A Distant Shore by Kate Hewitt Read Free Book Online

understand. He even wished he could feel differently. Yet he knew he couldn’t, and he doubted he ever would.
    His concerns about Caroline and her inheritance were momentarily pushed aside when Ian arrived in Hartford. He hired a hansom to take him to Horace Wells’s dental practice, already anticipating the rousing discussions they would have, the experiments they might perform. He had been collaborating with Wells for several years, and they had progressed from using the ether on small animals to using it on themselves, with undeniable success. Ian had performed a minor surgery on Wells’s arm while the man had been under the influence of ether, and Wells claimed he hadn’t felt a thing! It was miraculous, and the possibilities it opened up for surgeries were breathtaking. For a surgeon not to have to be as quick as he possibly could… to have the unimaginable luxury of taking his time…
    The goal, of course, was for ether to be accepted by the medical community at large, and used in regular surgeries. Unfortunately, based on the loud opinions of some of Ian’s older colleagues, he bleakly wondered how, or even if, it would ever come to pass.
    Wells was in a fever of excitement as Ian arrived. “Take your coat off, man, and come right into the examining room,” he bid Ian, shoving aside stacks of dusty books and piles of papers. Ian stepped gingerly amid the detritus, surprised and a bit alarmed by the way Wells’s house had descended into dust and dirt in the months since he had last been there. Admittedly, as a single man, Wells had never been the most tidy of gentlemen, yet Ian recalled that he had still employed a rather dour woman to do the scouring and cooking several times a week. If the state of the sitting room was anything to go by, she had not been in attendance for some time.
    In just his shirtsleeves, Ian came into the examining room. It, at least, was in a better state than the sitting room, although he noticed a crumb-scattered plate and a dirty glass pushed to the side.
    When had he become so fastidious, Ian wondered, even as he acknowledged that the state of Wells’s house did not alarm him as much as the feverish glitter in the man’s eyes. Together they were most unsettling, but perhaps Wells was simply excited by the possibilities ether presented, just as he was.
    “I’ve been experimenting on myself, of course,” Wells began, and Ian’s eyebrows rose.
    “Have you? Without an assistant? I thought we had agreed—”
    “I had no choice. You have been kept busy with your own affairs in Boston—”
    Ian did not know if he was imagining the slight note of scornful accusation in his colleague’s voice. “I have a profession to maintain,” he said stiffly. “As do you.” He glanced once more around the room. “Have you seen many patients?”
    Wells shrugged impatiently. “What are you, my keeper? There are more important things to attend to.”
    “I agree the research is paramount,” Ian said after a moment. He felt a deep and growing unease at the state of his colleague. He had always found Wells a bit reckless; it was what had given the man the boldness to start his experiments with ether. “But, Wells, man, we both have professional obligations—”
    “Well, we can certainly make use of your professional status,” Wells interrupted, his tone turning sharp.
    Ian raised his eyebrows. “Indeed?”
    “It’s time you earned your place at the table,” Wells continued and Ian stiffened in affront.
    “The only way for the use of ether to be accepted by the medical community is to perform an experiment in public.” Wells paused, his face flushed, his mouth twisted in something like a sneer. “And what better place than the operating theatre of the Massachusetts General Hospital?”
    Ian stared, excitement and trepidation warring within him. He agreed with Wells in principle, but the reality was that attempting to arrange such an experiment could cost him his position—and thus