A Place in Your Heart Page 5

  Brush out dress

  Small cake for Sister M.’s birthday

  Trade books with F

  Though he didn’t believe he’d done anything wrong, he felt the need to make up to her somehow.

  “There is a lecture on glaciers tomorrow evening at the Smithsonian. If you would care to attend, I would be pleased to escort you.”

  She looked up.

  His heart skipped a hopeful beat.

  “I thank ye, but…”

  He stiffened. A tiny stab of pain pricked at the wound she’d inflicted earlier.

  “I’ve promised to go with Major Carlton.”

  Major Carlton. Charles had overheard conversations about the two of them. How perfectly they sang together yesterday, how they’d laughed and brightened the hearts of all the patients.

  Charles might have gone to the singing, but he’d been in surgery with Major Thomas and Doctor Greene, amputating a hand that had gone gangrenous. The hand should have been taken off in the field, but the surgeon had probably hesitated, hoping for the impossible.

  He searched her face. Did she care for Major Carlton, or was she merely being polite? Did she kiss the major the way she’d kissed him?

  “He only has one leg,” he began then realized his blunder the moment the words were out of his mouth, the moment Gracie jumped from her chair and nearly vaulted over the table.

  Before she could give him a dressing down in front of the men, he swung around and strode from the ward. He didn’t have to glance back to know she followed. He almost winced in sympathy for the floor as it withstood the impact of each sharp click of her heels against the planks as she marched after him.

  Once outside he kept walking, trying to get someplace more private before she caught up to him. He almost made it to the storehouse, before he felt the tug on his sleeve. He stopped and turned.

  “Sweet Mary Jesus, Doctor Ellard, how could ye say such a terrible thing?” For emphasis, she poked him in the center of his chest.

  Her hair was dry now, as bright a fiery red as the temper which flared gold in her large brown eyes. Her spirit warmed his heart. She was so unlike the mother his grandfather had told him about, so unlike any woman he knew. He shouldn’t want her, but he did, even though she’d called him cold. Maybe if he smiled.

  “And ye have the nerve to be laughing about it?”

  “I am not laughing.”

  “The corners o’ yer mouth be turned up.”

  “When I laugh, Mrs. McBride, you will know it.”

  “Then why would ye say such a thing?”

  “While I do admit I may have begun badly, you did not allow me to finish.”

  She crossed her arms. She was probably mad, and cold, but for a moment he missed watching her bosom rise and fall with each angry breath.

  “What then did ye intend to say?”

  “I want to know your intentions with the major.”

  “My intentions? My intentions are none o’ yer concern.”

  He sighed not knowing how to explain himself without making the hole he stood in any deeper.

  “I was there, Mrs. McBride, at Fredericksburg. I remember Major Carlton. He pleaded with the other doctors not to take his leg. They consulted with me, and when I saw the damage, I made the decision. He begged me not to make him half a man, but I wouldn’t change my mind. He hates me for it, but I…”

  He sighed and gave himself a mental shake.

  “Don’t lead him on, Mrs. McBride.”

  She stared up at him, her lips temptingly parted for speech, though she uttered no words. Her brow furrowed in thought as if he were some sort of puzzle, more challenging to solve than she originally believed.

  Gradually her expression softened, and for a moment he thought she saw beyond his rank, beyond his profession, to him, Charles Ellard, the man.

  “I won’t,” she said, then turned away.

  “Wait.” Of its own volition his hand reached out and grabbed her arm.

  She swung around.

  Their gazes collided. Her brown eyes widened with surprise.

  He wanted her, in his arms, in his life, but this war left no time for dancing, for Sunday carriage rides, and summer picnics. So he stepped close, and wrapping his hands around her upper arms, he leaned down and kissed her.

  As she had the other day, she kissed him back, slipping her hands to his waist, absorbing his aggressive assault. He didn’t temper himself for fear of overwhelming her. She was strong enough to match him, to take from him as he took from her. She was warm, and alive, and tender, and he needed her. But the moments of pleasure, the synchronized rhythm of breath and tongues didn’t last.

