My Laird's Love (My Laird's Castle Book 2) (10 page)

“What kind? Do you know?”

Beth shook her head. “No, I don’t. I’ve been lucky so far.”

“Do you think it’s appendicitis?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said with a helpless shrug. “Which side is that on? Gosh! How can I not know that?”

“The right side. If it’s a rupture, he’s going to die, Beth.”

I couldn’t dwell on the thought, and I sought action. A pitcher and basin on a bureau caught my attention.

“I can at least try to bring the fever down.” I hurried to the bureau and poured some water onto a linen towel, bringing it back to drape across James’ forehead. Given the coolness in the room, the water was fortunately cold. So deeply unconscious was James that he didn’t stir when the cold towel touched his face.

I pushed his damp hair back from his face, studying the furrows between his dark brows. The pain on his face was evident. Something was awfully wrong, and I didn’t know what to do about it. Where was that doctor?

Aunt Edith returned in ten minutes. I could see by her red-rimmed eyes and nose that she had been crying.
 

“How is my boy?” she asked as she moved to James’ side.

“He is still faint,” Colin replied, returning to stand by the bed.
 

“When will the doctor come, Aunt Edith?” Beth asked. “Maggie says he has a fever.”
 

“If he is at home, he can arrive within the hour. If he is away from home, I dinna ken.”

“He must come soon,” I couldn’t avoid saying in my anxiety. And that didn’t help anyone.

Aunt Edith looked at me, and a fresh round of tears streamed down her face.

“Perhaps the lad simply ate something that didna agree with him,” she offered

“He has a fever, Aunt Edith,” Colin offered. “I think it must be something more severe than colic.”

Beth wrapped an arm around the older woman and hugged her. Bracken returned to the room with a tray of tea that he set on a table in front of the fire.
 

Beth urged Aunt Edith to take a seat, and Bracken poured tea for them. Colin brought me a cup, and I took it and set it on a small table by the bed, unwilling to move away from James’ side. Colin returned to sit with Beth and Aunt Edith, and Bracken left the room to await the doctor downstairs. I noticed Robbie’s tail move occasionally under the bed.
 

I turned James’ compress over and perched myself on the edge of the bed, a difficult task given the hoop skirt. I watched him for sign of consciousness, but his eyes remained shut. I ran my fingers along his cheek. Despite the compress, his skin continued to burn.
 

There was nothing I could do for him until the doctor came, and the knowledge galled me. I felt as helpless as I had watching Sam die. Sam’s death had been inevitable, his diagnosis terminal. I didn’t know about James. His condition seemed more acute, more urgent.

A knock on the door brought Bracken with a short, thin man dressed in dark clothing—a jacket and trousers. No kilt for this man. By the bag in his hands, I guessed he was Dr. McDougall.

“Dr. McDougall,” Aunt Edith said, hurrying to rise. “I am so thankful to see ye. James has taken ill. He clutched at his stomach at dinner and fainted dead away. They tell me he has taken a fever.”

The doctor, a solemn man with wispy gray hair under his tricorn hat, strode to James’ side. He removed the compress and handed it up to the air, assuming someone would take it. I grabbed it up, hoping I’d done the right thing. Perhaps bringing a fever down wasn’t always the best move. I didn’t know.

He laid a hand on James’ brow, peeled back his eyelids, checked his pulse and then started pushing on various parts of his body.

The four of us, including Bracken, waited with baited breath. The doctor turned and eyed us with a severe look.

“I will need to undress the laird to examine him further. If ye please, ladies?”

As one, we turned and headed for the door. Once on the other side, I leaned against the wall, my legs unwilling to support me. Aunt Edith looked equally as weak, but Beth kept an arm around her.
 

“We could go down and await the doctor in the drawing room,” Aunt Edith said uncertainly.

“I would rather stay close, if that’s okay with you, Aunt Edith?”
 

She looked at me curiously but nodded.

“Aye, of course. I didna want to stray far from his side either.”

Minutes passed, and I longed to press my ear against the door, but the thick oak doors of the castle weren’t about to let noise pass through. The events of the past hours had exhausted me. Or maybe I’d never really recovered my own strength after nursing Sam.

How I wished I had a degree in nursing, a medical degree, anything.
 

At last Bracken opened the door and stepped aside. We filed back in, anxiously awaiting the doctor’s verdict. He turned and regarded us with the same severe expression.

“I ken ye are worried, Mrs. Carmichael, ladies, and rightly so. Young James has typhoid fever. It is infectious. He will likely die of the fever.”

Aunt Edith shrieked and ran past the doctor toward James, but Colin grabbed her arms.

“Nay, Aunt Edith, ye canna infect yerself.”

I must have made a sound of some sort, because Beth grabbed my hand. I remembered then. Her baby!
 

“Leave the room.” I leaned in to whisper in her ear. “You have to go. The baby.”

“I’ve had shots. You probably have to. But Colin hasn’t.”

“Take him and go. Your shots may not protect the baby. I’ll send Bracken to you to tell you all what I need.”

Beth grabbed Colin and Aunt Edith and turned for the door.

“I will stay with James and nurse him,” I told the doctor. “I have had typhoid fever. I am immune.” That wasn’t exactly true. I hadn’t had the fever, but I had received a typhoid booster the year before.

I heard the door close behind me, and I was alone with the small doctor and Bracken.
 

“Ye must leave as well,” the doctor told Bracken.
 

“Nay, I must stay to tend to his lairdship.”

“Man, ye canna take care of him if ye wish to live. The mistress here will see to him.”

The butler gave me a dubious look. I was, after all, a stranger.

“Bracken, you’d better go,” I said. “Could you wait outside the door, and I can pass my needs on to you?”

“Aye, mistress,” he said. “I will take the dog with me.”
 

