“You cannot leave me!” She shook her head against him. “Tell me what I must do to help you? What do you need?”
He told her what herbs to prepare and how often to feed them to him. Also, what ointment to apply to any boils.
She listened to him, thinking that in just a day or two she might never hear his voice again. It made her want to weep. “Oh, my dearest of all, I ask forgiveness from you and from God for the things that I think about.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” her husband said on a husky whisper. “No adultery has ben committed. I release you, child.”
“No!” she told him, leaning up above him and staring into his eyes. “I do not release you! I made promises I intend to keep. ‘Tis not about my body, but my heart, Husband. Now, you rest while I prepare your medicine.”
She lowered her mask and kissed his forehead then hurried to the stairs.
Elias was sitting on the floor of the sitting room in front of Richard’s chair and Charlie’s small body in it. They were talking and Charlie was smiling.
Lily felt her heart swell with emotion. She smiled at Elias when he looked at her before she left them alone and entered the kitchen. She saw Cecily sitting with Annabelle at the table eating what the brother must have prepared for them. She went to Cecily and felt her skin.
“How do you feel?” Lily asked her.
“Well,” Cecily answered, looking alarmed. “Am I sick, too?”
“No, Sweeting,” Lily assured her gently and then turned to Brother Simon. “Is that Charlie’s tea you are carrying?”
“Aye,” the brother told her. “Elias wants to give it to him.”
She looked into the sitting room and let her gaze linger on Elias for just an instant. “Would you bring it to him?” she asked. “I would like to start on tea for my husband.”
“Of course,” he told her and stepped away.
“Lily, is my brother going to die?”
Both girls began to cry.
Lily didn’t know what to say to them, but Elias had been right in being honest—even if it hurt. “I will do everything I can to help them,” she promised the girls. “You can help, too. Would you like to?”
They both nodded.
Good. She wanted to show them how to mix the only two concoctions that Richard had given Bertram—just in case no one else was able to prepare it. She pointed to her jars of herbs and showed them how to measure the blends, what herbs to use, and how long to steep the leaves.
“I’m going to add lemon rind to the mixture,” she told them, doing so. She allowed the girls to make a pot of the mixture, while she made another. She brought a cup to Richard, and then she went to the door in the kitchen and stood before it.
“He is oot there.”
“He might have run away,” she countered and refused to turn around and see Elias standing there behind her.
“I willna take a chance of him gettin’ to ye,” he vowed.
“Then I cannot see or help any of my friends in the village?” She turned to stare at him. “Is that what you are telling me?”
He almost took a step back. “If ye mean to go, I will accompany ye.”
She blinked. So then he would—she looked around at the people in the house. Would she leave them with only Brother Simon to look after them?
She exhaled. No. “But I cannot just let them die,” she said on a strangled whisper.
His gaze softened on her. “Aye, they need ye, lass. But we all need Richard. Tending to yer husband is first and foremost.”
“Aye,” she agreed with a smile and rushed up the stairs to tend to him.
Chapter Fourteen