The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings #2)(2)
The bleeding has not stopped, but it has slowed enough that I can remove the towel long enough for a look. The finger is less severed than I expected. While he sliced off a good piece of his fingerprint and a wicked crescent of the nail, the bone is untouched. If one must lose a part of one’s finger, this is the best that can be hoped for.
I pull the skin on either side of the wound up over it. I have a sewing kit in my bag, as I have three times lost the button from my cloak this winter and grew tired of walking around with the ghastly wind of the Nor Loch flapping its tails. All it takes is three stitches—in a style I learned not from A General System of Surgery but rather from a hideous pillow cover my mother pestered me into embroidering a daft-looking dog upon—to hold the flap in place. A few drops of blood still ooze up between the stitches, and I frown down at them. Had they truly been upon a pillowcase, I would have ripped them out and tried again.
But considering how little practice I’ve had with sealing an amputation—particularly one so small and delicate—and how much it slowed the bleeding, I allow myself a moment of pride before I move on to the second priority of Dr. Platt’s treaty on wounds of the flesh: holding infection at bay.
“Stay here,” I say, as though he has any inclination to move. “I’ll be right back.”
In the kitchen, I bring water to a quick boil over the stove, still warm and easily stoked, then add wine and vinegar before soaking a towel in the mixture and returning to where Callum is still sitting wide-eyed behind the counter.
“You’re not going to . . . do you have to . . . cut it off?” he asks.
“No, you already did that,” I reply. “We’re not amputating anything, just cleaning it up.”
“Oh.” He looks at the wine bottle in my fist and swallows hard. “I thought you were trying to douse me.”
“I thought you might want it.”
I offer him the bottle, but he doesn’t take it. “I was saving that.”
“What for? Here, give me your hand.” I blot the stitching—which is much cleaner than I had previously thought; I am far too hard on myself—with the soaked towel. Callum coughs with his cheeks puffed out when the vinegar tang strikes the air. Then it’s a strip of cheesecloth around the finger, bound and tucked.
Stitched, bandaged, and sorted. I haven’t even broken a sweat.
A year of men telling me I am incapable of this work only gives my pride a more savage edge, and I feel, for the first time in so many long, cold, discouraging months, that I am as clever and capable and fit for the medical profession as any of the men who have denied me a place in it.
I wipe my hands off on my skirt and straighten, surveying the bakery. In addition to every other task that needs doing before we close up for the night, the dishes will need to be rewashed. There’s a long dribble of blood along the floor that will have to be scrubbed before it dries, another on my sleeve, and a splatter across Callum’s apron that should be soaked out before tomorrow. There is also a fingertip to be disposed of.
Beside me, Callum takes a long, deep breath and lets it hiss out between pursed lips as he examines his hand. “Well, this rather spoils the night.”
“We were just washing up.”
“Well, I had something . . . else.” He pushes his chin against his chest. “For you.”
“Can it wait?” I ask. I’m already calculating how long this will leave Callum useless over the ovens, whether Mr. Brown will be able to lend a hand, how much this will cut into my time off this week, which I had planned to use to begin a draft of a treaty in favor of educational equality.
“No, it’s not . . . I mean, I suppose . . . it could, but . . .” He’s picking at the edges of the bandage but stops before I can reprimand him. He’s still pale, but a bit of the ruddiness is starting to return to the apples of his cheeks. “It’s not something that will last.”
“Is it something for eating?” I ask.
“Something of a . . . just . . . stay there.” He wobbles to his feet in spite of my protestations and disappears into the kitchen. I hadn’t noticed anything special when I was mixing the wine and vinegar, but I also hadn’t been particularly looking for it. I check my fingers for blood, then swipe a clean one over the iced bun I had previously targeted. “Don’t strain yourself,” I call to him.
“I’m not,” he replies, immediately followed by a crash like something tin knocked over. “I’m fine. Don’t come back here!”
He appears behind the counter again, more red-faced than before and one sleeve sopping with what must have been the milk he so raucously spilled. He’s also clutching a fine china plate before him in presentation, and upon it sits a single, perfect cream puff.
My stomach drops, the sight of that pastry sending a tremble through me that a waterfall of blood had not.
“What are you eating?” he asks at the same moment I say “What is that?”
He sets the plate on the counter, then holds out his uninjured hand in presentation. “It’s a cream puff.”
“I can see that.”
“It is, more specifically, because I know you love specificity—”
“I do, yes.”
“—exactly the cream puff I gave you the day we met.” His smile falters, and he qualifies, “Well, not exactly that one. As that was months ago. And since you ate that one, and several more—”