Lilly considered leaving the bed and escaping the room. Yet Becca would follow her. She couldn’t escape. “I can never say I’m sorry enough times for what I did to you, Becca. But I cannot change it. You know I didn’t mean anything bad to happen to you.”
Yes. Yes, I did. In my heart, I did.
“You lie.” Becca’s smile faded to a pout. “You took everything from me. Now you’re going to pay.”
“That is not original either, I’m afraid. It won’t do you any good. Have you thought about going home? About finding your way to the light?”
“No. I do not want to go there.” Becca’s voice was petulant. “And you can’t make me.”
“Of course not. But perhaps you’d find peace if you did. I hear in the light there is no more pain. No more suffering. Only joy.”
Becca’s lips distorted into a hateful grimace. “Peace? There is no peace where I’ve been.”
Lilly had wondered more than once where Becca had gone. To hell perhaps? It would seem only fitting. “Indeed. Well, if you don’t mind—”
Becca laughed, and the sound pierced the night. Lilly covered her ears and winced as the sharp noise echoed around her small room. Becca disappeared.
Lilly’s door burst open and Mrs. Angel marched into the room, a lantern in her hand, her uniform rumpled. She’d once been pretty; now her black hair was laced with gray and piled on her head under a nurse’s cap. Her dark brown eyes were latticed with wrinkles, her once aristocratic features sagging into a mulish form. Her skinny body may have had curves in youth, but now the nurse’s uniform hung far too loosely. Shadows danced around her body like ghosts the woman never saw.
“What on earth is going on in here? Why did you scream and who were you talking to?” Mrs. Angel asked.
Lilly cleared her throat and gathered her covers around her against the cold and Mrs. Angel’s sarcastic tone. “Horrible dream, Mrs. Angel.”
Better to lie than be caught telling the truth.
“Were you talking to yourself again? I knew I should have told Dr. Healy about it.”
Lilly shook her head. “No. Just a dream. Don’t you talk in your dreams, Mrs. Angel?”
The woman frowned, then huffed. “No. Well keep it down. The patients can’t sleep if you are yelling all night.”
With that, the woman slammed the door. Lilly lay back and realized her heartbeat hadn’t slowed. Her gaze darted around the room for Becca, but the little dead girl hadn’t returned. If Lilly was lucky, Becca would never return.
But Lilly was never that lucky.
Chapter 3
Morgan Healy sat in the family carriage as it rumbled uphill from the mansion to Tranquil View Asylum. Father sat across from him, his gray bearded face partially shadowed.
A frown kept father’s mouth tight. “What are you staring at?” His voice boomed over the noise of the rattling carriage.
“You.” Morgan had learned bluntness from his father, but he also understood courtesy. “Are you feeling all right?”
Father grunted. “As well as can be expected.”
If there was one thing Dr. Masterson John Healy would admit, it was his own peevishness. He mentioned it daily to his family, wearing it like a badge of honor. Masterson Healy held brutal honesty above any tenderness.
“Perhaps you should consult Dr. Broadstreet.”
“I am a doctor.” His father’s voice held pure contempt. “Why would I consult Broadstreet?”
“Because you’ve been feeling like this for weeks. It could be something serious, and as mother says, you’re not the best judge of your own condition.” Morgan knew he shouldn’t have said it, but keeping his council had never been his forte. Perhaps he’d inherited that from his father as well.
Father grunted as the carriage rumbled over a rough spot. “Damned driver. Hits the holes every time.”
Morgan managed a smile, used to his father avoidance tactics. “Craddox is a good driver. Speaking of driving, I am surprised you haven’t considered one of the new motorcars. They are all the rage in the city. When I was in Denver they were everywhere. Ford is getting quite the reputation.”
Father snorted and waved one gloved hand. “They are a passing fancy.”
“They have been around for some time now, Father. I doubt they’re a passing fancy.”
Father grunted again. “Doesn’t mean I have to spend money on one when a pair of fine horses do the job just fine.”
