Once Upon a Wager by Julie Lemense

the litter that would transport him back to the castle. Sir Layton was standing beside the body of his only son, his chest heaving, tears rolling down his face and onto his jacket.
    A woman’s scream split the air, and they all turned. Annabelle was writhing in anguish as Mrs. Chessher held her down, aided by the footman who’d brought the cart. The doctor stood above her, struggling to pull her leg straight so that he could align the bones. He swore at Alec to stand back when he came running forward, hoping to somehow assist them. So instead, Alec watched, helpless as Annabelle suffered. She was staring straight at him, covered with her own blood, her eyes wild with fear. He could imagine soldiers like this, terrified men torn apart, caught between the last few moments of life and death, but dear God, this was Annabelle. His beautiful, irrepressible girl. He would give anything, promise anything to save her.
    She fainted then, and he whispered a prayer of thanks. With the break set at last, Dr. Chessher tied a splint crafted with boards and cotton batting to her leg. He then threaded his needles and sewed shut the skin about her thigh wound and head. Mrs. Chessher, her face glistening with perspiration, declared that every wound needed a good drink—-an old superstition, it seemed—as she swabbed the sutured flesh with alcohol from a bottle, and then took a restorative swig herself. Alec hardly cared, so long as it had a chance of working.
    The footman and Dr. Chessher lifted Annabelle onto the padded board, and then into the cart that would take her home. The one bearing Gareth’s body soon followed behind, and then Sir Frederick, and Alec, and the rest fell in line to follow.
    Once at a carnival as a small child, Alec had been fascinated by an artist who’d rendered dozens of palm-sized drawings, each of them minutely different. They’d been gathered in book form, and as the artist flicked through them, his thumb quickly separating every page, the drawings had come alive. The subject had been a little dog who’d sprinted across a precisely rendered street, narrowly avoiding an out-of-control carriage, a meaty bone the prize for a journey fraught with danger.
    If only Alec could play the pages of this day in reverse, so time moved backward, and accidents were undone, and foolish words were unspoken.
    If only shattered bodies could be made whole again.

Chapter 4
    As he draped another cold, wet cloth across Annabelle’s brow, Alec was certain he could see steam rising. She was burning up. “Mary, I think we must call the doctor back,” he said in a low, harried voice. “There must be a way to bring her fever down.”
    The young maid, face tense with worry, shook her head gently. Little older than Annabelle, she had served the Laytons for most of her life. “Dr. Chessher said to expect this, my lord. Cold cloths and water, he said, and laudanum. The fever has to burn itself out.”
    Of course, Mary was right, but Alec wasn’t accustomed to this desperate sense of helplessness and regret. He’d lost all track of time. Had he eaten today? It didn’t matter. He had no appetite. Not when she lay there, looking impossibly young and fragile, her head wrapped in linen cloths, her leg bruised and swollen so badly he feared it would break through the splint Dr. Chessher had fashioned. A double incline plane, he’d called it. Rather than a single flat board keeping her leg stiff, it was made from two boards, allowing her knee to be elevated and bent slightly. Supposedly, it was better suited to her type of injury and would help her retain mobility. If the leg could be saved. If Annabelle lived.
    The biggest threat was infection, and little could be done to prevent it. Willing to try anything, Alec and Mary were following Mrs. Chessher’s superstitious habit. They’d applied so much alcohol to Annabelle’s wounds, the room smelled like a distillery. Whether he was dizzy from the fumes or exhaustion, he could not say.