Free Ever My Love: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 2) by Gretchen Craig Page A

and he nodded. This time
he really looked at the mistress of Magnolias Plantation. “You’ve done well.”
    “How bad is it?” she said, indicating the wound that might
have reached into Sylvie’s inner body.
    “She’s so small, my guess is the teeth penetrated the
peritoneum. We’ll know more in a few hours.”
    He looked for Marcel outside the circle of lantern light.
“Miss Marianne should go to bed,” Gabriel told his brother.
    Marianne looked at Sylvie’s mother. “I can’t leave,” she
said.
    Gabriel smiled at her, at the circles under her eyes. “You
will allow me to sit with the child now. In the morning, I will need you fresh
if we should have to open the wound.” He turned to Sylvie’s mother and placed a
hand on her arm. “You won’t be distressed to let your mistress go to bed for a
few hours?”
    Irene, her faded, threadbare dress hanging on her thin
frame, hung her head. “No sir,” she said. Then she cast a shy glance on her
mistress. “I be glad Miss Marianne get some rest.”
    Marcel stepped to Marianne’s side and offered his arm. She
hesitated, looking at Pearl.
    “I be here, Miss Marianne, he need anything,” Pearl
reassured her.  Marianne took Marcel’s arm and let him lead her to the house.
    By dawn, the draught Marianne had given Sylvie no longer
soothed her. She groaned and thrashed and called out in pain. Her abdomen
swelled, hard and hot, and Gabriel feared the worst. If the dog’s fangs had
pierced the peritoneum, that was very bad and likely fatal. If they had torn
into the intestine, there would be only hours before she succumbed.
    “I bathe her again, doctor?” Pearl asked.
    He nodded. Once the child was cooled, Gabriel fed Sylvie a
draught of laudanum. When Miss Johnston returned, he would consider opening the
punctures to drain them. Better Sylvie be unconscious.
    The sun hardly up, the mistress of Magnolias appeared at the
cabin door. She’d pinned her hair back neatly but plainly. She wore a brown
homespun dress and a canvas apron. Her face was pale, but she was alert. And
calm. Gabriel valued her equanimity most of all.
    Gabriel read her face as her eyes sought Sylvie. She was
truly frightened for the child. He made room for Marianne to kneel next to the
bed. She felt of Sylvie’s forehead, judging the dry fever. Irene’s eyes sought
her mistress’s, craving reassurance. She had sat on the floor at Sylvie’s head
all these hours, never ceasing to touch her, caressing her cheek, stroking her
hair.
    To Gabriel’s surprise, Marianne reached out to Irene, and
they clasped hands.
    Most of the mistresses Gabriel knew up and down the river
nursed the slaves on the plantation. Some of them did it willingly, some not.
Some of them were competent, some not. But Gabriel had never known one, in the
years he’d studied under Dr. Benet before he went to France, who involved
herself to the degree that Marianne Johnston did.
    “Pearl, go on to bed,” she said. “Sleep awhile before you go
to the cookhouse.”
    To Gabriel, she said, “What will you do now?”
    “I’ve given her a draught. When she’s fully under, I’ll
drain what purulence I can from her belly.” He palmed Sylvie’s tight swollen
abdomen again. Very hot.
    “I believe,” he said to Marianne, “you have another patient?
While we wait for the laudanum to take effect, I could look at him. The same
dogs?”
    Marianne nodded. “The same pack, anyway.” She turned to the
older man standing in the corner. Sylvie’s grandfather, Gabriel assumed. “What
has been done with the dogs who attacked Sylvie?” Marianne asked.
    “Dey chained up at de whipping post last I knowed, Miss.
Lessen Mr. McNaught do something ’wid em.”
    Gabriel saw her jaw tighten, anger clearly stamped on her
features. This McNaught, Gabriel thought – He’s in for a hard time. I’d not
want this woman angry with me.
    Gabriel followed Marianne outdoors. They passed by the
whipping post where two hound dogs slept in the