Patricia Rice (17 page)

Dora dubiously spooned a few drops into Pace's mouth. Jackson closed his jaw, then stroked his throat. The muscles beneath his hand instinctively contracted. The water went down. He repeated the process, and Dora dropped a few more spoonfuls of water in.

It was a tedious procedure, and the patiently quickly tired of it. He thrashed again, endangering the bandages on his arm, and Dora called a halt. She hadn't slept more than a few hours in days, and she was weary to the point of exhaustion.

"Eat, then get some sleep, Miss Dora. I'll look after him for a while."

"Thou art needed in the field, Jackson. I'm not useful for anything else. I'll take some rest. Thou mayest go now."

Although the house had plenty of room for the three of them, for propriety's sake, Jackson had taken to sleeping in the barn. Dora wasn't certain of the propriety of her nursing Pace, but she didn't care either. Someone must do it, and she didn't see anyone else rushing to offer.

Jackson left her with the tray, and she nibbled at the contents when she could. She must maintain her strength to do her job. If Pace died, it wouldn't be because she hadn't done everything she could—except allow the doctor to amputate.

She hadn't even asked Carlson Nicholls if she had made the right decision. The entire guilt would lay on her shoulders. She refused to think or feel anything. She had only one task. She lifted the cooling sponge to Pace's forehead and began to bathe him all over again.

Somewhere around midnight she must have fallen asleep. The birds chirruped in the apple tree outside when Dora woke again. The faint gray light before dawn filled the windows. Her eyes felt grainy and full of sleep, but she forced them open. Without thinking, she reached for the sponge. When her hand reached to Pace's forehead, she discovered him staring at her.

"Pace?" she whispered uncertainly. Perhaps she still dreamed.

"Water." His voice was dry and croaked the word, but she understood.

She tried lifting him so he could sip at the cup, but he was heavy. She cursed her weakness and tucked pillows beneath his head. He drank eagerly, and she had to pull the cup away before he made himself ill.

"More," he demanded.

"In a minute. It may come back up if thou takest too much." She wiped his brow, then lit the lamp so she could examine his arm.

He groaned when she touched the bandage, but he didn't fight her as he had in his delirium. He didn't look either. "It's still there," he croaked with an edge of triumph.

"Thou ought to know. It must hurt like the very flames of hell." She applied more powder to the open wound. The torn muscles would never be the same. She didn't think the bone broken in more than one place, but the damage was too extensive to know for certain. Her main concern at the moment was the angry red lines trailing across the unharmed flesh. She thought perhaps they were a little fainter today.

"It would still hurt if it wasn't there. I've heard them talk."

That didn't seem likely, but she had no way of knowing. She supposed Pace knew more than she about battlefield wounds. "Let's try the water again," was the only reply she gave him.

He slipped into a labored sleep not much later, but Dora allowed a small blister of hope to fester. It was an insidious thing, hope. It could grow and spread and take over, and then one day, it died, leaving an abscess behind. She knew all about hope. She just didn't seem able to prevent it.

When the next day came and it appeared the infection in Pace's arm hadn't spread and the fever was down, Dora sent Jackson for the doctor again. The bone had apparently been set, but she knew nothing of keeping it in place. The constant bandaging and unbandaging to treat the wound and his thrashing about could have knocked something loose. She didn't want to imagine the pain that would ensue if it had set improperly and needed resetting. She hadn't worried about it when she thought he was dying, but hope had succeeded in making her think he might have a future.

After examining the patient, the doctor gave Dora a curious look, and left her to rebandage Pace's arm. He watched as she went through the ritual of applying Mother Elizabeth's healing powders, packing the wound with boiled lint, and pulling clean cotton tight to hold it closed. He shook his head and picked up the vial of powder.

"What in hell is in this?"

Dora was too terrified to tell him. A man of science would not think to use dried bread mold. It smacked of witchcraft, particularly when used by an uneducated woman. People didn't believe in witches anymore, but they still tended to be superstitious about the unknown. And Pace could still die. She would almost certainly be accused of killing him if she revealed such ingredients.

"It belonged to my adopted mother," she answered honestly. "She taught me to use it in open wounds. I don't know that it helps, but it has never seemed to harm."

The doctor sniffed and tasted the substance, then set it aside, still shaking his head. "Either that stuff works, or God has decided He doesn't want your patient just yet. I'm as likely to believe in one as the other."

Dora knew the hope in her eyes was painful to see, but she couldn't help turning them to the more knowledgeable man. "Will he live then?"

The man shrugged. "Hell if I know. You seem to have more answers than I do. But I'll tell you this, he won't ever use that arm. The muscles are shot to—" Realizing he was swearing in front of a lady, he bit back the most convenient word. "His muscles will never grow back the way they should, and that break may never heal properly. I doubt that he'll ever lift the arm he risked his neck to keep."

Dora didn't care. For one brief moment, she allowed herself to smile in relief. Pace might live. He might yet call her bluebird and laugh at her odd ways. He could go on to be a lawyer and a politician and make the government change the laws that kept an entire race enslaved. He might end the war once he returned to where he belonged, and fighting in the army wasn't what she had in mind. He didn't need an arm to fight in politics.

She saw the physician to the door, breathed deeply of the muggy June air, and returned to throw open the bedroom windows. It allowed the heat in, but the air needed freshening.

Pace recovered slowly. He slept restlessly, ate little, and said less. Until she moved the table to the left side of the bed, he would wake her in the night with his struggles to reach the water pitcher. He grew angry when she cut his food for him and grew angrier still when he couldn't cut it successfully for himself.

When he recovered enough to sit upright for extended periods of time, he ordered her out of the house.

