Read Online Carla Kelly by Libby's London Merchant - Free Book Online Page B

nightshirt . . .”
    She handed it to the doctor. “Can I help, Dr. Cook?” she asked, half hoping that he would say no. She glanced at her brother, who sat so still beside her. “And Joseph will help too, won’t you, dear?”
    He thought a moment, his hand straying to his earlobe. “If you are there, Libby,” he managed at last.
    “Then it is settled,” she said decisively, and got to her feet, holding out her hand for Joseph. “You will tell us what you to do, Doctor.”
    “Joseph, you and Candlow will get him into his nightshirt. I will go downstairs and send the footman for my bag. Deuced foolish of me to leave it home, but then, we didn’t expect to find a chocolate merchant plowing up the road in front of Holyoke Green, now, did we? You can get us a basin and some tweezers.”
    When she returned with the basin and tweezers and enough gauze and cotton wadding to upholster a chair, Joseph was inside the room. He stayed close to the wall, but the fear was gone from his eyes. Dr. Cook had removed his coat and was rolling up his sleeves.
    “Very good, Miss Ames,” he said, and took the basin and tweezers from her. He sat on the bed, draped a towel on his breeches, and pulled the man’s leg into his lap. He perched his glasses firmly on his nose, picked up the tweezers, and began to extract little bits of gravel. In a moment, he was whistling tunelessly to himself as he plinked the gravel into the basin. Joseph began to grin, and Libby smiled in spite of herself.
    The doctor looked up and noticed the amusement in her eyes. “Miss Ames, Mozart is efficacious for more than the concert hall, don’t you know?”
    “I prefer a little Bach now and then,” she teased, and they laughed together.
    “Well, when it is your turn, you may whistle Bach,” he said generously, and reapplied himself to his task until the bottom of the basin was covered with the stony fragments. He paused then and rubbed his eyes. “Now it is your turn, Miss Ames. I haven’t the eyes for this.”
    They changed places. The man stirred and muttered something when the doctor moved his leg into Libby’s lap, but he did not appear alert. She took the tweezers from the doctor and continued the search for gravel. In a few moments, Joseph seated himself across from her. Libby looked up long enough to nod in his direction.
    “I am sure that if you held his hand, when he woke he would not be so frightened, my dear,” she said to her brother.
    “Then I will do it.” Joseph took the man by the hand, his eyes on his face, anxious for the first signs of returning consciousness.
    Libby bent over her work again, pulling out the fragments and dabbing at the blood with the cotton wadding. Dr. Cook loomed over her as he carefully ran his hands through the man’s hair, searching for further injury.
    The man looked as though he slept, so relaxed did he appear.
    “A candy merchant?” Libby asked out loud, and then glanced at Joseph, who was subjecting the man to intense scrutiny. “Joseph, I should think that a candy salesman would be round and jolly, rather like . . .” She paused in embarrassment.
    “Like me?” supplied the doctor, and then chuckled as she blushed.
    There was an awkward pause as Libby devoted all her attention to the man’s leg. The blush left her cheeks in a moment, and she turned to the doctor.
    “You are right to tease me,” she said, and then smiled. “But I will say this, Dr. Cook: you were a fierce competitor in the footrace.”
    He bowed. “I will depend upon you never to let the medical faculty at Edinburgh know that I had to run after a patient.”
    She giggled behind her hand, her good humor restored.
    “Beg pardon,” said a faint voice from the bed. “If I’m not asking too much . . .”
    The chocolate merchant’s eyes were open and the pain in them made Libby wince. Impulsively she leaned forward and laid her hand upon his chest, and then touched his face. “You are in excellent hands, Mr. Duke,”