“Not a single bite. Not on its own. Although...”
“What? What is it?”
“We need tae remove his clothing. Every stitch. And I’ll need a bucket of hot water. Steaming. Along with clean linens. An entire stack of them. Well, Mr. Humphrey? What are ye still doing there? Go!” Agnes said, shooing the butler from the room. “Go, go! And close the door behind ye.”
“Remove his clothing?” Mara said, bewildered. “Why would we do that?”
“Because if he was bitten, and lost enough blood as a result, then this is what he’d look like.” Agnes went around to the other side of the bed and began to unbutton Ambrose’s waistcoat, her fingers moving quickly and efficiently down the row of buttons. “I’ve seen an ashen complexion like this before, in a mother that kept bleeding after the babe was born. There’s no time tae lose. We have tae find the source of the blood loss and stop it.”
Mara went to the foot of the bed and took off Ambrose’s boots. “What happened? To the mother.”
Agnes stopped mid-button. “She died.”
Mara gasped. “Ambrose—”
“His Grace is fit,” Agnes cut in. “He is young, and hale, and hearty. He’ll be back tae yelling at all of us before we know it, and then we’llwishhe was in the state that he is now.”
Despite the terror coursing through her veins, the older Scottish woman’s words managed to coax forth the slightest smile. “He doesn’t yell as much as he broods. And grumbles. And glares.”
“Aye,” Agnes agreed, finishing with the waistcoat and moving onto the linen shirt beneath it. Proceeding with care, she lifted the duke’s arms one at a time to slide them free of the long sleeves, baring his muscular chest to the orange glow of candlelight. “He was always fond of a good glare, even as a lad. But I canna blame him, as his father was ten times worse and quick with a fist besides.”
“He was beaten?” Mara said softly, her heart giving a painful lurch inside her chest. She would never be able to understand how a parent, whose singular duty was to protect their child, could be capable of harming them. Why evenhavechildren if your intention was to hurt? To frighten? To scar? Had the late duke’s father hit him, and that was why he’d hit Ambrose? She’d often wondered if that was the case with her own father. Once the initial lash of pain had faded, she had wanted a reason. And even though an explanation wouldn’t have solved the matter or stopped it from happening again, at least it would have given her someone to blame other than herself.
“I spoke out of turn, Your Grace. Forgive me.” Folding Ambrose’s shirt into a neat square, Agnes set it aside and took a breath. “I don’t see any wounds or abrasions. We’ll have tae remove his boots and trousers. If you’d rather me call for a maid—”
“He’s my husband,” Mara interrupted. “If anyone is going to remove his clothes, it should be me.” But her hands still trembled as she carefully loosened the gusset ties on either side of his waist.
Working together, she and Agnes managed to roll him to the left and then to the right, one of them propping his hip up while the other pulled his boots off one at a time. What they uncovered made Mara gasp aloud.
“Oh, Ambrose,” she cried, instinctively recoiling from the torn flesh underneath his right knee. Flesh torn by a wild dog with sharp, ripping teeth. Pressure from his boot must have acted like a tourniquet and temporarily slowed the flow of blood emptying into it, but with it removed the wound bled like a river, staining the blankets and the mattress an awful, awful red. “I don’t—I don’t know what to do.” Her hands fluttered helplessly. “Agnes, what do wedo?”
Mara had grown up learning how to heal tiny cuts and hide small bruises. But this wound, this terrible, life-threatening wound, was far beyond her capabilities.
The dread that filled her, like a syrup that was too sweet and sticky, made the fear she’d experienced in the orchards pale in comparison. At least amidst the trees, she’d been able to defend herself. To fight back. But here, in her husband’s private chambers, with him lying on his bed still as death itself while his blood dripped steadily onto the floor with a sicklyplop, plop, plop, she couldn’t think of a single thing within her power that would aid him.
She wasn’t a doctor or a midwife.
Before last night, she hadn’t even been a wife.
But she wanted to be. Oh, how she wanted to be.
Don’t die, she thought silently, grabbing his hand and gazing intently at his face because she couldn’t stand to look at what was below his knee.Please don’t die. I don’t know how to save you. I don’t know how to save us. But I do know that there is something here worth saving. Underneath all of the harsh words, and the bitter mistakes, and the unbearable loneliness... there’s something that can still grow. I’m sure of it.
Where her conviction came from, she hadn’t a clue. But she felt it inside of her, as surely as she felt the frantic beat of her heart.
“Ye keep holding onto him, Your Grace,” Agnes said, nodding at Mara’s sure grip around Ambrose’s fingers. “That’s all ye have tae do. Mr. Humphrey and I will take care of the rest, and the doctor when he arrives.”
“I can do that,” Mara murmured, sinking into a crouch beside the bed. “I’ve already held on for nearly two years. I can hold on for as long as it takes.”
When the butler rushed in with all of the supplies Agnes had ordered, she held on. When the doctor came and said they had to cauterize the wound to stop the bleeding, she held on. When the hot iron sizzled against her husband’s flesh, she held on. When they wrapped the leg in white bandages and said there was nothing else to be done but wait, she held on. And when sleep finally claimed her, she laid her head against the edge of the mattress... and she held on.
Chapter Thirteen
May 1811
St Mary Abbots Church
London, England
