Page 38 of Highland Crown
Isabella remembered Cinaed’s warning. Taking her wedding ring out of her purse, she slipped it on her finger.
“Why don’t you go and ring the bell at the gate, if it has one, and tell this Mr. Mackintosh that Captain Mackintosh is in grave need of assistance. He is here with… with his wife.”
Stony-faced, Jean had no reaction to Isabella’s mention of the word “wife.” One might have thought the old woman had even been a witness at the wedding.
Before walking away, Jean looked back up the lane, where a group of tough-looking men were staring down at them. She nodded in agreement. “To survive around here, mistress, a body needs to be spoke for. And don’t forget, I’m spoke for by ye.”
She shuffled wearily to the gate. Isabella was grateful for how strong Jean was, in spite of her age and affliction.
Peeling the cloak off Cinaed’s body, she turned her attention to him. Between the blood and the sweat, he was soaked to the skin. His pulse was rapid, his breathing heavy. She pushed the hair back from his forehead. His eyes were closed, his body jumping as if he were caught in another nightmare. She didn’t want to look too closely at the wounds on his chest or his arm for fear of not having any way of stopping the bleeding if it started again.
“Soon now,” she murmured. “We’ll take you inside soon.”
“Who are you?” The gruff voice made Isabella jump.She’d heard no one approach. “What have you done to him?”
Black eyes were peering at her from beneath bushy dark brows that formed a solid line across his face like an overgrown hedgerow. He was stocky and short, but even standing still, he seemed to be constantly in motion. His clothes were not shabby, but they were not new, by any means. He had one hand inside his coat, and she half expected him to draw a weapon at any moment.
Without waiting for an answer to his question, he leaped with unexpected agility onto the cart and studied Cinaed’s face and the bloody shirt.
“He was shot. Twice.” Her words drew only a quick glance. “The wound in his chest has been tended to, but it needs to be sewn shut again. I fear the hole in his arm may still have a piece of the musket ball lodged in it.”
He was back on the ground with the same abruptness as he’d climbed up, barking orders at a servant standing in the open door. A moment later, two burly serving men ran down from the house, and a stable boy was running up the lane to fetch a surgeon. No formal introductions were made, but from the servants’ responses, she knew this was Searc Mackintosh.
Cinaed was gently lifted off the cart, with Searc bearing the bulk of the weight as they carried him inside.
“I’ll get the bags, mistress,” Jean told her, gesturing with her eyes. The pistols had been stored there. “Ye stay with them.”
“My medical instruments.”
“Ye’ll have them soon enough,” she replied, lowering her voice. “But let them get used to ye a wee bit before ye start flashing all them fine, shiny things of yers.”
Isabella saw the wisdom of Jean’s suggestion. Searc had already accused her of wounding Cinaed. She had no doubt he’d be horrified to find out she was a doctor. She hurried after the men.
A housekeeper and a woman wearing a cook’s apron leaped into the fray as soon as they passed through the front door. With each of them shouting unintelligible directions at Searc and the men, they added more confusion to exactly where the wounded man should be taken. The master of the house ignored them entirely, however, and he was carried through a dimly lit hall up an even darker stairwell.
Isabella saw almost nothing of their surroundings, though, keeping her eyes on Cinaed’s face and the uneven rise and fall of his chest. He was in his prime and strong, but what he’d gone through and how much blood he’d lost since last night was enough to kill any man.
They laid him on a bed in the square room at the top of the tower. In the lane below the window, she could hear Jean exchanging words with a stable hand.
Isabella wasn’t waiting around for an invitation to help. “I need pitchers of cold water and clean cloths I can use for bandages,” she ordered. “And more light.”
Hearing no response, she looked up and found the men staring at their employer.
“The surgeon is coming,” he said curtly.
“Do you see his arm? The wound must be cleaned of the blood to prepare him for your surgeon.”
The hedgerows tilted to one side. “Have you any idea what you’re doing, woman?”
She rolled up her sleeves. “I know what to do, and I won’t hurt him. I promise.”
A long pause followed. Then, to Isabella’s relief, Searc ordered the men to go and send up the housekeeper with what she needed.
He stood at the foot of the bed, and she saw his hand move inside his coat again when Isabella took the knife from Cinaed’s boot. Ignoring him, she used it to cut the sleeve from the injured arm. His shirt was already torn, and it took only a moment to remove it. She inspected the bandages on his chest.
“Who are you?”
She unwrapped the bloody strips from Cinaed’s arm. Her attention focused on the wound, but she was aware of the man watching her every move. For every question he asked, she had no doubt there would be ten more.
