Page 32 of Cold November Rake

"I am still not raising your allowance," Sutton said dryly.

Everly pshawed. "You don't think I can be worried about my cousin for free?"

"You don't seem worried; that's the issue. You seem gleeful."

"I am the picture of worry, cousin." Everly stepped closer to Temperance and placed a hand on her shoulder. "See, my cousin has a very poor opinion of me, but I am nothing if not helpful."

Temperance stiffened beside Sutton, and her hand tightened on his.

"If you don't take three steps away from my wife," Sutton warned, in a voice he scarcely recognized, "I shall have Ganderson put you out in the street."

"Ganderson is a hundred years old," Everly said with a scoff.

Still, he lifted both hands in surrender and retreated, grinning, to the far side of the bed.

Grisham pulled a long strip of linen coated in yellow Diachylon plaster from Dash's outstretched hand and held it close to the bedside candle, watching the adhesive soften and sheen in the heat.

"Now, my lord. Exhale."

Sutton emptied his lungs. Grisham pressed one end of the plaster to the sound skin below his ribs, drew it taut across the gash, and slapped the other end down. It was hot and sticky, and the pull of it made his vision swim and white lights burst behind his eyes.

Temperance's fingers tightened around his, and he heard her breath catch beside him, as though she had felt it too.

"These will hold where the thread tore," Grisham said, laying a thick wad of scraped lint over the plaster. "It lets the bad humors drain rather than rot within."

The doctor took up a long bandage and began winding the cloth around his torso, pulling it snug over the ribs.

"There." Grisham pinned the end secure and slid his scissors back into the velvet lining of his case. "I shall leave a vial of laudanum. Two drops in your tea tonight will keep you as still as a churchyard monument. You should not leave this bed for a full week, or you will split the deeper muscle, and I shall return with no plaster, but with a hot iron to sear the mortification out of your ribs. Do we take each other's meaning?"

"Perfectly," Sutton said, his voice thin.

Grisham drew a small glass bottle from his coat. Even from here, the bitter reek of it reached him.

Sutton's nose twitched. He hated laudanum and had no intention of taking it.

Temperance plucked the vial from the doctor's fingers.

"I shall see to it," she said.

She slipped it into the pocket of her gown.

Everly's eyes followed her hand, his lips parted, and the tip of his tongue slid across them.

Sutton's jaw tightened. He had half a mind to throw something at his cousin. That would probably disturb his wound once more, and the doctor would have to apply the hot iron right then and there.

It would be worth it, though.

Everly's gaze lifted, met Sutton's, and he smiled his lazy, empty smile.

"Well," Everly said, "I shall call again tomorrow to see how you do, cousin."

"Please, do not," Sutton retorted.

Everly only laughed and accompanied Dr. Grisham toward the door. Whitlow and Dash followed.

"My apologies," Sutton said to his wife, "that you had to endure my lecherous cousin's presence."

She smiled lightly. "Your relatives are not your fault."