The Winter Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  Foster procured a bottle of Bordeaux, then made a hasty meal of hot soup and sandwiches.

  "I'll prepare the larger of the guest rooms, madam," he said when he'd finished. "Might I suggest that Mr...."

  "Finnegan," Fiona said.

  "That Mr. Finnegan retires before the maids wake and the cook arrives--at five o'clock. They do tend to talk."

  Fiona nodded. She took his meaning. Her brother was a fugitive, and she was endangering not only herself but the entire household, by harboring him.

  "Thank you, Mr. Foster. Very, very much," she said. "We will all be very careful."

  Foster nodded and departed, leaving Fiona alone with her brothers. Seamie was sitting at the head of the long pine table. Sid was sitting on one side of it. She took a seat across from him. There had been so much commotion--crying and shouting, Sid's collapse, the kitchen-table surgery. Now it was quiet. She could hear the kitchen clock ticking. A slow dripping from a tap.

  She looked across the table at her brother. His face was different. Older, haggard. His eyes were wary and hard. But in them she could still see the boy she remembered.

  She shook her head, biting her lip to keep fresh tears back, but they came anyway. She reached across the table and covered his large, scarred hand with her own. He was here with her, at last. They were together again, she and Charlie and Seamie, for the first time in twelve years.

  "I'm sorry," Charlie said. "For Joe. For this. For everything."

  Fiona wiped her eyes. "Eat your soup," she said. "You need nourishment." She looked at her younger brother. He hadn't touched his food either; he looked dazed. "Seamie, luv, eat," she said.

  He pushed the bowl away. "I don't want any soup," he said angrily. "Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"

  Fiona started to, but Sid cut her off. He told Seamie what had really happened to him back in 1889, how he had become Sid Malone, how he had lived his life, why he was now on the run. He glossed over nothing and when he had finished, Seamie, who had been completely silent, turned to their sister and in an unsteady voice, said, "How could you not tell me, Fiona? He's my brother, too."

  Fiona tried to explain. "I ...I thought you would be upset. You were so close, you and Charlie, and I didn't want--"

  He didn't let her finish, but jumped to his feet and exploded into a rage. "Christ, Fiona! You are always mollycoddling me!"

  "Mind your manners, lad," Sid said.

  "Mind my manners? Mind my manners? That's rich coming from you. Don't you think it's just slightly rude to crack safes and rob banks?"

  "Seamie, that's enough!" Fiona said.

  "Were you ever going to tell me?" he asked her.

  "I wanted to. I was hoping to. I wanted to find Charlie first and persuade him to--"

  "To what? Blend tea? Peddle peaches?" Seamie shook his head. "I can't believe this! My brother's not dead, he's alive and well, and the biggest criminal in all of London, and you don't tell me. Anything else you're not telling me, Fee?" He pulled out his chair. "Wait, don't answer. Let me sit down first."

  Sid looked at Fiona. "He's angry," he said.

  "You're goddamned right I'm angry!"

  "What good would telling you have done?" Fiona asked him. "Charlie wanted no part of me. Of us. I didn't want to tell you because I thought knowing those things would hurt you. I only wanted to protect you."

  "Well, stop. Stop trying to protect me. I've told you this a hundred times, but you never listen. I'm not a boy, I'm a grown man."

  "Then bloody act like one," Charlie said. "Fiona's got a husband in the hospital, a fugitive in her house, and a baby on the way. Last thing she needs is gyp from you."

  "All those years," Seamie said. "All those years without you. It would have been nice to have had a brother."

  "I'm sorry for that. Sorrier than you'll ever know. But I'm here now."

  "Yeah. Gee. Maybe we can go to a ball game," Seamie said bitterly. He picked up the loaf of bread Foster had put out, tore off a piece, and dunked it in his soup.

  Charlie took a bite of his sandwich. No one spoke further. Fiona's heart sank.

  She had longed for them to be a family again for ages, longed for a reunion. Now she'd gotten one, and it wasn't what she'd imagined. Not at all.

  She looked at Charlie, then at Seamie. They were the spitting image of each other. Red-haired, green-eyed. Restless, heedless, impossible to control. Each kept his head down now, eyes on his soup. Seamie looked furious still; Charlie guilt-ridden.

  Fiona wished they would talk again, try again. It wasn't an ideal reunion, far from it, but it was better than nothing. Couldn't they see that? She had no idea how long their time together would last. She had no idea what tomorrow would bring. Not for Charlie or for Seamie. Not for Joe or for herself. But for tonight at least, the three of them were sitting in her kitchen. Drinking wine. Eating. Talking. Together again. A family.

  Seamie suddenly stopped eating. He cleared his throat. "Charlie?" he said.

  "Aye, lad?" Charlie replied.

  Fiona took her brothers' hands. She watched them with bated breath, hoping for words of reconciliation and forgiveness, words to bridge the sorrowful gulf of years, words to make them brothers again.

