Touched by Fire

by Gwyneth Atlee

  “What?”

  “I’m going to have to get her out of these wet things so I can dry them.”

  “Daniel, is she —”

  “She’s still breathing. I was there when she fell through. She was running, if you can believe it. Look at her. Half-dressed and beat to hell, yet she still ran from him.”

  “What about that man —Malcolm? Will he come back?” John asked.

  “I doubt it. The man’s not so brave when he’s outnumbered. Those kind never are.”

  o0o

  Gingerly, Daniel removed her sodden clothing. Every mark that he uncovered thickened the huge lump in his throat. He tucked the blanket tightly around her and kissed her forehead softly. He wanted to cradle her, to hold her here forever to protect her from more harm.

  “Do you think he —” John hesitated, unwilling to even say the word. But Daniel knew what he was asking.

  He nodded in reply. The bruises on her thighs left little room for doubt. “I will find that bastard, if I have to go from here to Pennsylvania. Any man who would do this to a woman ought to be gelded like a horse —before he’s beat to death.”

  “I thought I saw some dry wood not far outside the door. Why don’t you rebuild the fire?” John suggested.

  Numbly, Daniel brought the wood, then removed his own coat and rekindled the fire. Afterwards, he sat by Hannah, staring at her pale and swollen face.

  “She’d warm up quicker if you held her,” John suggested. “Go ahead.”

  Daniel glanced back toward his brother. “This suggestion from Mr. Steady Habits? Are you sure you haven’t lost more blood than we thought?”

  John frowned. “She needs to get warm, and even more, she’ll need to know you’re right beside her. Remember how frightened Amelia was? We held her, and then Bess did. She might need holding for a while. Hannah’s going to need it even more. She’s going to need to know that you still love her, no matter what.”

  “I’m going to marry her, I swear it.”

  “I know that. I never doubted it a moment. Why don’t you hold your future wife?”

  Daniel laid beside her and wrapped thick arms around the scratchy cocoon of her wool blanket. Thank God he had her back. All last night he’d been troubled by nightmares of finding her body in the snow, her blood a brilliant frozen puddle. He never wanted her out of his sight again.

  Even now, when he closed his eyes, images assailed him. Her face as she slid beneath the icy water, her blue eyes without hope, her flesh colored only by contusions. The fingerprints against her wrists, the bites along her flank, the black and purple bruises on her upper thighs. The sad remnants of her wedding gown, clumped with frozen snow. With sickening certainty, he knew he’d recall those images until the day he died.

  Hannah must be warming, for he felt her begin to stir. Instinctively, he pulled her closer, but then he felt her body stiffen. Before he could say a word to calm her, ragged screams tore from her, and her limbs flailed in panic. Through her back, he felt her heart pounding against his chest, until she squirmed away.

  She sat up and turned toward him, her breath coming in quick gulps. She held up her hands, as if to fend off his attack. Daniel saw no sign of recognition in her expression, no softening at all. She looked wild-eyed as a snared beast leaping toward escape.

  “Hannah, it’s Daniel. You’re safe now.” His own heart thundered in his chest. Had beatings rendered her senseless?

  Slowly, her hands drooped, but she made no move toward him. Instead, she clutched the blanket even tighter.

  “You’re safe,” he told her softly. “I’m here. John’s with me. See him, over there.”

  Shivering, she dropped her gaze to the floor.

  “Malcolm’s gone. He escaped when you fell through the ice. But he won’t come back to hurt you. We won’t let him. The sheriff will arrest him. He’ll hang for what he’s done.” If I don’t kill him first, thought Daniel. He reached out for her hand.

  As she snatched it away, her gaze fell on John’s bandaged arm. She stared at him without speaking.

  John must have noticed. “He shot me, but I was lucky. The bullet tore straight through.”

  She rocked back and forth, like a child seeking comfort. “I’m so sorry . . .”

  “You’re not the one who should be, Hannah. We have to get you to Marinette,” Daniel said softly. “We need to have a doctor look at both of you.”

  She shook her head in answer, then turned back toward the fire. “I won’t go. Too cold.”

