On Bended Knee, page 12
part #6 of Wicked Worthingtons Series
Who plead for love and look for recompense
More than that tongue that more hath more expressed."
Gemma swallowed hard as his gaze darkened upon her, but she could not look away.
"O learn to read what silent love hath writ!
To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit."
What sort of man was he, a man of such education and talented oration? How had the war stolen that much from him as to render him very nearly mute? Were his thoughts so scrambled, was his mind so far from this world, that he could not cross that void with his own communication?
He had been robbed by battle, locked away from himself. The world had been robbed, much worse off with the loss of the man he must've been.
How much was left inside him? Was he whole within, merely struggling to return to this world? Or was he hollow, a soul drilled clean through by battle and trauma?
So beautiful. So gifted. So broken. The monumental task she taken upon herself suddenly terrified her. Who was she to think she could reach inside to take his hand, to lead him back across the shattered bridge to join the rest of the world?
He spoke on. He recited beautifully and probably flawlessly, every line cadenced just enough to let her know it was poetry, yet not so on the beat that she felt hammered by rhyme.
He moved smoothly from the twenty-third Sonnet to the twenty-fourth.
"Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
Are windows to my breast, wherethrough the sun
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee."
Oh heavens. She'd forgotten the passionate nature of the Sonnets. Mine eyes have drawn thy shape. Gemma felt her cheeks flush and she tore her gaze from his to stare blindly at the tabletop.
Mr. Worthington half-naked and soaking wet in the sunlight. The shimmering water running down his muscled body, over his flat, rippled stomach, down to the arrow of fine dark hair, just where his trousers sagged low on his lean hips.
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee, by gum and no mistake!
Her face burned and her thighs clenched. She could bear it no longer. She held up her hand to halt him. When he stopped short and carefully closed the book, she drew a deep breath and lifted her head to give him a rather tremulous smile. "That was lovely." Could he tell how breathless he'd left her? "You spoke beautifully — but you did not read. You know the Sonnets by heart?"
The fingertips of one hand traced across the gold-lettered spine. "Archie. My father. A … favorite."
He had a father and he called him by a familiar first name. Gemma leaned forward, fascinated. "And your mother?"
"Iris." He looked down at the book in his hands and slid his touch from it as something came over his still features. He glanced aside, over her shoulder, as if at something far away. "I must—"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Chapter 13
LYSANDER STOOD ABRUPTLY AT the noise, his pulse jolting. He felt better standing, more ready, although he could not have said what he was preparing himself for.
Gemma answered the knock. The man at the door stood with his hat in his hands, nodding respectfully to Gemma even as he cast a wary glare at Lysander. Bing appeared behind the man with a scowl on his weathered features, but relaxed when he clearly recognized the newcomer. "Aye then, Orren."
"Mrs. Oakes, I'd be obliged if you'd come to the farm. My youngest boy fell in the barn and hurt his leg. It's a bad break and I fear it's needin' a proper set."
"Oh, of course!" Gemma clearly wanted to leap into action but her arm made it difficult. Lysander was there to help her before he even thought of it. She accepted his assistance but then stepped away from his touch on her elbow. "I'll fetch my medical kit at once." She looked at Bing. "Please put Bad Pony to the cart, Mr. Bing."
Then she stopped and turned her horrified gaze at the man. "But I cannot drive the cart. Did you come in your wagon, Shepherd Orren?"
The fellow's mouth made a perfect "o" of regret. "No, Mrs. Oakes. I didn't think on it. I rode me old horse." He twisted his hat. "I'd let you ride him back, Missus, really I would, but I didn't saddle him first."
Gemma paused, clearly considering it.
Lysander straightened. That would not do.
"I'll drive you."
Everyone turned to look at Lysander with astonishment, as if a potted palm had spoken. He stood very straight and tried to seem not at all leafy. "I'm good with horses." He slid a glance at Bing. "And ponies."
Bing shifted, clearly willing but just as clearly weary to the bone. He grumbled. "It ain't like he's a real pony," but he subsided quickly when Gemma nodded briskly.
