Peeling a veritable mountain of potatoes, she set them to boil with a few handfuls of greens, then retrieved a joint of venison from the smokehouse and put it on the spit over the fire. A small chunk of the venison she dropped into a separate pot, where it would boil until it was so soft it fell apart. Strained, the liquid would be Matt’s supper.
It was taking Mr. Williams an unconscionable time to leave, she decided finally. He had already been abovestairs near an hour. Curiosity at last got the better of Caroline, and she left the meal to cook while she ascended the stairs. Pausing on the threshold of Matt’s chamber, she drew in a shocked breath at the sight that met her eyes.
Mr. Williams clutched Matt’s arm, holding his wrist over a cup held by Thomas, who was kneeling at bedside. Thomas’s eyes were averted from the bright scarlet blood that ran from Matt’s vein into the receiving vessel. Daniel and Robert leaned against the wall on either side of the bed, watching intently. All three brothers were nearly as pale as Matt, who was as white as a corpse and still insensible, either from pain or the drug she had given him, or some combination of the two.
“Stop!” she cried with more urgency than tact. “He doesn’t need to be bled! He’s lost a bucketful of blood already!”
Thomas, Robert, and Daniel looked at her with identical expressions of surprise. Mr. Williams straightened, regarding her with lofty disdain.
“Bleeding is necessary to remove the poisons from the system,” Mr. Williams said as he continued with what he was about. To Caroline’s horror, she spied a basin that had been set on the floor beside Thomas. It held blood perhaps a quarter of an inch deep. Apparently Mr. Williams had seen fit to bleed Matt more than once.
“If you keep that up, you’ll kill him!” Her voice was fierce as she hurried to the foot of Matt’s bed.
“If he dies, ‘twill be from the potion you administered to him, and not from anything I have done!” Mr. Williams’s lip curled angrily at her, and he turned his back in deliberate insult. Matt’s blood still gushed into the cup.
“Daniel …!” Caroline’s gaze shifted in desperate appeal to the brother she knew best. “Two ounces of blood is the prescribed amount in cases like this, and he has lost far more than that at Mr. Williams’s hands alone. To lose too much invariably proves fatal!”
“And how would a chit like that know anything about it?” Mr. Williams demanded of Daniel in wrathful rebuttal.
Daniel’s brow knit with worry. For a moment he looked undecided. Then, with a glance at Robert, who was scowling fiercely at Caroline, and at Matt’s limp form, he stepped forward to place a forestalling hand on the apothecary’s arm.
“There’s no need to take more, is there? If there was poison in his system, surely ’tis let now.”
“So you would take the advice of this—this female, over mine? It shall be as you wish, then, and the consequences shall be yours! Do not think to summon me back when he worsens!” Mr. Williams straightened, glaring at Daniel, whose hand dropped from the other’s arm. But at least Mr. Williams was binding the wound he had opened in Matt’s wrist, and the bleeding was at an end. Caroline did not even mind the venomous look the apothecary gave her as he jerkily restored the implements of his trade to his bag.
“ ’Tis not that we take her word over yours, but merely that enough is enough. Bleeding him was surely beneficial, but he needs have some left to recover on.” Daniel’s attempt at soothing the irate apothecary with gentle humor fell flat. Mr. Williams, bag closed and in hand, responded to this with a glowering look.
“I’ll have my fee, if you please,” he said stiffly.
“Aye, of course.” With a defeated nod Daniel ushered Mr. Williams from the room.
Caroline moved around the bed, her fingers seeking and finding the pulse in Matt’s untapped wrist. Robert came to stand beside her, as if to put himself between his injured brother and harm.
“Williams may be nine parts a fool, but he made a good point: what can you possibly know of doctoring?” Robert’s question was hostile. His eyes as she glanced up to meet them were cold.
“My mother was skilled in the healing arts. I learned what I know from her.” Caroline silently counted the beats. Matt’s pulse was weak and slow, and she feared that the blood loss had weakened him severely.
