Marrying Mischief. Lyn Stone
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“For now, you’ll need this.” The doctor pulled a stoppered bottle and spoon from his case and poured a measure of the milky brown liquid for her. Nicholas recognized the smell. Laudanum.
His heart sank. Doc must believe she had cholera. The treatment he had given the others consisted of copious liquids and enough of this opium derivative to calm the stomach and digestive tract. He had said he thought that rapid loss of fluids was what killed the patients who died of the disease.
Nick watched with bated breath as Emily obediently swallowed the medicine and closed her eyes. Doc inclined his head toward the doorway, then stepped back from the bedside and headed for the hallway. Nick followed, knowing what he would hear and dreading it with all his heart. “Is it cholera?”
Doc sighed and leaned against the wall outside the bedroom, massaging his forehead with his hand. “I shan’t lie to you. Your wife most likely is in the early stages. Some do not develop the worst symptoms until after four or five days. Yet some sicken and die within hours. I just do not know at this point.”
“She cannot die,” Nick argued, grabbing the doctor’s arm in a vise grip. “You saved the others. Now you save her!”
“My lord, you know very well I will do everything within my power, but I am not God.”
Nick released a breath of impatience and started to reenter the room.
“My lord, you should go below and wait. At least until we know for certain.”
“If she succumbs, she will not do so alone or with people she does not know,” Nick replied. “I’ll not leave this room until I know she is recovering, or…” His voice failed him. He could not say the word in conjunction with Emily. Instead he met the doctor’s rheumy gaze with one of steadfast determination.
“So be it, but this will not be pleasant, my lord. You were witness to little of what the men suffered with this. Cholera is an ugly disease. Humiliating for the patient and noisome for the caretaker. I hope you have a strong constitution.”
Nick vowed he would have. He’d do whatever it took, bear whatever he must, to help make her well again.
When he reentered, Emily had pushed herself to a sitting position. She was carefully lowering her legs off the side of the bed. Nick grabbed her just in time to keep her from pitching forward on her head. “Where do you think you’re going?” he snapped.
She winced at his tone and he was immediately sorry he’d spoken so sharply to her. “What is it, Em? What do you need?”
“I would as soon not say,” she whispered. “Could you leave me alone for a moment, please?”
“Nonsense! You need the chamber pot, then say so. I will carry you.”
“No!” she answered, very forcefully he thought, for someone who might be dying. “Please leave this room immediately and do not return unless I call for you!”
For a moment he simply stared at her. Her color was high and her anger apparent. “Let me help you behind the screen. Then I’ll wait outside. Will that do? Look how shaky you are. You’ll fall if I leave you to walk that far.”
“It’s the laudanum,” she explained as if speaking to a thick-headed child. “It made me dizzy. I hate the stuff.”
He walked her over to the privacy screen that hid the facility. It was a chair made of oak with a seat that lifted. At least she would have something to brace her upright. With much trepidation, he did leave her there as soon as she was near enough to reach it. She glared at him meaningfully until he turned away and left her alone.
A scant few moments later she reappeared, grasping the edge of the heavy wooden screen with both hands. “Nick?”
He rushed to her from the doorway where he’d been waiting. “Yes, dearest? Could you not manage alone?”
She tried unsuccessfully to focus on his face. “I see two of the bed. Help me to it?”
Gladly he scooped her up and put her back where she belonged, reminding himself to order Lofton to bring a bedpan. Less than a quarter hour into this sickroom business and Nick admitted he was already a sorry wreck.
Doc checked Emily’s pulse, pinched the skin on her arm, then urged her to drink a full cup of the broth Lofton had fetched. He waved Nick to the chair beside the fireplace. “You might as well get some rest while you can. This looks to be a long night ahead.”
Nick settled in the chair, rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands, leaning his forehead upon them.
Alternately he prayed, cursed, promised and threatened all manner of things. He both vehemently beseeched and ordered the Almighty to allow her to survive, knowing all the while that what would be, would be.
Nicholas had been in dire straits more times than he could count, but never in his entire life had he ever felt so helpless as he did now.
Chapter Five
“Nicholas?” Emily shook his shoulder gently. He remained sound asleep, sprawled in the overstuffed chair beside the hearth, long legs straight out, spine contoured to fit the cushions.
His fine wedding clothes were rumpled and she could see that he had not shaved. When he did not wake, she dared to smooth the tousled dark hair away from his brow, allowing herself the small contact he would never know about.
When she had first opened her eyes this morning, she immediately recalled how Nick and the doctor had hovered over her, concerned that she had contracted the disease everyone so feared.
They had frightened her, as well, with their worry. Still muzzy from all that weeping, with her head aching and her stomach clenching from lack of food, she had thought they might be correct and that she could be dying. However, now she felt entirely too well to be suffering anything other than the residual effects of that dose of laudanum.
“Nick, wake up. You cannot possibly be comfortable here,” she persisted, shaking him again.
He suddenly bolted upright, wearing a look of confusion. Then his gaze landed on her. “What…what are you doing up?”
Before she could respond, he swept her off her feet, carried her to the bed and deposited her there. He snatched the covers up to her chin and reached for the cup on the bedside table.
Ignoring her sputtering protests, he put the container to her lips. She had to either drink or drown, so she drank. In all honesty, she treasured the fact that he cared whether she was ill.
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