“No, leave him here. He’s okay,” I said.

Bracken left reluctantly, and I turned to the doctor, who had moved over to the basin to wash his hands. That was the first thing I was going to change, the water!

“How can I help him?” I asked.

“Continue the cold compresses,” the doctor said, returning to my side. “If he awakens, try to feed him some broth, but I dinna ken if he can eat. It could cause more damage to his bowels than good. Try to make him comfortable in his final hours.”

“No!” I said sharply. “No, these are
not
his final hours! Is there anything else, Doctor? Anything else he can take? A medicine?”

“I have naethin for typhoid, lass. His fever will abate within days, but he may become delirious. He will find it hard to breathe and may contract pneumonia. He may hemorrhage from the bowels. His heart will race with the disease and may nae keep up. Nay, lass, ye must accept the lad’s fate. He will die in about four weeks, sooner if he can take no nourishment at all. I can leave you with a tincture of opium to ease his suffering.”

I bit my lip to keep from screaming, and I laced my hands behind my back to keep from throttling the little man. I couldn’t blame him, but I did.

 
“Thank you, Doctor,” I said, accepting the little brown vial he handed me. A plan to save James was forming in my mind. I wasn’t giving up. I wasn’t.

“Send for me if ye have any further worries. I suggest ye send the servants away,” he said. “I will check in again in a few days.”

I watched the doctor leave, and turned back to James.
 

Typhoid fever! I tried to remember what I could about typhoid fever. Nothing! Just that I had been vaccinated against it. I needed the Internet! I needed modern medicine! I needed a hospital! I was pretty sure I needed antibiotics.

I touched James’ forehead again. Burning. I picked up the basin of now dirty water and hurried to the door.

“Bracken, have someone empty this, will you?” Bracken reached for the bowl, and I pulled back. “Wait! Do you have any gloves?”

“Gloves, mistress? Are ye chilled?”

“No. Well, don’t touch the water, okay? And if you do, wash your hands with fresh water and soap.”

“I dinna ken what ye mean, mistress,” he said with a frown.

“I can’t explain it. Just don’t touch this water. Throw it wherever you dispose of the human waste. Then find me some clean, fresh water, boil it in the kitchen, and bring it up.”

He gave up trying to understand me and took the basin from me.

“Aye, mistress.”

“Oh, and could you ask Laird Anderson to come upstairs to talk to me?”

He nodded and hurried away, bearing the bowl in front of him like it did in fact hold human waste.

I wasn’t sure about the mechanics of typhoid, but I assumed it was a bacteria, not a virus. Something I’d read about Typhoid Mary, poor thing. I think she’d been a cook and infected quite a few people. If that were true, then it suggested that typhoid was contracted through dirty hands, maybe infected with waste. Once again, I mourned the loss of the Internet.

A knock on the door sounded within minutes, and I opened it and stepped outside. I definitely wasn’t going to allow Colin into the room.

“Colin, I can’t remember what causes typhoid fever, but it is curable in the twenty-first century. I think it might be contact with human waste. I’m sure Beth is immunized against it—most Americans are—but since she’s pregnant, I wouldn’t want to endanger the baby. I think she should go home. And I think Aunt Edith should go with her. I really think you should go too, but I want to run an idea by you before you do.”

“Aye, whatever I can do, Maggie. I agree that Beth and the babe must go. Aunt Edith as well. I can stay to help.”

“No, you can’t stay. You’re not immunized, Colin. You’re more at risk than Beth. Here’s my idea!”

Chapter Nine

I spoke hurriedly, anxious to get back to James, should he wake up.
 

Colin’s dark eyes rounded.

“Travel through time to get medicine?” he repeated. “There is medicine to cure typhoid?”

I nodded.

“Yes, I’m sure there is. It’s a bacterium. They’ve got to have antibiotics for it.”

His eyes narrowed. “Beth has spoken of such medicines, mourning that they havena yet been discovered.”

I nodded. “I imagine. She definitely can’t be exposed. I heard your happy news.” I smiled as wide as I could.

He nodded, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
 

“Aye, we are to become parents. I ken Beth is worried. I understand childbirth is much easier in yer time?”

“For the most part, in America it is.” I wanted to say there were always risks, but thought better of it. Why worry the poor man?

“Do ye ken that ye can travel back to yer time and return to this time without mishap?” His dubious look only reinforced my own doubts about my half-formed plan. I didn’t even address the issue of trying to get antibiotics for typhoid. How was I going to do that?

“I don’t know, but I can try,” I said. “Beth traveled back in time, and somehow managed to return early enough to prevent your death.”

He rubbed his chin and nodded.

“Aye, she did that, sure enough. Perhaps if ye travel back, ye can also return to a time before James takes ill?” he asked on a hopeful note.

I thought about that. And do what? Warn him not to eat what? I didn’t know what had made him ill.

“But I don’t know how James became ill, Colin. Something is tainted with the bacteria. It could be water, food, something or somebody.”

“How is the disease spread? The doctor didna say.”

I grimaced. “I don’t know enough about it. And my guess is that the doctor doesn’t know how it’s spread. I think it is spread through water and food, and by people who carry the disease. I only hope that you, Beth and Aunt Edith haven’t contracted the disease. You look well enough.”

He nodded. “Aye, I feel bonnie. I canna have Beth take ill though. I need to take her home. And Aunt Edith. But I think I must return to help ye. Otherwise, how can ye travel back and forth from the river to Lochloon Castle?”

I sighed heavily. How indeed? My plan, hardly finalized, did not include running back and forth between Colin’s land and James’ castle, nor did it include who would take care of James in my absence.

“Oh, gosh, I don’t know, Colin! Wait! Let me think.”
 

I tried to think quickly.