Sutherland's Secret (8 page)

For the first time Eleanor slept dreamless, falling into an abyss of darkness that was fully welcome. But her sleep was not for long. Shouts from outside her window had her sitting up in bed, then racing to throw the shutters back.

In the bailey below, torches danced about, causing a macabre scene. Warriors were shouting to one another, and men were running about, trying to catch the horses that had been abandoned when their riders hopped off.

For one terrifying moment Eleanor thought the English had returned.

But no, there were no red-coated soldiers, just Highland warriors, most of whom were wearing the distinctive blue and green plaids. Eleanor leaned farther out the window. They were gathered around something lying on the ground. As a whole, they lifted whatever it was up onto their shoulders.

When they passed torches highlighting their burden, Eleanor gasped, her hand going to her mouth. They were carrying Brice. His feet and legs were supported by four warriors, his torso by two more, and his head by Lachlan. His eyes were closed, his skin a deathly pale.

“No,” she whispered, grasping her throat. “No!” She turned on her heel and raced to her door, fumbling to lift the bar in her haste. She nearly fell out the door. Her guard pushed away from the wall with an oath of surprise, but she ignored him as she flew down the steps, her feet barely touching the cold stone.

“Please, please, please, please,” she whispered, not even able to get the entire prayer out, unable to utter the words that would devastate her.
Please don’t let him be dead.

The great hall was brightly lit. One of the serving girls raced from sconce to sconce, lighting the wicks. Hannah was giving orders to other girls, telling them to awaken Cook because they would need hot water.

Hot water was good. Hot water meant he was alive, right?

The men gently placed Brice on one of the tables. He didn’t move and he didn’t make a sound. Eleanor pressed against the wall, not wanting to get in the way but desperately wanting to go to him.

“We need the healer,” someone said.

“That’s at least a day’s journey,” Lachlan said grimly, looking down upon Brice. “There is no time.”

The men fell silent as they stared at their leader. MacLean stood to the side, his expression one of devastation. His shirt and tartan were covered in blood. It was on his hands and his face. He raised his head, and the bleak look in his eyes propelled Eleanor forward.

“I…” Her voice cracked and faded. She swallowed, forcing the words out. “I can help.”

Lachlan scowled at her. “How can
ye
help?”

She ignored his acerbic tone, well aware that he neither liked nor trusted her. That was fine, just as long as he let her help.

“I’ve tended to…w-wounded soldiers.”

Colin’s head shot up and Lachlan threw her the coldest glare she’d ever seen.

“Please,” she whispered, her gaze going to Brice’s white face.

“We have no choice,” Colin said, coming to stand beside her.

She wanted to hug him for his support, because the warriors were now looking at her in curiosity rather than distrust.

“She’s all we have,” Hannah said into the silence.

After a moment’s hesitation, the warriors moved aside for her to approach. Eleanor stepped up to the table and took a deep breath. In Edinburgh, she’d helped the other wives tend the sick and wounded soldiers, but it had been nothing like this. They’d performed simple tasks, leaving the more complicated ones to the doctors. But Eleanor had watched a few surgeries.

There was a spreading pool of blood coming from the area of Brice’s shoulder, staining his yellow shirt bright red.

“He was shot,” Colin said beside her. “Pistol.”

She nodded and, with trembling hands, reached for his shirt. “We must…get this…off.”

Colin produced a dagger and cut the shirt down the front, being mindful of the part of the shirt stuck to the blood.

“Move out of the way. Let the lass work,” Lachlan commanded, forcing the men to move away from the table.

Eleanor shot him a grateful look. Now she was able to breathe and wasn’t so conscious that every eye in the room was watching her every move.

“Hot water,” Hannah murmured, setting a bowl on the bench beside her. “The girls are gathering linens as well.”

“Thank you,” Eleanor said as she studied the wound.

Though Brice had not moved, his chest was rising and falling in a reassuring rhythm. His face was so deathly pale that Eleanor chose not to look at it and to concentrate on the wound.

One of the serving girls approached with an armful of white linens. Hannah murmured her thanks as she wet the linen in the warm water and handed it to Eleanor.

