Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [50]
Tabitha slapped a bowl of water onto the table hard enough to make some slosh over the edge. She wiped it up and fetched another clean towel from the linen press in the hall, then poked her head around the edge of the back door to find Dominick talking to Japheth about her aging horse.
“I’m ready for you,” she called.
He shook hands with the older man and strode toward her with his easy grace. “Your nag looks as tired as you do.”
“At least you didn’t tell me I look like the horse.” She smiled and took his hand in hers. “Come to the table. I’m going to wash and inspect the wound.”
To her surprise, sand was caked in the stitches and beneath his normally spotless fingernails.
She glanced at his face. “What have you been doing? Digging for clams?”
“No, but I’d like to. Do you go crabbing?”
“Often. But tell me how your hand got so dirty when the rest of you didn’t.”
He shrugged. “Just looking at some rocks on the shore. Will you take me crabbing one day?”
“Maybe.” She plunged his hand into the bowl of water. “You’ll need to be more careful with this wound in the future. It’s healed well, but not completely.”
“And what a pity it would be if I had to come back and have you care for me.” His fathomless brown eyes gazed into hers in a way that made her pulse skip more beats than was healthy. “It would be an excellent excuse to see you if you won’t go crabbing with me.”
“You may have better luck crabbing with me than getting medical treatment from me, after tomorrow.” Tabitha rubbed gently at his palm to ensure no sand would creep into the minute holes left behind by the removal of the stitches. “Wilkins is angry about his wife’s death and wants me to suffer by taking away my livelihood.”
“Is it just his wife’s death he wants you to pay for?” Dominick caught hold of her hand to keep her from concentrating on his wound. “Is there more?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Which, of course, told him too much.
“I don’t mean regarding your patient. I mean, do you know things that could harm his reputation, so he has to harm yours first?”
“I don’t talk about my patients.”
The now faint mark across her throat burned all of a sudden, and she recalled the knife, the sting of the blade, the warning not to speak of the night. Wilkins? Could it have been?
No, he knew as well as anyone else in town that she kept her mouth shut, as her mother and her grandmother had. If Mrs. Wilkins had said anything that made sense, which she had not, Tabitha would not have repeated it. No, Wilkins had begun his campaign against her in an official capacity, with the town council, soon after she’d received the summons to cross the peninsula, for that was information she might have to divulge, if Sally’s family wanted him to make reparation for his promise, his seduction, his abandonment. But a midwife discredited by a town council would not be called to testify in a lawsuit.
“It’s not over his wife at all.” Tabitha resumed work on Dominick’s hand. She snipped through the threads in their neat line across the flesh of the palm between thumb and forefinger.
“The men of the council are good men,” Dominick said.
“This is going to hurt.” She tugged out the first stitch to stop him from discussing her situation further.
His breath hissed through his teeth. “You’re a cruel—” She tugged out the second stitch. “Ah!”
“One more.” She gave him a cheerful smile.
“You’d better not break your word to go—” His teeth snapped together.
“Almost done.” Tabitha spread more foul-smelling comfrey ointment on his palm, then wrapped a strip of linen around his hand. “That should do. Keep it clean and come to me if the redness doesn’t go away or spreads. That is—” Her throat closed.
“Oh, my dear.” Dominick shoved back his chair and rose. “Don’t be so distressed over this.” He rested his hands on her shoulders.
He stood a full head taller than she, and the temptation to lean her head against his chest and let him hold her nearly knocked her off balance. Her body ached for affection, for comfort, for security, as she faced the possibility