“ ’Tis passing strange that your sister had no such skills.” It was almost a sneer.
Putting Matt’s wrist down, Caroline straightened to regard Robert steadily. Although he was some inches shorter than Matt, he still topped her by half a head. trust. Caroline felt her temper begin to heat, and deliberately reined it in.
“Elizabeth and I were half sisters only. Our father was the same, but while her mother was of noble lineage, mine was a gypsy whom my father met in his travels. She knew much of herbs and medicines and healing and taught what she knew to me. Now, will you permit me to use that knowledge on your brother, or will you stand here and watch him die?”
Despite her efforts to remain cool in the face of Robert’s attack, fierceness crept into her words. Her gaze did not flinch as Robert glowered at her. Behind her, she was aware of Thomas approaching. He went to Robert and put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. They exchanged glances, then both of them looked at her. Thomas was perhaps an inch the shorter, and his sandy hair and fair skin made him seem like little more than a boy. Still, by the determined jut of his chin, Caroline knew that he was as opposed to her interference as his brother.
“We have little choice but to allow you to do what you can for him, as Daniel permitted you to run off the apothecary.” Thomas’s voice grated. “But be warned: we’ll be watching you, and if anything amiss occurs, we’ll know it.”
Daniel reentered the room then and took in his brothers’ posture with a glance.
“Take shame to yourselves, the both of you,” he said sharply. “She has given you no reason to think ill of her.”
“The sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons,” Robert retorted.
“It says nothing of sisters, and in any case Caroline is not Elizabeth.” Daniel’s words were nearly as mystifying as Robert’s. What was becoming abundantly clear was that for some unknown reason Matt’s brothers had distrusted and disliked Elizabeth, and their feelings were being carried over to her. Caroline would have liked to ask questions, to discover what had occurred to earn her sister so much enmity, but that would have to wait for another time.
Matt stirred, and all eyes shifted expectantly to him. But he did not rouse, and after a moment it became clear that he would not.
“If one of you will sit with him, and summon me should he awaken or seem to grow worse, I will finish preparing the meal.”
The three of them looked at each other.
“I’ll stay,” Daniel said at once. “Rob, you and Thomas had best go back to work. With Matt bedridden, we’ve no time to waste if we mean to get the planting done.”
Still the two of them hesitated, and from the glances they cast at her Caroline had no difficulty laying their hesitation at her door.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” she snapped, exasperated. “If you’re that suspicious of me, then I doubt you’ll care to eat the supper I’m cooking. For all you know, I might have poisoned it, or put a spell on it to turn you all into jackasses. Though,” she added with a mocking smile, “that’s hardly necessary, is it?”
And with that masterly shot she left the room. Moments later, the clatter of feet on the stairs told her that Thomas and Robert had done the same.
16
“Will Pa die?”
Caroline, in the act of sponging Matt’s burning forehead with cool water, looked up to find John standing in the doorway watching her. It was midnight or thereabouts of the day following the accident, and the boys had, at their uncles’ insistence, retired long since. John wore his nightshirt, and his feet were bare. By the light of the single candle that sputtered on the bedside table, he looked very young and defenseless as he stared with fear in his eyes at his father lying unconsc
ious in the big bed. Caroline’s heart ached for him: she knew what it was to despair for the life of a beloved parent.
“No, he won’t die.”
At least, she prayed he would not. The bloodletting had left Matt very weak, and he had developed a raging fever over the course of the day. She had been able to rouse him only enough to take a few spoonfuls of broth and swallow a draught of medicine. Other than that, he’d been insensible.
His leg was hugely swollen and inflamed above and below the new, sturdier splint. When she had adjusted the dressings so that she could check the wound where the bone had thrust through his flesh, she had found that it was still bleeding sluggishly. The loss of blood was a danger; she’d seen nothing for it but to sprinkle basilicum powder on the gash and pad it as solidly as she could with lint and clean rags. When after a few hours no new blood appeared on the surface of the bandage, she judged—hoped—that the bleeding had stopped at last.
