The Thorn Keeper

by Pepper D. Basham

  The perfect answer arose in Catherine’s mind straight from the Almighty himself, with a little nudge from Janie’s imagination. A figure, complete with extravagant costuming, stained lips, and a French accent. “Janie, you’re brilliant.”

  Janie nearly toppled over from Catherine’s shout.

  “You know someone cracked enough to support us?” Annie waved her arm at the three women.

  “Well, ‘cracked’ might be a bit too extreme, but I prefer the term…passionate.” Catherine laughed and offered a quick, silent prayer of thanksgiving. “I think, ladies, I might know the perfect person, but I’m going to need you to trust me…to work a little magic.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Where was Catherine? David made another walk through the corridors, even taking an uncharacteristic trip below stairs in search of her. He needed her. She knew which rooms to open for more soldiers and which remained off limits by Mrs. Dougall.

  Her laughter lilted up the stairway as he descended. She stood in the hallway with Mason, the driver, with her hand in his? David increased the pace of his descent. Catherine turned at his approach and David saw more clearly she was giving Mason a plate of food.

  “Dr. Ross, what brings you down to the belly of the house?” Miss Loudon, the cook, peeked up from her place at the oven. “Supper’s still a good two hours off. Did you need something else, sir?”

  David attempted to shake his frustration at the mere thought of Catherine holding Mason’s hands, but a trace of it clung to the tension in his chest. The same knotted burning he’d experienced with Michael. It took control.

  “I need my nurse’s assistance instead of her spending her time below stairs.”

  Catherine’s eyes grew wide, and she turned fully around to face him, one hand sliding to sit at the juncture of her long blue skirt and her white blouse. A hint of fire bloomed in her eyes and hit him square in the chest.

  “Dr. Ross appears to have his nose out of joint.” Her tone of sweetness failed to cloak the steel in those blue eyes. “Or else he wouldn’t speak to you in such a fashion, Miss Loudon. It’s quite out of character for him.”

  He stepped closer, a deep-set anger boiling beneath the surface. From his confrontation with Aunt Maureen, the sudden influx of new wounded, the unpredictable manner of Miss Dougall, and the limited space of Roth Hall, the last thing he needed was to see Catherine laughing with the driver!

  “I would expect one of my lead nurses to help me welcome new wounded instead of cavorting with the servants.”

  He almost felt the heat from her glare. “Cavorting with the servants?” She edged closer to him, unyielding. “Why wouldn’t I choose servants? They won’t judge me like the rest of world will.”

  “You seem quite familiar with a great many men.” Had he truly spoken that out loud?

  “You too?” She made to march past him. “Well, I am full up with people placing me back in an old mold instead of having some faith I’m not what I used to be, especially you.”

  David caught her arm and swung her around to him, the power in his movement bringing another wide-eyed stare from her. She was close, surrounding him with lavender, softness, and suffocating fire. His throat went dry, and the flint of anger died a sudden death. He loosened his hold and froze, his gaze taking in the contours of her face, the heat in her eyes…the humbling conviction behind her words. For the briefest moment, he had the urge to pull her to him and make amends with a kiss. Warmth scorched his face at the unbidden and sudden need.

  “Catherine, please, forgive me.”

  She attempted to pull free, and then he saw it. The wounds she placed underneath her fury. Her expression hardened, but not her eyes. Those round gems swirled with…pain. Pain he’d caused with his madness of the moment.

  “You’re only treating me as I deserve, isn’t that it?” The granite hold of her anger quivered with a tremor of her lips.

  “No, that’s not it. And you should fight, no matter who it is.” He rubbed his palm against her arm. “I’m only ashamed it was me.”

  He had pulled her close enough to notice a speck of lighter blue around the iris of her eyes. “Please, Catherine. I don’t know what came over me. The events of the day? My exhaustion? Neither are an excuse for what I said. I saw you with him and I…I…don’t know what happened.”

