Highland Rising (The House of Pendray Book 4)

by Anna Markland

  “Pacing willna bring them home any sooner,” his wife cautioned.

  “Nevertheless,” he retorted, pausing to glance out the tall window before resuming his path.

  Sarah and Jewel were soon on their feet, Marten and Blair trailing behind. For once, Marten seemed to realize it would be better to keep his thoughts to himself.

  Faith preferred to remain cocooned in the maroon velvet armchair, certain her knees would buckle if she tried to stand.

  Esther had fled, Rachel in hot pursuit, after Jewel’s mild rebuke about the incessant wailing.

  Maggie and Luke were squeezed together in another armchair, holding hands.

  Something was wrong, but in the oppressive silence no one wanted to give voice to their fears.

  Faith studied the patterns her fingertips made in the chair’s velvet arms. The fabric was resilient. Brush it one way, it lay flat, brush it the other…

  A snake in the pit of her stomach hissed that Gray had come to some harm. She might go mad if the waiting went on much longer.

  Gray wanted to retreat back into sleep, but the sharp-toothed creature eating his leg wouldn’t let him. He opened his eyes, surprised to see a host of stars in a black sky. He hadn’t lived a blameless existence, but had expected to find himself in heaven when he died. Not this dark, living hell.

  He was being jostled along on some sort of contraption. If they stopped, the pain might cease.

  Nay. ’Twas Cleland who’d died. Were they both being carried to heaven on the same litter? He turned his head, but Giles was walking alongside.

  “’Tisna far now,” the lad rasped, his youthful face marred by a deep frown.

  “And then I’ll reach heaven?” Gray asked.

  “Nay. I stopped the bleeding. Sarah will ken what to do next about the bullet.”

  Sarah? But Sarah was at Kilmer, and he was dying in a faraway field.

  “Bullet?”

  “Aye.”

  “The rebels shot me?”

  “We dinna ken. There was a lot of confusion.”

  Ye Can Save Him

  Agitated male voices jolted Faith from her doze. The gallery was suddenly ablaze with light as servants with torches rushed hither and yon.

  “They’ve come,” the countess whispered, taking her by the arm.

  She struggled out of the armchair, alarmed to discover everyone else had left the gallery.

  “Sarah and Jewel are putting their children to bed,” Gray’s mother explained. “Ye should get some sleep.”

  “Nay,” she replied. “I must make sure Gray is unharmed.”

  The ashen-faced earl hurried into the gallery. “Find Sarah,” he shouted. “Send her to Gray’s chamber. He’s been wounded.”

  Alarm filled the countess’ eyes. “Go to him. I’ll get Munro’s wife.”

  Faith lifted her skirts and ran up the stairs to the second floor, all the while chanting a mantra.

  Let all be well.

  Let all be well.

  Her breathless entry into the chamber drew the scowling glares of the men clustered around the bed.

  A haggard Munro hurried to her side. “He wouldna want ye to see him like this, Faith. We’ll…”

  “Nay,” she cried. “He needs me.”

  Sarah rushed in and went straight to the bed. Faith elbowed Munro aside, nigh on swooning when she saw Gray. They’d drawn a counterpane up to his chin, but his beloved face was pale as death. His eyes were open, staring into nothingness.

  She smoothed the matted hair off his sweat-sheened forehead and bent to kiss him, shocked to find his skin ice cold. “My love,” she whispered, encouraged when he seemed to focus on her for a brief moment. She looked up at the stricken faces. “Tell me what to do, Sarah. We must save him.”

  Sarah clenched her jaw. “I’m not a physician, just an apothecary.”

  “The army surgeon’s in the kitchens, preparing his instruments,” the earl said. “He recommends amputating.”

  “Amputating what?” Faith whispered.

  “His leg,” Munro said.

  “Nay,” Faith whimpered as Jewel and her mother entered the chamber.

  “Ye ken things about tending wounds, Sarah,” Giles offered, “what with all the medical journals ye’ve read.”

  Sarah inhaled deeply and took hold of the edge of the cover. “We won’t know what we’re dealing with until we examine him.”

