'She feels a bit cooler.' Tessa laid her cheek against Mercy's forehead just to make sure. 'Aye, she does. Susan, the fever is retreating.'
'Praise Heaven.' Susan crumpled to her knees at the bedside, unshed tears finally falling. 'Oh, Zeb. Did you hear? Mercy is going to live.'
'Aye, and all because of Mistress Hunter's care.' Grief eased from his rough face as he knelt down beside his wife, taking her in his sturdy arms.
Tessa dropped her gaze to give the couple privacy as she dunked another cloth in the herbed water and wrung excess moisture from it. There was still the lung fluid to be dealt with, but the onion poultice had helped the colonel. Tessa thought it would do the same for little Mercy.
A knock rattled the door. Zeb stood. 'I wager that is the reverend. He's back from his duties at the meetinghouse.'
A cool wind slung through the cabin, making the fire flicker when he opened the door. 'Major Hunter. Have you come looking for your wife?'
'Aye. And our Anya has made breakfast for all of you, thinking you wouldn't have time with a sick child to care for.' Jonah's voice rumbled with warmth, with a spine-tingling richness. Tessa folded the cloth in thirds, deliberately keeping her back to the door, both to block the child from the wind and to stop herself from turning around to face him. To keep from letting him see her heart in her eyes, her foolish, dreamer's heart.
'How thoughtful.' Susan swiped the tears from her eyes. 'With two ill children, I haven't given a thought to cooking. Come in, Major Hunter.'
She heard his boots knell on the floor and the click of the latch catching as the door closed. The room felt warmer with him in it. She gazed down at the sleeping child. Another touch to her brow proved the fever was truly fading.
Encouraged, Tessa concentrated on her work and kept her back to her husband. She did not want to be distracted from doing her best for little Mercy, not even if her own heart was breaking. She heard the low voices of Anya and Susan talking in the kitchen and the rumble of the men in conversation right behind her, and the pop from the blazing fire in the hearth. Still, Jonah's low voice drew her thoughts away from her work.
Although she felt ready to crack in two, her body heated, knowing he stood an arm's length away. All she would have to do was reach out and he would take her against his strong chest and hold her until the fear and the pain subsided. But she could not allow it. She would not be a fool twice.
She knelt to uncover the frying pan on the floor at her feet and scooped a goodly amount of onion mash into a spoon. She gently set the heated paste on Mercy's chest.
'I often helped my mother.' Anya knelt on the other side of the bed, across from Tessa, the little girl between them. 'She knew much about tending the sick. 'Tis necessary to have at least one healing woman in a village.'
'I could use help. I've two girls here to tend, and Thankful Bowman to check on. How's Andy?'
'Worsening, but I think the tea is helping him fight it. He doesn't seem as ill as this one.'
'Aye, but he may. I will send another mixture home with Jonah. If you wouldn't mind spreading this poultice, then I can see how little Julia fares.'
'I have applied these before.' Anya no longer looked shy but competent, sure of her skills. She had tender hands, slim and careful. She would do a good job, Tessa knew.
Avoiding Jonah, she climbed upstairs to see Julia. She did not wish to move the child yet, who slept cozy beneath several quilts, her fever not yet dangerously high. She would crush more roots and maybe make a strong poultice. It worked for Mercy's aggressive fever. Mayhap Tessa could stop the illness before it made Julia as sick.
When she climbed down the ladder, Jonah was there. Oh, apology was plain on his face. He thought he could smile at her, that she would be grateful enough for a good home and a husband better than Horace Walling, and that would be all. He couldn't see how his motives mattered.
He would soon see how wrong he was.
'Have some breakfast. You need to keep up your strength.' He held out a cup of tea, steaming and fragrant. 'You look far too pale.'
'From lack of sleep and from you.' She said it low, without accusation. For in truth, half of the blame was hers. She was at fault for believing his lies, for imagining this man could love a woman like her.
He winced. 'I had hoped for some quick forgiveness.'
'Go on and hope. I'll not stop you.' She plucked the tea from his grip and sipped it, retreating to her work space on Susan's polished counter.
Jonah's hands settled on her shoulders. 'I'm proud of you, Tessa. This work you do, 'tis courageous. It takes a strength of character to sit beside the dying and not run, not be afraid.'
'I am often afraid,' she confessed, unclasping the lid from a crock. 'But such is life, Jonah. 'Tis scary business. The birthing and the dying and all that comes in between. 'Tis not only in legends of war heroes, but in the strength of quietly living and loving and trusting.'
Jonah saw it then, how completely he'd failed her. There was nothing wrong with setting a criterion for a wife, using it to choose his bride. The wrong came in letting her believe she was special to him, that she was above price, beyond his own fear to trust and love another. Those gifts, that courage, he hadn't given her.
Because he was afraid to hand over his heart to another, to feel emotions that could make him vulnerable, like he was at this moment.
'Twas all she could do to gather enough courage to walk through the door. She lingered on the road outside the impressive clapboard house with a dozen black-paned windows glimmering in the weak sun.
Overnight it seemed as if the earth had been reborn. Tiny gray buds dotted black-limbed trees, promises of the leaves yet to come. And on the ground, when she looked closely, tiny shoots of green struggled beneath the dirt and last year's grasses. Birds sang more loudly, as if rejoicing in the change of season. Even the afternoon air smelled different, filled with promise.
Tessa narrowed her gaze to the house. She could see the colonel's room, the curtains open to take advantage of the view of forestland and the river beyond. A great fondness for the old man penetrated the cold shock still clamped around her heart She knew Samuel would be hurt, but it could not be helped.
Gathering what strength she could, she pushed open the door and stepped inside the house that would no longer be her home. The parlor was empty, although a fire crackled in the hearth. A book lay closed on the chair between the fireplace and the window where the colonel liked to read. He was probably upstairs taking a needed nap.
She did not bother to take off her cloak, for she would be leaving soon. More numbness crept over her, and she felt as she had when her mother finally died, unable to feel anything at all. But this numbness wouldn't last long, she knew that, too, as ice on a pond could never stay frozen. In time, spring always came.
Andy slept in his bed, a hot fire snapping in the grate. She set her basket down quietly and laid a hand to his brow. Aye, there was a fever, but it wasn't as intense as the colonel's had been, or little Mercy Hollingsworth's.
Encouraged, she snatched her basket of herbs and headed down the hall where the door stood open. She paused in the threshold to see the bed carefully made, Anya's work, and the curtain thrown back to let the meager sun gleam through the window.
It took no time at all to pack, for she'd hardly had the chance to unpack. Her mother's wedding gown, the dress she had worn to become Jonah's wife, was already folded in paper on top of the few keepsakes she owned, Mother's hymnal, her book of prayers, a treasured volume of Shakespeare's sonnets.
Tessa gently brushed this last book with the tips of her fingers. 'Twas the only remembrance she had of her father, of the man whose love Mother had talked about and treasured all of her life. Tessa had wanted to find a man like that, but poetry and dreams did not make love. Only two caring hearts could.
She gathered her hairbrush and pins, the cap and nightdress and underthings from the chest of drawers. A dull ache settled between her brows and behind her eyes. She rubbed the tense muscles there and then clasped the trunk lid tight.
There, she was packed, ready to go. 'Twas a little trunk and didn't weigh more than a sack of grain. She hefted it in both hands and carried it down the corridor, passing the colonel's room.