  She paused a moment, then a new expression moved across her features. A wariness. “I do,” she whispered, succeeding in pulling free from him. “But you are stronger than this. Better than this. I’m not worth your anger.”

  Why did she say that? She spoke to him as if she knew something he didn’t. “Catherine.”

  “You mentioned something about new wounded?” She refused to look at him, the moment broken. He hung his head, berating himself with a mixture of complete confusion and immense regret.

  “Yes, a Zeppelin bombed the hospital in Lancet last night.”

  ‘No.”

  “They’ve requested to have their survivors transferred here as we are the closest war hospital.”

  “Such as we are.” She shrugged, starting for the stairs. “I’ll make what arrangements I can.”

  He covered her hand on the stair railing with his own. “Please forgive me.”

  “Don’t forget, dear Dr. Ross, I would do anything in my power to keep your opinion of me at its highest.” Her smile turned sad. “Of course I forgive you.”

  Chaos reigned above stairs, with Mother’s voice echoing above everyone else’s. Catherine stopped in the middle of the vacuous entryway with its grand chandelier and ornamented crown molding and pinched her eyes closed. Jealousy. David Ross was jealous. Three months ago, the thought would have sent a thrill of victory through her, encouraging her to keep the green monster alive and well with a healthy dose of flirting, but not now. And not him. She cared too much for him to ever toy with his tender heart.

  What was worse, he didn’t even understand what was happening, which meant she still had time. Time to save that kind heart of his. If she could. The longing to be close to him drew her with more force than anything she’d ever known from their first discussion at her sister’s sickbed to now. She’d never known such desire to belong with anyone else, to talk with him, to feel his arms around her.

  Catherine opened her eyes and took inventory of the house. The far right wing held the orphanage and all the family bedrooms, including David’s, Jessica’s, Michael’s, and the other two nurses. Part of the left wing lay in disrepair, but the functional part held the current wounded and hospital offices.

  She heard steps on the stairs and darted for the back of the house, a perfect place to stay clear of David. Her mother had placed the South Wing off-limits to hospital work, almost as an unhealthy memorial to Catherine’s father, but necessity continued to force her mother’s stubborn hand.

  The dark hall led past rooms and memories. Her father’s rooms darkened the very end, almost their own section of the house. Catherine stifled a shiver, as if his presence walked the hall, reminding her of her inability to measure up to the love he’d dangled before her. Her hatred of him had curbed with time and knowledge of his depravity—the liberties he’d take with her sister, the love he’d withheld from her.

  And now, her mother kept the corridors unused almost as a shrine to the memory of the exalted man she’d created in her head. Not the true one.

  Down a hallway to the left sat a few unused rooms, and then she came to a large double door. With a deep breath, she placed both hands on the door handles and turned. The doors opened and welcomed her into the grand ballroom, once the pinnacle of her family’s social success.

  The bittersweet surge of pleasure and disappointment pulled her into the enormous space, dark and dusty from disuse. Grand, granite fireplaces framed the two sides of the room, and windows hung high above on two walls, allowing natural light to compliment the three crystal chandeliers.

  She’d hosted a ball the first autumn she and mother returned to England, welcoming Grandmama’s acqua
intances and people who remembered the former grandeur of the Spencer family home. Drew Cavanaugh had been among the throng. His dashing good-looks and charm stood out among the others, and over time, once Catherine had learned of his vast inheritance from his great grandfather, patriarch of the Cavanaugh family, she’d pursued him. Determined to restore her family’s social status and financial security, she’d given everything in the pursuit…including her self-respect.

  But never her heart.

  Her smile grew with another look around the beautiful room. It was time to reform the uses of this room as God had done with her. It suited her new life – forego the beauty and elegance for a deeper beauty. Hope.

