Vermillion (The Hundred Days Series Book 1) (18 page)

“Water,” he croaked out after a
minute. Porter obliged, raising the general up to sip from a small jar.

Kate slumped over her instrument
tray, relieved. “Porter, will you take word to Major Burrell? He can tell the
men and maybe they'll stop crowding my door. And the flap on your way out, if
you would.” In her haste Kate realized she had forgotten to close it. The light
had been appreciated, but she had gained a nervous audience. It wasn't doing
her or the general any good.

Snipping off half an arm's-length of
silk cord, she poked the end at an impossibly tiny eye on the suture needle,
then stuck it through her apron strap. “Get up on your side for me.”

If her instruction had been for him
to lie there, arching in a useless, inebriated fashion, Matthew would be
following it perfectly. He was going to need help in order to turn, and she
regretted sending Porter away so quickly. Matthew was a good foot taller and a
great deal more muscled than her, and Kate had the sense of rolling over a cart-load
of wet sand.
Uncooperative
wet sand.

At last she got him onto his hip,
with a good deal of discomfort on both sides, stuffing the heavy canvas drape
against the small of his back for cribbing before she lost ground.

“How bad?” The words barely escaped
his grimace.

“I haven't looked yet.” She leaned
over the entry wound above his right hip, palpating gently for bone and debris.
Through the sweat and coppery odor of blood, she caught the scent of him, the
same combination that had teased her the first night outside the tent. A smell
she identified now as uniquely belonging to him. Kate brushed her thumb over
his skin.
He was a patient
, a voice chastised.
Treat him like any
other
.

She smacked her stool against the
dirt in front of him, pounding against her annoyance. Now was most certainly
not
the time. Right elbow resting against the surgery table, Kate tried to ignore
that her forearm was braced against the crotch of his small clothes as she
began to stitch.

“How bad?” he repeated, eyes
half-closed in a fuzzy squint while he studied her.

Kate snorted, and steadied her hand.
He looked as though, if she told him he was dying, he wouldn't bother opening
them all the way. “Not so bad at all. You won't even die from infection.
Probably
.”

He relaxed deeper against the table,
surprising her with a slow smile. “I'm not worried.” Liquor weighed down each
word.

“No?” Kate pierced his flesh with
the needle, feeling it twitch under her fingers.

“Not a bit.” He winced as she seated
the point again. “If your tongue hasn't killed me, a rifle won't.”

*          *          *

She slept fitfully in a chair set
unobtrusively in the corner of the surgery, wanting to be handy but not
overbearing. Porter had volunteered to bring her old cot, but she had brushed
away the offer. It was a silly amount of effort on his part just so she could
get up and down twenty times during the night. There was a bed for her next
door if she was willing to leave Matthew, but she wasn't.

Besides, someone had to stand guard
against visitors. The whole afternoon had resembled a state funeral, a snake of
men as far as the mess tent shuffling in to commiserate and see with their own
eyes how their general fared.

It had nearly incited a riot when
she declined more well-wishers. Men began inventing excuses to come to her
tent, and three intrepid souls shimmied in under the canvas wall while she was
indisposed. At wits' end, she had climbed into the back of an empty ammo cart,
split the din with a whistle and threatened to suture the lips of the next man
who disturbed her patient. They had all looked properly contrite, but she knew
better. They were hardly done.

Wrapped in Matthew's coat with her
feet on a small crate, Kate watched his chest rise and fall in the dim
candlelight. At first, she had dug it from the pile out of necessity, against
the night's chill. Now, with the garment reversed, Kate poked her arms into his
enveloping sleeves, collar at her chin, to inhale the scent of him there. It
helped her ignore the smell of a new batch of salve she'd made to treat his wound.
She hated the memories it evoked.

Slouching further down in the chair,
she scooted the box with her heel and tried to get comfortable.

“Kate.”

Kate thought she had imagined her
name, until Matthew spoke again. She stood and leaned over to see his face.
Cupping his forehead, she pressed knuckles to his cheek, feeling only warm, dry
skin. “How do you feel?”

He inhaled slowly, considering the
question. “Fine. I feel good.”