“I suppose here in Simple that is true.”
“I can’t see you purchasing such a contraption. What with you clinging to old traditions and all that.”
Morgan’s smile this time held sarcasm. “I’m as willing as the next man to accept the new. I just want to keep some of the old.”
“Well, be that as it may, you have a duty tonight.”
Morgan knew what his father would say, so he didn’t bother with playing ignorant. Anger rose inside him. “Forget it. I’m not going to Tranquil View to find a wife.”
“You should have married Maddy Benatar last year when you had the chance. Your mother was terribly disappointed.”
“If I’d asked for Maddy’s hand in marriage, mother would have found fault with the way I asked. At the wedding she would have found fault with the color of Maddy’s mother’s dress or the quality of food.”
Masterson chuckled with genuine humor. “Of course. Why the hell didn’t you ask for her hand?”
“Not ready to marry. Don’t know if I ever will be.”
“What in hell are you waiting for? Your mother wants grandchildren.”
A muscle in Morgan’s jaw twitched. “She’ll have to wait.”
His father grunted. “What are you waiting for?”
Morgan hadn’t expected that question. “I don’t know. All I do know is that now isn’t the right time.”
“Christ, I hope you don’t have some ridiculous idea about falling in love. That’s a bundle of claptrap.”
Morgan rubbed the back of his neck. “No ideas, father.”
Morgan knew that some people fell in love. He’d witnessed young people who genuinely seemed to adore each other, who would die for one another. As for him ... he didn’t know if he had that ability inside him. Lust, maybe, but nothing else. If he did marry it would be with a woman who understood that and didn’t expect anything more.
His father grunted again, a sound he employed regularly when he disapproved of a person or situation. Morgan had become mostly immune to his parents’ idiosyncrasies. It was either that, or he’d lose his mind and end up in Tranquil View as a patient himself.
“I’m not going to this ball because I need a wife,” Morgan said. “I’m going because it raises funds for the asylum and gifts for the patients at Christmas.”
Masterson’s face returned to stone. “Damned state.” He gestured with one hand. “Prattling idiots think we can run a place like Tranquil View without proper funding.”
“There’s no help for it. We’ll have to use our imaginations to make things work.”
His father complained at least once a week about Colorado slashing funds for the asylum, and Morgan was tired of the bellyaching. Yet even before the funding had dwindled, Morgan knew the money didn’t always go where it should. At least with the ball, the money would help those who needed it. Morgan would make damn certain of it this time.
“Did you go to visit that woman again?” his father asked.
“That woman, as you call her, is Marjorie Holtz.”
His father grunted. “Miss Holtz. I know. Are you planning on seeing her every week?”
“At least once a week, as long as her parents will let me.”
“What good will it do? You can’t cure her. What’s done is done.”
His father’s clinical, cynical attitude sometimes ate away at Morgan’s patience. “Maybe not, but I want to see her. She seems better this week than last. And who knows if a miracle will come to pass.”
“You were almost a doctor, Morgan. You know better than t
o believe in miracles.”
His father’s icy attitude didn’t surprise him. “I’ve seen miracles happen, father. It might happen for Marjorie.”
“So you’re going to soak your head in guilt weekly until she’s cured? Do you think sitting at her bedside talking to her will bring her out of it?”
“Perhaps. I can try.”
“Christ—” The carriage came to an abrupt halt. The horses nickered and tackle clinked and rattled. “What in Satan’s drawers is it now?” Masterson asked, his tone peevish. “We shouldn’t be there yet.” He peeled back the curtain hanging over the window.
Encroaching night and the forest loomed close to the windows, branches from one pine reaching toward the carriage with bony fingers. It was an illusion, of course. The road was wide enough for two carriages to pass with room to spare.
“Wait here. I’ll check,” Morgan said.
Morgan left the carriage as much to escape his father’s carping as he did to discover why they’d halted. He closed the carriage door and approached the front. Craddox sat upon the high seat staring straight ahead. It took Morgan a moment to see; darkness blunted the edges of everything, even with the carriage lamps giving some illumination.
