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“Aye.”
“You are left handed, then?”
“Aye.”
An exasperated exhale left her and she slumped slightly. “I am not about to escape this, am I?”
“No.”
Her left hand flitted in the air. “Let us get this done, then.”
“We can wait longer for the brandy to seep to your head.”
“I am fine.” She balanced the bottle of brandy on her skirts between her thighs and then tugged off her blue spencer, exposing the white muslin shirt layered beneath it. She curled her left forefinger under the rip of the sleeve in her shirt and yanked it downward. The muslin tore, ragged about her forearm, but fully exposing her arm and the wound to him.
An extreme, but efficient motion. He’d torn her jacket and shirt only slightly to look at the cut, thinking it could be re-sewn. She clearly had no such thoughts on the matter.
She held the bottle of brandy up to him.
He took it and sopped the linen folded in his hand with it before moving to her. Pressing the brandy-soaked cloth to her wound, he pulled the skin about the cut wide so the alcohol could trickle deep into the wound.
What should have caused an instant flinch of pain produced no more than a simple blink and a casual glance down at her arm.
One step back and Roe deposited the cloth on the desk and picked up the needle and thread.
He tied off one end of the thread as he moved back to Torrie, then dropped to his knees in front of her.
His focus on threading the needle, he attempted to ignore the scent of her. Vanilla with a tinge of citrus. The scent that had haunted him for years, ever since it had wafted into his cell at Newgate.
Thread secure in needle, he looked at her. “You are ready?”
She shifted her arm forward, settling her wrist and forearm solidly onto her lap. “I am.”
Roe set the tip of the needle to her skin, the point poking into her smooth flesh.
He never paused at this point, just forged forward before the injured could jerk away, but with Torrie, he faltered as the tip of the needle indented her skin.
“You do not need to worry on me.” Her words were calm, indifferent.
He pushed the point of the curved needle through her skin, angling it to the opposite side of the wound. It broke free and he tugged it through quickly, his breath held.
Not the slightest twitch from her. Not a quick breath. Not a sound.
He drove the needle through her skin again.
“You aren’t even flinching.”
Her stare set on the far corner of the cabin, she didn’t afford him the slightest glance. “I’m accustomed to pain.”
Another poke through her skin and he sealed the raw flesh further closed.
Not a blink from her.
“Too much pain, apparently.” He muttered the words as he sent the needle across the wound. Six more stitches and the angry red flesh disappeared.
Not his best work. Her skin would heal with a curve and a pucker at the end. But he’d never been unnerved like that, having to hold his fingers steady against shaking. In the years since Doctor Lewis had taught him how to set bones and sew wounds shut in the bowels of Newgate, he’d never once faltered in the steadiness of his hands.
Roe leaned back on his heels and stretched across the cabin to the desk, grabbing the brandy-soaked linen. He swiped it across the closed wound, wiping away the tapering fresh blood.
