, and she worried he would lever himself out of bed to defend her honor. She’d better do it herself. She gestured to him behind her back and turned to face the infamous Sir Wesley Samuel Darcy.

  “I will assume you are impaired by the morphine, sir, however perversely. And you will apologize. Sincerely. And henceforth regard me as the lady that I am. Or else I shall turn on my heel and not come back. And may the devil let you bleed all the way to hell.” Mary heaved for breath, the whalebone seams of her corset straining with embarrassing creaking noises as her lungs pushed for air, but she hardly cared. Her vision flashed black spots, warning that she’d faint if she couldn’t calm herself.