  “There’s another blanket tied behind my saddle. And maybe some other things on that dead horse. Hannah, you’re hurt badly, and you need to get something to eat and drink. It won’t take so long.” When she did not respond, he added, “Besides, you don’t want John’s wound to get infected.”

  “Then take him, and leave me.”

  Her shoulder grew rigid when he laid his hand on it.

  “You’ll feel better when you get back.”

  She shook off his touch. “I don’t want to feel better. That’s what you don’t understand. Just because you pulled me from that water doesn’t mean you got to me in time.”

  She meant the rape, he realized, and another powerful urge to crush the man responsible ripped through him. “You’re alive. That’s all I care about,” he insisted. “Whatever he did doesn’t change the way I feel for you.”

  “It changes everything. I’m tired, Daniel. Tired to my bones. And I won’t go back with you. I want this over now.”

  Daniel’s voice grew more insistent. “We’re just trying to help you. You’re coming back with us.”

  She turned toward him, tears streaming down her face. “Or what? Will you force me, like he did? Is that how men behave when women won’t do what they want?”

  “It’s not fair for you to compare me to the bastard that hurt you, and you know it. We can’t leave without you. You’re the reason that we came. Amelia’s back at the hotel with Bess crying her heart out over you. I’m not going to go back and tell either of them you want to give up.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise, and one bruised hand flew to her mouth. “Amelia. Oh, dear God. I thought he had killed her. I thought . . . he said.” She began to sob and fell into his arms.

  He stroked her damp hair as she shook with weeping. “Amelia’s fine,” he whispered in her ear.

  “Thank God,” she repeated again and again. “Thank God he didn’t take her, too.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The door was twice Daniel’s height, with painted columns on either side and a huge B emblazoned in elegant script at the center. Though Hannah was cradled in his arms, Daniel took a moment to glance at John. “This is where she lives?”

  Before he could answer, Bess threw open the door. Her green eyes teared when she saw Hannah.

  “Bring her inside, where it’s warm.”

  “I hope you don’t mind we brought her here, Miss Brannon,” Daniel said. “We couldn’t take her into town this way.”

  Bess reached out to touch Hannah’s hair, then hesitated when Hannah turned away and moaned. Bess’s tears overflowed, and Daniel thought she must have got a glimpse of Hannah’s battered face.

  “Of course you brought her here. I told you we would bring Amelia with us. Come upstairs. She can use my sister’s room.” Bess started up the stairway, paused and shouted, “Daisy!”

  A tall, black woman glided into the entranceway and nodded to Bess, but her dark eyes were on the two men and the woman being carried.

  “We’re going to need a doctor. Have Bo take the coupe and fetch him right away. And tell my mother Hannah’s here,” Bess said, “but she must keep Amelia away now.”

  They followed the young woman up an ornate stairway with a gleaming banister. She led them to the most beautiful bedroom Daniel had ever set eyes on. White everywhere, it looked as bright as heaven, with fancy touches of lace and satin ribbon.

  Bess pulled back fluffy blankets. “Put her down.”

  Very gently,
Daniel followed her instructions and pulled up the covers. Again, Hannah turned her face from Bess, from all of them, and toward the wall.

  Bess looked at Daniel’s face, a question in her damp green eyes. He nodded. She reached out for John’s hand and froze.

  “John, what happened to your arm? There’s blood.” Her face drained of its color.

  “I’ll be all right,” John told her. “I just need to sit a while.”

  “Malcolm shot him,” Daniel said. “Doesn’t look like it hit bone, but still, he needs attention.”

  Bess took his other arm. “It’s a good thing I have two married sisters. You come with me right now, and I’ll take you to Louise’s room.”

  “I don’t need —” John protested.

  Daniel grinned at the thought of his brother in one of those frilly, female bedrooms. “Go on with her,” he urged. “Your color’s bad, and you’ve lost some blood. Bess, don’t pay any attention to his fussing.”

  John glared at Daniel but followed Bess without protesting. He’d been very quiet during the ride back, and Daniel figured he was in a lot of pain. Besides, Hannah didn’t need a crowd hovering around her. Only him.

