An Officer but No Gentleman(23)

She cupped her chin as if deep in thought. “Aye, I’m finished,” she vexed, but got no reaction from him. He may be gorgeous, but he had no sense of humor. The corner of her mouth tugged upwards.



His brow furrowed. Perhaps because this young man was not a member of his crew, he felt he could act familiarly. Nobody ever joked with Jaxon. Nobody. Ever.

Jaxon knew he was too serious by nature, his mood nearly always dark as pitch since that fateful day many years ago. He allowed it without challenge.

“How are my men?”

Charlie sobered instantly. All semblance of humor erased from her countenance as she made her report. “Of the five I treated, four will soon return to duty. The other, I’m afraid, I could do nothing, but ease his pain before he passed. Jimmy, I believe his name was.”

“My cousin,” Jaxon said, quietly.

“I’m sorry. His injuries were beyond my scope of medicine. I only trained to assist our doctor. The British shanghaied….”

Jaxon interrupted her before she could tell him it was earlier in the day when they encountered the warship. “No one could have saved Jimmy.”

He turned to face her and she suddenly realized he held a blood-soaked cloth to his side. “You’re injured?”

He shrugged. “It’s just a flesh wound, but I can’t get it to stop bleeding.”

“Let me take a look,” Charlie said approaching him. “Take off your shirt.”

From the looks of his clothing and the blood-soaked rag, Charlie realized the ship’s captain had lost quite a bit of blood. He handed her the cloth and gingerly stripped to the waist.

Jaxon may have made light of it, but it was more than a flesh wound. “I caught some shrapnel when Jimmy’s gun misfired. The metal was protruding, so I pulled it out.”

She grabbed a lantern from its wall bracket and lengthened the wick. Instantly, the flame glowed brighter, flickering off the planes of his muscles, showing every ragged scar that had torn through his flesh. She more closely examined his wound. Quickly, she retrieved what she needed from the doctor’s bag.

“Do you have clean towels? I want you to lie down on your bunk so I can stitch you up.”

He pointed toward one of the built in lockers and he sat on the edge of the bunk until she retrieved the towels. She left them folded and placed one on the bed directly below the wound as she helped him lie down. The other she rolled up and placed it against his side.

“This is going to be unpleasant,” she said. “Would you like some laudanum or morphine before I start?”

“No.”

“Alcohol?”

“No,” he said gruffly. “Can’t you just cauterize it? Wouldn’t that be faster?”

“It would also be much more painful.”

She took a deep breath to calm her nerves when she realized her hands trembled. What was wrong with her? She didn’t shake like this when she treated the others. Maybe she was the one who could use the drink. Taking a deep breath, she threaded the needle with catgut and set it aside until she was ready for it. She pulled the wound apart looking for any foreign particles or dirt that might be inside.

“I see the problem. You’ve severed a small blood vessel.” Carefully, she tied off the bleeding end with catgut then washed out the wound with water, then began sewing the wound closed.

He flinched with every stitch. “You do that like a real blood-letter,” he bit out. “It’s every bit as painful.”

Her eyes met his momentarily before returning to her task. “I offered you laudanum.”

“I prefer not to take opium or drink for that matter.” He had no intention of telling the young second officer about how he lost himself in opium and drink while recovering from his previous injuries. The struggle to get back to being clear-headed was long and painful and one he didn’t care to repeat. “You said you learned this from a doctor?” he said not really wanting to talk, but needing a distraction from the needle invading his flesh repeatedly.

“When I was thirteen, Dr. Kirk caught me looking at his anatomy books and thought I was showing an interest in medicine.”

“But, in truth you were just a snot-nosed kid trying to figure out the differences between boys and girls.”

Charlie could feel the heat in her face. She had been trying to understand her menses and was too embarrassed to ask. “Aye, something like that,” she said. “The next thing I know, I’m helping him set bones and make poultices and eventually assist in surgeries—a regular loblolly boy.”

“But you’re the second mate not the surgeon’s mate?” Jaxon prompted, the conversation distracting him from his pain.