Darkness

May 20, 1812

Samuel Duncan

I am awake well before dawn. No summons came for me during the night, for which I am grateful, but I want to start making the rounds of my patients. I will be evaluating which of them should be moved to Gregor’s sick ward Under-the-Hill.

Ben offers to help by going down to the boarding house extension to evaluate the situation for me. Gregor said that he would make arrangements for beds to hold the sick patients, and I want to find out how many are available. My mind is swirling with plans while I put my clothes on, deciding what supplies I should bring down there, how I want to arrange things, who I might ask to help if my two hands prove to be insufficient.

“Stop.”

I look up, startled. Ben is looking at me, a gentle smile on his face. “What?” I ask.

“The wheels in your head are spinning so fast I think I see smoke coming out of your ears.”

It makes me laugh.

“Come here,” he says, reaching out to pull me, half dressed, into his chest. And he is right. My head truly was spinning, and being here, pressed against him, grounds me, slows me, makes my jumbled thoughts settle down. I inhale his masculine scent, and lean my head against his neck, bending slightly to nuzzle under his ear. I know how sensitive he is there.

He clasps his hand to my head. In a minute, he asks, “Better?”

“Mmmm. Yes. Thank you, I needed that,” I tell him, feeling much calmer, ready to face the day. He kisses me very softly, then releases me so that we can both finish getting ready.

Ben

We leave together, but part at the bottom of the stairs. He heads into town to start making house calls, and I walk down the hill. The sky has lightened, but the sun has yet to make an appearance.

When I get to the boarding house extension, I’m not terribly surprised to see Gregor there already, looking over the arrangements for Sam to set up shop.

“Good morning, Ben,” he greets me quietly.

“Good morning. I’m here to check things out for Sam,” I explain. I normally don’t come down Under-the-Hill, now that I work in Gregor’s house and live up in town.

He nods. “Let me show you what we’ve set up.”

He leads me to the ground floor corridor off the parlor, where a hallway leads to ten rooms, with five on each side. “I figure that for now, we can use the downstairs rooms, I’m sure that will be the most convenient for the doctor. If necessary, we can start using the upstairs rooms as well, but they are the larger ones, designed for wealthy passengers. It might not really be conducive to efficient medical treatment. Down here the rooms are pretty basic.”

We peek into the doors of the rooms, and see that most of them are the same as the room that David and I used to share in the other boarding house, just a small chamber with two narrow beds.

“With these ten rooms, two beds each, we could house up to twenty patients,” he says, gazing into the first room. “We have beds made up for a dozen right now, but it would be easy to prepare the rest if necessary.”

I huff with dismay. “Do you really think there will be that many? There were just six yesterday.”

He shrugs. “There’s no way to know. Best to be ready, wouldn’t you say?”

We move back into the parlor. “Sam can use the parlor however he likes. There’s a back room here - ” he opens a door to show me a small room with little but a desk and some empty shelves - “which he can use as his office if he likes. We’ll have a couple of the boarding house staff here to man the kitchen, help with linens and the like.”

“Sounds like you’ve thought of everything,” I tell him, impressed.

“Hopefully,” he says. “I’m about to leave to go to Homochitto with the crew, but half a dozen men will stay to help with transporting patients, and to do whatever Samuel directs.” He gives me a sideways smile. “David is staying. And Polly will be here helping.”

Ha! Apparently Gregor knows about that too. How he manages to keep track of the budding romances in town, including mine, I have no idea, but it is so typical of Gregor. I have a flash of memory, of the gift of bedding that he left for Samuel and I in the little grove that used to be our own private sanctuary, and it makes me smile. I wonder if that stuff is still out there? I built a nice sturdy box for it, so maybe it would be intact. I haven’t been down to the grove in months. Hm. The weather is getting a lot warmer. Maybe when the yellow fever is finished, I’ll surprise Sam with a trip out there.

I realize that Gregor is looking at me with raised eyebrows and a smile as I daydream about this. I come back to reality, and tell him, “All right, thanks, I’ll tell all of this to Sam. Then I guess I’ll see you when you get back tonight.”

He claps his hand on my shoulder. “Thanks Ben.”

The crew has been gathering outside, wagons and horses being prepared, while we speak. As I leave to go back up the hill, I see David talking to Polly, so I go over to say hello. “Staying here to help with the patients, I hear?” I say.

“Yep.” He looks over at Polly. “Figured might as well make myself useful.” I try not to smirk. He obviously wants any excuse to stay close to her.

I can understand that. I tell him to have a good day, and climb the hill to find Sam so I can give him my report.