  He picked up a carved chair so delicate he feared his weight might snap it and placed it beside the bed. Then he fiddled with the blankets, tucking them around her before he sat.

  “Hannah, you’re safe now,” he told her.

  “I’m so cold,” she mumbled. It was the first thing she’d said since they started back.

  “You’ll get warm, and the doctor will take care of you. He’ll give you something for the pain.”

  “No. Don’t let him touch me, Daniel.”

  The lump in his throat thickened once again. “He’ll be gentle. I’ll stay with you if you want, or Bess can.”

  “You don’t understand. I don’t want anyone to touch me. I don’t want anyone to stare at me. Bess —she looked like she would cry. Am I that awful, Daniel?”

  “Bess is worried about you. We all are. She’s just relieved that you’re alive.”

  “Don’t lie to me. It’s more than that. Everything hurts so much, and I could feel the swelling with my fingers.”

  “I won’t lie to you. You’re banged up pretty good.”

  “I fought him, Daniel. I want you to know that. I didn’t just lie there and let him —” The cry came from deep inside her, welled up like the blood from a stab wound. It didn’t sound like a woman weeping, like anything so much as an animal howl of pain.

  He tried again to take her hand, but she yanked it from his grasp.

  “I know you fought,” he said. “He wouldn’t have hurt you so bad if you hadn’t put up one hell of a struggle. But, Hannah, even if you’d been too scared to move, Malcolm is the one who did this. That murdering bastard —”

  She turned toward him, her eyes filled with horror, and he wished he’d held his tongue.

  “He hurt someone else —he killed someone?”

  Daniel considered lying, but he knew how furious she’d be when she found out. Slowly, carefully, he considered his words. “Shot right through a door. Gen Tanner’s dead. I’m —I’m sorry.”

  Tears leaked down her face as she stared at the ceiling. “All because of me,” she whispered. “If I hadn’t —”

  “—No. I’m not going to listen to you blame yourself. This was his doing, not yours. His choice. And I’m going to kill the man.”

  “The hell you are!” she shouted. “You stay away from him. It’s just luck he didn’t kill John. If he hurt you, too . . .”

  “You think I’m going to give him a chance?” He remembered dozing sentries and men calling him Saint Peter.

  “Please, no, Daniel.” Her voice softened, and finally she reached out and took his hand, though hers was so battered, he was afraid to squeeze it in return. “Please. I need you here. I don’t want you to go. Promise me you won’t.”

  The fear in her calmed his anger, his need to crush Malcolm like milled grain. He’d never heard her sound so child-like, so lost. How could he deny her anything right now? Yet he hesitated, his hatred too strong to surrender.

  Gingerly, he touched her face. “When I look at you, when I think of what he did —Hannah, he deserves to die.”

  “I won’t lie here in a sickbed and wait for you like some wilted flower. Yes, he does deserve to die, but he killed a woman. Surely, the law will punish him! Not you! Your daughter needs you, Daniel. I don’t think you’ve ever understood how much. And I need you as well. If you go after him, I swear to you, I won’t be here when you come back. If you manage to come back.”

  She meant it, Daniel realized. Slowly, his anger still simmering, he nodded. “All right then, Hannah. I won’t kill him. We’ll see what the law does.”

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  With surprising strength, she gripped his hand until she fell asleep.

  o0o

  “Here’s Dr. Albright,” Mrs. Brannon told Bess in the hall. “Daisy took Amelia out to ride Mr. Apples, so I can help as well.”

  Her mother would never be content to stay downstairs, away from all the goings on, as much as Bess wished that she would. “The pony will be a good distraction,” Bess said. “Hannah’s this way, Dr. Albright. And John Aldman is resting in this room. He’s been shot through the arm.”

  Mrs. Brannon gasped, and the doctor hesitated, as if unsure which patient to attend. Although he had barely finished his medical studies, the fire victims had seasoned him beyond his years. His brown hair was already shot through with early silver, and his lanky form drooped with the effects of overwork.

  “John insists you to see Hannah first,” Bess said.