Fever was the primary threat now, along with gangrene. If such should set in, she would not like to wager on Matt’s chances of survival, with or without his leg intact. But there was no need to tell his son that.
Because John looked so pathetic, she smiled at him. The gesture felt strange, rusty; she had not smiled often in the last few months. But if she’d hoped to touch a chord of fellowship in him, there was no sign that she had succeeded. He did not smile back but looked uncertainly at his father.
“If I said good night to him, do you think he could hear me?”
“Oh, I think so.”
Caroline sounded far more confident than she felt. Her smile died, but her compassion for the boy did not. If it was a comfort to him to imagine that his father could hear, what harm would it do? She beckoned John nearer. He came to stand beside her, his tousled black head just topping her shoulder. He was so thin that she could see, through the neck opening in his nightshirt, his shoulder bones pushing against his skin.
“Good night, Pa,” John murmured almost inaudibly and reached with a tentative finger to touch Matt’s outflung hand where it lay against the quilt.
There was not the slightest flicker of response. Caroline started to say something, anything, to try to make the child feel better. But before she could frame the words, a gush of tears filled his eyes that were already red-rimmed with crying.
Despite what Caroline could tell was a supreme effort to maintain his composure, John sobbed once, a great gulping sound, before catching himself and biting down hard on his lower lip. His pain was so raw that it made her hurt too. Instinctively her arm encircled his shoulders, and she hugged him. But instead of responding positively to her effort to console him, he gave a muffled cry, shoved her roughly aside, and, turning, ran from the room.
She understood that reaction too. Regaining her balance, Caroline frowned as she listened to John’s feet thudding down the steps. Instead of returning to bed, he had rushed belowstairs, probably to cry his heart out without awakening David. In his distress he needed someone with him, but that person was clearly not herself.
Drawing her wrapper more closely about her—she wore her nightdress beneath it, and slippers on her feet—she padded down the narrow, dark hall to stand hesitating for a moment outside Daniel’s door. Under the circumstances, she should have known better than to dress for bed, she supposed. But the gown she had worn all day had been bloodstained and filthy, and she had felt dirty too. When the men had retired she had treated herself to a quick sponge bath in the keeping room, which she had, of necessity, converted into a chamber for her own use. After her bath she had longed for something clean and loose and had donned her night attire. She would snatch what sleep she could on a pallet on Matt’s floor.
But as she stood there, shifting from foot to foot outside Daniel’s door, it occurred to her that he, like his brothers, was no blood kin of hers at all but a stranger. She did not really imagine that the sight of her in dishabille would move him to lustful thoughts or worse, but still …
The dilemma was resolved when without warning Daniel snatched open his door. For an instant they gaped at each other, mutually taken aback. In the deep shadows of the hall, which was lighted only by the faint glow from Matt’s room, Caroline saw that he slept naked. Blessedly, he had wrapped a quilt around himself before coming to the door.
As if he couldn’t quite remember who she was, Daniel blinked owlishly at her. His gaze ran down her body, then jerked back to her face. This time his expression was alert.
“Matt?” It was a terse question. Caroline shook her head.
“ ’Tis John,” she whispered, mindful of the others who still slept. She had no wish to rouse anyone else. “He’s belowstairs, crying. He came to see his father, then ran from the room. He won’t take comfort from me, but I think someone should go to him.”
Daniel glanced toward the stairs. “Aye,” he said, then turned away, closing the door in her face. Caroline, already grown too accustomed to the Mathieson men’s casual rudeness to take affront, presumed he meant to dress, and slipped back into Matt’s room. Her presumption was proved correct when, scant moments later, she heard Daniel’s door open again and the sound of his feet, first moving along the hall and then descending the stairs.
Knowing that John was being dealt with made her easier in her mind. Tucking a long strand back into the loose plait in which she wore her hair for sleeping, Caroline returned her attention to Matt.
