“They follow—” Ben said no more as blackness overcame him, and he tumbled to the ground.
Jemma watched from the kitchen door as Ben arrived. Short-lived relief swept over her when she heard the cart clatter around the back of her home. But the moment she spied Ben, she knew something was wrong. She swallowed her scream as he pitched sideways and fell from his seat. She lifted her skirts and ran to him. Even though Raj and Theo were closer, she reached Ben’s side before the men rounded the cart. Theo held up a lantern, and Jemma immediately noticed the red stain that darkened his right sleeve and entire right side of his shirt.
“Mama!” Jemma called for her mother, who would know how to treat Ben. She’d stitched up all her brothers each time they dared each other to do something ridiculously reckless and inevitably hurt themselves. She’d learned from her mother, but she knew her hands trembled too much to trust herself with a needle and thread.
“Get him in the house. I’ll tend to the horses and the boys will help me store the cargo,” Theo said to Raj. The younger man was the same height as Theo, but his chest and shoulders were broader after years at sea. He’d climbed his ship’s rigging and hoisted sails, earning himself a muscular physique. While Theo hardly looked his age in his mid-fifties, he wasn’t as robustly built as he’d been at Raj’s age.
Raj bent over Ben and put his hand on the younger man’s chest, feeling it rise and fall. Jemma swatted his hand away as her other clutched Ben’s shirt. She practically snarled at her cousin.
“He’s alive. Hurry before he isn’t.” Jemma knew the wound wasn’t serious enough to be fatal, but rationality fled the moment she realized Ben was injured. Her heart raced as Raj slid his arm beneath Ben’s shoulders and righted him onto his feet. He slung Ben’s uninjured arm around his shoulders and mostly dragged Ben the short distance to the kitchen. Jemma ran ahead to open the door and call to her mother again. Once the three of them were inside. She wrapped her arms around Ben on his injured side, helping Raj bear Ben’s weight. She loathed jostling his arm, especially when he groaned. But his continued unconsciousness only proved how dire the situation was to get him somewhere her mother could tend to him.
“The kitchen table,” Jemma suggested. Without her father and brothers, she and Raj couldn’t carry Ben’s hulking frame to the second floor and a bedroom. For now, the kitchen table was a wide surface with a fireplace to boil water only a couple feet away. Vinita entered the kitchen with her sewing kit over her arm. She grabbed one leg while Jemma lifted the other as they helped Raj maneuver Ben onto the sturdy piece of furniture.
Raj drew her aside, or at least attempted to. Jemma took two steps back before squirming and breaking free of the arm Raj wrapped across her back. His fingers pressed into her outer arm,trying to keep her in place, but her pointy elbow dug into his ribs. She rushed to Ben’s side, taking his cold hand in hers.
“Mama, what can I do?” She needed to do something to help. She felt useless watching her mother.
“Hold his hand and talk to him. Raj, fill the kettle and put it on the fire. Fetch linens and bring them back.” Vinita gave her orders as she dug through her sewing basket, withdrawing scissors, a needle, and a spool of thread. She unbuttoned Ben’s shirt before cutting away the saturated sleeve.
When Vinita exposed the wound, it tempted Jemma to look away. But she couldn’t. Ben left not only to protect the smuggled goods but to get himself far away from her family and the villagers. He was wounded because he tried to shield Jemma and the others. Her heart hurt as she watched the man she’d loved for years lie on the table, his pallor growing grayer by the moment. She brushed back hair from his forehead as her other hand wrapped around his. She leaned forward to whisper in his ear. Nothing she said was too inappropriate for her mother to hear, but she wanted to make certain if any part of Ben’s mind was awake, he would hear her.
“Benjamin, you will get better. You have many dances to make up to me, and you still need to talk to my papa. Sleep now while Mama tends to you, but you better not sleep forever. I’ll hold your hand for now, but I expect you to twirl me around at the next assembly. I expect you to wake in time for Christmas. I know you planned to go home for the holiday, but I hope you’ll stay. Not because you can’t travel while unconscious. I hope you stay, so we can make plans for the New Year.” She leaned farther forward, this time ensuring her mother couldn’t hear her. Vinita studiously ignored her daughter as she prepared to sew Ben’s arm. “I shall cut several fresh bunches of mistletoe. We have just as many kisses to make up for as we do dances. Preferably far more. Please, Ben, don’t leave me.”
