The Unlikely Master Genius by Carla Kelly

Author:Carla Kelly [Kelly, Carla]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Camel Press
Published: 2018-04-30T18:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Six

Meridee gathered her skirts and hurried up the stairs too. The footman tried to motion her back, but she ignored him. Another servant stood by an open door and waved her away. Brushing past the startled man, she threw herself into what had to be Sir Belvedere’s bedchamber.

Sir B lay there, eyes closed, hands knotted into fists and twisting his sheet about. Sweat poured off him, and no wonder; the room felt close and humid.

She could have backed out and fled the house with no one the wiser, because the servants had never seen her before. She discarded such cowardice as unworthy of the wife of Master Durable Six. Instead, she opened a window, then approached the bed, her footsteps firm, and grasped his hand.

Sir B opened his eyes, then blinked, as though he did not know who she was.

“Sir B, you wanted me to visit,” she said calmly. “Able said.”

“Aye, I did, but not like this,” he managed to gasp out. “The pain!”

“Where is it worst?” she asked. She sat down and removed her bonnet as calmly as if she had been invited to tea at a neighboring manor.

“Right above the amputation,” he said. “Sometimes it feels as if the whole mangled … thing is still there, throbbing and spurting blood.” He wailed again. “You should leave,” he managed when the terrible moment passed.

“On the contrary, Sir B,” she said, wondering where her courage came from. “What can I do to make it better?”

“Too much to ask,” he replied. “Nothing you can do.”

Those were his words, but that wasn’t what she heard. Somewhere in the middle of the sentence spoken between nearly clenched teeth, she heard uncertainty, as if he knew a remedy but wouldn’t subject her to it.

“Tell me,” she insisted.

She noted how his skin was finely drawn across his already thin face, every crevice in sharp relief. It dawned on Meridee that Sir B’s face bore the look of war. It wasn’t highly fleshed like those one associated with bankers, solicitors, vicars, and teachers. Did war do something to men’s visages? After waking early a few mornings just to watch her husband sleep, she thought so.

“Tell me, Sir B,” she repeated softly.

He let out his breath in a rush. “God forgive me, but I am desperate. Hold my leg firmly above the amputation. My damned servants are afraid to touch me.”

“I’m not,” she lied. She pulled back the light blanket that covered him and averted her eyes. Scolding herself for being so missish, Meridee pulled down his nightshirt to make him private. She rested her hand on the scarred abomination that formed what was left of his leg and felt the heat. She put her hands around what remained of his thigh and squeezed.

He started at first, then she felt the tension leave his leg. “Is this what you want?” she asked. Her voice quavered, but there was nothing she could do about that.

“Tighter, if you can,” he gasped. “Squeeze my leg as long as you can.

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