“Thomas says she’s been this way since yesterday?” He gently pressed his fingers against Kitty’s neck and spoke to Eliza. “I would know the whole of it.”
“’Tis true.” Eliza’s voice wavered. “She has been very ill with no improvement.”
Nathaniel glanced over his shoulder, fingers still gauging Kitty’s pulse. He strained against the fears that assailed him. “You should have sent for me immediately.”
“You are right... but I...” Eliza pressed a handkerchief to her mouth to hide the quivering of her chin. “Kitty insisted she only needed rest and that she was merely over-tired. I wanted to believe her.” Eliza inhaled a shuddering breath. “We tried to find you when—”
“I know,” he answered, touching Eliza’s arm. He stood and took Eliza by the shoulders. The sight of tears rolling down her cheeks added to the emotions that flooded into his own heart. “Tell me her symptoms.”
As Eliza explained the ordeal—how Kitty had slept unusually long the first day, refused to take nourishment, started vomiting and continued to do so even with nothing more to expel—Nathaniel had to fight the worry that clouded his thinking.
“Her fever began then as well?”
“Aye.” Eliza refused to move her watery gaze from the bed.
Kitty moved her head against the pillow, a grimace twisting her mouth.
Nathaniel looked between the two women then focused on Eliza, gripping her arms again and keeping his tone even despite the way his heart rammed his chest. “You have done well, but now you must rest. You look weary and you cannot put the child at risk.”
She inhaled a shuddered breath and nodded, though didn’t move. “I... I cannot lose her, Nathaniel.”
“We will not lose her.” He turned to glance behind when Kitty made a quiet moan, praying the confidence he crammed into his voice was believable, at least to Eliza if not to himself. He squeezed her arms and offered what he hoped was an encouraging smile. “You will be no good to her if you become ill yourself.”
Eliza craned her neck to take another look at Kitty, repeating his words. “We will not lose her.”
Nathaniel shook his head, unable to voice a response. Lord, please...
Reluctant, Eliza moved forward and kissed her sister’s head before shuffling out of the room.
Nathaniel took his place on the seat beside the bed and blinked. He’d treated hundreds of patients, and many closer to heaven than she. He knew exactly what she needed and how to cure what disease attempted to take her from them.
So why did he feel like a fledgling student, ready to diagnose his first ailing patient?
He quickly stood and
pulled off his jacket. Rolling up his sleeves, he combed through the files of diseases and conditions that lived in his memory, ever-ready for consultation.
Dear Lord, guide me. I cannot lose her.
He looked at the clock as the door burst open down stairs. Thomas had returned.
Nathaniel gazed at Kitty’s tiny wrist and squared his jaw. The worst hours of his life had just begun.
***
The candle’s flame on the bedside table swayed as Nathaniel moved past. Lonely shadows danced across the vacant walls. He gripped tight to the bowl of crimson liquid to keep his hands from trembling, then set it beside the candle and returned to check the bandage around Kitty’s wrist. The faint light accentuated the deep circles around her eyes and the shallow movements of her chest.
Nathaniel tried again to breath deeper and ease the tightness that lingered in his muscles, but to no profit. He pulled his pocket watch from its nesting place in his waistcoat. Three hours past midnight. He looked at her face again, willing that his desire for her improvement would be enough to diminish her fever and allow her to wake and look at him. Yet ‘twas not enough. More than five hours of care and not a single sign that she improved.
Tenderly, he pulled the wrappings tighter around her wrist then rested in the seat beside the bed. The rock of emotions that had been lodged in his throat since he’d first seen her hours earlier thickened. With a slight shake of the head he once more reached for the table, dropped the cloth into the small dish of water and wrung it out. He patted it against Kitty’s brow and along her neck. Pushing out a rough breath he struggled to mend the pieces of himself that had severed the moment he’d taken the lance to her skin. He’d bled patients hundreds of times before. ‘Twas the best way to relieve the suffering patient of undesirable fluids. Still, he could not shake the unsettling sensation that dominated, or the shiver that rippled his spine from slicing through her silken flesh and watching the vital fluid seep into the bowl below.
Staring, he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth. If anything happened to Kitty—and it would not—but if it did...
Nay!
Nathaniel pushed off his knees. He had to move, had to relieve his mind of the images and thoughts that crowded so thick they choked. Pacing the room from the open door to the opposite wall and back, his gaze landed on a folded paper atop Kitty’s dresser. He stopped his incessant movement when curiosity flicked his mind. Could it be another letter from Higley? Glancing behind, he looked to the door then to Kitty. Never had he read anyone else’s personal communications. ‘Twas wrong to do so. But even as the words moved across his mind, he picked it up and flipped the folded paper back and forth in his fingers.
Put it down, you fool.