The Fiery Cross, Page 66

  toward that heartbreaking slope where the muscle of her shoulder joined it. She was smooth beneath his lips, her skin cool in the air, warm and scented beneath the fall of her hair. "We needn't ... I mean ... I won't ... just let me . . ."

  The neckline of her dress was fashionably low with her kerchief pulled off, still lower, with her gown unlaced, and her breast was heavy and soft in his hand. He felt the nipple big and round as a ripe cherry against his palm, and bent on impulse to put his mouth to it.

  She stiffened, then relaxed with an odd little sigh, and he felt a warm sweet taste on his tongue, then a strange pulsing and a flooding of the ... he swallowed by reflex, shocked. Shocked, and terribly aroused. He hadn't thought; he hadn't meant ... but she pulled his head hard against her, holding him.

  He went on, emboldened, and pushed her gently backward, easing her down onto the edge of the bench, so that he knelt before her. A sudden thought had come to him, prompted by the stinging memory of that entry in her dreambook.

  "Don't worry," he whispered to her. "We won't ... risk anything. Let me do this-just for you."

  She hesitated, but let him run his hands under her skirt, up the silken curves of stockinged calf and round, bare thigh, under the flattened curve of her

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  buttocks, cool and bare on the stone, beneath the froth of petticoats. One of Seamus's songs had described a gentleman's exploits "in the lists of Venus." The words drifted through his head with the rushing of the water, and he was determined to acquit himself with honor in those lists.

  Maybe she couldn't describe it, but he meant to make sure she knew it had happened. She shivered between his hands, and lie cupped one hand between her thighs.

  "Miss Bree?"

  Both of them jerked convulsively, Roger snatching his hands away as though burned. He could feel the thunder of blood in his ears-and his balls.

  "Yes, what is it? Is that you, Phaedre? What's wrong-is it Jemmy?"

  He was sitting back on his heels, trying to breathe, feeling dizzy. He caught the brief pale gleam of her breasts above him as she stood up and turned toward the voice, tucking her kerchief hastily back in, pulling the shawl up over her unfastened gown.

  "Yes, ma'am." Phaedre's voice came out from under the willow nearest the house; nothing of the slave showed but the whiteness of her cap, floating dimly in the shadows. "Poor child, he woke up hot and fussin', wouldn't take neither mush nor milk, and then he started in to cough, sounded bad enough, Teresa said we best fetch Dr. Fentiman along to him, but I said. . .

  "Dr. Fentiman!"

  Brianna disappeared with a ferocious rustling of willow branches, and he heard the hurrying thump of slippered feet on earth as she ran toward the house, Phaedre in her wake.

  Roger got to his feet, and paused for a moment, hand on his fly-buttons. The temptation was strong; it wouldn't take more than a minute-less, probably, in his present condition. But no, Bree might need him to deal with Fentiman. The thought of the Doctor using his gory instruments on Jemmy's soft flesh was enough to send him crashing through the willows in hot pursuit. The lists of Venus would have to wait.

  HE FOUND BREE and Jemmy in Jocasta's boudoir, the centerjaf a small knot of women, all of whom looked surprised-even mildly scandalized-at his appearance. Disregarding the raised eyebrows and huffing noises, he forged his way through the skirts to Brianna's side.

  The little fella did look bad, and Roger felt a clutch of fear in the pit of his stomach. Christ, how could it happen so fast? He'd seen Jern at the wedding only a few hours before, curled up pink and sweet in his makeshift cradle, and before that, being his usual raucously genial self at the party. Now he lay against Brianna's shoulder, flush-cheeked and heavy-eyed, whimpering a little, with a slick of clear mucus dribbling from his nose.

  "How is he?" He reached out and touched a flushed cheek gently, with the back of his hand. God, he was hot!

  "He's sick," Brianna said tersely. As though in confirmation, Jemmy began to cough, a dreadfiil noise, loud but half-choked, like a seal choking on its fish.

  The Fiery Cross 477

  The blood surged into his already flushed face, and his round blue eyes bulged with the effort of drawing breath between the spasms.

