by Baird Wells
“Would it comfort you, if I said the same of Sofie?”
“Not a bit,” admitted Ethan.
“It does not comfort me, either.”
Ethan's nod was slight and grim, promising nothing. Spencer chose to take his silence instead. Glancing at Alix, huddled inside Ty's coat, something came to him. “You said Chas couldn't be flushed out.”
Ethan followed his gaze. “Not at first, but with time. Turns out he's susceptible to pretty blondes, and I have such a one in my employ. He was cooperative, played his part in my shadow theater in exchange for a sort of immunity. I felt like an absolute cad, having to break that his wife effectively sold him to the French.”
He cocked his head at Alix. “She's going to ask.”
“He’s shipboard. On his way home to America with fifty-percent stake in Paton shipping. Van der Verre’s portion is all forfeit, but I imagine Chas is glad to see it go. What he does now is his affair, not mine.”
“A man! Sir, we have a man here!” Shouts rose up from the fire brigade, a member rushing out through his comrades as they pushed water through the building's front to the embers still cooking inside. In the distance he saw his wife’s face snap up at the words.
“Silas,” offered Spencer. “Alix said she left him inside.”
Ethan's mouth set in a grim line. “Let's go and see, shall we?”
Spencer moved with Ethan around the building, sparing a glance for Alexandra as he passed. She was still staring into the dark maw of the warehouse’s door, her expression unreadable.
A sudden weariness descended over him. His time with Alix at the cottage felt like a lifetime ago. The poisoning, the trial, and now this. If not for their wedding, he would think the last few months were some nightmare from which he could not wake.
He drew on the last of his reserves and turned back the warehouse.
One thing left to do.
He had seen men burned on the battlefield. It wasn't anything new or even particularly disturbing, at this point. This body was the same: no hair, clothing gray and crumbling, charred and dusty where dousing water had failed to wash the ash. Fat oozed, giving Silas's corpse the appearance of a scorched and melting sugar confection.
“Roll it over,” instructed Ethan, waving to a man with a pike pole hovering outside the wall.
It took a joint effort between his tool and his boot heel, and a fair amount of grunting, before the blackened remains would turn.
He had been prepared for a lot of things, but not the cavernous hole where Silas's eye and forehead should have been. It was a strange mix of feeling: fierce pride in his wife’s courage and sorrow at what she’d had to do.
Ethan took a step in, toeing a trigger guard and lock still clutching smoldering wood. “I would see to your lady, Reed.”
He couldn't reply, couldn't even manage a laugh. He could only imagine the desperation which had brought Alexandra to that moment, and what it must be doing to her now. “I'm taking my wife home, Grayfield. If you need me, find me there.”
* * *
Alix scrubbed away the last traces of tears from her eyes and nestled further back into Spencer beneath the quilt. He had held her, gentled her silently through each storm: her fear, her relief, her remorse. Her anger, that she could never truly unsee what she had done at the warehouse.
Now he pressed a handkerchief into her hand and slipped his arms fully around her. “What do you want, Alexandra?” he whispered, smoothing her hair. “Ask it of me. I will grant you anything within my power.”
She didn’t have to think about it, not for a moment. “I want to go away.”
“To Oakvale?” asked Spencer.
“No.”
“Home, to New York?”
“Oakvale is my home now, but no. Not New York. Some place far from here, not tainted by Silas or Paulina. I want to forget before I hate England altogether.”
“You shall have it,” he promised, just as he had on their carriage ride back from Amelia Grey’s.
And so, she believed him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Paris – March 4th, 1815
Spencer jerked upright, ripped from sleep, rubbing burning eyes and not immediately certain where he was.
“Did you hear me?” Alexandra grasped his thigh harder. “It's time.”
“It's time, or it's time like the last four 'times'?” he grumbled, adjusting his pillow to settle back down.
“My waters have broken, Spencer. It's time.”
“Oh!” He came off of the bed tangled in a quilt, nearly falling into the wall. “God, Alexandra, why didn't you say so?”