  "Pass the salt, Charlie, will you?"

  Chapter 70

  Ella looked at her friend, who was lying on her bed in the attic, and frowned with worry. "Indy, I really think you should eat some breakfast.

  Couldn't you try a little milk? Some toast?"

  "I couldn't. I'm too nauseous. I'm going to be sick any minute."

  "But how? You haven't eaten anything."

  "Excuse me, Ella."

  India rose and ran downstairs to the one and only loo in the Moskowitzes' flat. When she came back to the bedroom, Ella was still there. She walked across the room on unsteady legs, lay back down on her bed, and groaned.

  "You're scaring me, Indy."

  "It's nerves, Ella, that's all. Nerves always make me heave."

  "He'll be all right, you know," Ella said, taking her hand.

  "I'm so frightened for him. What if he's suffering, Ella? What if he's sick, with no one to care for him? It's been two days. What if he's dead?" she said, her voice catching.

  "Shh! You stop that right now. He's not dead."

  "You don't know that."

  "I do. He can weather a fall and a bullet, too. He's come through worse. And if he was dead, there'd be a body found and we'd have heard about it. Every newsboy in London would be hollerin' his head off. Sid's all right, Indy. He is."

  "Then why haven't I heard from him?"

  "He's no fool, is he? He knows you're being watched. The police aren't exactly subtle, are they? One's in here eyeing every customer who comes in. Another's going through the post, poking in every delivery. And two more are hanging about outside."

  "Ella, do you think... do you think he's had second thoughts?"

  "About you? No, you stupid girl. He'll turn up. He'll get a note to you. Something. I know he will. You just have to wait, to be patient. Hard as that is."

  Ella continued speaking, but India barely heard her. The greasy, roiling surge in her stomach was back. "Oh, God," she moaned.

  "Again?" Ella said as she ran out of the room. "India, I'm going to send for Harriet."

  When she returned to the bedroom for the second time, Ella's eyes nar-rowed. "You know, you look thinner," she said.

  "Yes, well, heaving everything you eat will do that to you."

  "How long have you been feeling poorly? How long exactly?"

  "I don't know. A week, I suppose. Maybe two. I don't need Harriet, Ella. I really don't think it's flu or anything like that. I've no aches and pains. No bronchial symptoms. It's nerves, I'm sure of it."

  Ella shook her head. "Crikey, India, it's not nerves, you great bloody fool! Call yourself a doctor, do you?"

  "What is it, then?"

  "Are you having your periods?"

  "Yes, of course. I'm due ...well, let me th
ink ...I..." India paled.

  "Oh, my God, Ella."

  She was pregnant. With Sid Malone's baby. Of course she was. The first few times--at her flat, and then at his--had hardly been planned or prepared for. Pregnant. She could barely believe it. A feeling of joy, shocking in its strength and unexpectedness, flooded her.

  "Pregnant, Ella! I'm pregnant!" she whispered.

  "Now, India, don't get upset."

  "I'm not. Even though I think I should be. We'll be a family, Ella. Sid, myself, and the baby. In America. In California. I can't wait to tell him," she said in a gush of emotion. "I'll do it on the ship. As soon as we're safely away from London. Or maybe in New York. Or maybe I'll wait until we get to California. To Wish's land. Maybe that's the right place to tell him something like that." Her smile faded. "Unless he doesn't come," she said, her joy turning to a cold dread. "And then I'll be an unmarried woman with a baby. I'll lose my medical license. What will I do for an income? How will I provide for the baby? The poor thing will be fatherless."

  "Enough. Enough now! You're imagining terrible things that will never happen. Sid will come. You'll be together."

  "You keep saying that, Ella, but how do you know?"

  Ella smiled. "Because my mother said so. Beshert, that's what she said. Fated to be together. And if there's one thing I know for certain, it's that my mother is never wrong."

  India managed a laugh. She squeezed her friend's hand. And tried to believe her.

  Chapter 71

  In a bedroom at the top of 94 Grosvenor Square, Sid Malone tried yet again to sit up and get out of bed.

  He'd had a raging fever for three days, had barely eaten, and now he was as weak as a kitten. The bullet wound in his back had become infected and the fever had swiftly overtaken him. He should have been able to shake it off sooner, but he couldn't. He couldn't rally. He had no fight left in him. Because there was nothing to fight for.

  India had betrayed him. She'd given the police the Arden Street address. She'd helped them set a trap for him, knowing he'd be arrested and imprisoned. Knowing what prison had done to him.

  A part of him didn't believe it. Couldn't believe it. India loved him. She knew who he was, what he was, and yet she'd given up everything--even her clinic--to be with him. Why would she suddenly turn on him?

  He knew the answer: because he'd shot Joe Bristow and murdered Gemma Dean.

  That's what she would have seen in the papers. That's what the people around her would have told her. And she'd believed them. Of course, she had. How could she do otherwise? He was a criminal, after all. Ruthless. Vicious. Capable of anything.

