“Do you need me to do anything else?” She asked when she had finished, and he considered it for a moment.
“We could wait for me to clean up a bit in order to have a better grip on the needle,” he said, lifting his bloody hands, “or you could sew him up?”
Brandon looked like his eyes would pop out of his skull at the suggestion, but it seemed that Doctor Cooper knew something about Lizzie that even she herself didn’t, because she calmly nodded and said, “Of course.”
Doctor Cooper talked her through the process, but ultimately, it was very similar to other needlework she’d done, so the familiar motions actually helped relax her.
“I’m tempted to sew some decorative beads in here,” she muttered angrily, and Pratt laughed again.
“Very neat suture, excellent work, Your Grace, even without the beads,” Doctor Cooper smiled. “Now all that’s left is to clean him up and put some salve on the wound. Send your girl here to go get his valet, he will wash and dress him. From what I was able to see, there should be no permanent damage, but the recovery will be long and tedious, if he survives the next three days,” he concluded in the same jovial tone.
“What… Is there something I should be doing to help him?” Lizzie frowned after nodding at Susan to do what the doctor had asked, confused by the dissonance between the tone and the message.
“Mrs Cooper and I will examine him daily, but you can spoon-feed him willow bark tea, keep his wound clean and dry, and I’ll leave a jar of this salve with you to apply to the wound twice a day.”
Elizabeth nodded and suddenly felt drained.
“For now, I think it’s best not to move him too far. Perhaps best get a bed down here if you can.”
“Of course, I’ll tell someone immediately,” Lizzie said, and it sounded to her like her voice was coming from far away.
She held on to the table. She didn’t know why.
Doctor Cooper frowned slightly as he looked at her. “No need, you sit down here, yes, right there. Pratt will go. You can rest a bit now.”
“I…” Elizabeth couldn’t remember what she had wanted to say. “What happened to the other man?”
The men glanced at each other.
“Why don’t you take a sip of water, Your Grace?” Doctor Cooper put a glass in her hand, and she mindlessly obeyed.
*
Elizabeth and Thunder sat by Talbot’s bed for two days and two nights. She prayed, changed the dressing on her husband’s wound, wet his mouth and forehead with a washcloth (Stevenson bathed and changed him), and she spoon-fed him willowbark tea and broth as they waited for his fever to break.
On the second day, Mrs. Clark came to the Mayfair house with a huge basket and what could only be described as a cauldron of broth. Lizzie hadn’t seen her since she’d left Colin’s London residence.
“It brought you back, it’ll do the same for him,” Mrs Clark said about the broth. “The secret is ginger root.”
Elizabeth had no idea what she was talking about, but even in her exhaustion, she still recognised the gesture for what it was and hugged the woman warmly. “And in the basket are some pastries for you,” the cook said when they broke the hug.
“Oh, I’ve missed you, Mrs. Clark. Thank you.”
Colin’s probably missed her, too, she realised.She and Stevenson were the only members of his staff who travelled to Norwich with him.
Lizzie then remembered the almost identical studies in all of Colin’s homes.
He is so set in his ways; he must have suffered without his food the way he wants it, but he never said a thing.
“Why can’t you choose between being wonderful and horrible?” She later asked her unconscious, shirtless husband.
They kept his torso exposed in order to keep the wound accessible and dry, and Elizabeth often touched his chest and shoulders.Out of necessity,she told herself.
She fondly smiled at the tiny, C-shaped chest hairs she kept finding on the white sheets. She’d always laughed whenever she found one back when they used to share a bed;C for Colin,she used to tell him in a singsong voice.
“What smells so delicious in here?” a now-visibly pregnant Mary asked from the doorway.
“My husband,” Lizzie replied seriously.
