His love. 'Twould have to be enough.
A knock rattled the back door before Jonah could admit the truth aloud. Andy, coughing and pale, was closest to the door and hopped up to open it.
"Major?" The reverend stood in the threshold with the cheery morning sun slanting over him, forcing him to squint. "I apologize for interrupting your morning meal, but Anya sent me."
"Anya?" Jonah pushed out his chair and stood. "Is there a problem? She went to the Bradfords to help Tessa tend her family."
"You have not heard? The Bradford children are all recovering. 'Tis Tessa who is ill."
"Ill?" He crossed the room in two strides. "It cannot be. I saw her just two, nay, three days ago."
The reverend's face saddened, and Jonah heard the knell of grief. " Tis true, Jonah. I know you and your wife have had some kind of a disagreement, but now is not the time for conflict. She is gravely ill, mayhap dying. She didn't want you to come, but she has lost consciousness and Anya and I thought it best that you see her."
A cold shock struck him like a blow, left him reeling but unable to feel.
"We'll go together." Thomas' hand settled upon Jonah's shoulder. "Reverend Brown, is there much hope?"
"Nay." Sorrowful. "Tessa is the healer, and now that she is sick, there's no one but Anya to tend her. She cares, but she is not skilled."
"Then we'll call a surgeon. It helped Father." Jonah's mind whirled. He could send Thomas, who would be swiftest, and mayhap-
"There is no time. 'Tis why I'm here. I thought you might want to say goodbye to your wife."
Jonah saw the unavoidable truth in the reverend's eyes, and the compassion. For once, he could not hide, could not seal off his heart, could not freeze out the emotions battering his chest like a horned bull.
His heart cracked wide open. Tears stung his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.
"How long has she been like this?" Jonah demanded as Ely opened the door.
"Two days." The rotund man blocked the threshold. "She left strict instructions. You are not welcome here."
"Move aside, Bradford," Jonah growled, "or I'll tear you limb from limb with my bare hands."
The fleshy man stepped aside.
Jonah caught a dim impression of a filthy kitchen, dishes stacked in piles on the messy board table, the room abandoned. Maybe the others in this house had left for Charity's mother's home, to recover now that Tessa could not tend them. That knowledge sparked another wave of rage. He burst into the parlor and saw the pallet on the floor by the hearth.
Damn Ely. He could not even spare a bed?
"Master Jonah, you came." Anya sprang up from the floor, fatigue bruising her face, harsh around her frightened eyes. "The reverend thought he could convince you to come. Mistress Tessa made me swear not to send for you, but she's unconscious. So, I am not directly breaking my oath to her."
Jonah's throat tightened at the sight of his wife restless with fever beneath a linen sheet. Somehow he managed to speak. "You stayed all day and night with her."
"Aye." Sadness knelled in that quiet word. "I don't know what else to do. I have applied the onion poultice and her lungs are not the problem now. Her fever is. I have used the compresses. I have soaked her in water. She became so chilled I dared not do it more."
Jonah sank to his knees, his gaze never straying from Tessa's face, her dear face. He knew without looking the exact delicate cut of her jaw and chin and cheekbones, the shape of her silken mouth, of her small nose and dark lashes. Every part of her was etched in his memory, engraved in his heart.
He took her hand within his. Her skin felt far too hot, and he saw the blotchy redness marking her skin. The delirium twisted incomprehensible words from her mouth as she thrashed, the fever almost winning its battle.
Too late for a surgeon to bleed her, and he knew nothing about treating illnesses.
" 'Tis up to God now," the reverend said, his boots barely tapping on the floorboards as he stepped into the room. "And up to Tessa."
"You're wrong, Reverend." Jonah pressed his lips to Tessa's knuckles and closed his eyes. " 'Tis up to me, too."
How could he endure losing her? What if he never saw her again? Never to explain he loved her. How he loved her.
"Anya, keep applying compresses. Wasn't there a powder she used on the Hollingsworth child? I know she used it on Father."
"Aye, but I am not certain of the dosage. I can't simply give her any amount, for the powder is dangerous and too much could kill her."
"Well, the fever is already killing her." Jonah shoved past Thomas who had just come from the stable. "Brother, go upstairs and grab the first bed you see and bring it down here. They have Tessa lying on the floor."
"Damn that Ely." A fury matching his own snapped in Thomas' eyes. "I'll find the softest mattress."
Listening to his brother's boots striking angrily on the wood floor, Jonah turned to study Tessa's basket. "This is the bird dropping tea."
" 'Tis not made of bird droppings." Anya grabbed the crock and checked on its contents. 'Twas nearly empty. "But of bark and leaves."
"And this is the other tea that clears congestion."
"Aye, but it does naught for fever."
Jonah pushed aside that crock to reach more. One held bark for headaches, according to Anya, and another dried berries which helped with fever, but not one as severe as Tessa's.
"This is what she used on Mercy Hollingsworth, whose fever was the most severe." Anya hesitantly touched the lid of a small crock. "I wasn't in the kitchen when she crushed the root, and I remember she said 'tis lethal, even in small quantities, but the right amount can help break a fever."
"Then there is hope?"
"Aye, I've not been sure what to do all night." The young girl's face crumpled with torment. "I cannot sit here and let the woman who gave me a good home die. And yet, how could I live with myself if I gave her the wrong dose?"
"Crush some of the powder. She's too far gone with fever. I have seen it on the battlefield. She is living her nightmares and soon she will be gone to us."
"Aye. I've seen it too." Anya bowed her head. "You will administer the powder? I'm no coward, and yet, I cannot hurt my mistress. I could never-"
Jonah's throat ached. "I will administer the powder."
Tears rolled down Anya's face as she dropped a small black root into a shallow bowl.
He helped his brother bring down a bed, Ely and Charity's, judging by the look of it. And in no time assembled it in front of the fire, laid the sheets and eased Tessa's fitful body upon it.
She was fighting the fever, this he knew. He sat on the edge of the feather mattress, taking both of her hands in his. Her head thrashed from side to side, and her ebony curls were plastered with sweat. Her legs kicked and her body twisted. She suffered, and he hated it.
He released her hands with a kiss to her knuckles and wrung die cool herbed water from a cloth soaking in a nearby pail. He folded it into thirds and laid the compress on her forehead, another on her throat, and so on, until her body was swathed in white and he started the process over again.
Thomas ran to the well for more cold water, and Anya mixed the herbs for them. They ran out of cloths, and the reverend raced next door to borrow what he could from the Sandersons.
A knock rattled the door. Jonah soaked more cloths in the fresh water while Thomas answered it. Susan Hollingsworth stood in the threshold with a basket on her arm.
"I brought food and more clean linens." The woman seemed hesitant. "I don't want to interrupt, but I heard Tessa was ill. She saved my girls' lives many times over the years and now is the first chance I've had to pay back some of her kindness."
" 'Tis appreciated," Jonah managed.
"I will put on some of my soup to warm." Susan set the basket down on a low table and rifled through it. "This is for Tessa. My girls made it for her. As a thank you."
Jonah took the small rag doll, made with inexperienced stitches, but all the more dear with thanks. He sat it on the headboard above Tessa. The doll with uneven black yarn hair smiled crookedly down at her.