“Truly?” she asked, surprised.

Matthew stiffened. “Wait, no. The
laudanum is wearing off. I feel terrible.”

Laughter relaxed the knotted muscles
in her neck and shoulders. “I'll change your dressing and then get you another
dose. I'd like you sensible enough to tell me how you're doing as I go.”

“Porter can change bandages.”

She nodded. “Expertly.”

“Then he can sit up with me.”

His modesty was amusing, but she
refused to inconvenience two people when one was sufficient. Besides, she was
not giving up her spot beside him. “There's no waking him,” she fibbed. “That
man sleeps like the dead. Besides, you don't have anything I haven't seen
before.”

“That's not true.” His laugh escaped
as a loud sigh.

Obviously not
all
the
laudanum had worn off.

Kate shook her head. “Just scoot up
and let me lift your shirt.” She got hold of the tail, fingers scratching over
blood dried to the inside of the linen. “Arms up, slowly. I'll find you
something else to wear.” She brushed over the skin of his ribs.

Matthew jerked, moaning.

“Hurt?”
            His eyes stayed shut. “No.”

She stared, waiting. He blinked
back, offering no explanation.

Kate shook off her confusion,
pressing on. The crusted wad of linen at his hip was likely stuck despite the
salve and needed to be pulled free. With the bleeding stopped, it was also time
to fully wrap him, but neither process was going to be pleasant.

She took a roll of bandage from the
supply trunks, the pitcher and some salve, and set them on the blanket against
his leg. Kneeling beside her tools, she thought up questions to distract him as
she worked. One in particular would conveniently satisfy her curiosity. “You
have a tattoo. I thought that was frowned upon for men of your position.”

His head lifted from the head rail,
showing her a murky scowl. “Generals?”
            “Viscounts.”

“Oh.” His head fell back. “I was a
soldier before I was a viscount. And a sodding wild lad, at that.”

Kate tried to reconcile that
admission with the stoic, disciplined general in front of her. As she unwound
the bandage, his breathing slowed to even inhalations, and she thought he had
fallen asleep. Then he wriggled up higher against the rail. “I got the tattoo
after Assaye.”

She blew an airy whistle. “India.
That is a distinguished victory.”

“I didn't expect anyone to make a
fuss. Got it,” he patted his chest, “to commemorate the battle myself.”

Kate didn't look. There was
something mesmerizing about the tiger's fluid lines that made her finger itch
to trace its attack. She strangled the pitcher handle and lightly doused the
bandage with cold water. Matthew sucked a breath between his teeth. “Well,
someone took notice. Here you are, a general.”

“Mmhmm. By then, I had branded
myself.”

“I wouldn't say that.” She frowned,
picking at the linen. The mark was taboo, but it would hardly ostracize him.

“My wife finds it repulsive.” There
was a twist to the last word, and he spit it out.

She stayed quiet, peeling up the wet
wadding. She could treat a fair number of ailments, but marital discord was
certainly not on the list, not even for herself.

“You have a family, Miss Foster?”
His words were slurred, coming slower now, but he looked perfectly attentive.

“I do. My younger sister Elisabeth
Frances. Fann, as I call her, and as she detests being called. She will pass
her twenty-second birthday soon. This week, as a matter of fact.” Kate frowned.
She had forgotten to put anything about it in her letter home. “Her husband
William is in government and textiles, so half his trade is honest, at least.
Cotton, not politics.”

“Are you two close?”

“We are
now
.” She chuckled.
“Only two years between us, so my father had his hands full more often than
not. She has a boy, Henry. He makes clever little drawings for me, and my
sister sends them along now and then. He is my favorite, and we are certainly
kindred souls.”

His left arm had slid from the bed
at some point, and Matthew's warm fingers rested against her shoulder. Kate
tried to ignore the comfort from even that small bit of human contact. She
blotted the rag up and down his side with slight pressure.

“No one else at home who looks for
your return?”