"Yes, thank you, Mr. Worthington. That will do very nicely." She turned to the sheepherder. "I shall follow along directly with my kit. Mr. Worthington will assist me, won't you, Mr. Worthington?"
Lysander nodded. He had no idea what he would be doing, but he vowed to himself to do it as well as he was able.
The man nodded gratefully and backed out of the doorway that he had never entirely entered. Lysander felt a passing oddness in that. The way the man had addressed Gemma was the way that common folk in London addressed the nobility. Did she hold herself so very high to the local folk?
He followed Gemma into her stillroom. He found her opening a strange folding box and checking its contents. It looked like something his brother Orion would use to run chemistry experiments, for it was full of small bottles. Some were filled with liquids of different colors and some small jars held dried plants or powders. He recognized the milky contents of one bottle. Laudanum.
After plucking a few things from her shelves and inserting them into the case in an exacting manner, Gemma tried to refold the sides. She struggled, and Lysander stepped silently to her side and took the job over. The case closed to a neat square box of a size that could ride behind a saddle or on the seat of the cart. Gemma murmured thanks and quickly snapped a set of latches tight. However, when she tried to lift it by the handle, Lysander simply hefted it from her grasp.
Once they were outside in the crisp evening air, Gemma in a woolen coat and Lysander in an ample knitted scarf that she had insisted he add to his own outerwear, Bing had led Bad Pony into the kitchen yard with the elderly cart rattling behind. Two lanterns were affixed to the front corners, for the clouds obstructed the moon. Shepherd Orren had ridden on ahead.
Bad Pony gave a belligerent snort and stepped restlessly sideways, knocking his haunches into the traces and jostling the cart. He even took a forward swing at Bing with his front hoof. Undeterred by the failure, he snaked his head out with teeth bared. Bing stood well back from the animal's reach.
"Hvatit!"
Bad Pony jerked his head about and tilted his shaggy ears in Lysander's direction, clearly at full alert.
Gemma took advantage of the pony's distraction and allowed Bing to help her up into the seat of the cart. Lysander stepped forward until he was very close indeed to Bad Pony.
"Watch yourself, lad!" Bing called out. "He's a fast 'un."
Lysander nodded. Indeed, Bad Pony would be fast. Swift and powerful, running low to the ground with his rider perched with stirrups high, practically kneeling on his back. "Hello, Brave One," Lysander murmured in Russian.
At least he was fairly certain that was what he said. His Russian rested uneasily somewhere between a boyhood craze for the comedy of Fonvizin and a collection of battlefield curses assimilated from the Cossacks who drove the forward line of battle.
The pony gave a deep, resounding moan and pressed his flat forehead hard against Lysander's breastbone. With a great shudder, the pony submitted to Lysander's fingers scratching deeply behind his ears and down his neck along the base of his stiff mane.
Poor soldier, far from home. In his terrible mixture of Russian, Lysander explained the situation to the pony and asked him the great favor of pulling the cart gently and steadily, for there was a lady on a mission aboard. They were all counting on the pony to pull them through.
The pony breathed out a much calmer waffling snort and stood sedately while Lysander unclipped the lead and swept up the rains as he climbed into the cart next to Gemma.
He became aware that both Gemma and Bing stared at him in a sort of wide-eyed wary awe.
GEMMA BARELY KEPT HER astonishment to herself. First Topknot and now Bad Pony. Even taciturn Mr. Bing. "All the silent ones," she murmured.
Mr. Worthington did not ask her what she meant by that. He left the reins easy and simply uttered what sounded like a command in Russian. The pony pulled away at a brisk trot and circled toward the gate to the lane. Mr. Bing ran jerkily ahead to open it wide, and then stood upon the lowest rung, watching them roll on.
Following Gemma's whispered directions, Mr. Worthington did little more than twitch the rein to the left or the right to have the pony make a turn.
He glanced warily at Gemma, who realized she stared at him still. She didn't speak, or ask any questions, despite her simmering curiosity. Mr. Worthington shied from questions. She realized now that he flinched from people's expectations.
