by Danice Allen
“Good New Year, Charlie,” said Zach, smiling and pulling off his gloves. “Does the day bode well for the year ahead?”
Charlie shrugged, still grinning, then pointed to Zach’s bruised eye, raising his brows in a question.
“It’s feeling much better today, though I know it looks dreadful. I suppose it will turn all the colors of the rainbow before it’s completely healed. The girl is a fighter.”
Charlie’s brows lowered, and he nodded with immediate understanding. Grimacing, he inclined his head toward the door leading from the receiving parlor where they stood to the back apartments. Zach could hear distant recriminations in a shrill female voice. At first he’d not been sure from whence the ruckus originated; the building resonated with varying levels of noise. The words were indistinct, but he would wager they were highly colorful terminology the girl had learned on the streets. Mr. Blake’s tender ears and delicate sensibilities would be aflame with saintly umbrage. But even though Mr. Blake was extremely religious, he had a compassionate, tolerant nature, perfect for his guardian position at the shelter.
“Mrs. Stark is er… helping her bathe, is she?”
Charlie nodded again, his eyes wide.
“She must have slept all day then, and has the devil of a headache. Naturally she’d be a bit… peevish.”
Charlie acknowledged the understatement with another grin, then his eyes narrowed and his nose twitched. He gazed down at Zach’s wet pants.
“Aye. I could use a bath, too, or at least my pants could. I didn’t jump fast enough to get altogether out of harm’s way when a ’gardyloo’ was called. Mr. Blake’s head obstructed my view of the upper stories.”
Charlie pursed his mouth knowingly.
“Where is Blake?” Zach shrugged out of his black redingote and tossed it onto a nearby chair. There was no butler here, no unnecessary servants whose salary would take away from the upkeep of the women in residence. Mr. Blake, Charlie, Mrs. Stark—the housekeeper, cook, and nurse—and a maid to assist Mrs. Stark, ran the shelter on a shoestring budget and performed a lot of hard, dedicated work. A physician was routinely called in to check the progress of the pregnant or the ill, or to follow and assist in the rehabilitation of women undergoing withdrawal from alcohol or opium addiction.
Charlie looked momentarily nonplussed by Zach’s inquiry into Mr. Blake’s whereabouts, seeming to indicate that he was surprised that the Quaker wasn’t already present. He poked his chest with a thick, square thumb, gestured toward the door and left, presumably to fetch the absentee.
“Thank you, Charlie,” said Zach to the giant’s retreating back, then he sat down in a plain unupholstered chair near the modest peat fire burning in the grate. He dare not dampen the frayed brocade of the wing chair or the sofa with his soiled trousers, because the stench would be difficult to be rid of and they couldn’t afford new furniture.
The screaming down the hall at the end of the house where the bathing room was located continued. Aye, she was a feisty lass, and probably as slippery and hard to keep in the tin tub as a fat, wriggly worm in a bucket. But, as vivid memory recalled, she desperately needed a bath. Unfortunate that she should kick up such a dust over it, like a willful child.
Comparing the bathing woman to a child brought Zach’s mind back to his earlier thoughts about Gabby’s maturity. This memory led, in a somewhat baffling line of logic, to imagining Gabby sea-bathing. She used to bathe in Dozmary Cove on the Cornish coast. He remembered her compact, slim little figure as she slapped in the waves, the sun glinting off her burnished hair, her bathing gown clinging to her like a second skin. He superimposed Gabby’s womanly figure into the same scenario and was appalled by the way his stomach gnawed with a distinctly non-avuncular hunger. He put her out of his mind, erasing the fantasy of her wet bathing gown clinging to the full round curves of her breasts. He determinedly looked about the room for diversion.
It was a tasteful room, neat as a pin as always, but rather worn. Before the “Great Flitting,” the abandonment of Old Town by the upper crust for the clean, Georgian elegance of New Town, these high-stacked tenements were inhabited by all ranks of society. The garret and the basement were rented to the hoi polloi, and the middle reaches were given at high rents to the Quality.
