Page 15 of To Love a Scottish Lord (Highland Lords #4)

She dipped the cloth in the bowl, wrung it out, and laid it over his elbow. A moment later, she removed it, beginning to massage some of the salve from wrist to joint.

“It’s very important that you have a massage often,” she said. “At least three times a day to keep the muscles active.”

“I know why you’re such a successful healer,” he said. “You’re too stubborn to lose a battle with illness.”

She smiled in response.

“How did you make the transition from caring for your mother to becoming a healer?”

“I happened upon Matthew Marshall’s book The Primitive Physick , and began to study. I started with my own notes, and practiced on myself, then took what I’d learned and volunteered to treat the poor.”

“You could not have endeared yourself to the physicians of Inverness.”

She shook her head. “They didn’t care. No one wished to treat someone with little ability to pay. But in my case, I wasn’t earning my living as a physician, so I offered my services where I could.”

She soaked the cloth again, and placed it above his elbow this time.

“Your hands are very strong.”

She smiled at the note of surprise in his voice. “Medicine is for neither the faint of heart nor the weak of limb, Mr. MacRae. I’ve had to set a dislocated shoulder in a man larger than you, and the task required all my strength.”

“How did you become the Angel of Inverness?”

She frowned at that appellation but continued her ministrations.

His skin was beginning to warm beneath her palms. “I was called to the home of a prosperous merchant who had a young son. Jack was near death, and the physician who’d been treating him declared his situation hopeless.

” She met his eyes. “Dr. Grampian was the same man who also refused to treat any of the poor practically on his doorstep.”

“And you cured him,” he said.

She nodded. “His was not the most desperate case I’ve seen, but he did need treatment or he would have certainly died. The disease had obstructed his breathing. Once his throat was cleared, he recovered in a few weeks.”

“I’m surprised the physician didn’t claim credit.”

She laughed lightly. “He did, but I preferred not to call him a liar. He has nothing good to say about me, and I choose to ignore him. He will never come to believe that a healthy body and mind act together in concert.”

“What treatment would you propose for a burn?”

“Is this a test? I’d advise cold water immediately applied to the affected area.”

“What would you prescribe for me, Mrs. Gilly?”

“A massage of your arm three times a day,” she said.

“And your electrical machine?”

“If I had use of one,” she said, nodding. “But there aren’t very many of them in existence.”

Mr. Marshall had published an entire book on the treatment, stating that the apparatus could cure all sorts of conditions.

He’d taken Richard Lovett’s work on treating diseases by electricity, and proven that headache, gout, rheumatism could all be cured.

Perhaps when she met with Mr. Marshall, she could ask him about the efficacy of using it under such conditions.

“Do you really think it would work?” he asked, looking down at his arm.

“Perhaps it would,” she said matter-of-factly. “But we don’t have it, so it doesn’t matter. We shall have to work with what we do have.”

“Which is?”

“That indomitable will of yours.”

Grabbing his wrist with her right hand, she placed her left above his elbow.

Slowly, she bent his arm. His only re sponse was to stare at her intently, his brown eyes never veering from hers.

She was the one to look away first. When she glanced back at him, his eyes were closed.

That was all the indication he gave that what she was doing was painful.

“You must begin to exercise this arm or it will never work again. I don’t know how much damage the nails did, but we must work on the premise that what has been injured can be healed. If it cannot work on its own, then we’ll help it.”

“I was right, you know. You badger disease away.”

“I don’t care how the result is obtained, Hamish,” she said with a smile. “Only that the patient gets better.”

“That’s twice now,” he said.

She glanced at him, waiting.

“You called me Hamish. I suppose such familiarity is to be expected between patient and healer?”

Her face warmed. “Of course not,” she said, embarrassed. “I’ll address you as Mr. MacRae, if you wish.”

“I’d prefer Hamish. And Mary to Mrs. Gilly. Or would you object?”

She shook her head, repeating the movement of his arm.

A few moments later, she could feel some faint resistance, as if the muscles were beginning to come to life.

Only a reflex action, she suspected. For another quarter hour, she worked on his arm, a careful silence between them.

It was easier to concentrate on her task than on his eyes, now open and fixed on her.

“Does it hurt?” she asked, letting his arm rest finally.

“Less so than when you began.”

She opened the vial and placed more of the camphor ointment on his skin again, massaging it once more.

“I think I should examine your chest. You flinched when I touched you.”

He looked at her for long, solemn moments.

“Will you take off your shirt?” she asked calmly.

Without speaking, he began to unfasten the buttons. When he was finished, she reached over and helped him slide the shirt off his shoulders, then withdrew her hand.

When his chest was revealed, she sat back, biting her lip rather than making a sound.