Page 4 of Hired by Pirates

“Leeches,” she tutted, shaking her head as she picked up a cloth. “My heavens.”

She stretched out Simon’s arm and tied a leather strap just above the injury, which seemed to slow down the bleeding. Cleaning the wound quickly while analyzing it, her quick, slender fingers moving over him almost made me jealous that I wasn’t the one with her undivided attention.

“What caused this cut?”

“An ax,” Simon muttered through grit teeth.

“How dirty was it? What had you been cutting?”

“Fresh pine.” He shook his head slightly. “The one time I’m up early enough to cut some kindling for Barnaby, we suddenly hit some waves mid-chop.”

“Good,” she nodded. “Had it been old sea-worn lumber, there would be a much greater chance of infection.”

Her fingertips danced across his arm as if she were examining the insides, and I studied the rest of the office while she worked.

The walls were painted bright white, but a milk jug of wildflowers and a sweet painting of the seaside made the room seem homey. It also gave patients something to look at, which was likely the point.

The furniture was mismatched, as if they simply replaced things when they wore out instead of buying everything at once. There was a large shelf of well-thumbed medical textbooks, and I wondered if this scrappy young lass had actually read them all. Somehow, I was sure she had.

“Lucky man,” Astor announced. “No tendons have been cut. I can stop the bleeding and stitch you up. But I’ll need you to stay extremely still.”

A dark chuckle burst from my chest, as Simon glared up at me. “My brother has never been still a day in his blessed life,” I explained.

Pulling over a chair, I sat beside Simon’s shoulder, clamping his arm and hand down on the gurney. Although I was truly trying to be helpful, it also put me in very close proximity with the loveliest woman I’d ever seen, which was sending my heartbeat strangely off kilter. “How’s that?”

“Perfect, thank you.”

I knew that if a lady hadn’t been present, Simon would have been cursing a blue streak in pain as she coated the wound with some sort of herbal concoction that smelled like a cross between liquorice and a rancid bog.

She prepared the strange needle and thread with clean cloths laid out like it was a ritual. As if she had every detail memorized in some specific order for the most precise work possible. It was mesmerizing.

She lit a candle, waved her needle through the flame, and began to stitch. I honestly felt for Simon, as he winced hard, yet I held his limb steady.

“You’re quite good at this,” I commented, sneaking a glance at her perfectly even stitches.

“Thank you. I’m sorry I have to make so many stitches. This is a tricky area, and I know it will be nearly impossible to immobilize it for the next two weeks, but you must try.”

“Immobilize?” Simon looked over at me nervously.

“Not move it,” I explained. “You’ll need to keep it still so that you don’t tear the stitches out while the skin is healing.”

Glancing into those beautiful blue eyes, Astor nodded. “Exactly.”

Simon glared at me. “Bugger it, what about our job down at–”

I released his arm for a split second to give him the tiniest backhand on the cheek. “Language in front of the lady.”

Astor looked back and forth between the two of us, as I smiled. “I’m so sorry, Miss.”

To my relief, she simply giggled, bending down to focus on her stitching. “I never judge a person on the language they use while they’re in pain.” Then she looked at Simon kindly. “I’m so sorry I can’t access the pain medicine without Dr. Grenville. He’s hidden or lost the key again.”

“That’s fine, he’s tough,” I answered for him.

Astor finished with her stitching, then coated the whole area in a sticky balm that smelled even stranger than the first. She wrapped the wound tightly with gauze, then strips of cotton fabric. I assisted by holding Simon’s arm aloft for her, keeping it perfectly steady.

“Thank you. You’re a wonderful assistant,” she said, flashing me a tiny, shy smile.

“I’ve been many things, never a doctor’s assistant before,” I joked.

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