Free Hummingbird by Lavyrle Spencer

Never in her life had she been spoken to this way! She would have him out of here—out!—before this day ended, that much she promised herself.
    Pressing a hand to her throbbing forehead, she considered running down to Doctor Dougherty's and pleading illness, but if she did that he would certainly remove Mr. Melcher, too. Then she remembered how desperately she needed the money and steeled herself for a long day ahead.
    In the bedroom, he longed to raise his voice and bellow like a bull moose until somebody told him what the hell was going on around here. He lay instead sweating profusely, having writhed far more than he should have. His leg, hip, and lower stomach had turned to fire. Resting the back of a hand across his eyes, he gritted his teeth at the pain. That was how she found him.
    "It has been two days since…"
    He jumped and another pain grabbed him. Damn her! Did she have to pussyfoot around like that all the time?
    Very collectedly now, she began again, with exaggerated control. "I thought you might have to relieve yourself." But she looked at the knob on the headboard while she said it.
    Eyeing her mistrustfully, he knew she had him over a barrel. He did have to relieve himself, but he knew he wasn't going anywhere to do it. So just what did she have in mind?
    With a voice like ice, she issued orders. "Don't try to speak or strain your leg in any way. I shall help you roll onto your side first." And coming to the side of the bed, she removed the bolsters from under his knee, lowered it with surprising gentleness, then snapped the ends of the under sheet loose from their moorings and rolled him with it until he faced the wall, still covered by the top sheet. She laid a flat porcelain pan next to him and without another word left the room, closing the door with not so much as a click of the latch.
    What kind of woman was she anyway? She sashayed in here carrying that bedpan as if she had no idea that he was the one who'd only minutes before shattered her china soup bowl and called her a bitch.
    Most women would have refused any further services on spite alone… but not her. Why should that aggravate him too? Maybe because she looked frail enough to cow with a savage glare. Maybe because he'd tried it and it didn't work.
    She came to collect the bedpan with the same silent poker face as before. They needn't have spoken anyway to tell each other they'd met their matches.
    She had the perfect revenge for his insufferable attitude this morning: she left him alone. Miss Abigail knew perfectly well he was lying there with a hundred unasked questions eating him up. Well, good! Let them eat him up! It's no more than he deserves.
    In the flowery bedroom that's exactly what was happening. Bitch! he thought time and again, unable to shout, to ask anything he wanted now worse than ever to know. He seethed for the remainder of the day, caught like some damn fool bumblebee in a glass jar, in that insufferable yellow flower garden she'd trapped him in. Once he even heard her humming out there in what seemed to be the kitchen, and it made him all the madder. She was out there humming while he couldn't make so much as a squeak without paying dearly.
    Much later he heard her go upstairs, then the two of them come down to supper. Snatches of their conversation drifted through the quiet house, and he heard enough to know they were feeling pretty cozy with each other.
    "Oh, Miss Abigail, nasturtiums on the table!"
    "Ah, how pleasant it is to find a man who can actually identify a nasturtium."
    "How pleasant it is to find a woman who still grows them." The eavesdropper in the bedroom rolled his eyes.
    "Perhaps tomorrow you'll feel well enough to sit in the backyard while I do some weeding."
    "I'd love that, Miss Abigail, I truly would."
    "Then you shall do it, Mr. Melcher," she promised before inquiring, "Do you like fresh lemonade?"
    "I wish you'd call me David. Yes, I love lemonade."
    "We'll have some, tomorrow… in the