A small hand whacked his shoulder. “I did! 'Spencer, wake up. It's time'.”
He grabbed his watch from the nightstand, squinting. Four minutes past seven. “What's all that commotion outside?”
Alix frowned at noise equal to midday and shrugged. “I have no idea. I've been a bit preoccupied.”
“What do I do?” He shouted to her from inside the wardrobe, grabbing garments he had no business taking down from the shelves. He looked to his hands, realizing he was holding two waistcoats and Alexandra's stays. He sighed. Calm down. “Should I have Mrs. Devereaux boil water?”
“If she intends to make me tea with it. And send Dorothea, to help me make up the bed. Ooh!”
“What, what?” He darted out, shoving shirt tails into his breeches.
Alix hunched beside the bed, a hand to her belly and a sheet wadded between her knees. “Will you go?” She swatted a hand at him, laughing. “Go fetch Doctor Marceau and leave me some shreds of dignity.”
He managed one arm into his coat, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Behave yourself until I get back. It won't be long.”
He tore down the staircase and outside, obliged to come back twice in order to get the door fully closed.
Reaching the street, Spencer was forced to swallow his last words to Alix. People churned from the lanes, their faces unreadable. The crowd’s noise wasn't joy or displeasure, just random chaos. He stopped a threadbare boy running for the corner with a stack of leaflets tucked beneath a skinny arm. “Is it a holiday? What is all this commotion?”
The boy shook his head, opened and closed his mouth, then smacked a handbill into Spencer's palm, dodging back into a sea of people. Its headline froze him in place:
'Napoleon quits Elba – Marches from Lyons with a force of thousands.'
He read the whole thing twice to be certain, feeling the same expression on his face as that of the people around him: disbelief and a touch of horror mixed with resignation. Like the citizens of Paris, he had faced the emperor countless times before. All they could do was to keep pushing back.
But not today, he resolved, stuffing the bill into his coat. He and the emperor would have an appointment soon enough. Today belonged to him and Alexandra.
He elbowed through the crush of bodies packed between the street’s row of limestone houses, convinced that whichever way he was going, they were headed opposite en mass. Flags waved from iron balconies overhead, causing a handful of people to stop in front of him every few feet, to cheer or boo depending on the colors. A glimpse of his watch at each corner confirmed his snail's pace. He prayed for a little more speed coming back with the doctor in tow.
At Rue Vivienne a flower stall had been upended in the chaos, blocking the sidewalk and in turn, the street. Pedestrians teemed around it like a river, blocking wagons and carriages. He missed Doctor Marceau’s house numbers three times, pushed along or blocked by the riot.
How many times did he have to knock? Spencer stepped back, watching the house's narrow whitewashed face for any sign of movement in the windows. He’d keep going until paint chipped from its weathered black door, he decided, hammering again.
Finally, a lock scraped and it slowly opened. A woman stabbed him with dark, narrowed eyes, enough haughtiness in her gaze to make it clear she did not normally answer the door. A carefully pinned silver bun had been reduced to wild wisps, and her blac
k dress and crisp white apron were at opposing angles, as though she'd been chasing something through the house.
“Doctor Marceau?” At a loss, it was all he could manage.
Anger pulled some of the wrinkles from her face. “He has patients!”
“And I am one of them! Or, rather, my wife. Lady Reed.”
“Oh, oh!” The housekeeper slumped, bracing herself against the frame. “It's madness today, monsieur. Half the staff has given notice, run right out! The rest are drunk and –” Her words were prophetic, a crash rattling from a staircase behind her, and she winced. Then she drooped, sympathetic. “Here, I will give you his next three appointments. Perhaps you can catch him somewhere in between.”
She disappeared back into bedlam. Down the hall, shrieking began, two women and a man assaulting each other in French. It continued growing louder, to the point where he readied himself to interfere. Finally one, the housekeeper he guessed, shouted the others down under what sounded like an avalanche of books.
