Read Online A Season to Be Sinful by Jo Goodman - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jo Goodman
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lock of dark hair tumbled forward over his brow. He let it lie there.
Even now she did not look like a female, but more like a child of indeterminate sex. He imagined in the last few days that she had lost at least a stone and nearly all of her strength. As slight of build as she was, it was hard to believe she had been able to knock him down. It was like a butterfly felling an oak.
Her hair was unnaturally dark, cropped short, and thickly matted to her head. Bootblacking, he suspected, though he wondered why shed used it. Days ago, perhaps before she had taken to the streets, shed covered her hair with the stuff. Shed been cautious enough to make swipes across her eyebrows, too, but close to her scalp where the sweat of her fever had diluted the black paste, and along the curve of her lashes, he glimpsed a hint of the penny copper color she had meant to conceal.
He watched her face as Harris worked. She didnt stir when the physician split the stitches with his scalpel. The odor from the pus was so intense that Sherry pressed his face into the sleeve of his coat until the urge to vomit passed. Her perfectly pared nose did not twitch.
Her skin was pale to the point of translucency and pulled taut over the high arch of her cheekbones. A faint blue web of veins was visible at her temples. Her mouth was full, a sweeping curve that lacked resiliency, animation, and virtually all color now. There was a deep hollow at the base of her throat caused in part by the prominent collarbones. Her breath came shallowly, and beneath his fingers he felt her rapid pulse. It thrummed against him with the lightness of a hummingbirds wing.
He could not guess at her age. She might have been as young as twelve or as old as five-and-twenty. The bubbies that Dash and Midge had outlined to indicate womanhood were bound tightly beneath a strip of linen wound several times around her. Her erstwhile caretakers had respect for her modesty, if not for her comfort.
No sound emerged from her parted lips as Harris cleaned the wound. Rutland arrived with a small, unopened cask of French brandy. No one raised any questions. Napoleon had escaped Elba earlier in the yearWellington and Blucher were preparing to defend the Continent against the rise of a second empirebut Blue Rutlands smuggling was not the subject of recriminations.
Harris directed Rutland to unplug the cask. The physician plunged his hands into the golden liquid, rubbed them together, then poured a good handful into his patients wound.
The keening cry arrested them all for a moment, but it did not come from the girl on the bed. Blue Rutland looked as if he might weep like a babe for the waste of his fine brandy.
Thats enough, Harris snapped. Put it down. He went back to work, debriding the lacerated and devitalized tissue around the wound. His fingers were thick but deft, and he cut away her damaged flesh with ruthless efficiency. Its deep, he told Sherry. But not so deep as I feared from your description. She was struck at an angle, and the blade missed the vital organs.
How do you know?
Shes still alive, he said dryly. He dropped bits of putrid flesh into a basin. The first blood flowing from the wound was thick with the yellow-white fluids of the infection. Harris cut and pressed and cut and pressed until the only blood she gave up was bright red. A cloth, Sheridan. A clean one. Ive none left in my bag.
Sherry looked around. The room had little in the way of furnishings. There was no trunk or cupboard that might be a repository for linens. The sheet that had been removed as well as the one under her was stained. The blankets were filthy. May I release her?
The physician nodded. It is unlikely she will wake now.
Sherrys fingers uncurled around her wrists. He stood and removed his frock coat, then his waistcoat. At his beckoning, young Midge came forward to hold them. Sherry unknotted the cravat that his valet had creased and arranged so carefully and added it to the pile in Midges
Even now she did not look like a female, but more like a child of indeterminate sex. He imagined in the last few days that she had lost at least a stone and nearly all of her strength. As slight of build as she was, it was hard to believe she had been able to knock him down. It was like a butterfly felling an oak.
Her hair was unnaturally dark, cropped short, and thickly matted to her head. Bootblacking, he suspected, though he wondered why shed used it. Days ago, perhaps before she had taken to the streets, shed covered her hair with the stuff. Shed been cautious enough to make swipes across her eyebrows, too, but close to her scalp where the sweat of her fever had diluted the black paste, and along the curve of her lashes, he glimpsed a hint of the penny copper color she had meant to conceal.
He watched her face as Harris worked. She didnt stir when the physician split the stitches with his scalpel. The odor from the pus was so intense that Sherry pressed his face into the sleeve of his coat until the urge to vomit passed. Her perfectly pared nose did not twitch.
Her skin was pale to the point of translucency and pulled taut over the high arch of her cheekbones. A faint blue web of veins was visible at her temples. Her mouth was full, a sweeping curve that lacked resiliency, animation, and virtually all color now. There was a deep hollow at the base of her throat caused in part by the prominent collarbones. Her breath came shallowly, and beneath his fingers he felt her rapid pulse. It thrummed against him with the lightness of a hummingbirds wing.
He could not guess at her age. She might have been as young as twelve or as old as five-and-twenty. The bubbies that Dash and Midge had outlined to indicate womanhood were bound tightly beneath a strip of linen wound several times around her. Her erstwhile caretakers had respect for her modesty, if not for her comfort.
No sound emerged from her parted lips as Harris cleaned the wound. Rutland arrived with a small, unopened cask of French brandy. No one raised any questions. Napoleon had escaped Elba earlier in the yearWellington and Blucher were preparing to defend the Continent against the rise of a second empirebut Blue Rutlands smuggling was not the subject of recriminations.
Harris directed Rutland to unplug the cask. The physician plunged his hands into the golden liquid, rubbed them together, then poured a good handful into his patients wound.
The keening cry arrested them all for a moment, but it did not come from the girl on the bed. Blue Rutland looked as if he might weep like a babe for the waste of his fine brandy.
Thats enough, Harris snapped. Put it down. He went back to work, debriding the lacerated and devitalized tissue around the wound. His fingers were thick but deft, and he cut away her damaged flesh with ruthless efficiency. Its deep, he told Sherry. But not so deep as I feared from your description. She was struck at an angle, and the blade missed the vital organs.
How do you know?
Shes still alive, he said dryly. He dropped bits of putrid flesh into a basin. The first blood flowing from the wound was thick with the yellow-white fluids of the infection. Harris cut and pressed and cut and pressed until the only blood she gave up was bright red. A cloth, Sheridan. A clean one. Ive none left in my bag.
Sherry looked around. The room had little in the way of furnishings. There was no trunk or cupboard that might be a repository for linens. The sheet that had been removed as well as the one under her was stained. The blankets were filthy. May I release her?
The physician nodded. It is unlikely she will wake now.
Sherrys fingers uncurled around her wrists. He stood and removed his frock coat, then his waistcoat. At his beckoning, young Midge came forward to hold them. Sherry unknotted the cravat that his valet had creased and arranged so carefully and added it to the pile in Midges