The Surgeon's Lady. Carla Kelly

his voice as quiet as hers. “She didn’t run, though. Maude, you’re sacked. Get out of here before the Marines come running and clap you in irons.”

      The woman wrenched herself free of the orderly and dropped to her knees. “My children will starve!” she cried.

      Laura took a deep breath and stepped deliberately in front of the bedraggled woman. “Don’t sack her.”

      “You can’t possibly think she should stay on here,” Lt. Brittle said, looking more puzzled than irritated, which gave Laura the courage to continue.

      “I certainly do not. She isn’t fit to watch kittens.” Laura gestured around her. “Does Stonehouse have a laundry? Put her there. Her man is dead at Basque Roads and she has children to feed. I will not have that on my conscience. I think you do not want that, either.”

      She had him there, and she knew it, as sure as she knew there was no reason for anyone in B Ward to offer any hope. As she looked the surgeon in the eye, and he returned her gaze just as emphatically, she thought of what Sir David Carew would do, or even what her own father would have done, had he been there to pass judgment on frailty.

      He was silent a long time. “I’m inclined to agree with you, Lady Taunton,” he said, then looked at the woman. “Maude, you should be horsewhipped and never employed at this hospital again.”

      The woman said nothing, only hung her head lower.

      Lt. Brittle turned to Davey Dabney, pale and watchful. “It’s your choice, Davey. No one in this room will fault you if you want her sacked.”

      Maude began to cry, lowering herself even closer to the floor as her tears fell on wood slimy with the seaman’s blood. I can’t watch this, Laura thought, even as she stood there, her hands tightly clasped together. This is worse than anything I endured today.

      “Send her to the laundry,” Davey said, his voice rough and barely audible above the woman’s sobs. “And my sheets better come back smooth like a baby’s bum or you’ll be out on yours.”