The doctors had done nothing for Cat except bleed her and recommend that he pray. He wondered now if Merlow’s superior medical knowledge could have saved her. In any case, Merlow wasnae here, and he shied from fetching the local leech. The man hadn’t saved Cat, no more than his colleague from Edinburgh. Both men had shrugged and said that it was God’s will to take women in childbed. Col had lost his temper and thrown them both out. Nae, he wouldnae have those infernal leeches in the house. He’d nurse Aihan himself, be damned to them.She is young and strong; she can beat a fever, can’t she?
He recalled the conversation with Merlow and Hetty about the typhus fever they had dealt with in Pinner. Now, what had Merlow said? Cool compresses, or if the fever was really bad, a cold bath to get the patient’s temperature down. And he’d made some concoction from Chinese herbs that helped treat the symptoms. Pity he hadn’t left any here—or had he? Col hadn’t been paying much attention at the time but if he had—Fergus will know!
He pelted back downstairs to the kitchen, where Fergus was scraping the meat into the stew pot over the fire.
“Fergus, d’ye recall if Merlow left any medicine for fever when he was here?”
“Aye, why?”
“Ye mean he did?”
“Aye, there’s a jar of it in the pantry. Brown bottle with a wax seal. On the top shelf on the right.”
“Bless ye, man!” said Col coming out with the bottle.
“The lassie poorly?”
“Aye, burning up. I’ll take a bowl of cold water and some cloths up.”
“Ye want me to send Willy to fetch the doc?”
“Nae. I’ll not have Henderson in the house after what happened to Cat. Useless as tits on a bull!”
“Hmmph!”
Col filled a bowl with water, fetched a pile of cloths from the linen cupboard, and went back upstairs to tend to the lass.
He set everything down on the table and looked at the label on the bottle. One teaspoon every four hours. Damn, he’d not brought a teaspoon up with him. He glanced over at Aihan; she was restless and shivery still. He needed more pillows to help her sit more upright. That might help her breathing, too.
He fetched a teaspoon and more pillows and, lifting her, he banked up the pillows behind her. She was such a slight little thing, so slender and small-boned in his hands he was almost afraid of breaking her. Her skin was hot and dry to the touch, and the shudders that wracked her small frame scared the living daylights out of him.
“There, lassie,” he murmured, stroking her hair off her flushed face and reaching for a cloth. Wringing it out, he draped it over her head, causing droplets of water to run down her forehead to her nose. He caught the drop with his thumb and swept it away. Her skin was so smooth and soft. Her eyelids flickered restlessly, and she still breathed with difficulty.
He needed to get the medicine into her. It probably tasted foul. If he tried to tip it down her throat, she’d choke.
“Aihan,” he said, touching her face gently and patting. “Wake up, lass, I need ye to swallow this.” She moved her head and whimpered something unintelligible. “Aihan!” he spoke more sharply to try to break through her delirium.
Her head jerked and her eyelids fluttered open. She stared at him, and he wasn’t sure that she even recognised him. He offered the spoon. “Here lass, it’ll make ye feel better.”
She parted her dry lips, and Col slid the spoon in. She grimaced as he withdrew it and swallowed convulsively. Then she coughed. It was a hacking, painful cough, and it made him wince in sympathy. He offered her some water to wash down the medicine. She took little sips between coughs, then subsided back against the pillows, visibly exhausted.
“Thank ye,” she murmured hoarsely, and he smiled at her good manners.
“Ye’re welcome, lass. We need to get yer temperature down. Ye’ll nae mind if I bathe ye?”
She waved a hand, and it fell to the sheets as if the effort to keep it upright was too much. After the intimacies they’d shared, it seemed a moot point to be worrying about the proprieties, and in any case, there was no choice. There was no woman to bathe her; it had to be him.
He lifted her tunic off over her head. She was unresistant and floppy, virtually unconscious again. With the sheets pulled back to her waist he set about laying damp cloths over her torso. Her breasts were small and had little pinkish-brown nipples. With the coolness of the cloths, the nipples tightened into tiny buds. Her stomach was flat and muscular. Her arms were thin, but also showed muscle definition.
He resolutely blocked any lewd thoughts; the lass was ill and in his care. He changed the cloths after a few minutes as they heated with her body. And gradually, the shudders subsided. Whether it was the cloths or the medicine or both he didn’tknow; he was just relieved to see some improvement. Her breathing was still painful to listen to.
He and Cat had nursed the boys through some fevers in their early years, so he had some knowledge of what to expect of a fever running its course. And he knew enough to keep her fluids up.
He spent the whole of the afternoon and evening by her side. The dogs scratched at the door for admittance, having tracked him upstairs. Gussie lay at his feet and Hector took up his usual spot on his lap. He read a book between changing her cloths and feeding her sips of water and the honey and lemon mixture.
As the sun was going down, Fergus brought him some stew, some bread, and a small bowl of broth from the stew for Aihan.
“If she can sup it?” Fergus asked with a worried frown.
