First Comes Scandal
Freddie muttered something under his breath. Nicholas could not fully make out the words, but it was enough for him to splash a little extra whiskey into the wound.
“You were saying about the cat?” Nicholas murmured.
Freddie glared up at him. “I am quite sure it did not bite, lick, spit, piss—”
“Done!” Georgie announced, expertly cutting Freddie off as she made her final snip with a flourish. She looked over at Nicholas. “Now what do we do?”
“If you would avert your eyes,” Thamesly said. He motioned wanly toward Freddie’s now bare chest.
“I can’t treat him if I can’t see him,” Georgie said.
“Mr. Rokesby is here to treat him.”
“And I am his assistant.” She gave Nicholas a rather fierce look. “I am your assistant, am I not?”
“Absolutely,” he said. And he meant it. She was doing a brilliant job. “We’ll need something to act as a splint.” Nicholas looked up at the two butlers. Thamesly was holding the lantern, so he directed his request to Wheelock. “Could you find a stick or something about yea-long?”
Wheelock squinted as he took in the measurement Nicholas had indicated with his hands. “Right away, sir.”
Nicholas turned back to his patient but spoke to Georgiana. “We need to set the bone before we splint it.”
“And how do we do that?”
“Move closer to his head,” Nicholas directed. “I need you to hold his upper arm. Firmly. It is vital that you keep him immobile. I’ll pull on the lower part of his arm to create traction. That will separate the ends of the bone so that I can fit them back into the proper alignment.”
She nodded. “I can do it.”
“Could one of them”—Freddie flicked his head toward the butlers—“hold my shoulder?”
“It’s Miss Bridgerton or no one,” Nicholas said sharply. “Your choice.”
Freddie hesitated a moment too long, so Nicholas said, “It’s a two-person job.”
It wasn’t, strictly speaking, but it was certainly easier with two people than one.
“Fine,” Freddie ground out. “Do your worst.”
“I should think you’d want our best,” Georgie quipped. She shot Nicholas an adorable little smile, and he realized—She’s enjoying this.
No, she was really enjoying it.
He smiled back.
“Are you ready?” he asked her.
She nodded.
He looked down at Freddie. “It’s going to hurt.”
“It already does.”
“It’s going to hurt worse. Do you want something to bite down on?”
“Don’t need it,” Freddie scoffed.
Nicholas brought his face closer to that of his patient. “Are you sure?”
“I … think so?” Freddie was starting to look concerned.
Nicholas turned back to Georgie. “Are you ready?”
She nodded eagerly.
“On the count of three. One, two—”
Oakes let out a bloodcurdling scream.
“We didn’t even do anything yet,” Nicholas said in disgust.
“It hurts.”
“Stop being such a baby,” Georgie said.
“If I didn’t know better,” Freddie said, “I’d think you were enjoying this.”
Georgie leaned in close, baring her teeth. “Oh, I am,” she said. “I am definitely enjoying this.”
“Bloodthirsty—”
“Don’t say it,” Nicholas warned.
“If it makes you feel better,” Georgie said to Freddie, “my enjoyment is primarily of an academic nature. It has very little to do with you.”
“Speak for yourself, Miss Georgiana,” came the voice of Thamesly. “I am enjoying Mr. Oakes’s pain and distress immensely.”
Wheelock’s head popped into view. “As am I.”
“The merry band of butlers,” Freddie muttered.
“Quite,” Wheelock said. “In fact, I would go so far to say that I am as merry as I have ever been.”
“Not such a difficult achievement,” Nicholas was compelled to point out. “You are not generally known for your merry countenance.”
Wheelock smiled, so broadly that Nicholas nearly flinched from the sight of it. “Good God,” he said, “I didn’t know you had so many teeth.”
“All thirty-two, sir,” Wheelock said, tapping against an incisor with his knuckle. “One does not need to attend medical school to understand the importance of good oral hygiene.”
“Can we get back to it?” Freddie asked, all piss and petulance.
“We haven’t even started,” Nicholas said. “You screamed last time before we could do anything.”
“Fine. I’ll take something to bite down on.”
Everyone paused and looked about.
“I have a stick,” Wheelock said. He held up a medium-sized twig. “I took the liberty of collecting it when I was looking for a splint. Which I also have.” He held up medium-thick stick, a few inches shorter than Oakes’s ulna. Nicholas nodded approvingly. It would be perfect.
Freddie jerked his head to indicate that he wanted the twig. Wheelock brought it to his mouth pointy-end first.
“Wheelock,” Nicholas scolded.
Wheelock sighed and made a great show of turning the twig the proper way. Oakes took it between his teeth and grunted for Nicholas to continue.
“Ready, Georgie?”
She nodded.
“One … Two … Three.”
There was a wrenching groan on the part of Freddie, but Nicholas got the bone into place on the first try. “Excellent,” he said to himself, checking the limb to be sure. “Splint?”
Wheelock handed him the stick.
“Can one of you rip his shirt in two? We’ll use one part for the stick and the other to fashion a sling.”
“I can cut it,” Georgie said.
“It’ll be quicker this way,” Nicholas told her. “I would have just torn it before, but I was concerned about jostling the break.”
“Oh. Good. I would hate to think all my work was for nothing. Or worse”—she paused to make a snip in the edge of the fabric to make it easier to rip—“that you were just giving me something to do for the sake of giving me something to do.”
“Not at all. You were indispensable.”
She beamed, and for a moment Nicholas stopped breathing. It was the dead of night, pitch black save for the lantern and the moon.
And her smile.
When Georgiana Bridgerton smiled like that, he wanted to reach into the sky and grab down the sun, just to hand it to her on a platter.
If only to prove that it did not compare.
“Nicholas?”
What was happening to him?
“Nicholas?”
This was Georgie, whom he’d never thought to marry. Georgie, who, when he did think to marry her, had said no.
Georgie, who—
“Sir!”
He blinked. Wheelock was glaring at him.
“Miss Bridgerton has called your name at least twice,” the butler said.
“Sorry,” Nicholas mumbled. “I was just … thinking …” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. What is it?”