Her face fell in response to my rather brusque dismissal. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, and scurried from the room.
“There’s no need to be rude,” Henry said when we were alone. “She only wanted to be helpful.” The shock had certainly passed, returning him to his former self, but I didn’t miss the hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
“It was a little too obvious how much she wanted to help,” I said peevishly.
“Does this mean you’ll be offering to feed me now you’ve sent the poor girl away?” he asked, his smile broadening.
I laughed in spite of myself. “I think you’ll manage just fine.”
He did, and in two gulps, the broth was gone. Taking the bowl, I returned it to the tray and then looked over the other items that had been sent up. In the center of the tray sat a large tureen of steaming water steeped with garlic and witch hazel to clean the wounds. The needle and thread were lying nestled in a stack of linen bandages, and next to this, a tall glass bottle and a shorter glass jar. The bottle I recognized right away as whiskey to help with pain. The jar I picked up and uncorked to find a salve meant to be rubbed onto the wounds once the stitching was done, to minimize inflammation and reduce the risk of infection.
I returned the jar to the tray and poured some whiskey into a small pewter cup. “You’ll be needing this,” I said, handing it to him.
He took it willingly and threw it back in one shot.
“We’d best get it over with.” I moved a step closer to start untying the bandages. The linen stuck to the skin where the blood had already dried. I gently pulled it loose, breaking the recently formed scabs. He didn’t even flinch when fresh blood appeared on the surface—a good sign, considering what was to come.
Once his back and arm were exposed, I dipped a clean cloth into the steaming water and thoroughly cleaned each wound. His arm had been very neatly cut with a sharp blade, leaving behind no ragged edges to work around. His back proved trickier, since the lead shot had made a messy entrance, tearing rather than slicing the skin apart.
With the cleaning done, I threaded the needle. “Do you need more whiskey?” I asked.
“The one cup will do.” He tightened his free hand into a fist in preparation.
“It’s not uncommon to vomit or faint,” I warned him. “I’ve seen it many times, even from the bravest of men.”
“Oh, I’ve been stitched before and made it through just fine,” he assured me. “And Ben said you’re the finest healer in all the Colonies.”
“I don’t know about all of the Colonies,” I said, feigning modesty. Bracing his arm, I carefully pushed the needle into the skin, drawing the thread through to the other side of the cut. He clenched his jaw tight, but kept his arm in place.
“Did you really kill three men today?” I asked, partially to distract him, though I also wanted to know what had happened.
“Yes,” he said. “But it’s not so grand as it sounds. The first man I killed with a lucky shot from the pistol when they first attacked us. The second man went to my sword after some fighting, and then, well, you know how the third man died.” Sweat beaded his forehead, and his face had lost most of the color gained from the whiskey.
I nodded my head rather than try to speak around the tightness that had formed in my throat. The image of the demon hovering above me was still too fresh. I took several stitches in silence, and had nearly reached the end when Henry spoke again.
“Selah, I’m sorry you had to suffer under the hands of that man before I could get to you.” His voice sounded deeper than usual.
“You were a little preoccupied.” I clipped the thread and tied off the last of the stitches.
“Please know I tried to come sooner. We were outnumbered two to one.”
“You came just in time,” I said with perfect honesty. My aching stomach would mend, but another minute and my fate would have been entirely different. In those last seconds before Henry arrived, rape had seemed inevitable, as was the possibility of having my throat slit and being left for dead.
Scooping some salve from the jar, I rubbed it over the neatly closed wound. His arms were thickly muscled, and with the fighting skills I had witnessed today, any man would be greatly disadvantaged at the wrong end of Henry’s sword. Which explained why Dirk Fletcher had shot him in the back from the safety of a horse.
His arm dressed, I moved behind him to see what could be done about the pistol wound. He shifted his weight on the bed, making it easier for me to get to his back. “You know, I have almost no memory from the time I was shot until shortly before we arrived at the inn.”