  I'Shit," Roger muttered. "What do we do?"

  "Cold water," one of the women standing beside him said, authoritatively. "Put him altogether under a bath of cold water, then make him drink more of it."

  "No! Heavens, Mary, you'll kill the child." Another young matron reached out to pat Jemmy's quivering back. "It's the croup; my lot have had it now and again. Sliced garlic, warmed and put to the soles of his feet," she told Brianna. "That works well, sometimes."

  "And if it doesn't?" another woman said, skeptical. The first woman's nostrils pinched, and her friend butted in helpfully.

  "Johanna Richards lost two babes to the croup. Gone like that!" She snapped her fingers, and Brianna flinched as though the sound were one of her own bones cracking.

  "Why are we havering so, and a medico to hand? You, girl, go and fetch Dr. Fentiman! Did I not say so?" One of the women clapped her hands sharply at Phaedre, who stood pressed back against the wall, eyes fixed on Jemmy. Before she could move to obey, though, Brianna's head shot up.

  "No! Not him, I won't have him." She glared round at the women, then shot Roger a look of urgent entreaty. "Find Mama for me. Quick!"

  He turned and shoved past the women, fear momentarily assuaged by the ability to do something. Where was Claire likely to be? Help, he thought, help mefind her, help him be all right, directing the incoherent prayer toward anyone who might be fistening-God, the Reverend, Mrs. Graham, Saint Bride, Claire herself-he wasn't particular.

  He thundered down the front stair to the foyer, only to meet Claire hurrying across it toward him. Someone had told her; she gave him one quick look, asked, "Jemmy?" with a lift of her chin, and at his breathless nod, was up the stairs in a flash, leaving a foyer ftill of people gaping after her.

  He caught her up in the hall above and was in time to open the door for her-and to receive an undeserved but much appreciated look of gratitude from Bree.

  He stood back out of the way, catching his breath and marveling. The moment Claire stepped into the room, the atmosphere of worry and near-panic changed at once. There was still an air of concern among the women, but they gave way without hesitation, standing back respectfully and murmuring to one another as Claire headed straight for Jemmy and Bree, ignoring everything else.

  "Hallo, lovey. What is it, then, are we feeling miserable?" She was murmuring to Jem, turning his head to one side and feeling gently under his flushed chubby jowls and behind his ears. "Poor thing. It's all right, sweetheart, Mummy's here, Grannie's here, everything will be just fine.... How long has he been like this? Has he had anything to drink? Yes, darling, that's right. . . . Does it hurthim to swallow?"

  She alternated between comforting remarks to the baby and questions to Brianna and Phaedre, all delivered in the same tone of calm reassurance as her hands touched here and there, exploring, soothing. Roger felt it working on

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  him, too, and drew a deep breath, feeling the tightness in his own chest ease a bit.

  Claire took a sheet of Jocasta's heavy notepaper from the secretary, rolled it into a tube, and used it to listen intently to Jemmy's back and chest as he made more of the choking-seal noises. Roger noticed dimly that her hair had fallen down somehow; she had to brush it out of the way to listen.

  "Yes, of course it's croup," she said absently, in answer to a half-questioning diagnosis offered diffidently by one of the bystanders. "But that's only the cough and the difficult breathing. You can have croup by itself, so to speak, or as an early symptom of various other things."

  "Such as?" Bree had a death grip on Jemmy, and her face was nearly as white as her knuckles.

  "Oh. - - ." Claire seemed to be listening intently, but not to Bree. More to whatever was happening inside J
ernmy, who had quit coughing and was lying exhausted against his mother's shoulder, breathing thickly in steam-engine gasps. "Um ... coryza-that's only a common cold. Influenza. Asthma. Diphtheria. But it isn't that," she added hurriedly, looking up and catching a glimpse of Brianna's face.

  "You're sure?"