  Giles stayed her hand. “I managed to stop the bleeding with yarrow, but ’tis a gruesome sight. I think the musket ball went right through his thigh.”

  Sarah nodded. “Hold his hand, Faith.”

  Jewel bristled. “These things are nay for young lasses to see.”

  “Faith has more right than anyone,” the countess replied. “And if my son is to die, he should have the woman he loves at his side.”

  Sarah nodded. “Sometimes love can bring about miracles medicine cannot.”

  Jewel clung to her husband’s arm, but made no reply.

  Tightening every muscle in her body, Faith reached to grasp Gray’s cold hand. She bent to kiss his knuckles, tears streaming down her face when he looked into her eyes and meshed his fingers with hers.

  Sarah peeled down the counterpane. One leg of his trews had been torn open to allow a blood-stained wad of cloth to be fastened to his thigh with a musket strap.

  “My spare shirt,” Giles explained sheepishly.

  “You did well,” Sarah replied. “Probably saved his life.”

  Faith sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over to cradle Gray’s head as Munro undid the strap. He buried his face in her breast, rasping for breath when Sarah peeled off the wadding. She stroked his hair in an effort to soothe the pain.

  The paste of crushed yarrow leaves had stemmed the blood-flow, but a chunk of his flesh was missing.

  Jewel turned away to sob against Garnet’s chest.

  Faith wanted to retch, to scream, to flee, to weep—but Gray needed her to be strong.

  “My wife saved my life with yarrow,” the earl said softly, holding up his four-fingered hand.

  A spark of hope flickered in Faith’s heart. She remembered the oft-told tale of the countess binding Morgan Pendray’s mutilated fingers with yarrow during the rebellion against Cromwell. He’d lost his finger, amputated by the blacksmith Murtagh, but kept his life.

  “Ye can save him,” she whispered to Sarah.

  The surgeon chose that moment to hurry in, sleeves rolled up, saw in hand. “The only way to save him is to amputate his leg. Otherwise, ’twill turn gangrenous and he will surely die.”

  Gray gripped her hand more tightly. “Nay,” he rasped.

  “He doesna wish it,” Faith said.

  Sarah stiffened her spine. “No amputation.”

  Bothewell bristled as he turned to the earl. “If ye wish to listen to womenfolk who ken naught about surgery, then, at the very least, we must cleanse the wound with boiling oil and cauterize it.”

  It was the first time Faith had seen the courageous countess cry.

  “But Lady Sarah has knowledge of different healing methods, like Paré’s theories,” Giles declared.

  The dragoon snorted, but the earl insisted his daughter-by-marriage explain.

  She lifted her chin. “Giles and I have done extensive reading of medical journals in preparation for his time at university. Ambroise Paré was a barber surgeon at the French court almost a hundred years ago.”

  The surgeon scoffed. “Huh! A foreigner.”

  Sarah ignored him. “He was a battlefield surgeon who introduced effective and less painful alternatives to amputation and the removal of bullets.”

  Munro leaned close to Gray’s ear and took his free hand. “I trust my wife,” he said.

  “So do I,” Gray whispered.

  Gray floundered in a sea of agony, but he would stay afloat as long as he could bury his face in Faith’s breast when the pain became too much to bear.

  “Sarah’s gone to find the things she needs,” Faith whisp
ered. “There’s only me and Giles here now. Ye can cry if ye’ve a mind.”

  He sobbed then, until his head was pounding and his throat as dry as a desert. “’Tisna the pain,” he rasped. “’Tis the stupidity of what happened. I dinna even ken if ’twas friend or foe who shot me.”

  Giles brought a tumbler of water. “I should have stayed with ye,” he lamented.

  Faith helped Gray raise his head so he could sip. The effort drained him. “Nay, laddie. Then there’d be two of us lying here.”

  Sarah returned, accompanied by the cook and the armory captain.

  Gray’s throat constricted. What in the armory might aid in his healing? He had a dreadful feeling the pain was going to get much worse.

  Sarah shook a small bottle made of brown glass. “I brought laudanum. You’re going to need it.”

