by Pam Roller
“Yes, sir!” The boy ran to take the reigns from Alex. “Are you all right, sir?”
“Yes. Fine,” Alex muttered. His shoulder throbbed in waves of pain. Gray rings danced in his vision as he trudged back to the main street and approached the front of the brothel. There, a crowd of boisterous men, some stumbling as if drunk, milled about. With effort he straightened, pulled his cloak closed around himself, and adopted an equal look of excitement.
“Lord Drayton, I see you’ve come to see how she fares!” came a booming female voice at the door. Patsy gestured toward him. “You have this man to thank for the doe-eyed whore.”
The men cheered. Alex sucked in air through his teeth and fought the blackness threatening to overtake him as friendly hands slapped his back and shoulders in good natured camaraderie.
The grimace he held must have been taken for a grin because no one seemed to notice his pain. He walked through the crowd to Patsy and held out two gold guineas. “I want her first.”
“Oh ho!” Patsy threw back her head and laughed, then greedily licked her lips as she dropped the coins between her cleavage. “Sometimes the needle’s stiffer in a brothel, eh? But I’ve already let in the first one.”
With effort, Alex kept his lips spread in a smile. “How long ago?”
“Mayhap five minutes.”
Thank heaven. Alex pressed another coin in Patsy’s hand. “Make him wait.”
Patsy peered at him. “What’s your hurry? You could have had her at home.”
Alex pulled out two more coins. “Like you said, the needle’s stiff and ready.”
Patsy hooted and dropped the money down her bodice, where it clinked with the other coins. “You’ve just made me a rich woman, Lord Drayton,” she said. “That Katie, she’s a spirited one. I sent in the biggest man to break her in.”
Alex itched to shove Patsy aside and race into the house. But he didn’t know where Katherine was.
“All afternoon she tried to talk to me in that squeaky voice, but I do not have time to be waiting on her like she’s royalty,” Patsy said, and finally led Alex through the front door. “I told her to keep her mouth shut. I will get more money if the men think she cannot talk at all.”
The heavy smell of roses mixed with stale ale assaulted Alex as he followed Patsy past a lush pink parlor where several woman had gathered on the chairs and couches. When they spotted Alex, one spread her thin legs and ran her tongue around her lips. Another grasped her small breasts and lifted them.
“He wants the half-mute,” Patsy called to them as she passed. She put up a hand toward Alex. “Wait here. I will have to get the other one out.”
Just then, a thick man with black hair and beard trudged down the hall, rattling the floorboards with each heavy step. “She’s locked herself in her room, Miss Eberly,” he said, his voice almost a whine. “She will not let me in. I didn’t want to break down your door.”
Alex almost laughed with relief. “I will just go in,” he offered to Patsy.
“Wait in the parlor, Garson,” Patsy purred to the man. “Let those ladies give you some attention until she’s ready for you.”
“Not too long,” he said, eyeing Alex suspiciously.
Alex hoped to God he wouldn’t have to fight again. He hadn’t the strength.
“Don’t wear her out,” Patsy said as she went down the hall ahead of Alex. “Like I told Garson, all those men outside want to tumble with her, too.”
“I will take care of her,” Alex promised.
Patsy stopped midway down the hall and pushed at a door. “She’s got something blocking it. Katie, open up.”
There was no response.
Patsy banged on the door. “Katie! Open this door right now!”
“Katherine, ’tis Alex,” he called softly. “Please, open the door.”
There was a scraping sound inside the room, and then more silence.
“Spoiled bitch needs to learn her place here.” Patsy pushed at the door again, and this time it opened.
Katherine wasn’t in sight.
“She gives you trouble, let me know. I told her I’ll have her tied naked to her bed if she puts up a fuss. Have a go, Lord Drayton. I’ll send the next one in thirty minutes.”
Alex smiled at Patsy and waited until she had turned the corner to go down the hall, and then he pushed open the door and stepped inside. In a moment, he would have his wife out of here and heading home.
