Page 10 of Dark Embrace
Slowly, he reached up to remove his spectacles. His hands were large, strong, his nails smooth and clean. The spectacles looked small and fragile in his grasp, yet he held them with the gentlest care as he folded the arms. After a moment, he placed them in the inside breast pocket of his impeccably cut coat. When he raised his head, his gaze slid past each of the surgeons in turn, to the attendants setting up the operating table, and finally to Sarahherself.
This was the first time she had ever seen him without his spectacles. His eyes were gray. Not the soft color of a dove, but the rough, turbulent shade of a raging winter storm. A powerfulstorm.
He held it leashed, thatpower.
And it made hershiver.
“Your thoughts?” Mr. Thayne asked, and Sarah’s heart slammed against her ribs. He could not be asking her here, in front of all and sundry. He could not be drawing such attentiontoher.
Barely had those thoughts formed than he swung his gaze to a surgical apprentice and listened patiently while the man replied. Sarah sagged in relief. But even as she eased away from the group back toward the kettle of porridge, she thought that the questionhadbeen aimed at her, that Mr. Thayne would have liked to know her opinion on the matter, that he had turned away at the last second only out of deference to herposition.
Answering his query would have been disastrous, for he was certainly the only one in the group who would want the opinion of a day nurse, awoman, though she had studied under her father for more years than any of the surgical apprentices here. Lifting her ladle, she feigned absorbed interest inhertask.
From the corner of her eye, she caught Mr. Thayne staring at her for a heartbeat, then he looked down at the man in the bed and said, “Mr. Scully, you have an infection in the flesh of your stump, and a poison in the blood.” His tone was calm, compassionate. “My companions suggest that if they do a second amputation, higher than the first, they might saveyourlife.”
The patient ceased his moaning and restless thrashing the moment Mr. Thayne turned his attention to him. Sarah had seen this before. Killian Thayne ever had a calming effect on the sick anddying.
She wondered at that, wondered how a man who caused such upheaval inside ofhercould so effortlessly soothe the emotions of those in physicaltorment.
“Mr. Simon argues for the thigh, Mr. Franks for the hip,” hecontinued.
“I fear it will not save me,” the patient said, surprisingly lucid, though his voice trembled. “I fear I will die regardless what they do now. I feel it. I feel the poison working through me, an evil humor. So, you tell me…which will save me, the higher or the lower? Or do they propose the cutting only as a means to show these apprentices the way ofthings?”
“I say,” interjected Mr. Simon, his tone outraged. Then he exchanged a glance with Mr. Franks, and Sarah read the truth in that. Theywereinclined to insist upon the surgery in order to offer the learning experience to their apprentices, for how were prospective surgeons to know the way of things except by observation of the operations inquestion?
Though she understood the logic, the thought of seeing Mr. Scully—or any patient—subjected to such horror merely as a teaching toolrevoltedher.
As Mr. Scully raised his hand from the mattress, the limb shaking wildly, Mr. Thayne grasped it, his gaze never leaving the man’s face. Sarah held her breath, waiting for his answer, wondering what he would say, for she suspected that he thought as she did, that it was far too late for Mr. Scully, that no intervention would save thisman’slife.
Mr. Simon and Mr. Franks interjected with, “I say,” and “Here now,” but it mattered not. The patient’s entire focus was on KillianThayne’seyes.
“Mr. Simon truly believes he can save you,” Mr. Thayne said. He made no mention of Mr.Franks.
“But doyoubelieve it?” Mr. Scullyasked.
The entire ward stilled, hanging on Killian Thayne’s reply. But when he spoke it was to offer a question rather than ananswer.
“You say that you fear you will die regardless, but is it death you fear, sir?” Mr. Thayne’s voice was low, smooth. Enticing. Luring the true secrets of the patient’s deepestdeliberations.
Sarah thought that should he askhera question in that tone, with that intent look fixed upon her, she would surely bare the entirety of her heartandsoul.
“Fear death?” Mr. Scully frowned and pondered that for an instant, then he went on, speaking with unexpected eloquence for one who had been mired for days in the depths of delirium. “No. I do not fear it. My wife has passed on ahead of me, and all four of my sons. I’ve little left here, and I suppose—” he shot a glance at Mr. Simon “—that no matter where they make their barbarous cut, I shall die regardless. I can feel the weight of death’s touch on myshoulder.”
“Yes,” Mr. Thayne agreed. “Death’s touch isuponyou.”
The gaggle of murmuring apprentices fell silent at the low-spokenpronouncement.
Sarah swallowed, unnerved, for it was Mr. Thayne’s free hand that rested upon Mr. Scully’sshoulder.
“I do not want the surgery. Let death come,” the patient said, vehement. “You asked if it is death I fear? Not at all. I fear they’ll cut me in bits and pieces until there’s no more of me to cut. But I am already dead. There’s just the shell of me what’s got to give up the spirit. I feel it inside of me, the poison. Ifeelit.”
His words were clear and certain, and again Sarah could not help but wonder at that, at his lucidity of the moment. He had been nothing of the sort for days now, instead rambling and moaning and insisting he saw his wife sitting at the foot of his bed, talking to her, though she had been dead these past fouryears.
She had the unexpected thought that it was Mr. Thayne—his touch on the man’s shoulder; the unwavering connection of his gaze—that steadied him. Rationality argued against the possibility, but Sarah could notdiscountit.
“You have no say here, Thayne,” Mr. Franks interjected, spittle flying from his lips as his agitation spurred his words. “The patient is not yours, and I will thank you to mindyourself.”
“And thelimbis notyours,” Mr. Thayne replied, unperturbed. His tone was ice and steel and not one of them dared to interject or voice objection. His lips turned, as though he found the other surgeon amusing or, perhaps, contemptible. “Look here—” he gestured to the red streaks on the patient’s limb “—and here. Even taking the leg at the hip will not stop the spread.” It had already moved too far. They could allseeit.