The Bride Price

Chapter Twenty-Three

The wound was not deep. The ball from Marbley's pistol had sliced through the flesh on the right side of William's neck, though the surgeon, a young and eager gentleman by the name of Mr. Drew Nebbins, assured Emily that nothing of life-threatening importance had been severed.

But they were merely words, and the blood that had soaked through layers of bandages told a different story.

Emily sat by her husband's side, her chair pushed near enough to the bed that she lay forward with her arms folded on the blanket, acting as a pillow beneath her head. If she slept, she was not aware of it. Hours had passed since they'd brought William up here, and it was not until she spared a glance for the windows on the other side of the room that she realized the night was over and dawn glimmering grey and pale through the curtains.

Still, William had yet to open his eyes.

He continued to breathe, his pulse a weak, fluttering thing at his wrists and throat. He had lost so much blood, and even with a shallow wound, there was always the danger of fever. That, at least, was what Mr. Nebbins had said some hours ago.

She found William's hand on top of the bedclothes. His skin was warmer than it had been previously, and yet the change in temperature only filled her with a new fear, that perhaps infection had set in and he would succumb to fever. But his face still carried the same lack of color, of life and vitality. If Marbley succeeded in killing her husband...

A soft knock at the door tore Emily's gaze from William. A maid bearing a tray stepped into the room, followed by Mr. Nebbins, Mr. Lucas, and two other gentlemen whose names she could not recall.

"Mrs. Hazlitt." Mr. Lucas nodded, while Nebbins stepped towards the bed and took up William's arm, checking his pulse with the aid of a watch he pulled from the pocket of his waistcoat.

"No change," Mr. Nebbins said on a sigh. He reached out as if to check the bandages at William's neck, but a cough from one of the other gentlemen stalled his movements. "Ah, yes. Mrs. Hazlitt?" He stepped back and gestured towards the man who had coughed, a heavyset gentleman with a florid face, a protruding bottom lip, and nose that sat on his face like a potato. "This is Dr. Wimpole. I believe he wishes to oversee Mr. Hazlitt's care for the remainder of his recovery." A glance at the other nameless gentleman who entered the room told Emily that this Dr. Wimpole's wish may have better resembled a command.

But no matter the reason for the physician's arrival, Dr. Wimpole put himself forward before the young surgeon had finished speaking. "Has he said anything?"

Emily glanced back and forth between Dr. Wimpole and Mr. Nebbins before she realized that the question was directed at her. "Oh, no. He's not said anything yet. He's not even opened his eyes."

"Hmm." Dr. Wimpole stepped up to the edge of the bed, behaving for all as if she had not even spoken. "If there is fever, I may need to bleed him."

"Bleed him?" A weight settled in the bottom of Emily's stomach. Memories of her mother's illness, of countless physicians and specialists come to cut and apply their leeches and prescribe their useless tinctures parading through their home, slowly draining her mother's life away as quickly as they emptied her father's purse. "How much does he have left to give?

Dr. Wimpole sniffed and turned his rheumy gaze on her. "Perhaps you should wait outside while I examine him?" Though it was spoken with the tone of a question, the underlying command was clear.

"I will stay with my husband," she replied, sitting straight in her chair but with her hands still resting possessively near William's arm. She considered delving into a lengthy description of the nursing she had done for her mother, of the procedures she had seen performed, that she had even witnessed death and how it held no power to send her into hysterics. But instead she sat there, waiting for Dr. Wimpole to go about his business, and ready to drag him out of the room by the wilting collar of his shirt should he lay an injurious finger on her husband's form.