Cleaning the cloth in the water, Jane wrung it out, watching the clear water turn red. She turned to his face, bending over him to work. He snarled, his white teeth bared like a rabid animal’s as he grabbed her wrist.
“Givens and Smith, if you please,” Richard said, motioning to where the man held her.
“None of that now, guv,” Givens said. “The chit is only tryin’ to help.”
The man came off the table, swinging and hitting, as the night men struggled to hold him down.
“Get off,” he cried. Like a madman, he swung at anything that moved. “Get the fuck off me, you whoreson!”
“’E don’t talk like a gent,” Mr. Smith grunted as he twisted the man’s arm, forcing his torso back onto the table. “Talks like ’e was born in the rookery.”
The man burst into a litany of profanity about being tied down. He struggled, his strength incredible considering his wounds.
“Give him two drops of ether, Jane.”
With a dropper, she administered two drops of the liquid onto a folded cloth and pressed it tightly against the man’s face.
He struggled, roaring, but it was not a cry of rage, Jane thought as she watched him, it was one of terror. He tossed his head from side to side trying to dislodge the towel, but Jane held firm.
“No,” he said, muffled beneath the cloth, his voice weakening, as was his strength. “Don’t do this. No binds…”
Jesus Christ, not again. He was being held down, his body unclothed, hands, cool and damp, stroked his flesh. He retched, trying to fight through the fog that clouded his brain. Fumbling at his waist told him his trousers were being removed, and he gathered the last of his evaporating strength to fight off his assailant.
The old fear seized him and he began to shake and breathe too fast.
“Shh,” came a female voice. “You’re safe.”
He stilled, going limp, then realized it was a trick. This was no angel in disguise.
Violently he tossed his head, trying to fling off the cloth that was smothering him.
“It’s all right,” came the softly spoken voice, directly in his ear. “Take a slow deep breath, and hold it. That’s right. Now let it go.”
His body seemed to go languid. He felt hands in his hair. They were gentle and soothing. Not like the other hands that had always plagued his dreams. Hands that clawed and pinched. Hands that had awakened him many times in his sleep. Hands that had ruined him.
“You’re bleeding, and we want only to help you,” the voice whispered again. “You’re safe here. I promise.”
The world was blackening. He felt disembodied, weightless. Yet his hearing remained nearly perfect.
“There,” she soothed, her breath caressing his cheek. “There is nothing to fear.” The cloth fell away from his mouth as his body stilled. “Sleep now,” she encouraged.
“You truly are an angel, Jane,” came the voice of a male.
Before the blackness settled in, his fingers reached for her wrist, which he sensed was near his hip. He grabbed her, holding on to her like an anchor clutches the sand at the bottom of the sea.
“Be here,” he scratched out through his cracked lips and dry throat.
She squeaked at the shock of knowing he was not asleep, but then she recovered swiftly. The tension in her hand lessened, and Matthew entwined his fingers with hers, holding on to the only thing that felt safe.
“I’m here,” she said, her voice like that of an angel.
“No,” he growled. “Later. Be here…later.”
“He’s out at last. Jane, hand me the scalpel.”
Jane did as she was told. Thankfully, it was nearly automatic now, for she could not take her gaze off the stranger. He was beautiful, she realized, allowing her gaze to wander along the length of his unclothed body. He was very tall and broad. His were muscles honed and sculpted, reminding Jane of a diagram she had once studied while she learned anatomy. She tried to still her pulse as she ran through the anatomical terms. Pectoralis. His were large and firm, his nipples small and brown. On the left one, above his heart was a tattoo. A crest of some sort.
Rectus abdominis. Stomach muscles. All six of his were prominently displayed. So too was a tantalizing trail of soft black hair that disappeared beneath the white sheet.
“Jane.”
The sharp voice drew her attention and she blushed. Sliding her spectacles back on her nose where they belonged, Jane met Richard’s annoyed gaze. “Needle and thread,” he repeated.
“Yes, Doctor.”
She’d been caught staring. She was no better than the two new employees she had scolded a short time ago. But really, how could a woman possessed of a pulse not notice the man lying before her. He was stunningly masculine, and his face, while exceedingly handsome, held a beauty that was dark and sensual.
She noticed his lips were cracked and smeared with blood. She went to wipe them. “Not now, Jane,” Richard commanded. “I need your hand.”
In the light, he held a shining object between a pair of tweezers. “From a gin bottle most likely,” Richard murmured as he held the tweezers up to the light. “It was lodged in the corner of his eye. You’ll need to sew the outer lid back together. That is what is bleeding. You’ve a steady, delicate hand, Jane. You’ll leave less scarring if you do it.”
“Yes, Dr. Inglebright.”
Richard nodded and reached for the towel. His hands were drenched in blood to his wrists. “He’s an aristocrat,” he muttered as he tossed the towel into the wicker basket they used for laundering. “I don’t want him coming back displeased with me because I’ve bungled his looks.”
Jane hid her smile. She knew Richard’s opinion of the titled populace. It was not gracious.
Bending over her patient, she tried to forget that Richard was watching her, and that her patient’s face lay pressed against her ample bosom as she bent low over his eyes.
Concentrating on steadying her hand, Jane tried to ignore the way the man’s warm breath caressed her exposed skin above the edge of her bodice. Never before had she been so discomposed to be sitting this close to a man. He was asleep from the ether, yet her body was as aware of him as if he were awake, caressing her with his gaze, his hands, his beautiful mouth.
“He’ll need his head bandaged. We don’t want that gash to get putrid, or his eyes. You can see to that, can you, Jane?”
“Yes.”
“Givens and Smith will find a bed for him. I think it best if he stay the night here in my room. He doesn’t need to be out with the others. Whoever he is, he has money. I think he would be rather dismayed to find himself amongst the consumptives and typhoids.”
Squeezing her shoulder, Richard passed behind her, studying her skill with the needle. “It’s unfortunate the college doesn’t allow women in, Jane. You’d be a superb surgeon. Lucky bastard, I doubt he’ll even have a scar.”
That was praise, indeed. No other compliment could have meant more to Jane. It carried far more substance than one based on the superficialities of beauty and feminine wiles. She was not a beauty. She knew and accepted it. But she was smart, and eager to learn all she could. She was a woman of worth, and would continue to be so, despite her looks.
“How do you do it?”