“You’re not going to die,” Gabriel said shortly.
“I still haven’t found a printer,” Pandora fretted.
“What?” he asked, thinking she was delirious.
“This might delay my production schedule. My board game. Christmas.”
Winterborne, who was sitting with Helen in the opposite seat, interrupted gently. “There’s still time for that, bychan. Don’t worry about your game.”
Pandora relaxed and subsided, her fist closing in a fold of Gabriel’s shirt like a baby’s.
Winterborne glanced at Gabriel, seeming to want to ask something.
On the pretext of smoothing Pandora’s hair, Gabriel settled his palm gently over her good ear, and gave the other man a questioning glance.
“Was the blood spurting?” Winterborne asked softly. “As if in time to a heartbeat?”
Gabriel shook his head.
Winterborne relaxed only marginally, rubbing the lower half of his jaw.
Removing the hand from Pandora’s ear, Gabriel continued to stroke her hair, and saw that her eyes had closed. He propped her up slightly higher. “Darling, don’t go to sleep.”
“I’m cold,” she said plaintively. “And my shoulder hurts, and Helen’s carriage is lumpy.” She made a pained sound as the vehicle turned a corner and jolted.
“We’ve just turned onto Cork Street,” he said, kissing her cool, damp forehead. “I’m going to carry you inside, and they’ll give you some morphine.”
The carriage stopped. As Gabriel lifted Pandora with care and brought her into the building, she felt terrifyingly light in his arms, as if her bones were hollow like a bird’s. Her head rested on his shoulder, rolling slightly as he walked. He wanted to pour his own strength into her, fill her veins with his blood. He wanted to beg, bribe, threaten, hurt someone.
The interior of the building had recently been renovated, with a well-ventilated and brightly lit entrance. They went through a set of self-closing doors to a large block of rooms identified with neatly lettered signs, including an infirmary, a dispensary, administrative offices, consulting and examination rooms, and an operating room at the end of a long corridor.
Gabriel had already been aware that Winterborne employed two full-time physicians for the benefit of the hundreds of men and women who worked for him. However, the best doctors usually attended upper-class patients, whereas the middle and working class had to make do with practitioners of lesser talent. Gabriel had vaguely envisioned a set of shabby offices and a mediocre surgery, occupied by a pair of indifferent physicians. He should have known that Winterborne would have spared no expense in building an advanced medical facility.
They were met in the surgery lobby by a middle-aged physician with a shock of white hair, a broad brow, penetrating eyes, and a handsomely craggy face. He looked exactly how a surgeon should look, capable and dignified, with decades’ worth of knowledge earned by vast experience.
“St. Vincent,” Winterborne said, “this is Doctor Havelock.”
A slender brown-haired nurse strode briskly into the lobby area, waving away Winterborne’s attempt at introductions. She was dressed in a divided skirt and wore the same kind of white linen surgeon’s gown and cap as Havelock. Her face was young and clean-scrubbed, her green eyes sharp and assessing.
“My lord,” she said to Gabriel without preamble, “please bring Lady St. Vincent this way.”
He followed her into an examination room, which was brilliantly lit with surgical lamps and reflectors. It was also immaculately clean, the walls lined with glass plates, the floor paved with glazed tiles and scored with gutters to divert liquid. Chemicals scented the air: carbolic acid, distilled alcohol, and a hint of benzene. Gabriel’s gaze swept across an assortment of metal vessels and apparatus for steam sterilizing, tables bearing washbasins and trays of instruments, and a stoneware sink.
“My wife is in pain,” he said curtly, glancing over his shoulder and wondering why the doctor hadn’t accompanied them.
“I’ve already prepared a hypodermic of morphine,” the nurse replied. “Has she eaten during the past four hours?”
“No.”
“Excellent. Lay her gently on the table, please.”
Her voice was clear and decisive. It grated a bit, her authoritative manner, the surgeon’s cap, the way she seemed to be posturing as a doctor.