This particular house once belonged to Lord Elphinstone, and the elaborately painted ceiling, plasterwork, and carved fireplaces bespoke better times. The furnishings, however, were plain and old, standing in the glorious rooms like bourgeoisie—cheeky and defiant in the midst of aristocratic grandeur.
Suddenly another sound was added to the litany of female curses—a male voice. It obviously belonged to Mr. Blake, and Zach knew that something out of the ordinary was afoot if the gentle Quaker was compelled to raise his voice. He stood up, but was hesitant to intrude if he wasn’t really needed. After all, Mr. Blake capably oversaw the shelter 365 days a year without Zach’s assistance. When he heard Charlie’s heavy footsteps coming quickly down the hall, however, Zach opened the door and looked out.
Charlie’s face was eloquent with meaning. Something was terribly wrong. Charlie did an abrupt about-face, and Zach followed, moving past the several curious women who’d stuck their heads through the opened doors that lined the hall. He vaguely noted that the shelter was full. He’d counted at least eight heads, and there were probably other women too sick, too pregnant, or too apathetic to investigate the source of excitement.
They’d reached the bathing room, a small, snug enclosure kept well heated by a substantial fireplace in the corner. Zach’s eyes first fell on the large tin tub in the middle of the room, empty, but with its foamy water rocking from a recent disturbance.
The pregnant girl, her blond hair slicked back from a delousing shampoo, had backed against the wall. A bathing sheet tucked around her barely preserved her modesty. Her breathing was fast and shallow, her ludicrously large stomach pushing rhythmically against the damp sheet with each exhalation.
She had blue eyes, the striking color of cornflowers. Zach felt a jolt of painful nostalgia. Tessy’s eyes had been deep blue, too. The girl’s face was as pale as the sheet around her, but there were blotches of high color on both cheekbones. She held a shaving blade against an extended wrist.
Mr. Blake, Mrs. Stark, and the maid stood in a semicircle around the girl, frozen in startled, wary indecision. The girl darted a furtive look at Zach and Charlie as they entered the small chamber, then she lifted her chin and placed the blade closer to the delicate blue veins of her wrist. Her voice was clear and steady. “Come one step more and I’ll slash meself. Dinna doubt, I’ll do it sure enough, muckin’ up yer clean room with blood puddles as wide and deep as Duddingston Loch!”
Zach became as immobile as the others, but forced his body to assume a relaxed pose, as if he dealt with suicidal women on a regular basis. Her calm manner in announcing her intentions was ominous. Calm people succeeded much more often in killing themselves than did the hysterical sort. He slowly, ever so slowly, lifted his hands, palms up, in a reasoning gesture. “What do you want?”
Her face contorted, an anguished crumpling of small features. “I want to die!”
“I don’t think you do. I think—”
“Who gives a bloody hell what you think?” she spat, her eyes narrowed viciously, her mouth stretched in a sneer. “A prissy swell like you canna know anythin’ about my life!”
“You’d be surprised what I know.” Zach dropped his hands and clasped them loosely behind his back in a non-threatening gesture.
“Ha! What a crock o’ horse dung!” She shifted her weight, wincing. Her cumbersome belly probably played the very devil with her back.
“I know that you drink too much, and right now your head is ringing like the Sabbath bells of St. Giles from the pint of whiskey you drank last night.”
She sniffed, undenying but defensive. “I drink t’ keep me man company, not fer the pleasure of it.”
“Your husband?”
The girl raised her brows imperiously. He
r mood changed with manic abruptness. “I’m married right and proper afore God.” She poked the blade at her belly. “This ain’t no bastard if’n that’s what ye’re implyin’!”
Zach avoided directly answering most of her assertions and questions. He had plenty of questions of his own. “What’s your name?”
“Dinna ye know it already, Mr. Smart-Arse?”
“Please … Your name?”
The girl seemed momentarily surprised and mollified by his politeness. “Kate, I’m called.”
Zach smiled. She glared back. Her grip on the handle of the shaving blade had become a little lax, but he knew it was still far from safe to approach the girl. He hoped the others realized this, too. “Kate, why don’t you get dressed, and then we’ll talk.”
Her lip curled. “What about? You and the likes o’ me dinna have nothin’ to talk about.”