Craddox looked down at Morgan, eyes wide in his old face. “Is it a ghost, sir?”
Morgan approached alongside the pair of horses. “No, Craddox. I think it’s a patient from Tranquil View.”
A woman walked toward them slowly but surely, her eyes wide and dark, her white nightgown dragging on the ground, her bare feet taking sure steps. Morgan’s breath caught in his throat. With her wildly mussed brown hair and piquant face, the young woman had the quality of a specter in an Edgar Allan Poe novel.
“Good God,” Craddox said.
Morgan headed for the woman, knowing he had two choices. Either the woman would be passive enough to ride in the carriage back to the asylum, or Morgan would have to walk her back. They’d reached the mile point in the two-mile trip from the Healy manor to the asylum, but most of it was uphill.
“What is it?” His father, having left the carriage, strode toward Morgan.
Damn it. He didn’t want his father involved with this. “A patient.” Morgan continued toward the woman, but she stopped in the middle of the road.
“Let me take care of it,” Masterson said, walking swiftly past Morgan. The older man mumbled curses under his breath. “There will be hell to pay for this.”
Morgan didn’t stop. He knew better than to leave the woman alone with his father. They reached the trembling, stark-faced creature at the same time. Masterson reached for the short woman’s stick-thin arm, and the she flinched and started to thrash and scream.
Damn it all to hell. “Father, let go of her. That isn’t going to help.”
“I am a doctor, God damn it. I know what I’m doing.” Masterson gripped the woman’s other arm as she squealed, eyes wild as a feral cat’s, and teeth bared in a grimace.
Morgan flinched. He did not curse in front of women, even lunatics. “She’s afraid of you.”
“She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s a damned crazy woman.”
Morgan’s patience snapped. “For a doctor who claims to want to help the insane you have a fine way of showing it.”
“She should be in a straight jacket. I told Mrs. Angel and Oleta Franklin to keep her in the restraints at all times.”
Morgan’s anger rose. “Obviously something went wrong.”
Masterson shook the girl and yelled in her face. “Damn it woman! Calm down!”
The woman stopped wriggling, but soft, heart-wrenching sobs left her throat. Her face twisted in anguish that crushed Morgan’s already tough heart.
“What are you doing out here?” Masterson asked the woman harshly.
The woman let out a blood-chilling scream that hurt Morgan’s ears.
“Father we need to get her out of the cold. She isn’t dressed for this.”
“Fine! You take care of her. But she isn’t going to ride in the carriage with us.” Masterson dropped the woman’s arm and stalked back to the carriage.
The woman turned to Morgan, sobbing uncontrollably. “Please, please mister. Save me from the devil. Save me.”
He patted the hysterical wretch’s back. “It’s all right.”
“Don’t coddle her Morgan,” his father yelled back at him. “Walk her back to the asylum.”
Walk her back. Morgan had expected this, and he didn’t complain or yell back at his father what he thought. He’d wait until later, if then. The carriage made its noisy way past him and the crying woman. It was then Morgan saw the bloody footprints the woman made wherever she stepped.
“Hell,” Morgan said under his breath. If she walked back like this, her feet would be cut to ribbons, if they weren’t already. First he must calm her down. He kept his arms around her frail body. “What’s your name pretty lady?”
The woman buried her face in his shoulder, burrowing like a child and staining his waistcoat with her tears. “Lizabeth.”
“Lizabeth. That’s a lovely name. Listen. I need to carry you. Your feet are hurt. Will you let me?”
The young woman’s hands clutched his lapels as she looked up at him. Her eyes, even in the dim and fading light, had a perfectly sane look to them. “Sir, that would be unseemly. Nurse Angel wouldn’t like it.”
“You let me worry about Mrs. Angel.”
She nodded, her crying bout completely gone. “All right.”
