Chapter Thirty-Six
“Jesus Christ, she has slit her wrists,” David hissed as he struggled to stop the bleeding from Deborah’s arm.
Christopher was bent over his sister’s other arm, tying a tight tourniquet in an attempt to stop the blood flow. He did not answer his brother as he concentrated on his task, making sure Gowen was applying tight pressure to the wound he was tending. In the corner, Dustin was sobbing loudly.
“Is she going to die?” she asked anyone who could answer.
No one could, in fact, answer her. Deborah had been bleeding for quite some time and Christopher was unsure if his sister was going to survive.
His heart twisted with remorse for the actions that had driven his sister to the brink of despair, yet he regretted nothing.
If he had to do it over again, he would have changed nothing but for the fact that he would have explained things to Deborah and not assumed that she understood his reasons.
He felt guilty, although he tried not to.
“Where did she get the goddamn dagger?” Edward wound another piece of linen around the wrist David was securing, but it was bleeding rapidly.
“It is hers,” Christopher replied, checking his sister’s condition by lifting up an eyelid.
“Lower the head of the bed, Chris,” Leeton said. “And keep her arms up. The blood needs to stay in the vital areas.”
Christopher nodded and between him and Leeton, they lowered the head of the bed while the others kept Deborah’s arms aloft as they tried to control the bleeding. In the corner, he could hear Dustin crying.
“Jeffrey, get my wife out of here,” he said softly, not looking at her.
“No, please,” Dustin said, pushing against Jeffrey as he came to her. “I would stay here. Deborah needs me.”
“We are doing all we can for Deborah,” Christopher told her, trying to be gentle. “Please go and rest, sweetheart. Let us take care of my sister.”
Next to Christopher, Gowen was weeping quietly. He was holding Deborah’s arm as Christopher and Edward bandaged it. Dustin’s eyes fell on him and she forced aside her grief to focus on the anguished young man.
“Gowen,” she pleaded softly, “please come with me. Let them work in peace.”
He shook his head, dirty and disheveled from the night’s events. “I shall not leave her to die alone,” he whispered. “She needs me now.”
Dustin looked at Christopher and saw that his expression was grim. She curbed her hysteria, presenting a calmer picture.
“I do not want to go, Chris,” she begged quietly. “Please let me stay.”
He did not reply, seeing that she was easing somewhat after her initial shock. He knew that she certainly wouldn’t rest if he sent her away; indeed, she would be much worse off with worry.
“Sit down, then,” he replied hoarsely. “Sit down and be still.”
Dustin obeyed and Jeffrey took position beside her like a huge watchdog. Sir Nicholas and Sir Guy stood in the doorway, watching with great concern as their comrades struggled to save the life of their liege’s sister.
“If Burwell were here, he’d have her under control,” David muttered, distraught. “Jesus, why did she do this?”
“Fear,” Gowen answered quietly, staring at Deborah’s white face. “The baron drove her to it.”
Tension of another kind filled the room.
Dustin’s eyes went to Christopher, who was focused on his sister.
Even though her husband had been harsh with his sister, even she did not believe he was responsible for this disaster.
Anger filled her, her emotions surging from one volcanic peak to the next.
“That is not fair, Gowen,” she said fiercely. “Christopher did nothing of the kind.”
Gowen looked up at Dustin and she could read the irrational grief. “He might as well have put the dagger in her hand himself,” he said. “You know how unbalanced she has been lately. Of course he drove her to this with his cruelty and his arrogance.”
Dustin shot out of the chair. “How dare you speak of my husband like that,” she said, shaking an angry finger at him. “No one is to blame but Deborah for her own foolishness.”
Gowen stood up and Deborah’s arm went slapping to the bed in spite of Leeton’s attempts to grab it.
“Everything that has happened this day has been his fault,” he snapped at her.
“Had he not been so haughty, we would not have felt it necessary to be married immediately. He broke the sanctuary of the church to bring us back and then threw me in the dungeon. Deborah had no way of knowing my fate and, assuming the worst, has tried to take her own life. How can you be so blind?”
A huge hand reached out and grabbed Gowen around the neck, fairly lifting him off his feet as he was shoved away from the bed, away from the others. Dustin gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
Christopher’s eyes glittered like deadly sapphires against Gowen’s pale, frightened blue.
