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Chapter Four
After a deliciously long and relaxing soak in a lemon and camellia oil-scented bath, Kendra now sat before the robust fire in her chamber, brushing her hair dry. She’d dismissed her maid, Olna, needing time alone to unwind and ponder the day’s incredulous events.
She’d faced two of her worst fears—blood and a wound—and emerged, if not unscathed, then at least triumphant. She hadn’t crumpled into a swoon or vomited. No, she’d marshaled her gumption and did what needed doing.
As she stroked her hair, one long glide after another through her damp tresses, she closed her eyes. When the image of the man pointing his gun at Broden invaded her meditations, she popped her eyelids open at once.
That awful picture wouldn’t soon leave her memory. If ever.
Her mouth went dry as parchment, just as it had in the woodlands, and a shiver of fear rippled up her spine like waves rushing ashore, raising goose flesh high and taut.
So many unanswered questions ran through her mind, one after the other in rapid succession.
What if Broden hadn’t stopped to speak to her?
Would he still have been shot?
How had whoever shot him known he’d be on the road at that time?
What if she hadn’t been near to help him?
Would he have died?
That last unpleasant thought sat in her stomach, a hard, aching, miserable knot.
Oh, the man infuriated her to no end. But in all of her memory, there’d never been a time he wasn’t around. A brief horse or carriage ride away. His wickedly low and frequent chuckles, echoing in his wide chest. His rumbling brogue reverberating inside Eytone Hall. His treacle-brown eyes flashing with one devilment or another.
She brought a hand to her throat, feeling the fluttering of her pulse beneath her fingertips.
Broden dead? Gone? Forever?
Her heart cramped, taking on an irregular rhythm. Nae. ’Twas inconceivable.
Why, try as she might, she couldn’t envision a world without him in it. If he were absent, nothing could fill the space that had been him. Nothing, and no one. That sphere would remain empty, void, tragically hollow until the end of time.
Her mood distinctly more somber and pensive, she resumed brushing her hair.
Dr. Haines had come and expertly extracted the ball from Broden’s shoulder, which he said, hadn’t penetrated deeply nor damaged bone nor muscle.
Conveniently, Broden had remained insensate during the removal. Although he’d lost a great deal of blood, the physician expected him to recover. If he stayed abed and heeded orders to rest.
“He’s hale and hearty, and as stubborn a Scot as there is,” the doctor said in his thick burr while cleansing his medical instruments in the washbasin. “We must watch for infection and fever, of course.”
He’d turned a gimlet eye on Broden, pale and vast against the pillows, a bandage wrapped around his chest and shoulder. “I expect he’ll no’ be a passive patient. I might have to resort to dosin’ him with laudanum if he refuses to cooperate and stay in bed.”
Indeed. Dr. Haines hit the mark straight on with that assessment. Broden wouldn’t take well to lying abed for any length of time.
Kendra wasn’t above tying him to the four posts if he refused to cooperate.
Promising to return every day to check on Broden’s progress, the doctor had left instructions with Mrs. McGregor, Emeline, and Mother regarding his care. It rather piqued her that they’d excluded her.
Hadn’t she shown she could handle a bit of blood?
Maeve McGregor had arrived a couple of hours ago. At this very moment, she sat beside her only living son’s bed, holding his hand and waiting for him to awaken. And praying. Praying as only a mother could for her son.
Mother had deemed it prudent to assign Mrs. McGregor a chamber near Broden’s, and the kindly woman had taken her dinner in his bedchamber, as well. She was grateful to be allowed to nurse her son, but her discomfort at being obligated to the MacKays was tangible.
When she’d learned Broden had been shot, she’d buried her wizened face in her hands and wept. She’d already buried two sons. The poor woman had no one else.
