Chapter Eleven

Laudanum was an excellent thing.

Marcus normally eschewed the drug, and indeed he had a feeling he had looked down upon those who used it, but now he was wondering if perhaps he owed them all an apology. Maybe an apology to the entire world. Because clearly he had never been in real pain before. Not like this.

It wasn’t so much the poking and snipping. One would think it would be painful to have bits of one’s body hacked away like a woodpecker jabbing at a tree trunk, but that actually wasn’t so bad. It hurt, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t bear.

No, what killed him (or at least felt like it) was when Lady Winstead took out the brandy. Every so often she would dump what had to have been a gallon of the stuff over his open, gaping wound. She could have set him on fire and it wouldn’t have hurt so much.

He was never drinking brandy again. Not unless it was the really good stuff. And even then, he would only do so on principle. Because it was the really good stuff.

Which needed to be drunk.

He thought about that for a moment. It had made sense when he’d first considered it. No, it still made sense. Didn’t it?

Whatever the case, sometime after Lady Winstead had poured what he dearly hoped was not the good brandy on his leg, they’d got a dose of laudanum down his throat, and really, he had to say—it was lovely. His leg still felt as if it were being slow-roasted on a spit, which most people would consider unpleasant, but after enduring Lady Winstead’s “care” without any anesthesia, he was finding it positively pleasant to be stabbed with a knife under the influence of an opiate.

Almost relaxing.

And beyond that, he felt rather unaccountably happy.

He smiled up at Honoria, or rather he smiled up at where he thought she might be; his eyelids had clearly been weighted down with rocks.

Actually, he only thought he smiled; his mouth felt rather heavy, too.

But he wanted to smile. He would have done, if he’d been able. Surely that had to be the most important thing.

The jabbing at his leg stopped for a bit, then started up again. Then there was a lovely, short pause, and then—

Damn, that hurt.

But not enough to cry out. Although he might have moaned. He wasn’t sure. They’d poured hot water on him. Lots of it. He wondered if they were trying to poach his leg.

Boiled meat. How terribly British of them.

He chuckled. He was funny. Who knew he was so funny?

“Oh, my God!” he heard Honoria yell. “What did I do to him?”

He laughed some more. Because she sounded ridiculous. Almost as if she were speaking through a foghorn. Oooorrrrrhhhh myyy Grrrrrrrrrd.