The Artist's Healer - Regina Scott Page 0,17
the disbursements by the end of the week.”
Her mother took another stitch. “That’s good news. I know the other families will be very pleased.” She glanced up, then frowned. “Though Mrs. Howland may have something to say when she learns you managed to dirty her pretty gown.”
Abigail looked down. The front of the dress was spotless, the skirts as full and rich as they had been when she’d first donned them. The left sleeve was fine. The right sleeve…
Was speckled a rusty brown.
“Oh,” she said, plopping down on the chair beside her mother’s. “I seem to have opened the wound.”
Her mother set aside her sewing. “I’ll fetch Doctor Bennett.”
“No,” Abigail said. “Don’t. I’m sure it’s nothing serious. Help me. We must clean this up before Ethan returns.”
Chapter Six
She was back in bed, smiling brightly, when Linus arrived that evening.
“Your excursions took their toll, I see,” he observed, coming around the bed to set his case on the table.
“I merely thought it wise to rest while I could,” Abigail replied. “I feel fine.”
“No pain?” he asked, regarding her.
She refused to blush. “None. And I wish you’d stop asking. I begin to feel abnormal because I don’t have pain.”
“I can safely say there is little normal about you, madam.”
“I beg your pardon,” Abigail sputtered.
He held up both hands. “I meant no offense. You are in every way an exemplary model of health, intelligence, and talent.”
Hard to be annoyed with him after such a statement. “Then you are satisfied I’m sufficiently healed to attend Jesslyn’s wedding?”
He pulled back her sleeve, then frowned. “This isn’t the bandage I put on this morning.”
“Oh?” she said, finding the bed suddenly harder than she remembered.
“No. The Misses Pierce have ordered the material I prefer, but I’ve been using my own supply until it arrives. This isn’t as absorbent, and the weave is loose enough that pieces could stick to the wound.”
Abigail sighed. “You’re right. I bled a little. Mother changed the bandage for me.”
Immediately he was all action, unwrapping the wound as he spoke. “Does it itch, sting?”
“No,” Abigail admitted. “And I don’t feel the least feverish.”
“We’ll check that in a moment.”
He was so concerned her own worries multiplied. The last layer stuck to the stitches, and she winced as he eased it free.
“I’ll leave your mother another length of proper bandage, in case it’s needed when I’m unavailable,” he said. He peered at her arm, and Abigail craned her neck to see as well. Two of the stitches stuck out like the thread on a girl’s first embroidery sampler, and the edges of the trough were definitely redder than they had been that morning. She bit her lip waiting for his diagnosis.
“You’ve put a strain on it, no doubt,” he said. That grey gaze rose to meet hers, and something shot through her, nearly as sharp as the bullet. She couldn’t look away.
He lay a hand on her forehead as if claiming her for his own. Even as the thought made her shiver, he yanked back his hand as if the touch had scalded him.
His tone, however, was its usual calm. “You don’t appear feverish, though I don’t like the chill that went through you.”
Neither did she.
“Have your mother stay with you tonight and send word if there’s any change,” he ordered, dropping his hand. “I’ll check on you in the morning.”
That seemed a long time away. Abigail made herself nod. She kept her mouth closed and counted to three hundred in her mind as he rebandaged the wound. That didn’t stop her from noticing how the candlelight brushed his hair with gold.
Her mother came in after he’d left with Ethan.
“I take it you need watching,” she said, eyeing Abigail as if she might suddenly fly up out of the bed and through the roof.
“I’m fine,” Abigail assured her. “I’ll call if I need help.”
Her mother shook her head. “No, you won’t. I’ve been waiting for that call for nearly ten years, and it’s never come.”
Abigail leaned back against the headboard. “You sound as if you would have preferred it if I was weak.”
“No, dear, not weak,” she said, dropping her gaze and shifting on her feet so that her saffron-colored skirts brushed the hardwood floor. “Just…willing to accept that others need to be needed sometimes.”
Abigail sighed. “If I’ve ever run roughshod over your feelings, I apologize. But someone had to take charge when Father died. Did you like being the village charity case?”
“The previous vicar was kind,” she allowed.
“From pity,” Abigail argued. “We had one