“Tell me what to do,” Colin said.

“Be ready to…hold him…down.”

Colin nodded. Another man—Samuel, she thought his name was—stepped up on the other side of Brice. She gently washed the drying blood from his body, noting the torn flesh, red and ragged where the ball had entered his body.

“We must see if it…exited. We have to…roll him over.”

Colin nodded, put his hand under Brice’s shoulder, and gently rolled him toward Samuel. Eleanor dipped her head and wanted to groan. No exit wound. The ball was still inside him, and that meant she had to dig it out. But first she must find it.

She swallowed, her stomach churning. She’d never done anything like this before. She’d only seen doctors perform this type of surgery once or twice, and it had been horrible, because both times the patient had been awake.

“Ye can do this,” Colin whispered to her. “For Brice.”

Yes, for Brice. For Brice she would do anything. She held out her hand for another wet cloth. The wound was bleeding again. She wiped the fresh blood away, trying to get a glimpse of the ball. “Light,” she said. Suddenly there was a light above her, held by one of the taller warriors.

She had no idea where the ball had gone. It could be close to the surface or it could be imbedded deep in his shoulder.

“More light,” she said. Another light appeared.

Hannah moved beside her. “This is the bag from our old healer. Unfortunately he died in the spring, but we still have his implements.”

Eleanor nodded her thanks and rifled through the bag. She was looking for anything that could probe beneath the skin and pick up the ball. She prayed the ball was in one piece, because it would be far worse if it had splintered. She pulled out locked forceps and breathed a little easier.

She turned back to Brice, the forceps in one hand. “Hannah, I need your help.”

“Of course.” Hannah was beside her in an instant.

“I need to dig the ball out of his shoulder, and I’ll need you to wipe away the blood as it comes.” She looked at the woman, whom she considered a friend. Hannah’s freckles stood out pale against her white skin, but she nodded.

“I’ll do it,” Lachlan said from the other side of Brice. He looked at his wife in worry.

“No,” Hannah said. “I will do this. Ye’re needed to keep him from moving.”

With a deep breath, Eleanor leaned over the wound. His scent reminded her of the kiss they had shared before he left. His eyes had been so serious and his arms so strong.

“I’ll need the light to shine right on the wound,” she said. The light moved, and she looked up to find that the ones holding it had stepped up on the table and were standing over their chief. To a man, their looks were serious, their eyes holding worry. She couldn’t let them down. Brice was everything to them. As he was to her.

She leaned over the wound and forced all other thoughts away. Blood oozed out and Hannah expertly wiped it away. Eleanor took a firmer hold on the forceps and peered closer. She thought she saw the ball, not embedded too deeply, but enough that she would have to work for it.

Tongue clenched between her front teeth, she set to work. With the forceps, she managed to grasp the ball on the first try, but the blasted thing squirted out of her hold. She cursed. She normally wasn’t one for cursing, but this definitely called for it.

After a few more tries, she managed to pull it out and hold it up. There was a collective sigh from the men. She looked at the ball closely. It appeared to be in one piece, but she wanted to thoroughly check. She was well aware of what would happen if she left a piece in there or even a bit of cloth from his shirt. It would cause all sorts of problems that could lead to death.

She carefully placed the bloody ball on the table and bent over the wound again. Brice moaned, and that caused her to flinch, which caused her forceps to slip.

To her right, Colin held Brice’s shoulders tighter. She prodded and poked but could find nothing more, and Brice did not move again.

She straightened, putting a bloody hand to her aching back and wiping a sweaty brow with the back of the hand that was holding the forceps. “I think I got everything,” she said.

“Ye
think
?” Lachlan asked. “Ye’d better be certain.”

“Lachlan, hush,” his wife said as she sponged more blood away.

Lachlan pressed his lips together, but there was grudging respect in his eyes when Eleanor looked up at him.

“Do you have honey?” Eleanor asked.

“Aye.” Hannah instructed one of the girls pressed against the wall, her eyes round as saucers, to ask the cook for honey. The girl ran off, probably pleased to be released from the room.

Eleanor rolled her shoulders. She wasn’t certain how long she’d been bent over Brice, but her body ached.