“A husband, you mean? No. I married
at eighteen, was widowed at nearly twenty, and was very,
very
unhappy in
between.” She hated to think back on how naive she had been, how disappointed,
and how obvious the conclusion when viewed through the lens of hindsight. She
had known Patrick from the age of six. His abundant charm and shallow
attachments were not new traits when they wed, nor his popularity with the
female population of Albany. Their marriage was unquestionably a mistake; hers
for thinking he could change his colors, and his for believing her content to
stay a placeholder. Kate shook off the memory.

“No one has tempted you, in all this
time?” Matthew's eyes were closed and he smiled.

Someone certainly
had
tempted
her, and she was finding it an almost daily struggle to keep untoward thoughts
at bay. Kate considered avoiding the question altogether. Afraid Matthew was
too perceptive even in his current state, she laughed instead. “Look around
you. I'm in no hurry. If I change my mind, there are quite literally
thousands
of choices.”

“Shocking,” he drawled.

“I'm sure.” Chuckling, she pushed at
the edges of the wound, red and straining against the sutures. Swelling was
expected, but she made a note to check him again before too much time passed.
“Ready to drink your hemlock?”

His nod was eager. “Yes, please.”

She unstopped a bottle of gin, which
Doctor Addison had cleverly labeled as 'mineral spirits' to discourage
pilfering, and measured a half-dram into a jigger of laudanum. Swirling the
brown and clear liquids till they mingled, she handed Matthew the concoction.
“Down it goes.”

“God save the king.” He tossed back
the liquor and grimaced.

“Can you sit up?”

“I believe so.” He grunted, pressing
fists into the mattress and managing a little progress.

Grabbing his wrists, Kate pulled him
slowly until he was half-sitting, half-leaning forward on the cot. “I'm going
to wrap your bandages. They won't be so easy to change, but you can stop
worrying about them coming off.”

“Desirable, since I intend to be out
of this bed tomorrow.”

“No.” The idea was ridiculous.
Expected, but ridiculous.

He blinked. “Pardon?”

“You are not getting up and larking
about the garrison. You've been shot.”
            His firm lower lip rolled out defiantly under a frown. “I am
wounded, not dead.”

“If you pull out my stitches –”

“That will do, Miss Foster.” He was
still slouched forward, but tension between his shoulder blades and a challenge
in his gray eyes belied Matthew's vulnerable position.

She was not intimidated. They were
in her territory now. Kate dropped the bundle of linen hard onto his lap. “
If
you pull out my stitches
, I'll have to suture you again. Every time someone
touches your wound, each time you re-injure it, you risk infection. And then
you
will
be dead.”

“Your concern is noted.” The
stubborn set of his jaw made her temples pound.

She grabbed the bandages back,
leaned over and pressed the tail to his entry wound. “Ridiculous. You are
easily the most arrogant man I have ever tried to reason with.” She bent in
front of him, smoothing the strip of linen around his right side. “And that is
a
true
distinction, given how long I have been with the British army.”

He was glaring at her, but his eyes
didn't focus. “If you perceive others' behavior toward you as tiresome, perhaps
you should examine your own acid tongue!”

“My –” She jerked a knot in the ends
of the bandage, stomping back two paces to meet his eyes. “What about your
abrasive, obnoxious –”

“That will
do
, Miss Foster.”

She sputtered, raising an arm.
“You've had
your
say, but I am not allowed even –”

“Shhh!”

Planting hands on her hips, she
stared dumbfounded. “Did you just shush me?”

“Shh.” Eyes closed, Matthew fell
back against the cot, groaning, sliding under the quilt with boneless ease.
“Hold my hand.”

Heart still hammering in her ears,
pride set to rally, Kate didn't trust the swift change.
“Pardon?”

His arm fell across the bed without
effort or control, and Matthew's fingers raked at her, uncoordinated. “Hold my
hand.” His voice was a rich murmur, contradicting a sleepy, boyish curve to his
lips.

Laudanum
. How had she
forgotten? Suddenly Kate was humiliated at having argued with a drugged man.
Thank God he probably would not recall it tomorrow.

She pulled her chair against the
edge of the cot and laced her fingers between his. There was pressure, for a moment.
Then, Matthew's hand relaxed and he slept, claimed by the tincture.