The Artist's Healer - Regina Scott Page 0,46

announced. “Would you like to join us?”

“Perhaps another time,” Abigail said, studying the painting she’d wanted to give Jess and Lark. “But thank you for asking.”

Her mother left.

Before she’d been shot, she had laid on the expanse of blue for the ocean, but she needed teal and navy and white to bring out the depths and heights of the waves. She set about mixing her paints—Mr. Carroll obligingly ordered them from London for her—to make up the right colors, covering her oblong wooden pallet with blobs of rich shades. She’d lived along the shore her entire life, seen the cove and the Channel beyond on every sort of day, from wind-driven to calm, from balmy to bleak. She knew how many colors there were in the sea.

When her pallet was ready, she approached the canvas, brush in hand. A dab here, a stroke there, and the Channel waters began to come to life in all their glory. But the sky was missing, and she had just the shade. She reached up, started to sweep her brush across.

Her arm balked. Worse, it positively trembled. Fear poked at her. Enough of that. She raised her chin and pushed harder.

Pain shot through her, and the brush clattered to the floor, splattering paint against her leather shoes.

Abigail clamped her arm to her side, bit her lip to keep from crying out. Linus had warned her, again and again. Had she damaged her arm beyond repair?

Fingers shaking, she set down the pallet and removed her smock to drape it over the only chair in the room, then let herself out. Voices murmured from the flat, but she could not face her mother now, confess her fears. Mother would only worry. She was worried enough as it was. She slipped down the corridor and into her bedchamber to fetch the sling she’d worn to Jess’s wedding. The shawl warmed her skin, but not her thoughts.

“Ethan is telling me about the creatures in the ocean,” her mother hailed as she came back through from her bedchamber. “Fascinating. Come listen.”

“I should open the shop,” Abigail said. “Perhaps later.”

Better to think of someone other than herself. Mrs. Truant had done a fine job of managing things, but dust had accumulated in the shop too, so she wielded a cloth with her good arm between helping customers who wandered in.

A few were local. Mrs. Catchpole stopped by for a payment. She was brimming with news of the area.

“They say Doctor Bennett will be taking a house to treat us all,” she told Abigail, eyes wide as if watching for a reaction.

“That’s the hope,” Abigail said, counting out the coin the lady was due.

“And did you hear?” The employment agency owner leaned closer, curls bobbing. “There was a press gang at Ringstead a few days ago. Caused quite a panic. If they came through Scratchy Bottom, they could be here soon.”

“Alert Mr. Greer,” Abigail told her. “We’ll keep our men close if we must and call out the militia if we can’t.”

Most of her customers, though, were from the spa. Having met her there, they seemed more disposed to buy from her now. And share a little gossip. Mr. George, it seemed, had quarreled over some matter with Mr. Donner and the two were sitting at opposite sides of the spa.

“Though I expect they will make up shortly, like gentlemen should,” Miss Turnpeth, Mrs. Rand’s companion, told Abigail as she paid for the tatted collar she’d admired.

“Doctor Bennett tells me your injury is healed,” Doctor Owens said as he brought her a leather wallet he had decided to purchase. “I wanted to add my best wishes for the future.”

That’s right—he cared for patients at a spa too. Perhaps she could speak to him instead of Linus, keep her fears to herself for the time being.

“I understand I will be stiff for a while,” she said, wrapping the wallet in tissue. “I suppose some pain is to be expected.”

She thought he might disabuse her of the notion, but he merely smiled as he handed her the coins to pay for the piece. “Pain is part of life, I find.”

She might have thought that when she was younger. She, her mother, and her brother had borne the pain of her father’s misdeeds. She’d hoped for better news when it came to her arm. “But it should return to full function?” she pressed.

“Very likely,” he said with a benign smile. “And I believe I heard you are helping Miss Chance with the Regatta now.