Although Pandora had compressed her lips tightly, a whimper broke from her as Gabriel settled her onto the leather table. It had been constructed with moveable framework, and was positioned to elevate the upper body slightly. The nurse whisked away the coat draped over Pandora’s blood-soaked white lace bodice and covered her with a flannel blanket.
“Oh, hello,” Pandora said faintly, drawing in quick, reedy breaths and looking up at the woman with dull, pain-hazed eyes.
Smiling briefly, the nurse took up Pandora’s wrist and checked her pulse. “When I invited you to tour the new surgery,” she murmured, “I didn’t necessarily mean as a patient.”
Pandora’s dry lips quirked as the woman noted the dilation of her eyes. “You’ll have to patch me up,” she said.
“I certainly will.”
“You know each other?” Gabriel asked, puzzled.
“Indeed, my lord. I’m a friend of the family.” The nurse picked up a contraption with an earplate, a flexible silk-covered tube, and a trumpet-shaped wooden piece. Lifting one end to her ear, she applied the other end to various places on Pandora’s chest and listened intently.
Increasingly perturbed, Gabriel glanced at the door, wondering where Dr. Havelock was.
The nurse reached for a swab of cotton, dampened it with solution from a small bottle, and cleaned a patch of skin on Pandora’s left arm. Turning to a tray of instruments, she picked up a glass syringe fitted with a hollow needle. She tilted the needle upward and depressed the piston to drive the air out of the chamber.
“Have you had an injection before?” she asked Pandora gently.
“No.” Pandora’s free hand crept toward Gabriel, and he engulfed her cold fingers in his.
“You’ll feel a sting,” the nurse said, “but it will be brief. Then you’ll feel a wave of warmth, and all the pain will vanish.”
As she searched for a vein in Pandora’s arm, Gabriel asked abruptly, “Shouldn’t the doctor be doing that?”
The nurse delayed answering, having already inserted the needle. She depressed the plunger slowly, while Pandora’s fingers tightened on Gabriel’s. He watched her face helplessly, and he fought to keep himself calm and steady, when everything inside was imploding. Everything that mattered was encompassed in this frail body on the leather table. He saw the morphine take effect, her limbs relaxing, the strain easing from around her eyes and mouth. Thank God.
Setting aside the empty hypodermic, the young woman said, “I’m Dr. Garrett Gibson. I’m a fully licensed physician, trained by Sir Joseph Lister in his antiseptic method. In fact, I assisted him in surgeries at the Sorbonne.”
Caught thoroughly off guard, Gabriel asked, “A female physician?”
She looked wry. “The only certified one in England so far. The British medical association has done its best to ensure that no other woman will follow in my footsteps.”
Gabriel didn’t want her assisting Havelock. There was no way of knowing what to expect of a female physician in the operating room, and he didn’t want anything unusual or outlandish connected with his wife’s surgery. He wanted steady, experienced male doctors. He wanted everything to be conventional and safe and normal.
“I want to talk to Havelock before the surgery proceeds,” he said.
Dr. Gibson didn’t seem at all surprised. “Of course,” she replied evenly. “But I would ask that you delay the conversation until after we’ve assessed Lady St. Vincent’s condition.”
Dr. Havelock entered the room and approached the examination table. “The nurse arrived and is washing up,” he murmured to Dr. Gibson, and turned to Gabriel. “My lord, there is a sea
ting area beside the operating room. While you wait there with the Winterbornes, we’ll have a look at this young lady’s shoulder.”
After pressing a kiss to Pandora’s chilled fingers and giving her a reassuring smile, Gabriel left the examination room.
Finding the waiting area, he strode to where Winterborne was seated. Lady Helen was nowhere in sight.
“A female physician?” Gabriel demanded with a scowl.
Winterborne looked faintly apologetic. “I didn’t think to warn you about that. But I can vouch for her—she oversaw Helen’s childbirth and lying-in.”
“That’s a far different matter than surgery,” Gabriel said curtly.
“There have been female physicians in America for over twenty years,” Winterborne pointed out.
“I don’t give a damn what they do in America. I want Pandora to have the best possible medical treatment.”