He moved his head to the side and everyone held their breath. Eleanor wasn’t ready for him to awaken yet. Not until she had the wound bandaged.

The serving girl came back with a pot of honey. Eleanor thanked her and took it. She nodded to Hannah. “In the bag there should be what I need to stitch the wound.”

Hannah dug around in the bag and found what Eleanor needed. In this she was confident. Thanks to her mother, she was accomplished at stitching. She’d never stitched skin together, but if she didn’t think overly much about it, she would be fine.

Her hands were shaking from a combination of exhaustion and fear, but she managed the few stitches needed to sew the round hole closed. Next she spread the honey on the wound. On the other side of the table, men murmured.

“It helps to keep the wound from turning putrid,” she said. “I’ll need clean linens for bandaging.”

“Here.” Hannah handed her a stack.

Eleanor folded two of them and pressed the bandage down on the wound. She instructed Colin to hold it there while she unwound long strips of linen. “We’ll need to roll him over again.”

Since Colin was already occupied, Lachlan took his place. Eleanor felt awkward, so close to the big warrior who held no good feelings toward her.

“My thanks,” she murmured. He grunted in response and lifted Brice when she instructed. Brice was rolled to his other side, and she had to lean over him to grab the end of cloth. She was almost entirely on top of him, and she would have been lying if she’d said she hadn’t felt some stirring inside. Even unconscious, he was so strong, so
male
. She knew the feel of his arms around her, holding at bay the nightmares that consumed her sleep. She knew the press of his lips against hers. Her face heated, and quickly she grabbed the end of the linen and instructed the men to roll Brice on his back. She secured the ends and stepped back.

Everyone seemed to watch him with breath held, but the rise and fall of his chest was reassuring. His face was spattered with blood, and Eleanor took a clean wet cloth and gently washed it off. “He would be much more comfortable in his own bed,” she said. Lachlan immediately ordered his men to carry their lord to his bedchamber.

Eleanor watched him disappear up the steps, gently carried by his men. Her hands hung at her sides as she surveyed the table in front of her. Bloodied linens lay everywhere. The bloody forceps rested on the bench. The offending pistol ball was sitting on the table where she had placed it. The table itself was covered in blood. It looked as if there had been a massacre rather than the opposite.

Her knees abruptly gave out, and she collapsed on the bench behind her. She drew in a shuddering breath and let herself go. Her body shook, and the tears that had been pressing against her eyes finally flowed.

Colin sat beside her. “Ye did well, lass.”

She shook her head, incapable of speech.

Colin awkwardly put his arm around her, and she was surprised to find herself lean against his strength. He was stockier and shorter than Brice but strong enough for her at the moment.

“I was so scared,” she whispered.

“Well, ye did no’ show it. That was the greatest show of courage I’ve seen yet.”

She huffed out a laugh and passed a hand over her burning eyes. “He has to make it,” she said.

“He will. Sutherland is stubborn. He’ll wake up screaming that he has things t’do and no time to lie about in bed. Mark my words.”

She smiled despite her exhaustion and fear. “I hope so.”

Colin stood, took her hands, and pulled her up. “Ye need to wash up and find yer own bed now.”

“No. He still needs me. I have to look after the wound, change the bandages, apply more honey if necessary.”

“Others can—”

“No.”

Colin looked at her speculatively. “It’s like that, eh?”

She withdrew her hands from his. “He saved my life, Colin. Not once but twice. I owe him everything.”

“He would say otherwise.”

“He can say all he wants. I still owe him.”

“It’s how we do things in the Highlands.”

“And this is how I do things.”

Colin suddenly grinned. “I like ye. Yer feisty.”

She thought about that for a moment and decided she liked the term. She’d never been feisty before. She’d always been meek and biddable—the perfect daughter and wife. The old Eleanor never would have considered digging around in a man’s shoulder to find a pistol ball, or ordering around an assembly of fierce Highland warriors.

Feisty.

She liked that.

“I’ll clean up and go to him,” she said, turning her back on the mess. No, the old Eleanor never would have done any of that, and the new Eleanor hoped she wouldn’t have to do it again.