While she knew he was unlikely to bleed to death, there was always the risk of infection. If his arm putrefied, he might lose more than the limb. He might lose his life. Once that thought niggled into Jemma’s mind, it took root. She observed her mother as she washed her hands in the near scalding water from the kettle Raj filled. She knew her mother’s mother trained Vinita and her two sisters to care for others according to theGaruda Purana’steachings. Jemma’s grandmother was a raja and had always believed her role as the maharaja’s wife meant she was responsible for the people who lived in their village. She taught Vinitasantapa atmapacharaja, or unhygienic habits, caused illness. Her mother always scrubbed her hands and wrists before treating a wound or after tending to a sick person.
Once her hands were dry, Vinita threaded a needle but set it aside as she peered at Ben’s arm. “Bring a candle closer, please.”
Jemma hurried to fulfill her mother’s request. Vinita brought the light closer to Ben’s arm to better examine the wound. She gently turned it to study the hole from various angles.
“Mama?”
“The bullet didn’t pass through like I’d hoped. I shall have to fish it out.”
Jemma thought that sounded wretchedly painful. She didn’t like the idea, but she knew her mother had no choice. “Should I fetch some of Papa’s whiskey?”
“Yes. I shall pour it over the wound, and Ben will need it when he wakes. There’s no avoiding causing him more pain.”
Jemma squeezed the hand she still held, disliking having to leave Ben for even a moment. But she understood the liquor was necessary, and Raj hadn’t returned with the linens. Charlie remained upstairs with the children, and her father and brothers hadn’t come in from the stables yet. She lifted her skirts above her ankles and dashed to her father’s study. She knew where he hid the contraband. She withdrew the key hidden in his deskand went to the set of shelves that held books he’d brought back from India when he and Vinita moved to England after he left his service to the East India Company. She removed them and slipped the key into the hidden hole in the wall. She opened the safe and withdrew a bottle.
It tempted her to gulp a fortifying dram, but her parents wouldn’t approve, and she was certain either or both of them would catch a whiff of the alcohol on her breath even if she never opened her mouth. A year ago, she’d sampled some liquor with her brothers, and her parents knew the moment she stepped back into the house. She’d thought the double standard unfair since her brothers no longer got in trouble for their drinking. It wasn’t until her parents explained the vulnerability it created if she were anywhere but home with impaired senses that she understood their displeasure.
She moved as swiftly back to the kitchen as she had when she left. She handed the bottle to her mother who’d brought a pair of sugar tongs and a butterknife to the table. She scrubbed both with soap in the hot water before pouring the whiskey over them.
“Hold his hand. He’s likely to wake from this. If he does, try to calm him enough to have a swig.” Just as Vinita spoke, Raj returned with several towels and a bedsheet. Theo and his sons also walked in. “Help me get a sheet under him then hold his legs down.”
Jemma watched the men take places around the table before lifting Ben high enough for Vinita and Jemma to spread the sheet across the makeshift operating table. Then the men pinned Ben to the table’s surface. She thought to turn her head away while her mother performed surgery, but she couldn’t look away. She needed to know what happened to Ben. Her mother eased the butterknife into the wound until she found the bullet. She grasped the tongs, pressing them together until they were nearlyshut. She sank them into the bullet hole, and Jemma held her breath, praying her mother captured the bullet with her first try and didn’t have to fish around within Ben’s arm. It was only seconds later that Ben stirred. He tried to thrash, but the men kept him immobilized. He howled with pain.
“Jemma!”
She leaned close to his ear again, her lips brushing the whorl as she whispered. “I’m here, Ben. I’m not going anywhere. Mama’s going to fix your arm, but you must stay still.”
Ben’s eyes fluttered open, and he turned his head toward Jemma. “You’re safe?”
“Yes.”
His eyes closed, and he sighed. Then his body went rigid as Vinita withdrew the bullet then doused the wound with whiskey. His back bowed from the table, and he cried out but didn’t open his eyes again. Jemma brushed the russet locks back from his forehead, tempted to twirl them around her forefinger. She remembered what he and Indira looked like earlier. Now she wondered what a child with Ben’s red hair would look like if she held them. She clasped his hand tighter between both of hers as she prayed. She pressed her forehead against his temple.
“You’re going to be well. You need to rest and heal, then all will be well.”