Things were falling apart around him. Why couldn't the baby come tomorrow? He could think of nothing more comforting than fleeing the city.
The housekeeper came back with a calling card, fanning it to dry the ink and pulling the door behind her as though afraid a dog would get out. She pressed the card into his hand. “Good day. And good luck.” Before he could even thank her, she was already slipping back inside, shutting the door on him. As it closed, she muttered “good day” one more time. It slammed, a lock grated, and Spencer found himself alone outside the impromptu asylum.
Looking over the addresses she'd scribbled on the card, Spencer appreciated why the housekeeper had wished him luck. He'd traveled on foot owing to the crowd, but Doctor Marceau obviously had gone by carriage today. His appointments were some distance apart, and in several different directions from where Spencer now stood.
The second house was the closest. With a last glance to the congested streets, Spencer made up his mind to go and wait. Trying for one of the further houses would take forever, and in the confusion at street level, the doctor might pass within five feet of him and he wouldn’t notice.
No one seemed aware of anyone else's existence except in trading shouts of “Vivre Libertie!” and “Vivre Emporeur!” They slapped one another with crudely made flags, pushing and jabbing with elbows. Sometimes one clung to another until they formed a small band within the mob, chanting and shoving, obliging him twice to dash onto a front step to avoid their march. They were as impoverished, as hungry, and as oppressed by the police ministry under the emperor as they had been under the king. Yet, they celebrated his return. Spencer tried to push away thoughts that these rioters were getting what they deserved.
He waited at the foot of wide steps outside a mansion seated at the foot of the Rue des Jardins. It was one of the last grand residences holding on to a time before the revolution. Sculptures sat in the dooryard, and gold gilt shone on its high iron fence. Wide stone balustrades framed balconies that had supported the last public appearances of exiled and beheaded. He wondered who lived there, that they had escaped a fate that others had not.
A lad ran from the house, so absorbed wrestling his hat that if Spencer hadn't seen him they would have collided. Bracing his shoulder to prevent their impact, Spencer realized he was easily twenty. Thin and lanky, he wore a practical blue coat and plain brown nankeen trousers. Spencer spotted a horse hitched near the gate. A courier.
Spencer rose his hand and the courier slowed but did not stop. “Doctor Marceau, has he been here this morning?” he asked quickly, before the messenger could pass.
Already pulling away, loping across the yard, the lad clasped his hat atop a shaking head. “Monsieur has died, in the night. Doctor Marceau was told not to come.”
Spencer rubbed the bridge of his nose and swallowed a mouthful of profanity. Now there was no telling where to find him. His third patient might have moved up the ranks, or down. Their house was too far across the city, either way, for him to take the risk.
“Wait!” He waved to the courier, just wheeling his horse out onto the street. Running up to him, he rummaged in his trousers for some money. “Name me another doctor who lives close. One near Place de l'Ecole.”
“Doctor Baudin, at number twelve,” the man called over his shoulder.
Spencer pressed some francs into an eager palm, dodging between pedestrians ahead of the horse.
That was only a few streets over from their house, on the Quai. Doctor Baudin would be close. Spencer chafed at retracing all the distance he'd covered in search of Doctor Marceau, more convinced than ever that the crowd was against him. And always, in the back of his mind, images of Alix, waiting. Pushing between two revelers, he redoubled his pace.
Spying the doctor’s door, he loped up the steps and slammed the knocker down two passes, losing a third when the door was wrenched out of reach.
“Monsieur,” sighed the butler, white gloves curved halfway into fists. “Doctor Baudin is out. He will be out. As you will have observed, there is… drame. His many clients are suffering all manner of complaints, owing to the news.”
No. No, this was not happening. He had no patience for fluttering and fainting spells. “Where!” demanded Spencer.
“Out.”
He smacked a palm into the closing door. “Where? I am prepared to pay.”