  "Yes," Claire replied firmly, straightening up and putting aside her makeshift stethoscope. "It doesn't feel at all like diphtheria to me. Besides, there isn't any of that about, or I'd have heard. And he's still being breast-fed; he'll have immunity-" She stopped speaking abruptly, suddenly aware of the women looking on. She cleared her own throat, bending down again, as though to encourage Jemmy by example. He made a small whimper and coughed again. Roger felt it, like a rock in his chest.

  "It isn't serious," Claire announced firmly, straightening. "We must put him in a croup tent, though. Bring him down to the kitchen. Phaedre, will you find me a couple of old quilts, please?"

  She moved toward the door, shooing the women before her like a flock of hens.

  Obeying an impulse that he didn't stop to question, Roger reached for the baby, and after a instant's hesitation, Brianna let him take him. Jemmy didn't fuss, but hung listless and heavy, the limp slackness a terrible change from his normal India-rubber bounce. The baby's cheek burned through the cloth of Roger's shirt as he carried the little boy downstairs, Bree at his elbow.

  The kitchen was in the brick-walled basement of the house, and Roger had a brief vision of Orpheus descending into the underworld, Eurydice close Aind him, as they made their way down the dark back stair into the shadowy depths of the kitchen. Instead of a magic lyre, though, he bore a child who burned like coal and coughed as though his lungs would burst. If he didn't look back, he thought, the boy would be all right.

  "Perhaps a little cold water wouldn't come amiss." Claire put her hand on Jemmy's forehead, judging his temperature. "Have you got an ear infection, sweetheart?" She blew gently into one of the baby's ears, then the other; he blinked, coughed hoarsely, and swiped a chubby hand across his face, but didn't flinch. The slaves were bustling round in a corner of the kitchen,

  The Fiery Cross 479

  bringing boiling water, pinning the quilts to a rafter to make the tent at her direction.

  Claire took the baby out of Roger's arms to bathe him, and he stood bereft, wanting urgently to do something, anything, until Brianna took his hand and clutched it hard, her nails digging into his palm.

  "He'll be all right," she whispered. "He will." He squeezed hard back, wordless.

  Then the tent was ready, and Brianna ducked under the hanging quilt, turning to reach back for Jemmy, who was alternately coughing and crying, having not liked the cold water at all. Claire had sent a slave to fetch her medicine box, and now rummaged through it, coming up with a vial filled with a pale yellow oil, and a jar of dirty white crystals.

  Before she could do anything with them, though, Joshua, one of the grooms, came thumping down the stairs, half-breathless with his hurry.

  "Mrs. Claire, Mrs. Claire!"

  Some of the gentlemen had been firing off their pistols in celebration of the happy event, it seemed, and one of them had suffered some kind of mishap, though Josh seemed uncertain as to exactly what had happened.

  "He isna bad hurt," the groom assured Claire, in the Aberdonian Scots that came so peculiarly from his black face, "but he is bleedin' quite free, and Dr. Fentiman-well, he's maybe no quite sae steady as he might be the noo. Will ye come, Ma'am?"

  "Yes, of course." In the blink of an eye, she had thrust vial and jar into Roger's hands. "I'll have to go. Here. Put some in the hot water; keep him breathing the steam until he stops coughing." Quick and neat, she'd closed up her box and handed it to Josh to carry, heading for the stair before Roger could ask her anything. Then she was gone.

  Wisps of steam were escaping through the opening in the tent; seeing that, he paused long enough to shed coat and waistcoat, leaving them in a careless heap on the floor as he bent and ducked into the darkness, vial and jar in hand.

  Bree was crouched on a stool, Jemmy on her lap, a big white pudding-basin full of steaming water at her feet. A swath of light from the hearth fell momentarily across her face, and Roger smiled at her, trying to took reassuring, before the quilt dropped back into place.

  "Where's Mama? Did she leave?"

  "Aye, there was some sort of emergency. It'll be fine, though," he said firmly. "She gave me the stuff to put in the water; said just to keep him in the steam until the coughing stops."