  Her hands slipped between their bodies, and she pushed against the front of his coat.

  Reluctantly, he stepped back.

  “Ye can be as arrogant as an English landlord, Doctor Ellard.” Her reddened lips pursed in disapproval. “’Tis flattered, I am by yer attention, but I fear I may be leading ye on by allowing ye to kiss me. Me husband has been dead now these three years, and there be times this woman’s body does ache for what we shared.

  “Ye be a fine man, but if ever I decide to accept the suit of another, ’twill be someone of a more gentle nature, prone to laughter and compassion, who sees me as more than a woman to clean his house and bear his children.”

  Mercifully, her voice trailed off. He squared his shoulders. “Do forgive me, Mrs. McBride, for taking such liberties. I’ll not impose on you again.”

  He stepped past her and strode to the general office, managing not to glance back even once. He’d be early for his meeting, but he would not return to the ward.

  He stomped off his boots the best he could on the plank walkway then entered and removing his hat, walked straight to the desk he’d occupied on Saturday.

  “Captain Ellard to see Major Bliss.”

  The Officer-of-the-Day, Major Fenton, glanced at the appointment book and nodded to the orderly. “Corporal, go tell Major Bliss, Captain Ellard is here.”

  “Yes, sir.” He walked past and returned a minute later.

  “The major said to go on in, sir.”

  Without a word, Charles stepped into the hall and after a cursory knock on the door, turned the knob and entered the office of the surgeon in charge of the hospital.

  “Have a seat, Captain.” Major Bliss gestured toward one of the leather chairs in front of his desk.

  Charles sat and crossed his legs.

  Major Bliss rested his forearms on the surface of the desk and leaned forward. “I think you know why I called you in here today.”

  “Yes, sir.” While Charles wasn’t positive of the reason, he’d made an educated guess.

  Major Bliss picked up a sheet of paper and extended it toward Charles. “Having personally witnessed this incident between you and Medical Cadet Emerson in Ward E on Sunday past, I will concede that Emerson, behaved in a manner unbecoming both a medical professional and a gentleman.”

  Charles reached for the paper and gave it a quick read.

  “However,” Bliss continued. “This is a military hospital, Captain. You are an officer. You cannot vent your frustration in front of the patients like an Irish rabble-rouser at the corner pub. Emerson does have cause to press this assault charge against you.”

  Charles leaned forward and set the page on the desk.

  “Despite your attack on that officer after Fredericksburg, I expect better of you, Captain.” The major lifted the paper and glanced over the report. With the backs of his fingers, he stroked his dark sideburns which stopped just short of his chin.

  “You are as bold and rapid an operative surgeon as any I’ve seen. Your record shows you to be conservative in your treatments and seldom mistaken in your diagnosis. Therefore, I’ve decided this report ends here, at my desk. To send a surgeon of your caliber to Old Capitol Prison is in my opinion the greater crime.”

  He set down the report, and Charles met his steady gaze across the width of the desk.

 
“Thank you, sir,” he replied, watching as Major Bliss picked up his pen and quickly scratched something across the bottom.

  When he finished he opened his desk drawer, slipped the paper inside, and withdrew another, neatly folded into an oblong tri-fold. He slid it across the oak surface to Charles.

  That the writing had been so discreetly hidden caused a frisson of unease to quicken his heartbeat.

  “I believe a man of your bold temperament is better suited to the duties of a field surgeon…”

  Slowly Charles opened the sheet of paper, recognizing immediately the military letterhead. Feeling strangely detached, he skimmed over the page, certain phrases capturing his attention.

  Assistant Surgeon, Captain Charles P. Ellard, 69th Pennsylvania…assigned temporary duty…Armory Square Hospital at Washington, D.C.…hearby directed to report for duty on April 1st to Major Curtis Bannister, 69th Pennsylvania, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, 2nd Corps, at Falmouth, VA…

  “…and I’m sure you will be much happier once you report back to your regiment.”

