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“Water!” Father stuttered, his face so red she feared he would have another fit. “Christ’s blood, my throat is on fire.”
Cavendish thumped him on the back. “Twas only a wee dram.”
Grandma poured some of the weak quarter ale into Father’s mug and pressed it into his hand.
“Drink this, ye foolish man.”
McCrae took to rocking his stool back and forth once again, balancing precariously on the stool’s rear legs. “A waste of good drink,” he said wiping the spume of liquor from his face with the back of his hand. He peered into Lucinda’s mug. “Speaking of waste, is that all you intend to have?”
“It is far too strong for me.”
“Tis barely touched. May I?” Smiling his most mischievous smile he reached for her mug, his large strong hands clamping over her fingers before she had surrendered her grip.
“Be my guest,” she said extricating her fingers, “but I would not rock on your stool like that.” The irony was lost on him as was her advice, for he was already downing the fire water as swiftly as he dispatched the first dram. As he did so he failed to factor in some basic mechanical principles. Once an upright, roughly cylindrical, object is tipped beyond a certain angle there is no way to stop the arc of declension. The backward tilt of his head initiated the motion, tipping the precariously positioned stool at a greater backward angle. With only one steadying hand anchored to the barrel (since the other hand clutched the mug), momentum inevitably took its course. The first loud crack was the back of the stool hitting the timber floor, the second crack, the back of McCrae’s head. A stunned silence then followed, everyone staring at the felled Scotsman who did not make a sound or even move. What if he was dead? Hardly an auspicious beginning to the so-called glorious venture.
McCrae lay flat on his back, feet caught up in the front rungs of the stool, leaving the stool stuck in place tucked beneath his large and powerful thighs. The ruff around his doublet floated upward covering the bottom of his face like an upside-down beard while his arms sprawled outwards, and his eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. Finally he let out a moan. By now the only sober people in the room were crouched either side of him on the floor.
“He’s cracked his head,” Grandma said with a tut, probing his skull gently with her fingers. “Too drunk to stick his hands out to save himself. Help me roll him onto his side.” Lucinda didn’t bother to remove the stool from behind his thighs but used it to help lever him over. By necessity she rolled McCrae toward her, so Grandma could further inspect the back of his head.
“A flesh wound as far as I can tell though it will need stitching up. Plenty of blood but no dents or depressions. He must have a hard head.”
Oh that he definitely did.
“A hard head like his mother. An inability to hold his liquor like his father,” Cavendish said with a note of scorn that caused an instant reaction from the previously inert McCrae. He tried to struggle upright and swung his arm wildly hunting for a target to punch. Lucinda ducked out of the way of his flailing arm before pinning it behind his back.
“Not this again,” he said, turning his attention to Lucinda. “I want a kiss this time to go with my serve of humiliation.” She pushed him away before he could turn his desire into action, her face burning with a heat to rival the aqua vitae.
“Hold still until Grandma can sew up your head.” He started to struggle again kicking the stool out from under his legs. Lucinda pushed his arm further up his back. “Hold still I said. My grandmother patches up slash wounds all the time. Most of the regular fencers trust her skills more than any barber surgeon or physician. So calm down and allow her to fix you.”
“Will it hurt?” he said.
“A little. You have enough drink in you to numb the pain.”
“Will you hold my hand?” What was it with drunken Scotsmen that turned them into whining little boys? Thankfully Grandma Jones was now in position, her stitching kit ready for action.
“My granddaughter will need some help in keeping your nephew still,” she said leaving Cavendish no option but to come to her assistance. Only her grandma could get away with ordering a Lord to get down on his knees and lend a hand. Even more surprising Cavendish took it upon himself to apologize for McCrae.
“I have never seen him like this. He does not usually partake of much liquor. I should not have insisted. It will not happen again. I will take him home as soon as you are finished.”
“I am afraid he is not going anywhere tonight,” Grandma Jones said. “He needs to stay here, and we will watch him. After a blow to the head and too many hours spent drinking, there is a danger he could fall into a sleep so deep he could not be roused.”
It was difficult to say who blanched more at this pronouncement, Lord Cavendish or Lucinda. Grandma Jones only paid heed to her patient. “Now hold his hands,” she ordered Lucinda, “and you can hold his legs down as I stitch.”
She used the left-over fire water in her mug to clean the wound, causing McCrae to buck violently. While the wound was still stinging, she began the stitching. Lucinda kept his hands held tightly which did keep him from struggling but it also had him gazing doe-like into her eyes. It was hard to say which was more disconcerting, McCrae’s naked adoration or Cavendish’s shrewd and calculating gaze. If she never saw another Scotsman again, she would not be dismayed, but now it seemed they were set to invade.
“It was my idea you know,” McCrae said, his eyes springing open in the early morning light as she leaned over him to check if he was both alive and awake.
“Which idea might that be? Getting my father drunk as a sot, or mounting a coup to take over his business?”
“It wasn’t like that.” McCrae swung his legs over the side of the truckle bed, her bed, the one Grandma commandeered while she had to share with Grandma. For someone who had knocked himself out the night before he looked remarkably sprightly. He put his hand to the back of his head, his fingers fumbling at the binding that covered his self-inflicted wound.
“Ooh. My head hurts.”
“Serves you right. I told you not to rock on that stool.”
“You judge me harshly. I was trying to help. I thought you would be grateful?”
“Grateful?” she spat.
