She wound them into a loose cylindrical shape and dunked one end in the water. “I’m so sorry, Marcus,” she whispered, then touched the wet cloth ever-so-gently against the wound.
He didn’t flinch.
She let out the breath she’d been holding and looked at the cloth. It was red in spots from his blood, and yellowish, too, with the infection that was oozing from the wound.
Feeling slightly more confident of her nursing abilities, she adjusted the cloth to a clean area and again pressed it against the wound, applying a tiny bit more pressure than the first time. It didn’t seem to bother him overmuch, so she repeated the procedure, and then again, until there was very little clean cloth remaining.
She glanced worriedly at the door. Where was Mrs. Wetherby?
Honoria was making progress, but she was sure she could do a better job with hot water. Still, she wasn’t about to stop, not while Marcus remained relatively calm.
She went to the bureau and got another pair of Marcus’s unmentionables. “I don’t know what you’re going to wear when I’m through with you,” she said to him, hands on hips.
“Back in the water,” she said to herself, dunking the cloth. “And back on you.” She pressed, harder this time. One was supposed to press on cuts and scrapes to stop the bleeding, this much she knew.
He wasn’t exactly bleeding now, but surely the pressure couldn’t hurt.
“And by that I mean hurt you in a permanent manner,” she said to Marcus, who remained blessedly unconscious. “I’m quite certain it will hurt you right now."
She dunked the cloth again, finding a nice clean patch of linen, then she moved to the part of the wound she knew she’d been avoiding. There was a spot near the top that was uglier than the rest —quite a bit more yellow, definitely more swollen.
She dabbed lightly, trying not to hurt him, and then, when he did nothing but mutter in his sleep, pressed a little harder. “One step at a time,” she whispered, forcing herself to take a calming breath.
“Just one.” She could do this. She could help him. No, she could fix him. It was as if everything in her life had led to this moment. “This is why I didn’t get married last year,” she said to him. “I wouldn’t be here to nurse you.” She thought about that for a moment. “Of course, one could make the argument that you wouldn’t be in this situation if not for me. But we’re not going to dwell upon that."
She kept up her work, carefully cleaning his wound, then paused to stretch her neck from side to side. She looked down at the cloth in her hands. It was still disgusting, but she wasn’t bothered by it any longer.
“There, you see,” she said to him. “It must mean I am getting better at this.” She thought she was doing better, too. She was trying to be so very matter-of-fact and practical, but then, out of nowhere, right after she so jauntily declared that she was getting better at “this,” a huge choking sound burst from her throat. It was part gasp, part hideous wheeze, and it surprised her completely.
Marcus could die. The reality of this slammed into her with smothering force. He could die, and then she would be truly alone.
It wasn’t even as if they’d seen much of each other in recent years, except for the past few weeks, of course.
But she’d always known he was there. The world was simply a better place, knowing that he was in it.
And now he might die. She’d be lost without him. How had she not realized that?
“Honoria!"
Honoria turned. It was her mother, bursting through the door.
“I came as quickly as I could,” Lady Winstead said, hurrying across the room. Then she saw Marcus’s leg. “Oh, my God."
Honoria felt another one of those gaspy, wheezing noises blowing up within her. There was something about seeing her mother, about her mother seeing Marcus. It was like the time when she was twelve, and she’d fallen off her horse. She’d thought she was fine; she’d walked all the way home, bruised and achy, her face bleeding where she’d scratched it against a rock.
And then she’d seen her mother, and her mother’s expression, and she’d started to bawl.
It was the same thing. She wanted to bawl. Dear God, all she wanted to do was push back and turn away and cry and cry and cry.
But she couldn’t. Marcus needed her. He needed her to be calm. And capable. “Mrs. Wetherby is getting hot water,” she told her mother. “She should be back soon."
“Good. We’ll need lots of it. And brandy. And a knife."
Honoria looked at her mother with surprise. She sounded as if she knew what she was doing. Her mother.
“The doctor is going to want to take off the leg,” Lady Winstead said grimly. “What?” Honoria hadn’t even considered that.
“And he may be right."
Honoria’s heart stopped beating. Until her mother said, “But not yet."
Honoria stared at her mother in shock. She could not remember the last time she’d heard her speak with such decisiveness. When Daniel had fled the country, he’d taken a piece of their mother with him. She’d been utterly lost, unable to commit herself to anything or anyone, even her daughter. It was almost as if she could not bring herself to make any decisions, because to do so would mean that she accepted her life as it now was, with her only son gone, possibly forever.
But maybe all she had needed was a reason to wake up. A critical moment.
Maybe she’d needed to be needed.
“Stand back,” Lady Winstead said, pushing up her sleeves.
Honoria stepped aside, trying to ignore the tiny pang of jealousy that flared to life within her. Hadn’t she needed her mother?
“Honoria?"
She looked at her mother, who was watching her with an expectant expression. “Sorry,” Honoria mumbled, holding out the cloth in her hand. “Do you want this?"
“A clean one, please."
“Of course.” Honoria rushed to do her mother’s bidding, further depleting Marcus’s supply of underthings.
Her mother took the cloth, then looked at it with a confused expression. “What is . . ."
“It was all I could find,” Honoria explained. “And I thought time was of the essence."
“It is,” her mother confirmed. She looked up, her eyes meeting Honoria’s with grave directness. “I have seen this before,” she said, her shaky breath the only sign of nerves. “Your father. On his shoulder. It was before you were born."
“What happened?” Her mother looked back at Marcus’s leg, narrowing her eyes as she examined the wound. “See if you can shed more light on this."
And then, while Honoria went to the windows to pull the curtains fully open, she said, “I don’t even know how he cut himself. Just that it became horribly infected.” Very softly, she added, “Almost as bad as this.” “But he was fine,” Honoria said, returning to her mother’s side.
This was a story to which she knew the ending. Her father had had two perfectly strong arms until the day he died.
Her mother gave a nod. “We were very lucky. The first doctor wanted to amputate. And I—” Her voice broke, and it was a moment before she continued. “I would have let him do it. I was so concerned for your father’s life.” She used the clean cloth to dab at Marcus’s leg, trying to get a better look. When she spoke again, her voice was very soft. “I would have done anything they told me to."
“Why didn’t they take his arm?” Honoria asked quietly.
Her mother let out a short puff of a breath, as if expelling a bad memory. “Your father demanded to see another doctor. He told me that if the second agreed with the first, he would do as they asked.