  He sat down on the floor beside the basin of water. It was very dim in the tent, but not totally dark. As his eyes adjusted, he could see well enough. Bree still looked worried, but not nearly so frightened as she'd been upstairs. He felt better, too; at least he knew what to be doing, and Claire hadn't seemed too bothered about leaving her grandson; obviously she thought he wasn't going to choke otl the spot.

  The vial contained pine oil, sharp and reeking of resin. He wasn't sure how much to use, but poured a generous dollop into the water. Then he pried the cork out of the jar, and the pungent scent of camphor rose up like a genie from

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  the bottle. Not really crystals, he saw; lumps of some sort of dried resin, grainy and slightly sticky. He poured some into the palm of his hand, then rubbed them hard between his hands before dropping them into the water, wondering even as he did so at the instinctive familiarity of the gesture.

  "Oh, that's it," he said, realizing. "What's it?"

  "This." He waved a hand round the snug sanctuary, rapidly filling with pungent steam. "I remember being in my cot, with a blanket over my head. My mother put this stuff in hot water-smelled just like this. That's why it seemed familiar."

  "Oh." The thought seemed to reassure her. "Did you have croup when you were little?"

  "I suppose so, though I don't remember it. Just the smell." Steam had quite filled the little tent by now, moist and pungent. He drew a deep breath, pulling in a penetrating lungfiil, then patted Brianna's leg.

  "Don't worry; this'll do the trick," he said.

  Jemmy promptly started coughing his guts out with more seal noises, but they seemed less alarming now. Whether it was the darkness, the smell, or simply the homely racket of the renewed kitchen noises outside the tent, things seemed calmer. He heard Bree take in a deep breath, too, and let it out, and felt rather than saw the subtle shift of her body as she relaxed a little, patting Jemmy's back.

  They sat quietly for a bit, listening to Jemmy cough, wheeze, gasp, cough, and finally catch his breath, hiccupping slightly. He'd stopped whimpering, seeming soothed by the proximity of his parents.

  Roger had dropped the cork to the camphor jar; he patted round on the floor until he found it, then pushed it firmly back in.

  "I wonder what your mother's done with her rings?" he said, looking for some easy subject of conversation to break the steam-filled silence.

  "Why should she have done anything with them?" Brianna brushed back a lock of hair; she'd had it put up for the evening, but it was slipping out of its pins, clinging clamply to her face.

  "She wasn't wearing them when she gave me the stuff " He nodded at the camphor jar, set out of harm's way near the wall. He had a clear meylory of her hands, the fingers long, white, and bare; they'd struck him, since he'd never seen her hands without the gold and silver rings.

  "Are you sure? She never takes them off, except to do something really nasty" She giggled, a nervous, unexpected sound. "The last time I remember was when Jern dropped his bawbee in the chamber pot."

  Roger gave a brief snort of amusement. A bawbee was any sort of small object, but that's what they'd taken to calling the iron ring-originally meant for leading cattle by the nose-that Jern liked to chew on. It was his favorite toy, and he didn't like to go to bed without it.

  "Ba-ba?" Jern raised his head, eyes half-closed. He was still breathing thickly, but beginning to display an interest in something besides his own discomfort. "Ba-ba
!"

  "Oops, shouldn't have mentioned it." Bree joggled him gently on her knee, and began to sing softly, half under her breath, to distract him.

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  "'In a can-yon, in a cav-ern, cxca-va-tingfor a mine ... Dwelt a min-cr, fortynin -cr, and bis daugb-tcr, Clemcntine . . . "

  The dark privacy of the tent reminded Roger of something; he realized that it had something of the same feeling of peacefill enclosure that the bench beneath the willows had had, though the tent was a lot hotter. The linen of his shirt was already limp on his shoulders, and he could feel sweat trickling down his back from under the hair tied at his neck.

  "Hey." He nudged Bree's leg. "D'ye maybe want to go up and take off your new dress? It'll be spoilt if ye stay in here for long."

  "Oh. Well . . ." She hesitated, biting her lip. "No, I'll stay, it's okay."

