Doing No Harm by Carla Kelly Page A

Tommy, and Duke confirmed his confidence that Tommy could not have a better nurse. He was cleaner and more alert, without the bewildered look of someone in pain and mental turmoil.
    Duke thumped his tail in approval of the leek and fish soup. Even the dog looked cleaner. A questioning glance to Mrs. Campbell made her blush. “He didn’t mind a good brushing and a little water, think on,” she admitted.
    An inspection of Tommy’s sutures proved satisfactory. “I’ll craft a short splint today,” Douglas said. “I see no reason for you to not begin walking about.”
    “Then I could help Miss Grant, couldn’t I?” the boy asked, hopeful.
    “Aye, lad, but there might be something else for you to do,” Douglas told him. He patted the boy’s shoulder, wishing he had more meat on his bones. “Rest some more today, and I’ll apply that splint tomorrow morning.”
    He walked down the stairs slowly, knowing that he needed a surgery for Mrs. Aintree and a place for himself. Olive Grant deserved better than to have her little parlor full of bloody lint and bandages and smelling of camphor and alcohol. He fingered the coin in his pocket, the one he had been tossing for heads or tails and then ignoring.
    At the foot of the stairs, he tossed the coin again. Heads I stay in Edgar for at least two months , he thought. Tails I stay in Edgar even longer . There. He had finally quit fooling himself.
    The coin went up and over, rolled a bit, then came to rest on its edge, leaning against the carpet. “I need a new coin,” he said as he pocketed buggy-eyed George III.
    Luncheon was in full swing, so Douglas helped himself to leek and coley soup and slapped down that coin on the kitchen table, through with it. Olive stopped long enough to look at the coin and murmur, “You’re overpaying me,” before she edged out of the door with a tray of bowls and chunks of bread.
    When he finished, Douglas stood in the dining room a long moment, hands in his pockets, nodding to the meek members of Miss Olive Grant’s dining society. They remained a mystery to him. He would have to commandeer Olive to explain them and what ailed Edgar.
    Most of the people took a second bowl of soup and more bread, which told him that luncheon was probably their first meal of the day, perhaps their only meal. He recognized the pale skin, rheumy eyes, and air of futility that he had seen on the faces of prisoners—him among them—languishing in a Spanish prison. He saw no hope on their faces.
    He made up his mind. When Olive and Maeve came out to gather the empty bowls, he helped them. “Can you enlist some of these old dears to do dishes? You and I need to talk.”
    He saw the surprise in her colorful eyes and then apprehension. “I’m not leaving anytime soon,” he assured her, pleased to see surprise replaced by relief. “In fact, I also need you to tell me how I can rent that empty house by the bridge.”
    Without a word to him, she touched two ladies on their shoulders and gently herded them toward the kitchen, where Maeve stood scraping bowls that didn’t need scraping because no one left anything uneaten. The door closed. When it opened, Olive wore a chipstraw bonnet and her plaid shawl.
    He fell into step with her as she walked toward the bridge. They paused at the empty house. He smiled to see Olive peer into a dirty window, almost as though she wanted to see the pitiful place pass muster before she agreed to his scheme. Are you determined to nurture all of us? he thought.
    “I have heard it is haunted, but I suppose it will do,” she announced finally. “You could have an office on the first floor and a surgery. I know there is a large-enough cupboard—see there?—for your medical supplies.”
    He came closer and peered into the window too. He looked where she pointed. “There is a kitchen?”
    “You can cook?” she asked.
    “No. I can compound medicine and roll pills in a kitchen,” he told her, then looked at her freckled, earnest