The big man looked back at his companions several steps below, as if unsure what they wanted him to do next, and the wounded man said, “My name is Lieutenant Sinclair Copley. I’ve been injured while helping a woman to ward off an attacker.”
Eleanor vacillated on the front step; what would Miss Nightingale wish her to do? She did not dare to awaken her—after all, wasn’t she, Eleanor, the night nurse, in charge?—but she also felt it incumbent upon her to offer a wounded man some help.
“In short,” the lieutenant said, “I’ve been shot and require someone to attend to the wound.” He had ascended the steps and, in the feeble glow of the streetlamp, he looked imploringly into her eyes. “Could you not at least examine the arm and see if you have some remedy on hand until I can consult a surgeon in the morning? As you see,” he said, removing his hand and revealing the blood-caked sleeve of his uniform, “something must be done to stanch the flow.”
She remained in the doorway, irresolute, until the big fellow, apparently losing heart, said, “Come on, Sinclair, Frenchie. I know an apothecary in the High Street, and he owes me a favor.” He turned his back on Eleanor and clumped down the stairs, but the blond man stayed where he was. Eleanor had the distinct impression, though a blush rose in her cheek for even thinking such things, that he had come here expressly so that she might care for him.
She stood to one side and swung the great door open behind her. “Please be careful to make no noise. The other patients are sleeping.”
She locked the door behind them, then ushered them down the wide and chilly hall—all the windows being left open—and into the receiving suite. It was something of a cross between a parlor and a surgery, with armchairs, tasseled lamps, and a desk in the front room, and in an alcove at the rear a leather-topped examination table, stuffed with horsehair, a white linen screen, and a locked bureau containing medical instruments and a small cache of medicinal supplies.
“I’m Captain Rutherford, by the way,” the big man said, “and this other fine gentleman is Lieutenant Le Maitre, generally known as Frenchie. All of the Seventeenth Lancers.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Eleanor replied—she could tell from their uniforms and their manner of speaking that they were wellborn men of means—“but I must ask you again to keep your voices low.”
Rutherford nodded, put a finger to his lips in confirmation, and retired to one of the armchairs. He turned up the lamp on the table, adjusted the wick, then pulled out a packet of cigars, offering one to Le Maitre. Striking a lucifer off the bottom of his boot, he lighted the two cheroots and the men sat back contentedly.
“Go to it,” Rutherford whispered, whisking his hand toward Eleanor and the alcove. “We don’t want him to die here; the Russians want a shot at him first.”
Frenchie guffawed, then slapped a hand over his mouth.
“Don’t mind them,” Sinclair said, softly. “They left their manners in the barracks.” He stepped toward the examining table and began to remove the jacket of his uniform. But the blood had stuck the cloth to the skin, and he winced as he tried to free it. Until that moment, Eleanor had not had a chance to give her full consideration to just what she was doing. She could think of at least three rules she had already broken. But the sight of the lieutenant trying to separate the bloody fabric from the wound suddenly seemed to snap her into the moment. She said, “Stop. Let me do that,” and, hastily unlocking the bureau, took out a pair of tailor’s scissors and snipped away at the sleeve until a larger opening allowed her to pull the cloth away from the skin and gently remove the torn jacket.
Which she did not know what to do with.
The lieutenant laughed at her temporary confusion, took it from her hand, and tossed it onto a coatrack behind her, which she had completely forgotten was there. Then he took a seat on the edge of the leather table.
The billowy white linen of his shirt was also torn and bloody, but she would not think of having him take off the shirt. Instead, she used the scissors to slice the sleeve open from below his shoulder to above his wrist. It was fine fabric, that she could tell, and she regretted having to cut it. But what disconcerted her more was his steady gaze; while she tried to focus all her attention on revealing the wound, she felt that he was studying her, from her green eyes to the dark brown ringlets of her hair, escaping, yet again, from under the white bonnet. She knew that she had begun to blush again, and though she would have liked to will the blood back down from her cheek, there was nothing she could do.