“Lister has said publicly that Dr. Gibson is one of the best surgeons he’s ever trained.”
Gabriel shook his head. “If I’m to put Pandora’s life into strangers’ hands, it has to be someone with experience. Not a woman who barely looks old enough to be out of the schoolroom. I don’t want her assisting in the surgery.”
Winterborne parted his lips to argue, then appeared to think better of it. “I would probably have similar thoughts, were I in your place,” he admitted. “The idea of a female physician takes some getting used to.”
Gabriel sat heavily in a nearby chair. He became aware of a fine vibration running through his limbs, a constant hum of nervous tension.
Lady Helen entered the waiting room with a small, folded white towel. The cloth was damp and steaming. Wordlessly she approached Gabriel and wiped his cheek and lower jaw. When the cloth came away he saw that it was smudged with blood. Lifting his hands by turn, she began to clean the bloodstains from the creases of his knuckles and between his fingers. He hadn’t even noticed that. He began to take the cloth from her to do it himself, but her grip tightened on it.
“Please,” Helen said quietly. “I need to do something for someone.”
He relaxed and let her continue. By the time she’d finished, Dr. Havelock had entered the waiting area. Gabriel stood, his heart pounding with anxiety.
The physician looked grave. “My lord, upon examining Lady St. Vincent with a stethoscope, we detected a rushing noise at the site of the injury, which indicates the forcible ejection of arterial blood. The subclavian artery has been nicked or partially severed. If we try to repair the laceration, there’s a risk of life-threatening complications. Therefore, the safest solution is to tie it off with a double ligature. I will assist Dr. Gibson in the process, which could possibly take as long as two hours. In the meantime—”
“Wait,” Gabriel said warily. “You mean Dr. Gibson will assist you.”
“No, my lord. Dr. Gibson will be performing the surgery. She is versed in the newest and most advanced techniques.”
“I want you to do it.”
“My lord, there are very few surgeons in England who would attempt this operation. I am not one of them. Lady St. Vincent’s damaged artery is deeply placed and partially covered by the clavicle bone. The entire area of operation is perhaps an inch and a half wide. Saving your wife will be a matter of millimeters. Dr. Gibson is a meticulous surgeon. Cool-headed. Her hands are steady, thin, and sensitive—perfect for delicate procedures such as this. Furthermore, she has been trained in modern antiseptic surgery, which makes the ligature of major arteries far less dangerous than in the past.”
“I want a second opinion.”
The physician nodded calmly, but his gaze was piercing. “We’ll make the facilities available to anyone you choose, and assist in any way we can. But you had better fetch him quickly. I know of only a half-dozen cases in the past thirty years with an injury similar to Lady St. Vincent’s that have ever made it to the operating table. She’s minutes away from heart failure.”
Every muscle coiled. Gabriel’s throat closed on a cry of anguish. He couldn’t accept what was happening.
But there was no choice. In a life that had been filled with infinite opportunities, possibilities, and alternatives than most human beings had ever been blessed with . . . there was no choice, now when it mattered most.
“Of the cases that made it to the operating table,” he asked hoarsely, “how many survived?”
Havelock averted his gaze as he replied. “The prognosis for such an injury is unfavorable. But Dr. Gibson will give your wife the best chance of pulling through.”
Which meant none.
Gabriel’s legs weren’t quite steady beneath him. For a moment he thought he might drop to his knees.
“Tell her to go ahead,” he managed to say.
“You consent to have Dr. Gibson perform the surgery?”
“Yes.”
Chapter 21
For the next two hours, Gabriel occupied a corner of the waiting area with his coat draped across his knees. He was silent and withdrawn, only distantly aware that Devon, Kathleen, and Cassandra had come to wait with him and the Winterbornes. Thankfully they seemed to understand that he didn’t want to be approached. The sound of their quiet voices was an irritant, as was Cassandra’s sniffling. He didn’t want emotion around him or he would crumble. Finding Pandora’s necklace in one of his coat pockets, he held the rust-smeared pearls in his hands, rolling them in his fingers. She’d lost so much blood. How long did it take for the human body to produce more?
