Doing No Harm by Carla Kelly Read Free Book Online Page A

would be better off leaving such a man,” Douglas said, unable to help himself.
    “He’s my husband,” was her quiet reply. She bent over Tommy awkwardly and kissed his forehead, and then went downstairs. When the door closed so quietly, Douglas felt his heart sink.
    Douglas didn’t even want to look at Miss Grant. “Sometimes I am ashamed of men,” he said, embarrassed.
    Miss Grant tidied Tommy’s bed, apparently not willing to look at him, either. “We keep hoping that Joe Tavish will catch his death some night …”
    “There’s no … no … squire or man of consequence to deal with someone such as that man?”
    “No laird,” she said. “Lady Mary Telford lives in that large manor near the old castle, but she is English and doesn’t concern herself with us.”
    She gave him a hopeful look. He knew he had to squelch any designs on her part. He was not the man to change things in Edgar. Useful as he might prove, he had no standing in a village such as this, where even useful new arrivals were probably considered foreigners forevermore.
    “Miss Grant, I have no intention of staying in Edgar any longer than to see Tommy on the mend,” Douglas announced, feeling remarkably foolish, for some reason. He had barked orders to pharmacist’s mates and other surgeons for years, but he felt painfully like an ungrateful idiot.
    To his relief, if not strictly balm in Gilead for his conscience, Miss Grant took his declaration in stride. “We are all grateful that you were here this day to save a little boy’s life,” she assured him.
    She had the cutest freckles, freckles all over her face and what he could see of her neck—little faded freckles that must have been much more pronounced when she was a child, but now a shade just this side of charming. Coupled with her heterochromia and deep red hair, she was a colorful woman. What was that word …
    “Ephilides!” he exclaimed. “It’s been nagging at me since I first saw you.”
    Tommy stirred. Miss Grant took Douglas by the arm and led him out to the landing. She stared at him and then gave him that patient look he had seen once in a great while, since he had never spent much time on land to observe the fair sex.
    “You’re so kind to suffer this fool gladly, Miss Grant. Ephilides is the scientific word for freckles.” I’ve done it again , he thought in desperation. Might as well blunder on so she will be glad to see me leave. “You have as charming a set of ephilides as I ever hope to see.” There. Call me an idiot to my face .
    To his amazement, she clapped her hands in delight. “Heterochromia and ephilides? Da always said that my eyes were evidence that God Almighty has a rollicking sense of humour. Mam told me that a host of angels kissed me and freckles are the result. It’s bricíní in Gaelic, by the way.”
    “You must think me an idiot,” he said in apology.
    “Since we are into plain speaking, I think you remarkably kind to help Tommy Tavish,” she said simply. “Certainly we wish you would stay, but Edgar isn’t for everyone.”
    “It’s for you, though?” he asked, grateful to have bumbled through his lack of manners, and in addition, be given an easy exit from the village.
    “I’m needed here, and it is my home. Now then, Mr. Bowden, will you be wanting to stay here tonight?”
    “If it isn’t too much trouble.”
    “Will the room across the hall do?”
    Her offer sounded sensible, except that a more martyr-like approach to Tommy Tavish’s care might further atone for his blunders. “Better I sleep in his room. He might be afraid if he wakes up alone.”
    “Very well, then,” she said. “I need to see to dinner. There are usually only a few pensioners, so it is mainly soup and bread.” She started down the stairs, so he followed. “I suggest you take a walk around my little village. As villages go, it is modest in the extreme, but there are some of us who love it.”
    He did as she suggested, shutting the door on Miss