Cautiously he lifted her into his arms and started the trek. While he’d walked the miles to the asylum many times, he’d never done it in the approaching darkness or with a burden in his arms. The young woman couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds, and he wondered why. For her height she should have had a little more meat to her bones. Morgan vowed to look into it. The ball be damned. It could wait.
All around him the forest spoke. It whispered as wind drove through the pine needles, rattling and wheezing in a way familiar to him. His feet crunched the earth as he walked, and as the breeze gathered strength, he was glad for his coat, gloves, and hat. The temperature had dropped considerably over the day. Thank God it hadn’t snowed yet. He hoped his body would keep the girl warm. She appeared to have fallen asleep in his arms.
Before Morgan made it halfway up the drive, two nurses left the front door and began a half run toward him. One ran faster than the others. It wasn’t until she was almost upon him that he recognized her and smiled grimly.
“Let us take her sir,” Oleta Franklin said as she reached for the woman.
“No. I’ll take her the rest of the way.”
“But your attire sir,” the other nurse said, her mouth open in surprise. “She’s bleeding and it’s on your clothing.”
Morgan kept walking. “No matter.”
They didn’t protest as he walked straight into the front door. At least the guests for the ball didn’t come through this entrance, so there was no one other than nurses to see him with the girl. His father stood with a finely attired young woman, his smile directed at the woman who looked half his age. His mistress? Morgan didn’t know. The man kept his mistresses far from the family home and his affairs discreet. Masterson stepped in front of the well-dressed woman, but not quickly enough. She saw the girl in Morgan’s arms and gasped.
“There, there. Do not be alarmed. A patient had a mishap and my son is assisting.”
Morgan took the staircase two steps at a time, thankful he was fit. At the top of the landing he saw another young woman just down the hall, and he almost tripped. The woman was tall and slim and yet her serviceable brown dress made contact with curves any man would admire. Her face caught his attention in that split second and impressed upon him like a blow to the head. Her long mahogany locks fell in a rich cascade around her shoulders, barely reaching her bosom. Intelligent, dark eyes watched him. Unlike the brittle creature in his arms, the other woman’s cheeks had color, high color in fact. A soft smile touched her rosy mouth. He sta
red just long enough for their eyes to lock, for him to experience that smile in his stomach, and God help him, his groin. God, she is pretty. He took a staggered breath and continued. One false misstep would kill him and the girl if he didn’t take care. He followed Nurse Franklin to the infirmary.
But it was the raging beauty of the woman he’d just seen that remained like a fine wine in his blood.
Chapter 4
Lilly stood at the huge wooden double doors of the auditorium and listened to the music dancing in the air. Cold, winter air swirled around her body, but she’d come outside without her duster. Once she’d left the main building, she noted how foolish she’d been, but she’d already taken too long to change her dress to a pretty dark blue taffeta Oleta had allowed her to borrow. At first the lower neckline and shorter elbow length sleeves had made Lilly feel exposed. Oleta assured her most of the women at the ball would have ball gowns with no sleeves at all.
Lilly’s hair was upswept into the popular pompadour some of the younger nurses wore and that she’d seen in a magazine. She liked what it did for her face and neck. She’d never worn much in the way of frippery. A woman needed money for that, and a considerable amount of it. When she’d worked in town, she’d heard from one wealthy young woman that she’d spent at least five hundred dollars a year on clothing. No, Lilly was used to her brown floor-length skirts and her white or cream shirtwaists.
The excitement of attending such a lavish affair sent her blood to racing. The ball had started only ten minutes ago. Was she fashionably late? She’d heard it was the right thing to do in polite society when it came to balls, dances, or soirees.
Lilly was discombobulated. Her stomach growled since she’d left her appetite earlier in the day and hadn’t found it. Her body reacted as it usually did to facing a mass of people. Her heartbeat rattled in her chest, erratic. She sometimes couldn’t wrap her mind around what she planned to do. Apprehension demanded she run. Determination made certain she wouldn’t. No matter how much the ball intimidated or frightened her, she must continue.
Shadows Wait Page 4