  Catherine worked miracles. David was sure of it. He watched her out of his periphery as she took the role of hostess away from her anxious mother and readied the house for an uncertain amount of new wounded. Mrs. Dougall refused a part of anything which would defile her husband’s sanctuary, which left the brunt of the burden on Catherine. And she took it without a flinch. She’d even garnered a few somewhat unlikely recruits from town to help with the transition. A fiery-headed Irishwoman, who was with child, and a young waif of a woman named Marianne. David wasn’t too certain how much help either would be, especially the bright-eyed girl with her soft smile who looked much too young and idyllic for the world of war.

  “The motorcade is approaching, Miss Catherine,” Jackson, the butler, announced from the doorway.

  Catherine turned to the group before her. One nurse stayed behind in the ward to see to the current patients, but everyone else stood in a line at the entry, awaiting orders. Including David.

  “We aren’t certain what sort of injuries we will see today, but it will take all of us to manage it for the good of these poor lads.” She glanced at David and quickly away, which served him justice. “Dr. and Nurse Ross will meet each patient at the door and direct the stretcher bearers to one of two rooms. The long-term wounded will go to the ballroom.” She nodded to Fanny. “To which Fanny will escort them.”

  “Severe cases, who are in need of immediate care, will be taken to the back library by Nurse Randolph.”

  The older, dark-haired nurse nodded.

  “Miss Annie and Miss Marianne will provide assistance as needed, as well as Michael and myself.”

  The front door ground open, and the first wave of wounded entered. The first patients’ medical needs proved extensive, much more than the capabilities of their current staff and resources. With abdominal wounds, facial damage, and tragic limb removal, so many were in need of immediate care that Catherine redirected the more severely wounded to the ballroom instead of the library. At one point, David looked up to see her staring at him, the gravity of their situation reflected in her eyes, asking an unspoken question. How are we going to take care of all these people?

  Annie proved to be as decisive and quick-witted as Catherine, making quick and accurate decisions for the soldiers’ comfort, and Marianne flitted from one wounded to the next like a sunbeam into the gray, offering a cool cloth or a soft word. Where Catherine had found them, David had no idea, but at the moment, he didn’t care.

  The final automobile arrived, running behind the others, but its passengers weren’t wounded soldiers. Three women, in their typical blue and gray nurse’s uniform, emerged from the back of the motor. Both held a somber air of tragedy and experience and fit the typical mold of dour and no-nonsense David had seen in training. A tall, lean man exited the front, placing a bowler on his dark head as he did so. He surveyed the house with a quirked brow and then swept the extended countryside an appreciative look. The nurses stood at his side as if waiting for his orders.

  “Well, I must say, the facilities aren’t as up-to-date as I’m accustomed, but the view is spectacular.” He grinned and offered his hand. “Dr. Christopher Hudson, plastic surgeon to what was previously Lancet War Hospital.”

  David took the proffered hand. “David Ross, lead…well, only doctor here in Ednesbury.”

  Dr. Hudson’s light brown eyes grew wide. “Only? What a job! Well then, sir, I suppose I’m under your direction for the present.”

  “You’re staying to help?”

  “Of course.” Dr. Hudson’s smile grew with genuine warmth. “You don’t think Dr. Patton would leave you to handle his wounded on your own? He’s the good sort. Top notch.”

  David grasped for a response. Help? A surgeon and three trained nurses to add to the staff? David almost grinned his reply but quickly doused it. He hadn’t accounted for them. Was there room? He caught Catherine’s gaze again as she sent another wounded man in the appropriate direction, and his chest expanded with confidence. She would make certain there was room.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed the company of a colleague. Our accommodations may not be your customary fare, but we hope to provide some privacy for the staff.”

  He showed them toward the doorway, his step a bit lighter at the thought of another doctor on hand. One pleasure he’d missed from leaving his grandfather’s practice in Warm Springs, NC, and then the London practice, was the camaraderie of other professionals.

  Dr. Hudson followed him into the house and took his time measuring the people in the room. With a tilted grin, he leaned close to David. “I don’t know what you grow in this part of the country, Dr. Ross, but your nurses are exceptionally better looking than mine.”

  David followed the direction of Dr. Hudson’s stare, the small fire in his stomach swelling to flame. Catherine.

