Page 39 of Highland Crown
“Who are you?” he repeated, sharper than before.
His wife. She was Cinaed Mackintosh’s wife. The words wouldn’t leave her lips. What did she know about him if Searc didn’t believe her? He was owner and captain of theHighland Crown. His brig sank off Duff’s Head. But what else did she know? He was fast with a knife and braver than any man who ever lived. But that wasn’t enough. What if he asked when had they met? Or wed? Or anything else, for that matter?
“Do you have a name, woman?”
The housekeeper barreled into the room, carrying a pitcher and basin. A serving girl carried a candle and cloths. Isabella motioned to put them on a table beside the bed.
“Could you bring him something to drink?” she asked the housekeeper. “And perhaps some broth, if the cook can manage it.”
“And whiskey,” Searc ordered, sending the two women scurrying from the room.
She held the candle where she could see the wounded arm better. Thankfully, the ball traveled through the fleshy part of his bicep. She carefully shifted the arm and peered at the bullet’s exit.
“It missed the bone entirely,” she said, relieved. “The ball went straight through.”
Wetting a clean cloth, she washed the dried blood from around the damaged flesh.
“You can’t stay here unless you tell me this minute who the devil you are and what business you have tending to him,” Searc threatened. “For all I know, you could be the one who shot him. You could be a blasted spy sent here to meddle in my affairs.”
Isabella recalled Cinaed’s warning that Searc would be no friend to her. “If you please, I know and carenothingabout your affairs. Now you will kindly remain silent and let me focus on what I have to do.”
She was pressing hard with the cloth near the wound, and Cinaed gasped. He blinked a few times, staring at the ceiling.
“Your arm stays,” she whispered to him. “I’m cleaning it now.”
“Isabella?” His head turned, and his eyes slowly focused on her face.
“You need to lie still.”
“Come closer.”
She leaned over him.
“Closer.”
His voice was weak. She decided whatever he was going to tell her was for her ears only and not for thebulldog standing at the foot of the bed. But before she could speak, Cinaed reached up with his good arm. His hand slipped around the nape of her neck, and his lips closed on hers.
His lips were parched and hot from the fever, the texture of his whiskers rough on her chin. Despite it all, her heart leaped, and she reveled in the touch of their mouths. His head dropped back too soon, ending the kiss.
“Whatever you do,” he said wearily. “When our bairn is born, don’t name him Searc.”
CHAPTER12
Respect was mingled with surprise,
And the stern joy which warriors feel
In foeman worthy of their steel.
—Sir Walter Scott, “Lady of the Lake,” Canto V, stanza 10
In the medical chain of being—the rigidly structured hierarchy of practitioners—the physician occupied the highest rung on the professional ladder, far above the lowly surgeon. In the British mind, conditioned as it was to the benefits of class structure, the system made perfect sense. If one wished to compare the physician with the surgeon, one might as well compare the archangel with the honeybee. But if the physician were a woman, Isabella learned long ago, she had no place in this order of beings, regardless of her education and her training. It was only due to the open-mindedness of her father and husband that she had practiced at all.
Or so the men around her believed.
Her life in medicine had taught her that the privileges of gender or title or even education, in some cases, were meaningless when it came to the ability to save a life. When it came to treating patients, talent and dedication and sincerity always took precedent. So as she lookedover the shoulder of the surgeon Searc brought in to tend to Cinaed, she was relieved the man seemed to encompass all those qualities.
Mr. Carmichael wore a perpetual frown on his face, as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders. But he immediately got off on the right foot with her when he arrived, removed his coat, and washed his hands before removing the dressings from Cinaed’s chest and arm. That alone set the man apart from most others. After that, as he stitched the wounds, his speed and deftness of touch impressed her even more.