  While the prospect of being freed from pain was appealing, some people never woke up after being drugged. “Nay,” he replied. “I prefer to keep my wits about me.”

  Sarah poured liquid into a spoon and held it to his mouth. “And I prefer to work on a patient who isn’t writhing at every move I make to help him.”

  “Please take it for my sake,” Faith begged. “I canna bear to see ye in so much distress.”

  He swallowed the vile stuff, grateful to Giles for a second sip of water. He turned his head to look into Faith’s eyes. “If I dinna wake up,” he whispered, “I love ye.”

  Tears welling, she nodded. “As I love ye, brave mon, but I’ll ne’er forgive ye if ye dinna come back to me.”

  Sarah cleared her throat. “We can’t sew up the wound until we’re certain there are no fragments of the musket ball still inside your leg and no bones broken.”

  Gray nodded.

  “I can do the stitches when the time comes,” Giles said proudly. “I’ve been practicing.”

  Gray struggled to understand why a lad who intended to study apothecary at university would practice sewing up a body—and on whom or what had he practiced? But the thoughts chased each other around the fog in his brain and then fled.

  “I think Giles dreams of becoming a surgeon,” Faith whispered.

  It made sense, but Gray was distracted by something Sarah was saying. “Egg yolk and vinegar…”

  He winced, remembering the sting of vinegar in a small cut he once had on his finger…

  “Crivvens,” he yelled when Sarah poured something cold on his ragged flesh.

  Faith mopped his brow with a cool cloth. “The pain will ease once the laudanum works its magic.”

  He ought to reply, but couldn’t seem to make his mouth work, so he reached for the anchor of her reassuring hand, wishing the persistent trembling would cease.

  He drifted, grateful when the sting slowly eased.

  “Now for the worst part,” Sarah warned. “Madison will hold your leg.”

  It canna get any worse.

  “I have to use turpentine.”

  Ah! The armory.

  He bellowed curses no woman should hear when his leg went up in flames. The darkness claimed him before he could babble an apology.

  Fever

  Faith had always feared the stern God her parents worshipped, constantly reminded of her unworthiness. Her mother’s lunacy and her father’s imprisonment proved that prayers chanted for the sake of praying were of no use.

  When the orphanage in Edinburgh sold her off to a wealthy auld man who dressed her up like a whore, she became more convinced than ever God—if he existed—had abandoned her to a life of degradation and hurt.

  Then, unexpectedly, Gray Pendray became her savior, whisking her away to a sweet, new life in Ayrshire. She’d given thanks then to whatever mysterious force had sent him—for it surely couldn’t be God.

  Four years living in the Pendray household had taught her that serving God meant different things to different people. Munro and Jewel, along with their spouses, had opened their hearts to provide a home and a future for six orphaned bairns. Not because it was their duty—the motivation came from a deep seated generosity of spirit that Faith believed had been passed on by their parents.

  Love for one another and respect for God and his laws ruled the Pendray household. It was what had made Gray the honorable man she loved.

  For the two days and nights she kept vigil beside his bed, she never stopped praying, secure in the belief the God of the Pendray family would hear her petitions because they were from the heart.

  She developed a deeper appreciation for Sarah’s skills. Munro’s wife showed her how to change the dressing covering Gray’s wound—a tent-like affair impregnated with a preparation of egg yolk, turpentine and oil of roses. She gradually overcame the natural revulsion his wound fostered, intent on examining it for signs of gangrene or bullet fragments.

  The laudanum kept him in a stupor that freed him from much of the pain but also rendered him insensitive to the kisses she trailed along his leg when no one was watching.

  Sarah expressed optimism by the end of the first day. The wound showed no signs of festering and the musket ball appeared to have passed through his flesh intact.

  Everyone’s hopes faltered when a fever took hold during the night.

  Munro and Garnet helped restrain him as he ranted and writhed, struggling to rid himself of the linens.

  Giles bathed his forehead.

  In his usual wraith-like way, Luke came and went with whatever was demanded of him—water, candles, linens, medicines.

  The earl sat silently in a corner of the chamber, gripping the arms of his chair.