A blur of white greeted his vision before something hard crashed onto his head.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“Wake up, you mongrel.” Katherine watched Alex’s eyelids flutter as he moaned.
She hated him. Having her brought to this whorehouse and then requesting to bed her was as vile and cruel an act as any he could carry out. And she’d married him. Loved him!
As his eyes slowly opened and focused on her, she picked up a shard of the broken vase.
“Katherine,” he faltered, and tried to sit up.
She pressed the glass under his chin and saw a raw cut on his throat, but her fury wouldn’t allow contemplation. “Stay down, you lecher. Why did you do this to me?”
Astonished, she watched the corners of his lips curve in a bare smile.
“You are speaking.”
“Yes. Now hear me say that I am going to kill you.” And afterward, she would hang herself. She would sooner be dead than have to live a life such as this.
He grunted. “How much time has passed since you hit me?”
“You mean how much time do you have left to further violate me?” Her voice was frustratingly thin and weak, nothing like the outrage exploding in her heart. “You have no more time. You sent me here and now you want to play your sick game.”
“I came to get you out. Please...how long?”
“Why? Did you think of a worse punishment?” He grasped her arm. She shook him off. “About twenty minutes.”
“We have to leave.”
“Not until you tell me why you did this to me, you contemptible worm.”
“Mistake.” He closed his eyes and took a deep, ragged breath. “You will do me in if you cut me.”
She hesitated, studying again the wound on his neck, his worn, pale face. His chest rose and fell with labored breaths. “What happened to you?”
“Shot.”
“Where?” She whipped aside the cloak and gasped at the blood that slicked his waistcoat and shirt. “Alex!”
His voice was a breathy grunt. “Help me up. We need to get out of here.”
Katherine tossed away the shard of glass. With effort, she helped him to his feet.
He sagged against the wall. “How...?”
“The window,” she said, rubbing her sore cheekbone. “That awful guard will not be watching now.”
Once outside, Alex paused for a moment, leaned against the building with lowered head, and took several ragged breaths.
“Alex?” In the daylight, he was positively gray.
“Hurry.” He took Katherine’s hand and led her behind two more buildings until they reached a boy who stood with Alex’s horse.
Alex handed him two coins, and the boy ran off. Amidst the pain on Alex’s face was sorrowful guilt. He lowered his head and kissed her. His lips felt much too warm.
“I am sorry. I didn’t intend this.”
“You need a doctor. And then you need to explain yourself.”
Alex grunted as he knelt. “Step up. Mind my shoulder.”
A moment later, Katherine perched atop Neos, who simply had to be the tallest horse in all of England.
“Straddle him,” Alex said.
“Oh, mercy.” Mortified, Katherine spread her legs on either side of the horse and imagined the disapproving looks she would receive from the townspeople. She made futile attempts to pull her skirts over her exposed ankles, realizing she had not even her cloak to cover her head. Behind her, Alex pulled himself up. He reached around her with his left hand and took the reins.
They ventured
out onto the main road. Down the street behind them, the crowd of men in front of Patsy’s brothel had swelled. Katherine shivered.
“You can relax, my lady.” His uneven breath was warm in her hair. “The danger is behind you.”
The danger was behind her, yes, and she was much too close to it. She scooted forward.
“Move back toward me,” he said hoarsely. “You do not have to sit so far forward.”
“No. Not after what you did. Your—what did you call it? Mistake?” She stayed where she was and stared staunchly over the horse’s head, unable to stem her hurt and anger. Her voice strained. “You sent me there because of my father’s acts.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Another pause. “’Twas my error. I will deal with it.”
“Your error?” She lowered her head, wanting both to lean back into him and run far, far away. “How could you do this?”
His voice, although weak, held a trace of its old arrogance. “’Twas a misjudgment I made.”
“I do not believe you.”
“Katherine—”
“Do not speak to me.” She swiped tears from her eyes, then slapped at his hand when he slid his good arm around her. It had no effect. He shifted his thighs and pulled her closer to him.