Dora didn't know whether to laugh or rage at his foolishness. He couldn't even pull a shirt over his head by himself so he sat there naked except for the sheet, and he wanted her to leave?

"This is my house," she reminded him.

"Then tell Jackson to get a wagon and carry me up to my father's house," he demanded.

"Fine. I will do that. But I'll have thee remember I live there, too."

"Then go live there and leave me here!" He jerked the sheet around his waist and hauled himself out of bed, going to look out the window rather than at her.

"I see. Now that thou hast fully recovered, thou no longer needeth my services. Very well. I will send Annie down with clean bandages and thou mayest dress thy wound thyself."

She walked out, leaving Pace scowling at the window.

She reappeared in the lane outside, and he watched as she marched away with shoulders held straight and proud. Her slender gray figure looked out of place against the backdrop of verdant trees and grass. She had worn her cap ever since that first night, and it concealed the wealth of silver curls he knew existed beneath that disguise—just as he knew a woman's graceful figure resided beneath her shapeless garb. He had spent all these past nights dreaming of her delightful curves.

Slamming his good fist against the window frame, Pace swung around so quickly that his head spun. Cursing, he caught himself against the wall until the room tilted back to normal. By the time he made it back to the bed, he figured he would pass out, and rage filled him all over again. His arm throbbed like all the hammers of hell, and bound against his chest, it was useless. He couldn't even stand upright for more than a few minutes at a time. He felt like a parasite. He'd be damned if he lived off Dora's patient generosity like the rest of his family did. He wouldn't contemplate the other vile iniquities that coiled and slithered through his evil mind.

When Dora returned that night with a tray of foods that were easily eaten by a one-armed invalid, Pace flung it against the far wall.

Dora scooped the mashed potatoes back in the bowl and slammed it back on the table beside him. "Thou wilt clean up the soup thyself. I will not."

She stalked out of the room again, carefully leaving the door unslammed.

Pace hurled a curse after her for good measure, but he figured her holy ears didn't hear curses.

She returned five minutes later with a pitcher of cold lemonade. He was down on the floor picking up beans and pieces of ham from the floor with his one good hand. He glared at her and made no attempt to rise.

"Thou art a miserable, ungrateful wretch, but I will not allow thee to bully me," she informed him.

"Thou art a meddling, shameless bitch," he mocked from his position on the floor, "and thee will not bully me. I don't need a nursemaid."

"Thou needest a keeper! I have worked long hard hours to keep that arm of thine, and I will not see it rot off for thy lack of common sense. Thou mayest starve if thou dost wish, but I will tend that arm."

Giving up on the mess, Pace shoved the bowl away and leaned wearily against the wall. "I did not come back here to lay one more burden on your shoulders. Get back to the house, baby my mother, soothe Josie's ruffled feathers, and bounce Amy until she sleeps. Jackson can see to my arm."

Dora closed her eyes, apparently in an effort to gather the frazzled edges of her patience. "Josie and Amy left weeks ago. There is only thy mother, and she is much improved." She opened her eyes again. "Jackson has far less time than I to tend your wound. It has not rained in months, and he is digging irrigation ditches in hopes of saving part of the crop."

"Then send Odell or one of the men from the farm. I don't want you down here," he answered stubbornly. She looked as if she might kick him, and Pace tried not to flinch. He certainly wasn't in any position to dodge the blow. He reacted out of instinct, before remembering his avenging angel didn't strike that way.

"Odell joined the army last week. Those who haven't joined have run away. Thy father has only Solly left, and that is only because Jackson talked him out of leaving. He was helping Jackson until thy father refused to hire him out anymore. Now he will probably cross the river like the others."

Pace grimaced. "Then send one of the women. You can't keep coming here."

She gave him a curious look. "I have lived here these past weeks caring for thee. If it is my reputation thou seekest to protect, it is far too late for that and scarcely necessary. No one cares what I do or where I go."

He gave her a grim look and pushed from the floor. "
I
care. Now get the hell out of here."

She refused to move despite his most menacing expression. "I will tend thy arm first."

A bulldog with its teeth in a bone couldn't be more determined. Pace surrendered, and suffered all the torments of the damned while she leaned over him, her soft breasts brushing against his arm, her sweet scent filling his nostrils. He wanted to rip the ugly cap from her head and free her silver curls.

Who the hell was he fooling? He wanted to rip the bodice from her dress and grab her breasts. He wanted to lift her skirts and pull her on top of him. He wanted to jerk his guardian angel down off her cloud and make her as human as he was.

And he didn't have the damned strength to lift a soup bowl.

Chapter 12

It is hard to fight against impulsive desire; whatever it wants, it will buy at the cost of the soul.

~ Heraclitus,
Fragments
(c. 500 b.c.)

July 1864

Lying in the muggy darkness, Pace tossed on the wrinkled sheets. He'd never learned to make a damned bed, but he wouldn't let Dora do it. He didn't want Dora anywhere around him. She made him itch. She made him think unthinkable thoughts.

My God, she was little more than a child. He'd gone without a woman too damned long to think of little Dora like that. He knew himself for a dissolute bastard, but he'd never sunk so low as to desire a child before.

But she wasn't a child. He didn't know her age, but she sure the hell wasn't a child any longer. That knowledge frazzled all his brain functions.

He turned again, his body as restless as his thoughts. He couldn't settle his mind any more than he could settle the rebellious swelling in his groin. He'd never thought of Dora as human so much as an image of the one innocent perfect thing in his world. He'd have to find another woman to slake his lusts before he did something unforgivable. But the images of all the women he'd used before revolted him now. Only Dora's sweet scent and soft, lilting accents appealed.