Marked Out with Greater Brightness by K.L. Noone

Author:K.L. Noone [Noone, K.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Published: 2024-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Blake and Ashley, both fully dressed and bundled up in greatcoats and protection from weather, went out after breakfast. Cam kissed them at the top of the stairs, long and deep, and walked down to the front steps with them, and opened the door to a big blue cloud-studded sky, spring-crisp above tall new buildings and old winding streets.

He stood there gazing out, for a while, after they left. Coatless, hatless; sleeves shoved up and trousers more comfortable than fashionable. The wind nibbled at his hair, his face.

He breathed in and out. The world went on around him: the noise and bustle of markets, shopkeepers, flower-sellers, a street-musician with a fiddle. Elsewhere, the call of gulls, the crash of the sea, the shouts of sailors and men at the docks, though that was distant enough he couldn’t properly hear. More houses, more buildings, were going up, here in the New Town; he knew about the plans for new squares, symmetrical classical architecture, shining expansions.

He would not be here for it.

He went back inside, and shut the door, and went to his consulting room, which would not be his consulting room very shortly now.

He leaned a shoulder against the door frame. He gazed at the private space, the neat couch, the shelf of useful books and issues of Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, including the recent one with the article about a treatment for persistent fatigue using a preparation of iron. He’d meant to correspond with that physician, to learn more. He still could, he supposed. At his new address. On ducal stationery.

The air tasted clean and dry, like soap and herbs.

This room was primarily for consultations; he remembered Hugh being adamant about having the surgery as well, about actually treating people, regardless of whether that lowered their social status as physicians by committing hands-on labor: of course we will, Hugh had said, bristling with fierceness, of course we’ll help people, anyone who comes to us—do they think we wouldn’t, do they think we shouldn’t, as physicians, and what sort of doctors would we be if—oh, Cameron—

Cam, who had agreed, hadn’t interrupted, only let him vent and grumble and burn with passion. Listening patiently, while Hugh cared so very much.

The smile tugged at his mouth now, unbidden and welcome.

He wandered across the hall, to open the door to the surgery. Sunbeams and memories sliced in across the floor, golden, scouring. He stopped in the doorway because the stab had gone right through him.

The house, the building, lay empty around him. No appointments; young James was busy upon errands, the post and the market; Ashley and Blake were out, because they’d gone out, giving him space, giving him this—

And Hugh was gone, and the sunbeam lay over the table like a gleaming scalpel.

It shouldn’t. It’d been so long. He’d been here, working, nearly every day. It shouldn’t feel like this.

But it did. It felt.

Cam came in, slowly. He touched the table, a shelf. Instruments, lancets, forceps, syringes. He’d have to pack those away. Someone—James—had brought in packing-straw and a trunk, which sat open and ready, gaping like a wound.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.