The butler smirked, patting a neat sweep of dark hair. “Monsieur, so is everyone else.” A slam cut the rest of their conversation violently off.
Spencer dug the watch from his waistcoat, wondering how long he’d been gone. Three hours. He fumbled it back into his pocket, swearing, wiping beaded sweat from his hatband. How had he lost track? He turned and ran for the street, generous with a boot or an elbow for any who chose not to move from his path.
He briefly toyed with the idea of trying to find a third doctor, and just as quickly dismissed it. He had a sinking feeling that no matter how many he sought out, the situation would be the same.
Best to go back to Alexandra; she must be going mad by now and he was bringing only bad news.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
They were leaving. Quitting. Her first clue had been the hurried French exchanges she didn't understand which carried through the house. Then, Mathilde had demanded their week’s wages in halting English. Lastly, it was the absolute silence in the house after the downstairs door had opened and closed several times.
Alexandra had managed the bedding by herself, following Kate's neatly printed instructions, and risked the three sets of stairs down to the kitchen to set water boiling. As she worked, the first real, breath-stealing contraction had hit her and made her nervous. After negotiating herself back to the bed on trembling legs, Alix didn't dare make the trek again. The baby would just have to come before the pot boiled dry and the house caught on fire.
A first baby would be long in coming, Doctor Marceau had assured her. Perhaps that was why he and Spencer were taking the scenic route back. The joke was on both men; she arched against the headboard breathing through an ache that gripped her back to front. Just a hair over three hours and she was feeling the first faint urge to push.
This time, when the door opened and closed, she knew it was Spencer. It shuddered in its frame and boots pounded in the hall. “Alexandra!”
“I'm here. I'm all right.” She held out a hand for him to take, ready when he dashed in. His fingers were cold around her own.
Spencer half turned, glancing around them. “Where is everyone?”
“I'm alone. Everyone has gone.”
“Bastards.” He buried his face in a palm. “This cannot be.”
She craned her neck to see out the door. “Where is Doctor Marceau?”
He looked to her, his eyes haggard. “I'm sorry, Alix.”
“Is anyone coming?”
He stroked her cheek. “It's just you and me.”
Doubling up, she writhed under the grip of another contraction, its cramps stealing her breath. They had progre
ssed rapidly from high and dull to sharp waves which had made it impossible to do more than pant out the brief period in between. She dabbed at sweat along her temples, scrubbing damp hair with the sleeve of her shift. When it was done, Spencer sat her up, climbed onto the bed behind her and cradled her against the heartbeat thudding in his chest.
“We're together,” he murmured, resting a hand over her belly. “We're not going to worry. We can manage through this, Alexandra.”
His words gave her courage, but she had only a moment to appreciate it. She was tightening already beneath his fingers, starting at the navel, a slow, downward pressure that crested in thoughtless sensation. Everything between her legs began to burn. Gasps subsided and she searched for his hand. “We don't have time to worry.”
He stiffened at her back. “Not yet…”
She didn't want to talk, to explain the urgent pushing which made her hips feel too wide. “Mmhm.”
Spencer was on his feet, fussing at her pillows, pacing. “What do we do?”
“Water, in the kitchen. Clean your hands?”
“Right, yes! Water.”
She loved him, but Alix was glad to have him gone for the next contraction. She wanted to be alone, to shut the door and close out noise from the street. “Aaahhhh!” The cry tore from her gut, borne of sensation too intense to even be pain, just need.
“Oh, God, I'm coming up!” Something clattered and Spencer's voice echoed from far away, deep inside the house and outside her mind. Everything was outside her now. Breaths came faster. Alix twisted fingers into the sheet beneath her backside, bracing. Don't panic, she'd repeated, but she was panicking now. Pain, pressure, aching all built to an edge slicing through her resolve. A cry on her lips evolved into Spencer's name.
“I'm here, I'm here. Move down the bed.”
His instructions penetrated, but there was no complying. Bearing down, she arched from the pillows and pushed despite her fear, against her will.