Dark Gothic, Tome 6: Dark Embrace

PROLOGUE

London, February 10, 1839

Killian Thayne couldn’t say why he noticed Sarah Lowell—there were night nurses and day nurses aplenty at King’s College—but notice her he did. It was an hour before dawn. She had come early for her shift and she stood by the bed of a man who moaned against the pain. She was not tall, but her posture made it seem as though she was. And she was confident in her skill as she unwound the bandage from the wound on his arm.

Killian stood in the corner, cloaked in darkness, and he watched with interest as Miss Lowell lifted her candle, and examined the deep, long slash that had been fixed with an adhesive plaster and tight bandage.

The man on the bed groaned.

“Let me help you,” she said softly.

The patient ceased his thrashing and stared at her. “How can you help me? The surgeon said there’s nothing more to be done. I’ll heal or I won’t and it is out of his hands.”

Miss Lowell looked around the room, wary. Once she appeared certain that the other patients slept and no one else observed her, she said, “There is something to be done, and I would be pleased to do it. There is a piece of cloth in the wound and several small stones. I can remove them if you’ll let me. And then I’ll sew you up.”

“You?” The man made a harsh laugh that turned into another groan.

“Me,” she said. “After all, is not your wife a fine hand with a needle?”

The man stared at her, wary. “She is.”

“I, too, am a fine hand with a needle. And I think sutures will do better for you than the plaster.” She paused. “And it was not a surgeon but an apprentice who tended your wound, one with less than a year’s experience. I have trained more than half my life. Do not let the fact that I am a woman sway you from accepting my care. I can help you.”

He was silent for a long moment.

“I can help you if you’ll let me,” she said, her tone even, confident.

The patient hesitated a moment longer and then with a grimace, he offered a nod.

Miss Lowell hastened from his bed and when she returned, she stopped at the basin at the side of the ward and washed her hands. Then she drew close to the patient once more and set out red wine, pads, rolls of linen bandages, and a needle with waxed threads.

The first thing she did was give the patient some of the wine. A good portion of it.

“We must be as quiet as we can,” she said. “Are you ready?”

Again, the patient offered a short nod.

She took a pad and rolled it into a cylinder. “Bite on this to stifle your pain.”

He did as she instructed, but still, he groaned as she prodded in the wound with her small fingers. Killian was not surprised when she drew forth the cloth and stones she had described. He was not surprised when she washed the wound with red wine and dried it with the pads, then sewed it up with neat stitches and wrapped it tightly in linen bandages. And he was not surprised when she cautioned her patient to mention the care she had provided to no one. If anyone asked, he was to say that he could not recall who had stitched and dressed his wound.

Killian was not surprised because from the first second she had unwound the man’s dressing she had portrayed confidence and experience. So, no, he was not surprised, but he was impressed.

She had the knowledge and hands of a surgeon. A trained surgeon. Somehow, this woman had studied medicine or apprenticed to a surgeon. Both options were impossible for no medical school would accept a woman, and no surgeon would take one on as an apprentice. But Killian did not doubt what he had seen.

Which made Miss Sarah Lowell very interesting, indeed.