“What would you advise, then?”
Havelock regarded her for a long moment, his gaze kind in a way she didn’t like. “Make the poor fellow as comfortable as you can, and let him die in peace.”
The words were a slap in the face. “What?” Garrett asked dazedly. “No, I’m going to save him.”
“You can’t. Based on everything you’ve taught me about antiseptic medicine, this man is so contaminated, within and without, there’s no hope. Subjecting him to unnecessary surgery is folly and selfishness. If we did manage to delay his death for a day or so, he would go through unspeakable agony. His entire body would become riddled with sepsis until all his organs failed. I won’t have that on my conscience, and I don’t want it on yours.”
“Let me worry about my own conscience. Just help me, Havelock. I can’t do this by myself.”
“Operating when the medical facts don’t warrant it—when it will only cause the patient needless suffering—that is malpractice by any standard.”
“I don’t care,” Garrett said recklessly.
“You’ll care very much if this destroys your career. You know there are many who would leap at the chance to revoke your medical license. The first female physician in England, driven out of the profession because of scandal and misconduct . . . what would that do to the women who dream of following in your footsteps? What about the patients you’ll never be able to help in the future?”
“If I do nothing for this man, I’ll never be of any use to anyone,” Garrett burst out, trembling from the force of her emotions. “It would haunt me forever. I couldn’t live with the thought that there was a chance to save him but I didn’t take it. You don’t know him. If our positions were reversed, he would do anything for me. I have to fight for him. I have to.”
The older man stared at her as if he didn’t recognize her. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
“I’m thinking more clearly than I ever have in my life.”
“This is the man you met at Lord Tatham’s house last evening.”
Garrett flushed but held his gaze as she admitted, “He and I were already acquainted. He’s my . . . he’s . . . important to me.”
“I see.” Havelock was silent then, stroking his white whiskers, while precious seconds of Ethan’s life ticked away.
“Did you bring the transfuser?” Garrett burst out, impatient to decide on a course of action.
Havelock looked grim. “I’ve attempted blood transfusion on seven different occasions, and every case but one ended in shock, pain, and stroke or heart failure. No one has yet discovered why some blood is compatible and some isn’t. You haven’t seen what happens when the procedure fails. I have. Never again will I knowingly inflict such agony on a patient.”
“Did you bring it?” she persisted.
“I did,” he grated. “God help you and that poor wretch if you try to use it. Be honest, Dr. Gibson: Are you acting on behalf of your patient, or yourself?”
“Both of us! I’m doing it for both of us.”
She saw from his expression that it was the wrong answer.
“I can’t help you to do something against your own interests as well as his,” Havelock said. “This is madness, Garrett.”
He never used her first name.
As she stood there in stricken silence, he gave her a look that was somehow both pleading and stern, before departing the library.
“You’re leaving?” she asked in bewilderment.
He continued past the threshold without replying.
Garrett felt hollow and numb. Dr. William Havelock—her partner, advisor, supporter, and confidant, a man with the unfailing ability to discern right from wrong even in the most complex situations—had just walked out on her. He would take no part in what she was doing. Not because he was wrong, but because she was. He was sticking to his principles, whereas she . . .
She had no principles when it came to Ethan Ransom. She only loved him.
Shaken, despairing, she blinked against a burning wet blur. She was choking on her own breath.
Damn it, damn it, now she was crying.
Someone was standing at the doorway. It was West Ravenel, leaning a broad shoulder against the jamb, his gaze level and appraising. His blue eyes were startling against the sun-browned richness of his complexion.
Garrett lowered her head, swallowing repeatedly against the needling pain in her throat. She had no defenses left. He must have contempt for her, or pity, and either way, one word from him would destroy her.
“Go on and take a crack at it,” she heard Ravenel say casually. “I’ll help you.”
Her head bobbed upward. She stared at him, dumbfounded. It took her a moment to realize he was offering to assist with the surgery. After clearing her throat twice, the clenched muscles loosened enough for her to speak. “Do you have any medical training?”
“Not a bit. But I’ll do whatever you tell me.”
“Do you have any problems with the sight of blood?”
“Lord, no, I’m a farmer. I’m around blood all the time, both animal and human.”
Garrett regarded him dubiously, blotting her cheeks with the edge of her sleeve. “There’s that much blood involved in farming?”
Ravenel grinned. “I didn’t say I was any good at it.” The flash of his smile was so oddly like Ethan’s that Garrett felt a sharp pang in her chest. Tugging a handkerchief from inside his coat, he came forward to give it to her.
Mortified for him to have seen her crying, Garrett wiped her cheeks and eyes, and blew her nose. “How much did you hear?”
“Most of it. Sound carries all through this library.”
“Do you think Havelock was right?”
“About which part?”
“That I should make Mr. Ransom comfortable during his last few minutes on earth instead of torturing him with surgery?”
“No, you’ve already managed to ruin a moving deathbed scene. I couldn’t wait to hear what came after ‘your shadow on the ground is sunlight to me,’ but then you started giving orders like a drill sergeant. You might as well operate on Ransom: we won’t get any more good lines out of him tonight.”
Garrett stared at him with a bewildered frown. The man either didn’t know or didn’t care how inappropriate it was to joke in these circumstances. She suspected it was the latter. On the other hand, she found his cool insouciance rather reassuring. She sensed he could be a bit of a bastard when it suited him, not at all the kind who would fall apart under pressure, and at the moment, that was exactly what she needed.
“All right,” she said. “Go to the kitchen and wash the upper half of your body with carbolic soap and hot water. Make certain to scrub beneath your fingernails.” She looked down at his hands, which were elegantly long-fingered and scrupulously clean. The nails were pared nearly down to the quick, with only the thinnest possible white crescents showing.
“What should I wear?” Ravenel asked.
“A bleached linen or cotton shirt. Don’t touch anything afterward—especially not tables or doorknobs—and come back here directly.”
He gave her a short nod and strode away with a confident stride. His voice could be heard in the hallway. “Mrs. Abbot, I’m going to the kitchen to wash. You’ll want to warn the housemaids to shield their eyes from the sight of my manly torso.”