“We can talk about those bruises on your arms and neck—”
Her eyes flashed with anger. “Ain’t none o’ yer business how I got these marks—” She stopped herself and looked suddenly enlightened, as if an idea had come to her that would discompose her keepers and gain her the upper hand. “What if I told ye that the men what brung me here last night misused me, beat me … raped me?”
“I’d say you were lying through your teeth.”
“How would ye know?”
“I brought you here last night, and the only person who sustained an injury while transporting you was me.” He pointed to his eye.
“I did that?” She seemed pleased.
“My coachman has a rather tender stomach this morning, too, from where you kicked him.”
“Good!” She gloated, standing a little straighter, her prideful pose losing something, however, in the face of her nakedness, her vulnerable belly, the bruises. Zach’s heart ached for her.
“Your husband beats you, doesn’t he?”
Up came the chin again. “I love me Douglas, he’s a good lad! Dinna speak ill of ’im!”
“I want you to stay at the shelter, Kate, till you have the baby. If he beats you again, he could harm the baby, too.”
Kate’s hand splayed in a protective gesture over her stomach, the fingers looking sadly small and inadequate as protection for so large a target. “I would’na let no one hurt me babe!”
“Is that why you left him, Kate? Is that why you were leaving the city last night on foot? Were you afraid for the baby?”
Kate’s brows furrowed. “I dinna remember much about last night. I dinna remember you.” There was a long pause, while she appeared to be sifting through her disjointed memories. “Douglas and me, we fought…” As her recollections cleared and became more cohesive, her face pinched with sadness. Sudden tears rolled from her unblinking, unfocused eyes. “’Tis a wicked world to bring a babe into.”
“We want to help thee, friend,” Mr. Blake said, his voice full of sincere compassion.
The girl’s gaze sharpened as it shifted to Mr. Blake. She wet her dry lips with a quick swipe of her tongue. “Then fetch me some whiskey.”
“No,” he said sorrowfully. “Strong drink is thine enemy, friend, and the child’s burden, too, when thou taketh it into thy body.”
She lifted the blade and held it again to her wrist. She grit her teeth. “Fetch me some whiskey!”
“Thou wilt not take thy life,” said Mr. Blake, “because thou cannot in good conscience take thy child’s life with thee. The world is a wicked place, but good can be found in it.” Earnestly he repeated, “Let us help thee, friend.”
The girl stood for what seemed an eternity, her trembling hand grasping the blade, holding it to her wrist, the tears streaming down her face. There was no sobbing, no outward sound of inner pain. But she hurt. Zach could see how much she hurt.
Finally her hand dropped to her side, the blade thudding dully against the bare wood floor. She dropped her head against the wall and closed her eyes. “If I canna drink and I canna die, then let me sleep. I’m sick and I’m tired.” She slumped, and her legs buckled; she was about to swoon. Zach stepped quickly forward and caught her under the knees and about the shoulders, lifting her. She rested her head against his chest and gave a sigh of relieved surrender.
Charlie blocked the way as Zach tottered toward the door, poking his massive chest with his thumb, frowning.
“I can carry her, Charlie. Just move,” Zach said impatiently. Kate wasn’t so much heavy as she was terribly awkward, the weight being so unevenly distributed. Zach knew he could get her to the bedchamber, if only this giant would move. But Charlie shook his head.
“Let him do it, friend,” persuaded Mr. Blake with a significant look and nod. “We need Charlie for just these sorts of jobs. He’s very strong.”
Zach was feeling just stubborn enough to resist. He stood, braced, irresolute. His grip tightened. He wanted to help this girl, and he’d start by carrying her to the chamber she’d share with two or three other women. How else could he ease the pain in his own chest, the pain that throbbed and twisted each time he met a girl like Kate, a girl abused and hurt by the man who supposedly loved her?
“She is unwieldy. Thou might drop her,” Mr. Blake added with succinct good sense.
Kate wriggled a little in his arms. “Let Charlie carry me,” she said with a sleepy sigh. “No offense meant, sir, but fer a gentry cove, ye smell like bloody hell.”
Zach felt the tension inside him ease away. He smiled and let Charlie take the girl. “She’ll be all right,” he said to Mr. Blake as they watched her being carried out with Mrs. Stark and the maid following behind. “She has spirit.”