  He remembered the last time they were together. They'd eaten a hurried breakfast at the Moskowitzes' caf�He'd told her he had one more thing to do, a bit of unfinished business to take care of. A few hours later, Joe Bristow was in the hospital fighting for his life and witnesses had told the police that he, Sid Malone, had put him there.

  She'd probably gone straight to the police, horrifled by what he'd done. Or maybe they'd come to her. Maybe they'd found something out about the two of them and had threatened to arrest her. Either way, she'd told them.

  He'd thought of trying to get to India--on his own or through Fiona-- to tell her that he hadn't committed the crimes he was accused of, but he'd decided against it. It was too risky. The police were likely still watching her. And even if he could talk to her, what good would it do? Whatever she'd felt for him was gone; it had to be. She now believed him capable of murder.

  He'd always known he'd be paid back some day for the crimes he'd committed. Now he had been. He had loved, even though doing so had gone against every instinct he possessed, and he had lost that love. And the pain of it was terrible. Worse than the pain any whip or bullet could ever inflict.

  He knew he couldn't stay in London. He couldn't stay in England. He would have to start again somewhere far away. He had a few friends, still. Friends along the waterfront. People who had ships and contacts in China, Ceylon, Africa. They would help him ...if he could get to them.

  "I've got to get out of this bloody bed," he said aloud, taking a stiff and shaky walk around the room. "Out of this house."

  "Are you nuts?" Seamie said, from a chair near the fireplace. "There's a manhunt on for you. Or did you forget?"

  He was sifting through the day's papers, looking for any news on the search for Sid Malone.

  Sid sighed, frustrated. If he couldn't get out, he could at least work on himself, build himself back up a bit. He walked around the room again, then he tried to move his left arm. He raised it as high as it would go, stretched it behind him. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. A low groan escaped him. It was painful to move it, but he did it anyway. He had to regain the use of it. He was sure he'd broken it in the fall at Arden Street, but Mr. Foster said he'd only dislocated it. The man had also proved himself a dab hand at surgery, taking the bullet out of his back with only a filleting knife and a pair of poultry shears.

  "You've a bit of mangled muscle," he'd said as he'd dropped the bullet into a pudding basin. "But no broken bones. Whoever fired at you is either a very good shot or a very poor one."

  Sid had been grateful to him, but wary. How did he know the man wouldn't go to the police?

  "Do you trust him, Fee?" he'd asked after Foster had left them.

  "With my life," she'd said.

  The rest of her staff, however, she was not so sure of. She'd closeted him away with stern directions to the servants that a friend of Seamie's who was very ill was staying with them and wasn't to be disturbed. Only Foster was to take him his meals. Sid had now been in the same room for three days, and the confinement was killing him.

  "Find anything?" he asked Seamie now.

  "Nope," Seamie answered, turning a page.

  Sid looked at him and his heart felt so full that he had to look away. Full of love and full of anger, too, for all the things he had missed of his brother's life, all the things he would miss.

  "Wait a minute ...there's something here on the funeral service for Gemma Dean," Seamie said, reading him the details of the service.

  Sid felt a deep sorrow at the mention of Gemma's name. He couldn't shake the feeling that her death was his fault. He, Fiona, and Seamie had talked about Joe and Gemma Dean his first night at Fiona's house. He told them how he'd escaped arrest at the Bark, what had happened to him in Richmond, and how he'd hidden in the sewers, only coming out at night, until he could make his way to Grosvenor Square. He knew Fiona's address. He'd kept tabs on her over the years.

  "But why would Frankie Betts hurt Joe?" Fiona had asked. "Why would he kill Gemma Dean?"

  "Because he's an angry young man," Sid had said.

  "At Joe? Over his refusal to pay him money? At Gemma Dean?"

  "No. At me. Because I left. This was his way of bringing me back."

  "By getting you hanged?" Seamie asked.

  "Frankie's not one for thinking through the consequences," Sid said. "I'm sure he thought this would force me underground for a bit, but that I'd eventually come back to the Firm."

  As Seamie continued to search the newspapers, Fiona walked in. She'd just returned from the hospital.

  "Shouldn't you be resting?" she asked, feeling Sid's forehead. "You're not as warm as last night, that's something, but I wish you'd get back into bed."

  Sid did so. "How's Joe today?" he asked.

  She shook her head. "No change. He just lies there breathing. He doesn't move, doesn't speak. The nurses are feeding him through a tube. Oats ground to powder and mixed with milk." She paused, then said, "I went to the nursery before I came up here. To put Katie to bed. She asked

  when her daddy was coming home. I didn't ...I dn't know what to tell

  di

  her." Her voice broke.

  Sid took his sister's hand. "Shh, Fee. He's healing, that's all. His body's shut down to save strength. He's going to make it."

  She looked at him through her tears. "Do you promise?" she
asked.