“We’ll talk about it when you are calm,” he said, sounding so very forspent. “I cannot guide Neos with you up on his neck.”
“You may remove your arm from me, my lord,” she said, hoping he heard her through her weak, wavering voice. She kept her back straight so as not to touch him. “Take me to the inn and leave me there. After you see a doctor, send someone for my trunks at the brothel. It they’re still there.”
“No. You are my wife. Come home with me.”
“I will not. I never wish to see you again. And...I do not know if I could look upon you without thinking of what my father did to your parents.”
He was quiet for a moment. “As you wish.”
Katherine’s heart sank. “You agree with me, then?”
“I want you to be happy.” He sounded out of breath.
She could never be happy without him, but didn’t voice this. If he had any more feelings for her—if he loved her—he wouldn’t have let her leave their home in the first place.
They fell into a long silence as they moved along the street, which had all but emptied of townspeople in the fading daylight and gathering black clouds overhead. On her right, huddled on the dirt next to a stable, shivered a girl who looked about eleven or twelve years old.
“Go home,” Katherine said, hoping the girl could hear her. “‘Twill rain soon.”
She raised bleak eyes. “I have no home.”
Katherine’s attention was drawn to Alex’s arm, which had slackened from her waist and now dropped to his side. His head lowered to her shoulder. “Take the reins. I cannot....”
Katherine bit her lip in worry. Who was she to be depended upon? Two neighbor children had died because she couldn’t get to them. “What do I do?” she whispered.
Only his silence answered.
Neos snorted with the unfamiliar set of hands guiding him, but thankfully didn’t test her.
She saw Lobb’s Inn ahead on the left, and guided the horse to a waiting stable boy. “Get help,” she rasped as loudly as she could. “This man is hurt.”
Two men half-carried Alex to a room and lay him on a bed.
After sending for a doctor, Katherine sat on the bed and touched his feverish face, then helped him remove his jacket and shirt. “So much blood.”
A shadow passed over his face. “I killed him.”
“You were only protecting yourself.”
The doctor arrived and, one hour later after Alex’s guttural groans of pain, held out an object. “Here’s the bullet. It didn’t hit the bone.” The leeches made sucking sounds as he pulled them off the skin surrounding the wound. “I have done all I can. Use the poultices freely, but his fever is coming on. He may not last the night.”
Katherine grabbed Alex’s hand. He would die? “No. No. He’ll be all right.”
The doctor shrugged and snapped his bag closed. “We’ll see. I noticed that your voice is quite hoarse. I have left some cinnamon drops on the table for you.”
Katherine only half heard him. A deep trembling had taken hold of her, and after the doctor left she sat by Alex on the bed. “You cannot die.” She placed her hand on the side of his hot, pale face. “You cannot. I will not let you.”
Alex didn’t answer. He was asleep, his breathing labored and slow. Bright red spots gradually bloomed on his cheeks. She lifted the poultice covering the bullet hole, made even larger by the doctor’s probing fingers, and studied the tiny red streaks that had appeared around it.
“Alex,” she whispered. “I love you. Stay strong for me.”
She moved to a chair by the bed and watched his chest rise and fall, afraid to look away lest he took a last breath. Leaning down, she smoothed his hair and drifted her fingers over his purple eyelids, his cheeks, and the bristles on his jaw, and willed him not to die.
Two or three hours passed. Outside, a steady rain fell. The darkness pressed in on the single lit candle on the dressing table. After a time the storm let up, and eventually the moon peeked silver through breaking clouds.
Katherine turned the poultice on Alex’s shoulder and pulled the covers over him, then pressed her cheek against his. Heat emanated from him in waves. He lay unmoving as if already dead. Yet he still breathed.
Footsteps sounded outside her door and then receded as someone walked past their room. Outside on the dark street, a raucous voice called to another. Later, a woman let forth a shrill laugh. Katherine drank of the ale and tried to swallow some of the bread and cheese brought to the room.
