Page 3 of Dark Embrace

He held the woman’s wrist. Sarah could see that now. And she could see the breadth of his shoulders and the pale gold of his hair. She knewhimthen.

KillianThayne.

Her pulse jolted at the realization. No matter how many times she saw him, how many times they interacted, she could not seem to put aside the schoolgirl infatuation that had struck her the first time they met. She rolled her eyes at her ownfoolishness.

She must have made a sound that alerted him to her presence, for he raisedhishead.

“Miss Lowell.” His voice reached across the space that separated them, low,pleasant.

“Mr. Thayne,” sheacknowledged.

University-trained physicians were addressed asdoctor,apprentice trained surgeons asmister, and there was a distinct barrier between them, not only at King’s College but at any hospital throughout the city. Mr. Thayne belonged to the lattergroup.

“You are here early,” he said, though he did not turn his head to lookherway.

“As are you,” she replied, unsurprised that he chose to engage her in conversation. On several previous occasions, there had been moments in the ward where Mr. Thayne walked his rounds and Sarah came to be in his path. To her befuddlement, and secret pleasure, he had deigned to speak with her, to ask her opinion of the patient’s progress, to note her responses with interest and graveattention.

Once, he had even followed her suggestion, refusing to allow a patient with an open wound to be placed on a bed until the linens from the previous patient were removed andexchanged.

Matron had been aghast. “The linens already there will do,” she had said. “The bed was made up fresh only a week ago, and the previous patient didn’tsoilthem.”

But Mr. Thayne was not to be swayed and thereafter he had insisted on clean linens each time a new patient entered the ward. The other surgeons scoffed, but Mr. Thayne remainedresolute.

It was rare for a surgeon to consider the opinion of one of the nurses, even less so a day-nurse who was little more than a char. The fact that Mr. Thayne valued hers was a gift, one Sarah treasured. She had spent her life being treated as an intelligent being by her father. But at King’s College, she was only a girl who served meals, cleaned bedpans, and changed soiled sheets, a fact that made an ugly slurry of resentment and anger and sadness mix in her gut. She had so much more tooffer.

“It is not early for me,” Mr. Thayne said, his tone holding a hint of dry amusement. He turned his head to look at her over his shoulder. The thin light glinted off the spectacles Sarah had never seen him without, metal rimmed, the lenses a dark bottle-green. She wondered how he could see through them in thedimness.

“Late for you, then,” she said, drifting closer. “You’ve been here all night?” He often was. Mr. Thayne seemed to prefer nighttoday.

“I have.” He paused. “What brought you here a full half hour before the start of yourshift?”

“My feet,”Sarahsaid.

Mr. Thayne offered a soft huff of laughter. “Your skirtiswet.”

Her cloak had not shielded her completely from the weather and the hem of her skirt was wet and dappled with mud. “The weather is inclement,”shesaid.

Even in the dim light, she could see that he frowned. “I have not left the hospital for two nights and a day.” He sounded as though that fact startled him, as though he had not, until this moment, marked the passageoftime.

“It is not the first time,” Sarah said, then pressed her lips together, realizing her words made clear that she was aware of his comings and goings and wishing she could callthemback.

“No, it is not,”hesaid.

“It was kind of you,” she blurted. “To give Mrs. Carmichael the coats.” Mrs. Carmichael was the night watch nurse in the surgical ward. Mr. Thayne had given her warm coats for her twogrowingsons.

“I am not kind,” Mr. Thayne replied. “I was merely disposing of items which no longer appealedtome.”

“Of course,” Sarah replied. “The fact that they had clearly never been worn and were both far too small to have ever…” She broke off, unwilling to state aloud that the coats were sized for adolescents and would never have fit Mr. Thayne’s broad-shouldered form, for that would be a clear admission that shenoticedhis broad-shouldered form. “Those coats will be put togooduse.”

“That is my hope,” he said before turning his attention back to thepatient.

She meant to walk away then, but something held her in place and she stood frozen, staring at the patient’s white forearm where it contrasted with the cloth of Mr. Thayne’s black-cladform.

A moan sounded from behind her, drawing her attention. “Water,” came a woman’s plea. “I am so thirsty. Please,water.”

The night watch nurse was curled in the far corner of the sick ward by the fire, sleeping. Sarah could not help but feel pity for her, a widow with three small children who, after working the day as a charwoman came to sit the night through for a shilling and her supper, leaving her little ones with a neighbor, and paying herinturn.

She had not the heart to deny the woman a few stolen moments of rest, so she turned away to tend to the patientherself.