  Catherine felt his stare before she turned to confirm it. The new group, one man and three nurses, stood in the doorway of Roth Hall with David. Though she couldn’t place his occupation in the middle of the swarm, she read the message in his smile clearly. Interest…and not in her medical knowledge, either. He was young, her age or a few years older, and definitely not a social recluse like David.

  They walked toward her, the stranger keeping his dark eyes on hers, and she refused to look away, matching his forwardness with her own. She knew the social expectation in showing interest. The woman smiled shyly and averted her eyes, but she didn’t want him to receive the wrong message. She wasn’t interested.

  His smile only curled with more confidence, and her insides curled for a whole different reason.

  “Nurse Dougall, I’d like to introduce you to Dr. Hudson and his nurses.” David gestured to them. “They’ve come to help us.”

  Her attention flitted to David, and the weariness around his eyes pulled at her compassion. He worked so hard with such long hours…if these new additions would alleviate some of his efforts, then she’d manage it.

  “Welcome to Roth Hall.” She reluctantly offered her hand.

  “We are most appreciative for your readiness to house our patients…and us.” Dr. Hudson’s palm warmed hers, his gaze as intense as ever.

  She’d almost forgotten the sway of such unadulterated attention and the heat in the game of seduction. The pleasing warmth pearling beneath her skin, the power in her own womanhood to turn a head or change a reaction. An art she’d formed into a lifestyle for so long. The touch of it mingled with bittersweet longing for such affections, even if shallow and temporary.

  But she knew the emptiness afterward. She breathed out her clenched air and offered him a smile. “We are pleased to have your services, Dr. Hudson.”

  Her gaze returned to David’s steady, familiar face, but his eyes held nothing steady or familiar in them. Steel. Kempt fury.

  “Dr. Ross, I know you must see to the new patients as soon as possible, but I need your approval of accommodations for our new staff.” Where to put them? Not on the staff ward near her room, that was for certain. “Might I snatch a moment of your time?”

  “You’d better snatch away now, Nurse Dougall. There is another motorcade of wounded arriving in about an hour, and I can assure you, neither Dr. Ross nor I will hold liberality on time at that point and neither will you.” Dr. Hudson’s brow rose with an unspoken question, one wh
ich hinted to finding him within the hour.

  “Then I suggest, Dr. Hudson, you make yourself acquainted with our facilities so you can find your way in the middle of the throng.” Her smile pinched. She turned to David. “Shall we, Dr. Ross?”

  She heard him follow behind her, but she wouldn’t dare look back and possibly give Dr. Hudson any fuel for further pursuit.

  “There are four or five old servants’ rooms in this back wing which will provide ready access for Dr. Hudson and his nurses to reach the patients.” Catherine wove through the corridors and ascended a back stairway. “They’re not as grand as our new guests might be accustomed to, but they’ll provide privacy.”

  Silence greeted her comment. She stopped at the top of the stairway and turned to see if David still followed. He stayed a few steps behind, his progress at a more thoughtful pace and his head down.

  “Are you well, Dr. Ross?”

  He met her at the top of the stairway leading into a long hall. “Well enough.”

  Catherine studied him a moment and then continued her walk down the hall at a slower progression, waiting for him to catch up. She’d seen that look on his face before. He was mulling over something and working up the words or courage to speak it. Was he concerned about how they would manage this new change in their lives? Most likely, but that could easily be voiced.

  “Why does he look at you that way?” His voice rumbled from behind her.

  She slowed her pace until they walked as a pair. “What are you—?”

  “Dr. Hudson.”

  She feigned ignorance and paused her walk. “What way does Dr. Hudson look at me?”

  “Like a wolf at his prey.” He whispered the words, but his voice loomed dark through the corridor.

  She tossed off the façade and resumed her walk. “I suppose he finds me attractive. It isn’t all that uncommon between men and women in general. Nothing for which to be troubled, I assure you.”

  If she could only believe her admission as well.