They reached the farm in good order and Mr. Worthington jumped down to help Gemma from her seat. There was no step set into the cart that would accommodate a lady's skirts, so in the end Lysander simply took her by the waist and lifted her down, reasoning correctly that she didn't care to waste time. Gemma swallowed a squeak of surprise and accepted the help with a gracious thanks. She sounded a little breathless even to herself as he set her feet on the ground. He reached into the cart and lifted out the case, clearly preparing to follow her into the farmhouse.
She halted and leaned close. "We need to tie Bad Pony, or he'll simply run off," she whispered, a little afraid of upsetting the pony's newfound good nature.
Mr. Worthington took a look back at the pony. "No. He won't."
Gemma glanced uncertainly at Bad Pony, but then she cast Mr. Worthington an admittedly awed glance and accepted him at his word.
THE FARMHOUSE WAS LITTLE more than stone hut with three rooms. While the tearfully grateful farm wife bustled about getting the "Missus" some tea over Gemma's protestations, the man climbed a stair that was little more than a ladder up into the cottage loft. In a moment he reappeared and carefully descended the ladder with a bundled up child in his arms.
"Yes, thank you Shepherd Orren," Gemma said crisply. "I'll take a look at him here by the fire where it's warm."
With only one chair to offer Gemma, the man simply sat upon the floor with his child in his arms while Gemma unwrapped the blanket to reveal the boy's bare and spindly legs.
One was normal and healthy, if thin. The other was quite definitely injured, purple with bruising. Lysander felt a sickening chill swirl in his gut at the sight of the broken shinbone pressing up against the boy's skin from within.
"Oh well, that's nothing at all!" Gemma's voice was cheerful and assured. "We'll have to do a bit of this and that, and you will need a sturdy crutch that I'm sure your papa can make for you. Of course, you'll be bored silly with all the sitting about, but you'll be better soon, you'll see."
Lysander had four brothers. Between the five of them they'd broken more than a few bones in childhood. None had been as severe as this damaged child. The boy's injury looked more like something he had seen on the battlefield, where men's bones were crushed by bouncing cannonballs and dying horses.
The icy chill began to spread outward from his belly and climbed his spine. His mouth went dry and his hands began to turn numb. Not now.
Then Gemma turned her head and caught his gaze, pinning him in place with her clever gray eyes. "Mr. Worthington, if you would be so kind?"
MR. WORTHINGTON FOLLOWED HER orders with only the barest hesitation. While Shepherd Orren held his son tightly on his lap, Mr. Worthington wrapped two large hands around the boy's skinny ankle.
"Don't jerk your hold," Gemma warned them both. "Slow and steady but once we begin, we cannot ease up. I've given him enough laudanum to relax his muscles, but I fear I cannot give him more. He is too small." She placed her hands on the boy's damaged shin, carefully wrapping her fingers around the healthy bone on either side of the fracture.
"You will pull until I say stop. I'm going to guide the ends of the bones into place. You will pull." She gazed evenly into Mr. Worthington's dark eyes, and then captured the gaze of Shepherd Orren as well. "And you will not slack until I say the word 'stop'. Understood?"
She had expected at least a smidgen of argument from Shepherd Orren but the man simply nodded and set his jaw grimly against his own child's oncoming pain.
"Now begin. Slow and steady."
Both men did as she asked. Gemma ignored the father's low grunt and the child's wail that quickly climbed to a shattering shriek. She ignored the dark, silent presence of Mr. Worthington at her side. She ignored the pain in her wrist and the gasps of Mrs. Orren and the concerned murmurs and rustlings of the other Orren children. There was nothing in the world except the bone in her hands and the two broken ends. She watched, and listened, and tried to sense through her fingertips as the bone shifted beneath the boy's skin. Almost there.
Then she had it. She felt and saw and heard the leg bone straighten and the two ends realign. "Hold there! Do not move! Keep the tension but do not pull further." One part of her brain hoped they understood what she meant but the other larger part of her tried to sense the way the bone was fitting beneath the skin and bruised flesh of the child. "Mr. Worthington, please rotate the lower leg ever so slightly clockwise." It was important that the bone heal straight, not twisted. She wanted to see this little boy run fast and wild over the slopes, not hobble.
