A corner of his mouth lifted, and the deep line between his eyebrows softened. “You’re welcome, Anna.”
And then he left.
Only after he’d been gone several minutes did I realize it was the first time he’d allowed me to thank him without telling me he was the one in my debt. Even our marriage had been difficult for him to accept thanks for.
But caring for me through the night and showing me those marks had cost him. More even than entering into a marriage for my sake. It had taken enough from him that, perhaps, at last, he could place us on equal footing. For when he looked at me before he left, it wasn’t as a man who saw only the girl who’d given of herself, tirelessly, to a broken boy—but as one who had come to see me as a woman, capable of reaching into his soul and taking something as well.
And despite everything we’d already been through together, it felt like a beginning.
W
Chapter 20
“We keep our misery to ourselves. We keep our misery to ourselves. We keep our misery to ourselves. No one with loved ones ever suffers alone.”
—David Tate, 1850, Age 23
The day passed in a haze. True to his word, David kept Julia away from my room and saw to Mama’s care, telling me she looked better than I did because he knew I wasn’t the kind of wife or daughter who would want to hear anything else. Despite telling me he’d have Mrs. Ward or Maren care for me, he tended to all but my most private needs himself. I was no longer chilled or feverish, but the illness had taken a toll, and my body was weak.
I slept on and off throughout the morning, and sometime in the afternoon, David knocked on the door and brought Dr. Clarke into my room.
The doctor’s dark-brown eyes assessed me from the moment he walked in. He strode to the chair David had set next to my bed and sat down. He gave me a stern look that wasn’t meant to be threatening, and his eyebrows lay low on his forehead. “I was hoping our next visit would happen because David invited me to dine.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He shook his head and placed a hand on my head. “You don’t have to apologize to me. I do, however, hope you will use yourinfluence over your husband and force him to entertain company every once in a while. It would do you and his sister good.”
I could see why he was a close friend of the family. Julia and David were naturally closed off—Julia, perhaps, more than David. It would take this kind of gruff assertiveness to break through some of their walls. “We would love to have you come, wouldn’t we, David?” I ended David’s name with a cough, which shook my body, but it was over quickly enough.
“It isn’t company she needs now,” David said, his voice heavier than Dr. Clarke’s. “She needs a doctor.”
Dr. Clarke turned in the chair to send back a retort, but the look on David’s face must have stopped him. Even cleaned up as he was, dark circles ringed his eyes, and lines creased his forehead. Had David slept at all the night before? My lips pulled up in a tired smile. Perhaps if I were sick often enough, he would age faster, and my lack of youth wouldn’t feel like such a stark contrast between us.
Although being sick often would age me as well.
Dr. Clarke leaned forward and placed a hand on my head. With a nod, he pulled his stethoscope from his bag. “May I?” he asked, pointing to the quilt that covered me up to my neck. I nodded without glancing up at David. He pulled back the quilt and the linen underneath it.
Maren had helped me put a nightdress over my chemise earlier, so my collarbones and shoulders were no longer exposed.
Dr. Clarke placed the cold metal of his stethoscope over the thin material on my chest. “Will you take a deep breath?”
I’d seen him do the same with Mama only the day before, and his mannerisms were no different with me than they had been with her, but my cheeks warmed knowing David watched the exchange. I hoped there was nothing in my heartbeat or rise and fall of my chest that would alert the kind doctor to my embarrassment, as it had nothing to do with him.
After several breaths, he straightened, pulled my covering back over me, and put his stethoscope back in his bag. “I believe the worst of this sickness has already passed. I was fairly certain of that fact the moment I set eyes on you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been quite so casual in my remarks.” He sent those last words to David.
I let my gaze go to my husband. His face was tight, and if he was at all affected by the sight of me in my nightclothes, he didn’t show it. Not like he had when I’d surprised him by removing my blankets in the dark.
David nodded at Dr. Clarke, and it seemed that would be his only acknowledgment of the doctor’s apology.
Dr. Clarke leaned back in the chair. “You look well, and your color is good. How are you feeling?”
“Much better than yesterday. However, I’m fatigued. I spent the morning sleeping, and now when I try to stand, I feel faint.”
Dr. Clarke nodded. “That is most likely an aftereffect of the fever, but if you had any of those troubles before falling ill, it could be a sign of being with child. Have you had any other signs? Have your courses remained normal?”
I shifted uncomfortably in the bed. If I’d thought having David in the room when Dr. Clarke listened to my heart was embarrassing, this was much worse. “Yes.”
“Yes, your courses are normal? Or yes, you’ve had other signs of being with child?”