“If my guess is correct, she also has twins,” Mr. Blake said gravely.
“I wondered if she might,” said Zach. “She’s huge, isn’t she, for so small a lass? Have you sent for the doctor?”
Mr. Blake nodded. “He’s coming tonight. I thought it best to clean her up a bit first. She’s going to have a difficult time of it. I expect she’s due within a matter of days. We may have to ease her off the whiskey bit by bit, dashing a little in her tea now and then. An abrupt withdrawal from the alcohol might be too severe a shock to her system and harm the child … or children.”
“I’ll be in Edinburgh for a while. I can check on her progress every day.”
Mr. Blake gave Zach a keen look. “That’s kind of thee, friend. Thou art taking a particular interest in the lass.”
Zach waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll want to know about the others, too. Have you time this afternoon to fill me in?”
Mr. Blake nodded. “I’ve the ledgers for thee to look at, as well. But if we are to be closeted together in the office, might I ask thee … ?” The Quaker’s face grew crimson.
“What, Blake?” Zach prompted, perplexed and a little amused by Mr. Blake’s sudden embarrassment.
“Wilt thou—forgive me, friend—but wilt thou allow me to lend thee a pair of my breeches whilst thine own are being laundered?”
Zach laughed, clapping the man on the back. “I’ve sent for a change, but with the streets so crowded, it may take my servants a while to return. Certainly, Blake, I’ll borrow a pair from you. As Kate said, I smell like—”
Mr. Blake raised an admonishing finger. “—A trifle ripe. To say thou smelleth a trifle ripe is description enough, friend. We have to work on purifying the girl’s language, don’t we? And how better to do that than by our own example?”
From her bedchamber, Gabrielle heard Zach’s carriage rattling over the cobbles in the small courtyard adjacent to the mews behind the Murrays’ townhouse. That would mean that Zach was probably already ascending the stairs from the front hall, having relieved himself of his hat, coat, and cane in the vestibule. She’d been waiting and watching for him for over an hour, ever since they’d returned from their New Year’s round of social calls.
Gabrielle quickly assessed her appearance in the mirror over the dressing table, patting an errant curl into place. She picked up from the table a small silver-foiled box, ornam
ented with a black satin bow, and moved to the door, going out into the hall.
It was dusk and the servants had not, as yet, lit all the candles in the large house, though they were undoubtedly in the process of doing so. The hall was dim; gray-gold shadows obscured the corners, all the sharp angles of wall, ceiling, and floor merging together like a seamless backdrop brushed onto canvas, as if prepared for the portrait artist’s vivid rendering of his subject.
At the top of the stairs, the subject appeared—Zach, looking tired and a little sad. Gabrielle clutched her gaily wrapped box and waited for him to see her. She’d not strayed more than a foot from the threshold of her door. Her stomach fluttered so at the sight of him, it would take more courage and composure than she had at her immediate command to step forward and address him.
His progress down the gallery was slow, the bend of his head implying deep thought. She began to imagine that he might walk right past without even noticing her—and her struck dumb with shyness and unable to make her presence known! Things had changed between them, and Gabrielle wasn’t so sure at times that all of the changes were good ones.
Suddenly, from the opposite end of the hall where the servants’ stairs were located, a shaft of light from a chambermaid’s tallow work candle speared the shadows and reflected against Gabrielle’s brightly papered box. Zach’s head lifted. His first response in seeing Gabrielle was a smile, which made her heart sing with happiness. But then a wary, guarded expression crept over his features, a reaction not unlike the result of a half-forgotten, infelicitous memory abruptly recalled. Gabrielle knew what that memory was. Their last conversation.
Nonetheless, the smile, slightly subdued at the corners, remained. He moved to stand in front of her, while in the background the hall began to brighten as the chambermaid quietly went about lighting wall sconces along the length of it.
“Hello, Gabby. I’d have thought you’d be napping after your arduous afternoon of calls. And isn’t there another party tonight?”
Gabrielle’s fingers nervously stroked the black satin ribbon. “Almost every night there’s a party somewhere. It gets a trifle boring.”