“Oh, dear.”
“What?” demanded Betsy. “What is wrong?”
“Oh, nothing with him or the wound.” Abigail sighed. “I just happened to notice that I forgot to change the thread from my embroidery work to a nice black thread.” She looked at the man and grinned. “I fear I just closed the wound in your leg with yellow thread. Bright yellow.”
Betsy laughed and her husband smiled, although the expression quickly turned to a grimace when he inadvertently shifted his wounded arm. Abigail hurried to rethread her needle with black thread and went to work stitching up his arm wound.
When she was done, she told his wife to clean the sweat from his face as she bandaged up his wounds. By the time Betsy was done and looked up, the three children had moved closer to stand by their mother. Their father tried gamely to smile at them and Abigail stood up.
“He should rest now.” She looked around for Mrs. Beaton but could not find the woman so she just placed a blanket over the man. “It looks as if you will be staying here for a while.”
As she left him to his family, Abigail cleaned up what she could then went back to the window to sit near Matthew. “Any trouble out there?”
“Nay. Think this skirmish is as good as done. We even blew their cannon up.”
“One less thing to worry about.”
He leaned over and brushed a kiss over her mouth, smiling when she blushed and looked around to see who had been watching. No one had been hurt aside from Betsy’s husband so she began to relax. Julia was asleep in one of the cells and the children were watching Betsy’s children after drawing them into the cell they were sharing. Matthew was astonished at how calm everyone seemed to be.
“Soon I will have to go and see how James is doing. He was watching my back,” he said, drawing Abbie’s attention his way again.
“I pray nothing happened to him. Do you think this attack will continue?”
“Nay. As I said, I am fair certain it is almost done. Some of the Rebs in a camp we were watching clearly decided they could not tolerate us so near without doing something. I was even thinking it might not be the men from that camp but some of the marauders who plague these hills.”
“But they wore gray.”
“Many of them do. They probably are considered part of the Rebel army but they usually do just as they want and are far more brutal and uncaring about what one calls the innocents.”
“Well, one of them is in the infirmary so you may get an answer to that.”
“Since these men got inside the town limits I believe I should go check on the doctor.”
“It might be wise. Even if the doctor remains blind to the uniform someone wears, I suspect such men as you think these are would not care about that. I glanced toward the infirmary when I was coming here and saw no sign of trouble, but it is only lightly guarded.”
“Stay here until I send word that it is safe to go back to the house.”
“I will.”
Matthew kissed her again and chuckled at her blush. He then stood up and after making sure the back door was secured well, went out and headed to the infirmary. He found Boyd standing and holding a basin of water for the doctor. Then he glanced at the man the doctor was working on and tensed. It was young Robert whose new wife was resting peacefully in a jail cell. Edging closer he sighed because the man had several wounds and, by the looks of the rags tossed to the floor, had already lost a lot of blood.
“It is bad,” Boyd said quietly. “The doctor can’t seem to stop the bleeding from the gut wound.”
“Think I should get Julia?”
“If it is safe to do so,” said the doctor as he stood up, “then get her. The man doesn’t have much time,” he added softly. “He was posted in a tree and was shot out of it. The landing was hard and there is a lot of internal bleeding I can’t seem to ease.”
“Aw, hell. I can get her.” Matthew left and his steps slowed rapidly as he neared the jail, but he took a deep breath to steady himself and rapped on the door.
Abbie opened it and frowned up at him. “Is it clear for us to leave?”
“I think so but that is not why I am here. Where is Julia?” He watched Abbie’s eyes widen and knew she had just realized why he was back so soon.
“Robert,” she whispered.
“I fear so. Can you get her?”
Abbie went and roused Julia then led her back to Matthew. A soft moan escaped the woman as Matthew told her about Robert and how he would want to see her. When Julia grabbed her hand, Abbie was startled.