  Faith held Gray’s hand, lay her head on the counterpane and made promise after promise to God in exchange for his life.

  Gray seethed with anger and frustration. Every time he thought he’d caught up to the soldier who’d run off with his leg, the wretch slipped from his grasp and threatened to toss the limb into the fiery furnaces of hell.

  He’d expressly forbidden an amputation, yet here he was, hobbling along on one leg, trying to catch…

  No, that wasn’t right. If only the chamber wasn’t so infernally hot, he might be able to think clearly.

  And what was Munro doing in his chamber? Sarah must wonder where he was in the middle of the night.

  “Get off me, brother,” he shouted. “Leave me be. I must catch the surgeon. He’s cut off my leg.”

  He opened his eyes, then closed them again quickly so the walls would stop spinning. Otherwise, his father might fly off into oblivion. Why was his father sitting by his bedside? He was no longer a bairn.

  “Can you help me catch him, Papa?” he begged, heartbroken when his father shook his head.

  There was only one person who would help him. “Fetch Faith,” he bellowed.

  “I’m here,” she whispered close to his ear.

  He laced his fingers with hers and the world righted itself. “Will ye help me save my leg?” he rasped.

  “Aye,” she replied.

  The faint whimper of a dog penetrated the fog. Faith tried to lift her head, but something was tangled in her hair.

  “’Tis Gray’s hand,” a voice said.

  “Maggie?” she asked, reaching to free her tresses from Gray’s fingers.

  She looked up at his sweat-sheened face. The fever had broken, and sleep had claimed him.

  She straightened, feeling like an auld woman with stiff joints, pleased to see Maggie and her faithful dog standing by her chair. “Thank goodness he’s asleep at last,” she murmured.

  Plato yipped in agreement, his head cocked to one side.

  “Now ye must seek yer bed and get some rest,” Maggie advised.

  Faith bent to fondle the dog’s ears. “Nay, I canna leave him.”

  She startled when strong hands grasped hers and helped her rise. “You’ve seen him through the worst, Faith,” the earl said. “I’ll send for you if there’s any change.”

  She looked into eyes so like her beloved’s and saw that he understood and appreciated her love for his son. “I’ll just che
ck the wound once more.”

  “No need,” Sarah said as she entered the chamber. “Time for you to do as you’re told. Go. We don’t want two invalids.”

  Maggie took her hand and pulled her to the door. After one last look at Gray, Faith allowed her little sister to lead her away, Plato not far behind.

  On The Mend

  Faith climbed into bed fully clothed in case she was summoned to rush to Gray’s side. She wasn’t sure how long she’d dozed when Maggie shook her awake, but it was still daylight.

  “Sarah has sent for ye,” her sister said.

  Her heart lurched.

  “Ye needna be alarmed. They’re ready to stitch him up, but he insists ye be there.”

  She scrambled out of bed and hurried along the corridor to his chamber, tucking wayward strands of hair behind her ears.

  When she rushed in, Sarah came to greet her. “He’s improving.”

  Faith grasped the wood of the door frame, afraid her trembling knees might buckle.

  “There’s no sign of putrefaction and the wound is beginning to heal, so Giles is ready. Gray’s fighting off the effects of the drug, insisting we not go ahead until you arrive.”

  Faith swallowed hard and approached the bed. While the fever raged, Gray’s skin had flamed red. Now, he was too pale. She cupped his face, relieved he felt cooler to the touch. “Ye look better,” she lied.

  He opened his eyes. “Liar,” he whispered. “But I feel better for seeing ye.”

  “He panicked when he woke and ye were gone,” Giles revealed.

  She took Gray’s hand and wove their fingers together. “I’m sorry.”

  “Ye’re my talisman,” he whispered. “Naught bad can happen if ye’re here.”

  Faith’s heart overflowed. To her parents she’d been a burden they considered their duty, a mouth to feed and another pair of hands to share the drudgery of everyday life. As Garnet and Jewel’s foster daughter, she’d happily played second fiddle to their bairns, always keeping to the shadows. Even among her siblings, she felt like the outsider.