Midnight passed. The moon had disappeared over the roof, leaving a black stillness broken only by occasional barking of dogs outside or the skittering of rats within the inn walls.
Her lids growing heavy, Katherine wrapped and wetted a fresh poultice. The wound had swollen and now oozed a watery, reddish fluid. The streaks had expanded, reaching out from the dirt-encrusted hole like spider legs. She studied it, and made a decision.
A moment later she banged on the innkeeper’s door. “Have you soap?”
“Have I what?” The innkeeper rubbed a hand over his weathered face and then straightened his crumpled nightcap.
“Soap. I need soap.”
“Why? We have no one to draw water for a bath at this hour. You do not even need a bath, from the looks of you.”
She fought the urge to rear back from his sour breath. “I just need soap. I will pay.” She held up a guinea.
The innkeeper shuffled down the hall and a moment later returned with a palm-sized bar. “For the laundry,” he said. “Will it do?”
Katherine held the rough gray bar to the candlelight. “It will have to, if you have no Castile soap.”
“You want that Spanish soap for whores, go to Spain. Take it or leave it.”
Back in the room, she wrung water from a towel, then rubbed the soap onto it until it made a rich lather. Alex didn’t awaken when she scrubbed the wound.
If the knowledgeable doctor knew what she was doing, he would call her an ignorant dolt, perhaps even accuse her of aiding in his death. Her mother had always told her to stop thinking up such outlandish notions as questioning the conviction that dirt was a shield against disease.
Now, as she rinsed the wound and then placed the fresh poultice on it, Katherine told herself that she had done her husband no harm.
After all, she had nothing else to lose.
She set the candle on the bedside table and undressed to her petticoat, then carefully climbed over him to lay on his left side. She ran her hands over his hot, still form. “Alex,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean what I said. I want to go home with you. To our home. Don’t die. Don’t.”
Finally, she slept.
And awoke with a cry when she was slammed
against the wall. She rubbed her head and looked around in confusion. The candle sputtered on the bedside table. Beside her, Alex thrashed about with rasping moans.
“Alex?” She touched his face, and gasped. He was burning up! The poultice had come off and in the dim light of the candle, blood was smeared over his shoulder and onto the sheet.
He lurched his body and flung out his arms, narrowly missing her face.
Katherine swung one leg over him to leave the bed.
He gripped her arm. “Who are you?”
“Katherine. Let go.” She tried to pull away from the painful vice of his hand.
“Liar!”
She recoiled with fear at his blank, glassy stare.
“’Tis Katherine!” she cried. “Alex, you’re hurting me!”
“She-devil! Trying to kill me!”
“Alex! Please!” Katherine jerked backwards but not soon enough; his other hand gripped her neck. Her gasp of pain was cut short by his thumb pressing into her windpipe.
Desperately she pulled at his fingers. He stared at her with flat, emotionless eyes, his pale lips contorted in a grimace. Spots filled her vision, a gray haze.
He would kill her.
Her hand left his and fumbled for the one thing that might stop him.
Her fingers found it. And drove into his torn flesh.
“Oh God!” With a roar, Alex released her throat and groped at his wound.
Katherine flung herself off the bed and crawled to the door, then stood on shaking legs, gasping and coughing.
Alex didn’t come after her, and a moment later, his thrashing had ceased. Shaking out a long breath, she crept toward him. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow. He moaned and moved in spasms, occasionally twisting his body and muttering garbled words.
Wearily, she poured water into the bowl and soaked a towel to lay across his fiery brow. After cleaning and dressing his wound again—all the while watching him for any sign of awakening—she moved the chair across the room near the door and sat, then leaned forward with her head in her hands.
Pink dawn had touched the rooftops of the buildings across the street when Katherine finally succumbed to sleep.
****
Bright sunlight bathed her eyes. Katherine jerked up in the wooden chair. Alex!