  She noticed her mother’s nod of approval. “I’ll tend to this young man of yours, Bess. Perhaps there’s something I might do to ease his pain.”

  Bess nodded and followed Dr. Albright into Hannah’s room. Daniel sat beside his fiancée, his hand meshed with hers. As the men introduced themselves, Bess slipped outside. She didn’t want to be there unless Hannah called for her.

  Those bruises, and the thought of Hollas hurting her friend made Bess weep anew. The brute had ridden past her on his way . . .

  She remembered Hannah turning from her gaze and wondered if she would ever again be the same person. It seemed impossible that only yesterday she had looked forward to a wedding and a better life. Would there even be a wedding now?

  Standing in the hallway, Bess heard two sets of soft voices, one from Hannah’s room and the other from the room where John lay waiting. Was her mother truly trying to help him, or was she taking the opportunity to ask questions and assess his social standing? Knowing her mother, both held true.

  Bess placed her hand on the doorknob to enter, then hesitated. Her stomach fluttered with butterflies as indignant as caged crows. Caught between her worry over Hannah and for John, she gave up and sank helplessly into a hallway chair.

  Too nervous to be still for long, she fetched some needlework from her room, then returned to keep her vigil. The clock chimed twice before the men stepped out of Hannah’s room.

  “Despicable. The man deserves to hang,” Dr. Albright muttered.

  Daniel nodded, and his pained expression brought fresh tears to Bess’s eyes. He should have been a married man today. Instead, he had to face this tragedy.

  “With time, she’ll recover. There may be fractures —near the eye especially, or in her left hand, but there’s not much to do but try to keep her warm and quiet. You saw she wouldn’t take the injection, but the pills will ease her pain. They’ll just take a bit longer.”

  Even through the door, Bess heard Hannah weeping. Daniel turned that way.

  “No, you stay and talk with Dr. Albright. I’ll take care of her,” Bess offered. Hannah would need a woman now, she thought.

  As she closed the bedroom door behind her, Bess forced herself to picture the burn victims she’d tended. The charred hands and the blackened flesh, the burnt ears and crippled feet
. She had lost her breakfast that first morning, and several times thereafter. But she’d always managed to retain her composure. Hannah didn’t need to see her weep now. Bess had to stay strong for her sake.

  “I didn’t want anyone to see,” Hannah said. “I feel so dirty. So ashamed.”

  “The doctor had to examine you. You know that. Remember the children, the orphans? Sometimes they squirmed and didn’t want anyone to change their bandages. But we were helping them. We had to. It’s like that with Dr. Albright.”

  “I kept telling him I fought. I did. I never let him.”

  “Oh, Hannah. You’ve done nothing wrong. Now it’s time to rest so you’ll feel better.”

  Almost imperceptibly, her head shook. “I don’t want to feel better. I don’t want to feel at all. It was Malcolm, Bess. He wanted to kill me, afterwards. With too much morphine. He said it would be a kindness. Daniel wouldn’t want me anymore. No one would want me once they found out what he’d done.”

  Malcolm and Hollas. Were they really the same man? Bess shuddered to think of how close he’d been, for so long. “What does this Malcolm know about love? Hannah, Daniel’s here. He’d do anything for you.”

  She sighed. “Daniel. He deserves more. Dear God, it’s all ruined. Everything.”

  “Let me bathe you, Hannah. That will help you to feel better. I’ll get Mother to help, if she’s finished interrogating John. By that time, the pills will help you go to sleep.”

  “I’d like that, and I need to know if John will be all right.”

  o0o

  For the first time in many years, Bess wept against the broad expanse of her mother’s bosom. Mrs. Brannon held her as if she were no older than Amelia.

  She couldn’t push aside the memories of awful bruises, the bite marks that had even broken skin. And all the time they worked, Hannah’s grim insistence, “Scrub harder. I want him off of me.”

  “I thought —I thought the hospital work might have prepared me. But it frightens me, Mother, to see what he did to her,” Bess whispered.

  “It should. It should frighten any woman.” Mrs. Brannon stroked her hair and sighed. “I’m so glad your young man will be well soon.”