“You may say what you will about me, sirrah, for your words do not offend, me nor provoke this action,” he rumbled. “But you will never raise your voice to my wife. Ever.”
“It is all right, Chris.” Dustin went over to them, her eyes wide and her anger banked. “He did not mean it; he is upset. Please do not be harsh.”
Christopher did not look at her. “Do you understand me?” he said to Gowen. “If we are to live under the same roof, then you will come to understand a great many things.”
Gowen was nearly blue. “I….I did not mean to shout at her,” he rasped. “ ’Twas not my intention to offend, sire, but Dustin and I have known each other a great many years and I treat her as I have always treated her.”
“With such disrespect?” Christopher shot back, his eyebrows raised.
“Nay, sire,” Gowen was struggling for breath. “As a sister. Who does not yell at their sister?”
Christopher stared back at him, reading truth in his eyes.
Moreover, he was right; were Deborah conscious at this moment, he’d yell his head off at her.
After a moment he dropped his hand and stepped back, still eyeing Gowen unsteadily.
Before Dustin could touch him, he took long, quick steps back over to his sister.
Dustin watched her husband sadly for a moment before turning her attention to her friend and new brother-in-law.
Her panic was slowly subsiding and she was resigning herself to the fact that her husband and his knights were doing everything possible to help Deborah.
She doubted Burwell or God himself could do much more.
As hard as it was, she would have to place her faith in them, for there was nothing she could do and her sense of helplessness was overwhelming.
Quietly, she moved over and took Gowen’s arm.
“ ’Twill be all right,” she said softly. “They will help her.”
Gowen was gray with horror and apprehension, too overcome to speak as he watched the men work on his wife. Dustin watched, too, forgetting about her endless fatigue and swelling ankles. The only thing that mattered at the moment was preventing Deborah’s life from slipping away.
They struggled with Deborah into the night.
The only reason she hadn’t died immediately was because she had slit her wrists cross-wise and not vertically.
Christopher was able to stitch the wounds up tightly, lessening the bleeding and promoting coagulation.
Dustin sat, wrapped in a coverlet, watching as they strapped her arms up to the bedposts to keep them elevated and to further prevent her from doing any more damage to herself.
From that point on, it was a waiting game.
If she had lost too much blood, she would die.
But there was all the possibility in the world that she would survive, yet no one seemed particularly optimistic, and Dustin was greatly disturbed.
It was close to dawn and Dustin had eventually fallen into an exhausted sleep in Deborah’s overstuffed chair, wrapped like a cocoon in the feathered blanket.
The knights had retreated, save David and Leeton, as Christopher stood vigilant watch at the foot of Deborah’s bed, his eyes never leaving her pasty face.
He was damn angry at her for attempting to take her own life and the guilt he had been struggling with most of the night hung heavy about his shoulders.
He could feel the weight. Perhaps Dustin had been right; perhaps he had been arrogant and cold.
For a man of his ego, it was a bitter pill to swallow.
The sun was barely peaking over the horizon when he turned from his post and looked at Gowen, still awake but looking an ugly shade of gray as he stared at his wife.
“Go and sleep,” he said quietly. “I shall stay with her.”
Gowen shook his head. “This is my place, sire. I shall not leave her.”
Christopher did not argue, for he knew his reaction would have been the same. He turned to his brother.
“See about the morning meal, if you would,” he said. “I am famished.”
David nodded, glancing at Dustin as he passed her on his way to the door. Her face was half shoved into the blanket and he could hear her snoring softly.
“She snores?” He looked at his brother, his face lit up with a tired smile. “You never told me that.”
Christopher glanced at his wife. “Leave her alone. Go get my food.”
David snickered as he quit the room.
Christopher continued to stare at Dustin long after his brother was gone.
She was curled up like Caesar, sleeping so peacefully that he was tempted just to leave her be.
As tired as she was and in her condition, she should be in the comfort of her own bed, but he knew the moment he touched her that she would awaken.
He left his post and wandered over to her, daring to touch the blond head tenderly before moving to the fire and stoking the embers.
“I never thought I’d see Dustin married,” Gowen said dully.
Christopher looked up from the hearth and saw his brother-in-law looking at him.