Mr. Worthington did as he was asked, and he did it with a sort of perfect slowness, as if he had done it before. Gemma tucked that thought away for later and bent over the child's leg, trying to see beneath the swelling. "Light!"
The eldest Orren son scuttled forward with the candle from the table. Gemma tilted her head and stroked her thumb over the boy's lumpy shin. Then Mr. Worthington's careful rotation caused something to change and the two of the ends of the bone almost seemed to snap together as if magnetized. "Stop!"
After that, the rest was just bustle and weeping as Gemma took the four slats that Shepherd Orren happily broke from his best chair and bound them lengthwise around the boy's battered little leg. As she neatly tied off the last strip of binding, she looked up to see that the child had fallen into an exhausted sleep in his father's arms.
Shepherd Orren regarded her worriedly. "He went out like a snuffed candle. Will he be right?"
Gemma felt the boy's skinny wrist for his pulse and then smiled at the child's father. "He's fine. It's the laudanum, that's all." She turned to smile up at the worried Mrs. Orren. "He's to stay abed until I see him again. He's not to walk at all, not even a step. I'll be back in a few days to check on him. You must watch his foot. It will swell a bit, but mind it doesn't turn dark and that he can still wiggle his toes and feel a pinprick. Understood?"
"Raise it up."
Everyone turned to look at Mr. Worthington, who had spoken for the first time since entering the house. He stiffened a bit and no wonder, for it was as if a piece of furniture had spoken. He swallowed. "Hurt less, raised up."
Gemma couldn't help it. She grinned at him, a wide smile she rarely used, but there was something about his wary reticence that brought to mind a glorious stag halting in alarm in the forest before leaping magnificently away. "Mr. Worthington is entirely correct. Keeping his leg raised on a pile of quilts or pillows should ease the throbbing quite a bit."
Mr. Worthington had stopped looking at the sheep herder's family with alarm. His attention was now entirely fixed on her. Her grin faded at the darkening intensity in his gaze. She withdrew slightly from the contact, turning to her open case beside her on the floor and rummaging for a moment. She took out a small vial and tipped a measured amount of laudanum into it. She corked it and handed it to Mrs. Orren. "He may have three drops in a glass of milk after a meal. Give him stews and things that are easy to eat. We don't want him moving any more than necessary. And the milk is important. Have you a cow?"
"No Missus Oakes, but we've a fine milk goat for t' children. Will that do?"
Gemma nodded. "As good or better. Watch for fever. A little bit is to be expected and cool cloths can be applied. If it gets too high, you must fetch me." Not that there was a great deal she could do if the boy took infection. Nonetheless, she would try. She also reached into her case and handed the good wife a folded paper packet. "Willow bark tea will help for fever and even a little bit with the pain. Start weak and only get stronger if need be."
Mrs. Orren held the medicines to her bosom and nodded most seriously. "Yes Missus. Thank you so, Missus. It's good of you to take the trouble. Look at him sleeping now, like it never happened."
Gemma nodded, although when the laudanum wore off the little boy would most definitely be making his unhappiness heard once more, but Mrs. Orren was an experienced mother. Gemma felt ill-equipped to offer any advice other than medicinal.
Mr. Worthington felt no such restraint. "Strap him down."
Mrs. Orren looked appalled, but Shepherd Orren nodded sagely. "Aye. Nothing less would hold me down as a lad. I'll get a bit of soft rope from the barn."
On one hand, Gemma was relieved to have had the notion so easily accepted by the man. On the other hand, she had to wonder if the radical advice would've taken root when uttered by a woman.
She latched her medicine case closed. It was only then that she once more became aware of the throbbing pain lancing up her arm from her injured wrist. She was sure she had not made a sound, but in an instant Mr. Worthington was at her side, helping her to stand. He hefted the heavy medicine case with one hand and kept the other firmly under her elbow as they left the cottage.
Shepherd Orren relighted their lanterns. Mrs. Orren and the rest of the Orren children assembled on the steps to wave them away.
