Page 67 of Once a Gentleman
Serrano glared back, unintimidated. “Calm, then,” he said with another shrug. “A man who is agitated is more like to die. This is my experience. Have you performed a score of years of surgeries, Captain O’Neill? No? Then when I come to your ship, and I tell you how to—keelhaul, then you may tell me my business. We will wait outside.”
And he opened the door, ushering O’Neill through it with a peremptory gesture that dragged a horrible, choking laugh out of Andrew’s throat. Hell, but seeing someone stand up to O’Neill like that might be worth it, if it weren’t for the loss of half his bloody limbs.
His literally bloody limbs, growing bloodier by the moment.
Harrison settled into the chair beside him, having scrounged up paper and a pencil from the other side of the room, where he’d been rummaging in a drawer.
“Three letters,” Andrew said, gathering his spinning thoughts into some kind of order. The thought of what he must write, how he must phrase himself so as to ensure Kit would be far away before Andrew ever reached home—if he did—hurt almost more than anything else, a wrenching anguish that felt like it might rip his heart straight out from his ribs. “The first—we’ll write to my solicitor first. Mr. Charles Robinson. And then—then to Hewlett. And then, Harrison, I have a, someone. I have. Have had,” he stammered. “I must write to break it off.”
Harrison’s eyes narrowed. “Someone,” he repeated. “A lady. And you will end it with her, why? Because you’re losing your hand? Sir, if she loves you—”
“You’ll write the damn letter as I dictate it, Harrison,” Andrew ground out, bracing himself against a fresh wave of throbbing agony. “Write it and save your sentimental foolishness for someone who wants it.”
Harrison flushed and stared down at the paper on his knee. “As you will, sir,” he said.
Andrew couldn’t take the time to apologize; for that matter, he didn’t have the strength.
“To Robinson,” he began. “I have been gravely injured, and I must ask you to carry out certain instructions that you must keep to yourself, telling anyone, most particularly including Mr. Hewlett, only what I ask you to reveal…”