  With steady hands Charles refolded the orders and slipped them inside his uniform, his body too numb for his fingers to even quiver at the news.

  “I trust there will be no more outbursts during this last week of your service here.” Major Bliss pushed back his chair and rose.

  Charles came to his feet.

  “And if I may offer a bit of advice,” Major Bliss tempered his words with a quick smile. “A friendlier manner and less of an inclination to put people on report, might take you a little further in life. These are dark times. Don’t alienate those who stand beside you.”

  Charles gave him a curt nod then strode from the office, strode down the hall, around the corner to his quarters. Though tempted to slam his door, years of lectures on gentlemanly conduct won out. He closed the door with a soft click, draped his hat and coat across his desk, and opened his trunk. Shoving aside The Army Surgeon’s Manual and Elements of General Pathology, his fingers brushed the neck of the bottle he’d been hunting for. He wiggled free the cork and downed a healthy swallow of whiskey.

  He would be fine. He responded to that foolish thought with a derisive snort.

  He took another drink and returned the bottle to his trunk. With a shaky sigh, he stretched out on his bed, stacked his hands behind his head, and stared blankly at the whitewashed rafters.

  Seven damn days.

  ****

  “Ma’am, are these the newspapers and books?” Robbie asked setting a large crate beside Gracie’s table.

  She glanced across the ward from where she collected Gilbert’s few personal effects. “Aye, the newspapers be going to Ward K and the books to F. Maybe ye best make two trips. I do not want ye straining yer arm.”

  “It ain’t heavy,” Robbie maintained as he lifted the crate again. “’Sides, it ain’t far. I’m only goin’ over one.” He started toward the door.

  She called after him, “And Nurse Sarah will have books to trade for those.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” his voice drifted back.

  She would miss Robbie. With a sad sigh she checked over Gilbert’s area one more time. The puzzle she’d played with last evening still sat on the small table between the beds. She picked it up.

  Both wooden discs now hung from the same loop of cord. The cord fed through a hole in the center of the wooden yoke. Someone had solved the puzzle during the night. Assuming they hadn’t untied and retied the cord, how in the world had they moved that disc? Had Gleason, the night orderly, solved it? Major Carlton?

  For the next several minutes, she pulled and turned and flipped the cord, trying to get the disc back on the original loop.

  Frustrated, she dropped it into her pocket, intending to return it to the cupboard. Then gathering Gilbert’s hair brush, the last letter she’d written to his mother, and the drumsticks he’d been so proud of, she headed to the knapsack room where every patient’s belongings were wrapped, tagged, and stored.

  She’d send the drumsticks with a new letter to the boy’s mother in the morning mail, expressing her deepest condolences and asking if she wanted to come to Washington to claim her son’s body or make arrangements to have him sent home.

  Keeping her words properly sympathetic had been more difficult than Gracie expected, for what she wanted to do was rail at the woman for allowing her son to march off to war.

  Gilbert suffered no longer, and Gracie could almost imagine Callum, Michael, and William greeting the drummer boy at the Pearly Gates, welcoming him into Heaven with a pat on the back, a good joke, and a pint raised in salute.

  Robbie returned with new books to pass around, and Gracie found herself reading aloud to him and a half a dozen patients. The high seas adventure, Two Years Before the Mast, was so engrossing she hardly noticed how quickly the afternoon flew by until her voice grew too scratchy to continue.

  She closed the book and checked her watch. Nearly five o’clock, time to begin her evening medication pass. She set the book on her table and unlocked the medicine chest. The steward who had been assigned the medication duty had had difficulty adding and subtracting the fractions necessary to correctly calculate the doses. When Gracie offered to assume the medication duty, he’d gladly surrendered the key.

  Doctor Ellard had been oddly absent all afternoon. She worried that she’d been to blunt and had hurt his feelings. He did seem to be the sort of man who preferred to deal with things in a straightforward manner. However, in looking back she may have said those things more to remind herself of the reasons Doctor Ellard would not suit.