  He got up, stooping under the quilts, and gathered Jern up off her lap, hacking and gurgling.

  "Go," he said firmly. "You can fetch his b-his you-know-what. And don't worry. Ye can tell it's helping, the steam. He'll be right in no time."

  it took a bit more argument, but at last she consented, and Roger sat down on the vacated stool, Jernmy cuddled in the crook of his arm. The pressure of the wooden seat reminded him of a certain amount of residual congestion from the encounter under the willows, and he shifted slightly to ease the discomfort.

  "Well, it doesn't do ye any lasting harm," he muttered to Jemmy. "Ask any girl; they'll tell ye."

  Jernmy snorted, snuffled, said something unintelligible beginning with "Ba-?" and coughed again, but only briefly. Roger put the back of his hand against the soft round cheek. He tbougbt it was cooler. Hard to tell, warm as it was in here. The sweat was running freely down his face, and he 'Ariped it with a sleeve.

  "Ba-ba?" asked a froggy little voice against his chest. "Aye, in a bit. Hush, now."

  "Ba-ba. Ba-ba!" "Shhhh." "Ba-"

  "Ligbt she was, and like a fairy-" He groped for the words to the song.

  46BA-11

  ccAND HER SHOES WERE NUMBER NINE!" Roger abruptly raised the volume, causing startled silence both inside the tent and outside, in the kitchen. He cleared his throat and lowered his voice back to lullaby level.

  "Erm ... Herring boxes witbout topses . . . Sandals were for Clementine. Oh, my darling, oh, my darling, ob, my darling Clementine ... 7bou art lost, and gonefor-ev-er, ob, my dar-ling ... Clementine."

  The singing seemed to be having an effect. Jernmy's eyelids had dropped to half-mast. He put a thumb in his mouth and began to suck, but plainly couldn't breathe through his clogged nose. Roger gently pulled the thumb away, and held the little fist enclosed in his own. it was wet and sticky, and very small, but felt reassuringly sturdy.

  "'Fed sbe'duck-lings, by the water, every mor-ning just at nine ... Hit ber foot a-gainst a splin-ter, fell into tbefoaming brine."

  The eyelids fluttered briefly, then gave up the struggle and closed. Jernmy sighed and went completely limp, the heat coming off his skin in waves. Tiny beads of moisture trembled on each lash-tears, sweat, steam, or all three.

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  'Ruby lips a-bove the wa-ter, blowing bub-bles soft andfine ... Alasfor me, I was no s-wim-mer, so I lost my Clementine. 0b, my darling, oh, my darling ...

  He wiped his face again, bent and kissed the soft thatch of damp, silky hair. Tbank you, he thought with heartfelt sincerity, addressing everyone from God on down the line.

  Ob, MY darling ... Clementine.

  STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT

  T WAS VERY LATE by the time I made my way to bed after a last check on the welfare of all my patients. DeWayne Buchanan had suffered a slight flesh wound in the upper arm when Ronnie Campbell neglected to raise his

  pistol high enough while carousing on the riverbank, but was in good spirits after having the wound cleaned and dressed. Having been liberally plied with further spirits by a remorseful Ronnie, he was quite literally feeling no pain at present.

  One of Farquard Campbell's slaves, a man named Rastus, had been badly burned on the hand when taking grilled fowl off a skewer; all I could do there was to wrap the hand in clean cloth, set it in a bowl of cold water, and prescribe gin, to be taken internally. J had also treated several young men who were considerably the worse for drink, and sporting miscellaneous contusions, abrasions, and missing teeth as the result of a disagreement over dice. Six cases of indigestion, all treated with peppermint tea, and reporting improvement. Betty was in what looked like a deep but natural sleep, snoring loudly in bed. Jemmy was doing likewise, his fever abated.

  Most of the loud revelry had died down by now; only the most die-hard of the card players were still at it, peering red-eyed at their pasteboards through a cloud of tobacco smoke in the small drawing room. I glanced into the other rooms as well, as I made my way across the ground floor to the front stair. A few