He lay flat on his back with his arms flung out beside him so that his hands rested, palms uppermost and fingers curled, on top of the quilt, which had been carefully tented around his splinted leg. His hands, large, strong-looking hands, their skin toughened by hard work, touched her by their look of vulnerability. Such hands were not meant to be helpless. A blazing fire, built at Caroline’s insistence in the hearth that had clearly not been used in a long while, kept the room toasty warm. As a result she had no qualms about his bare arms and shoulders being left outside the coverings, nor his nakedness beneath—at least, not as far as his health was concerned. But she had to admit that she found caring for such a very masculine man, even if that man was Matt, disquieting. The muscles that bulged in his arms, the width of his shoulders, the thick pelt of hair that formed a wedge down the center of his chest, and the companion hairiness of his forearms and legs made her more than a trifle uneasy if she permitted herself to dwell on it. The thought of what else lay hidden beneath the quilt brought waves of discomfort with it. So she simply refused to think about it. Matt was helpless, and under her care, and she would not allow the fact that he was a virile man to influence her. He had been kind to her, in his fashion, and without him her position in the household would be in serious jeopardy. For that reason if for no other—and she was not admitting to any other—he deserved her best, and he would get it. Besides, she could not let a man as obviously beloved by his sons as Matt was die for want of care. Her heart broke at the thought of those boys without him.
But keeping him alive, to say nothing of saving his injured leg, could prove to be a formidable task. Despite her best effort to remain optimistic, he did not look good. A blue-black stubble now shaded his cheeks and jaw, which she thought must serve to emphasize the pallor of his skin. Surely no man who was so naturally dark-complected could be that pale and live. Ominously, he was no longer sweating; his skin was hot and dry.
Placing gentle fingers against his forehead to assess the degree of heat, she frowned and drew them back again as her fingers felt burned. If the fever did not break soon, drastic measures, with their not inconsiderable risk, would need to be employed.
Matt had not opened his eyes since the apothecary set his leg. Whether he was unconscious or deeply asleep from the draught she regularly administered to keep him from thrashing about, she could not be sure. His breathing was fast and shallow, more pants than breaths. His lips were parted, moving as he fought for her cloth in it and dribbled the cool moisture between Matt’s parted lips. At first he seemed oblivious; his breathing continued unchanged. But then as
the water slid along his tongue he swallowed, and she continued, encouraged. At this point simply keeping him quiet and as comfortable as possible was paramount. All she could do was wait to see if his fever rose, or broke.
“How is he?” Daniel spoke from the doorway, making Caroline start. Her hand inadvertently squeezed the cloth too hard, sending a trickle of water running down Matt’s cheek. Disregarding Daniel for the moment, she wiped the errant stream away, her hands gentle as they ran the cool cloth over the hard contours of Matt’s hot face. Then she looked up again at Daniel, even as, with a tiny section of her consciousness, she noted the sandpaper roughness of Matt’s cheek.
“Much the same.” Her reply was husky.
Daniel had pulled on breeches and a shirt, but left the latter unbuttoned so that a wide section of hair-sprinkled chest was on view. His calves and feet were bare too. In the sputtering light of the candle he held, his hair gleamed like old copper. His eyes gleamed, too, if only briefly, as they rested on her. In an instinctive reaction to that unmistakable masculine glint, Caroline glanced down at herself to find that her wrapper had fallen open to the waist, revealing the delicate lawn of her nightdress in a narrow vee. Hastily she clutched the edges closed again, feeling her stomach churn even as she did so. It required an effort to force down the repugnance brought on by his appreciative glance, and even more of an effort to look at him again.
“John’s gone back to bed. He was through crying when I got down to him. He’s a tough lad, is John.” Daniel’s words were abrupt, his eyes hooded as they fixed unwaveringly on her face. If they had fallen below her neck once, instinctively, it was clear from his dogged expression that he did not mean to permit such a lapse again. Caroline felt some of the tension leave her. Daniel was a decent man, she reminded herself. He had meant nothing by that look and certainly posed no threat to her.
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