  While he had been shockingly forward in presuming to kiss her, she never should have kissed him back. Her behavior had been improper and had undoubtedly led him to believe she returned his affections.

  There was no doubt she was attracted to him physically, but it was just as she’d told him. She missed William, the way he used to come up behind her, hook his arm around her, and kiss the side of her neck. She missed lying beside him, wrapped in his arms while they whispered and laughed together in the night. And she missed the taste of him, the tingle of his callused hands sliding over her flesh, and that sense of completeness when she held him inside her as they made love.

  A sigh escaped her lips, and a smile tugged them up at the corners.

  Doctor Ellard’s kisses were nothing like William’s. They were a full-on assault to her senses, and while they stirred a dormant need inside her, after sharing two of them she wondered if the man even knew how to be gentle, if he knew anything of consideration, of giving instead of taking.

  While she knew his views on the place of women in this war were no different from that of every other man and even many women, for some reason she’d foolishly expected more from him.

  What she’d had with William had been special. He treated her as an equal at home, in bed, and in his practice. He’d been her best friend, and she knew now she would never have that with another man.

  At least she felt closer to William here. The great ache in the center of her chest didn’t hurt as much among the patient cards and bandages. And while she no longer expected him to walk through the door, as she did when she was home, at least here she had the feeling that William was proud of her, that he was happy she was using the knowledge and skills he’d taught her.

  She stopped at bed twenty-four and smiled at the blond man lying there. Corporal Nathan Bennett, camp fever. “How are ye feeling, tonight?”

  “Better, ma’am.”

  “Less pain?”

  He nodded.

  She checked his forehead. “Ye seem a bit cooler.” Still, she gave him the ordered opium pill and replaced his cold compresses. “And be sure ye eat a bit o’ something tonight.”

  With a smile, she gave his shoulder a pat and moved on with her medicines.

  Camp fever and dysentery seemed to be the most common diseases of the patients in her ward. While she’d yet to experience the flood of wounded after a battle, she heard about the chaos from hos
pital stewards, orderlies, and the male nurses that still remained.

  “Ma’am,” Robbie called out as he hurried up to the bed where she was changing the dressing of a patient with an inflammation of the hand. “Ya gotta come.”

  Instead of seeing the usual exuberant boy, at this moment, Gracie caught a glimpse of Robbie the man, his grim expression every bit as intense as Doctor Ellard’s.

  She shoved the bandages into her pocket, locked the medicine chest, and hastened down the wide aisle beside him.

  “It’s Uncle Mark, ma’am, he cain’t breathe. It’s bad, it’s real bad.”

  Robbie’s uncle, Sergeant Mark Baker had arrived on Saturday afternoon with a high fever and suffering from quinsy.

  Now each wheezy gasp for breath could be heard before they reached his bed. “Go find a doctor,” she whispered urgently. “Then fetch Doctor Ellard. Hurry.”

  “Yes’um,” Robbie replied and dashed toward the door.

  Gracie stepped up beside the sergeant’s bed. His whole body seemed to rise and fall as he struggled to find air. She reached toward him, intending to brush the hair from his forehead in a comforting gesture that had become automatic. Instead his broad hand grabbed onto hers and squeezed with the desperation of a drowning man.

  She met his gaze, his eyes wide and terrified. Her heart raced. He was dying and looking to her for help. What to do? What to do?

  Leaning over, she lay her hand against his bristly cheek and forced what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Ye’ll be fine. The doctor’s coming.” Though the man was older than Doctor Ellard, she talked to him in the same low, soothing tones she’d used with Gilbert, as she loosened the first few buttons of his shirt.

  “Now, let go o’ me hand. I need to grab ye an extra pillow.”

  Carefully, she pried loose from his grip. Reaching behind his head with both hands, she yanked up the mattress frame, pulling against the sergeant’s weight to raise the head of the bed upright and lock the bar in place. Turning, she grabbed pillows from the closest beds. Around her, the growing crowd of ambulatory patients had formed a semicircle.

  She slipped her arm beneath the sergeant’s shoulders and jammed in the pillows to support him fully upright.