He stared down at the tiled flooring, the same kind that had been in the examination room, except they’d installed gutters in there. The operating room must have them too. His mind kept returning helplessly to the thought of his wife unconscious on the operating table. A knife had pierced that smooth ivory flesh, and now more knives were being used to repair the damage.
He thought of those moments leading up to the stabbing, the unholy fury he’d felt upon seeing Nola with Pandora. He knew Nola well enough to be certain she’d said something poisonous to his wife. Was that going to be the last memory Pandora had of him? His hand tightened on the necklace until one of the strands broke, sending pearls scattering.
Gabriel sat unmoving while Kathleen and Helen bent to retrieve the pearls, and Cassandra went around the waiting area to pick up the strays.
“My lord,” he heard her say. She was standing in front of him, reaching out her cupped hands. “If you give them to me, I’ll make certain they’re cleaned and restrung.”
Reluctantly he let them slide into her hands. He made the mistake of glancing at her face, and started at the sight of her wet eyes, blue rimmed with black. Dear God, if Pandora died, he was never going to be able to see these people again. He wouldn’t be able to bear looking into those damned Ravenel eyes.
Standing, he left the waiting area and went to the hallway, setting his back against the wall.
In a few minutes, Devon came around the corner and approached him. Gabriel kept his head lowered. This man had entrusted him with Pandora’s safety, and he’d failed utterly. The guilt and shame was overpowering.
A silver flask was thrust into his field of vision. “My butler, in his infinite wisdom, handed this to me as I left the house.”
Gabriel took the flask, uncapped it, and took a swallow of brandy. Its smooth fire seared its way down and thawed his frozen insides a degree or two. “It’s my fault,” he eventually said. “I didn’t watch over her well enough.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Devon said. “No one could watch over Pandora every minute. You can’t keep her under lock and key.”
“If she lives through this, I’ll bloody well have to.” Gabriel broke off, his throat knotting, and he had to take another swallow of brandy before he could speak again. “We haven’t even been married for one blasted month, and she’s on an operating table.”
“St. Vincent . . .” Devon’s voice was edged with rueful amusement. “When I inherited the title, I wasn’t at all prepared to take responsibility for three in
nocent girls and an ill-tempered widow. They were always heading in different directions, acting on impulse, and landing themselves in trouble. I thought I’d never be able to control them. But then one day I realized something.”
“What was it?”
“That I’ll never be able to control them. They are who they are. All I can do is love them, and try my damnedest to keep them safe, even knowing it won’t always be possible.” Devon sounded wry. “Having a family has made me a happy man. It’s also robbed me of all peace of mind, probably forever. But on the whole . . . not a bad bargain.”
Gabriel recapped the flask and silently extended it to him.
“Keep it for now,” Devon said, “I’ll go back to wait with the others.”
Just before the end of the third hour, a hush fell over the waiting area, followed by a few quiet murmurs.
“Where is Lord St. Vincent?” he heard Dr. Gibson ask.
Gabriel’s head jerked up. He waited like a damned soul, watching the woman’s slim form appear from around the corner.
Dr. Gibson had removed the cap and surgeon’s gown. Her chestnut hair was confined in neat braids that went along the sides of her head and joined in a coil at the back, a tidy style vaguely reminiscent of a schoolgirl. Her green eyes were weary but alert. As she faced him, a faint smile broke through the layers of formidable self-possession.
“We’ve passed the first hurdle,” she said. “Your wife came through the operation in good condition.”
“Jesus,” he whispered. Covering his eyes with one hand, he cleared his throat and hardened his jaw against a rough tremor of emotion.
“I was able to reach the damaged portion of the artery without having to resection the clavicle,” Dr. Gibson continued. At his lack of response, she continued speaking, as if trying to allow him time to recover himself. “Rather than tie it off with silk or horsehair, I used specially treated catgut ligatures that are eventually absorbed into the tissues. They’re still in the late developmental stage, but I prefer to use them in special cases like this. No sutures will need to be removed later, which minimizes the risk of infection and hemorrhage.”