“There’s nothin’ more I can do here at the moment, Miss Lassiter, so I’m headin’ back t’ my office. Can you continue watchin’ over Mattie?” Ben wanted to know, as he slipped on his rumpled coat and settled the sleeves. “Yes? All right, then. Here’s what I want you t’ do—”
“Jess.”
“Huh. Beg your pardon?”
“Jess,” she repeated patiently. “That’s what you called me, in the stress of the moment a while ago. Can you not go on doing that?”
The smile that bloomed on his lined, stubbly face might have been the sun, breaking through rain clouds. “Bless you, child. Jess it is, then. Mattie needs to be kept absolutely quiet and warm from head to foot. Heat the quilts, as I showed you, and wrap her up well. I’ll check back later t’day. But, if you need anything before then, send somebody and I’ll get here hell bent for leather.”
Her beautiful blue eyes, ringed by shadow, crinkled with a faint show of amusement. “I promise I will do just that, Ben.” Then, on a more somber note, “You’ve saved her life, you know.”
“Ahuh. The two of us t’gether saved her life. What she’ll do with it after this will be up for grabs. You get yourself some sleep in between times, y’ hear me? Doctor’s orders.”
“Is that the threat you use whenever you want to get your way?” Another crinkle. Ben liked seeing it, very much. “That goes for you, too, Dr. Yancey. You desperately need some rest. Because you look—um—”
“Yeah, I know. Like a friggin’ train wreck,” he said glumly.
“Very tired. Go home now, Ben. And—thank you.”
“Jess.”
She turned. The room was very still, other than the barely audible whisper of breath from their unconscious patient, and a murmur of voices from the wing above. Better yet, they were practically alone.
Roughly he swung a muscular arm around Jessamine’s waist and pulled her tight against his chest where she clung, paralyzed by astonishment, as he bent his head and kissed her. A lengthy, sweet, draining, and incredibly erotic kiss that set his pulses pounding and stirred new life into being.
Finally, reluctantly, he released her.
“You’re welcome,” Ben said huskily.
Satchel in hand, and with a bounce in his step, he was on his way to Madonna’s office for a few last words when he found her door closed. No matter. He would see her when he returned. Except that someone was speaking inside the room, and he recognized the gravelly tone of the voice.
Intrigued, he paused and quite boldly eavesdropped on the conversation.
“She’s too old,” Charles Holcomb was saying. “For here, anyway. Time to move her on to greener pastures.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
Ben had to give her credit. Considering the gamut of emotions that must have overrun her frail frame during the past horrendous hours, she was holding up fairly well. A calm, rational response to a snide, oafish directive. He applied his ear more firmly to the door.
“A better place in life. Mine.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am absolutely serious, Mrs. Bellini. Haven’t you learned by now not to cross me?”
A sigh, then the scrape of a chair and a tearful tone. The last of Madonna Bellini’s reserves was wearing out fast. “She has been with me since—since she was only three. She’s like my daughter; no, she is my daughter. And you promised—”
“I promised what? To leave her alone?” An ugly gnome of a laugh. “And you believed me? You actually believed me!”
“At the time,” said Madonna stiffly, “I thought you were a man of honor. But you shame yourself, and you shame all who must associate with you.”
Silence for a moment, a silence so charged with tension and unspoken demands that Ben, listening, was about ready to break down the locked door when Holcomb spoke again, in a low voice so twisted by depravity and malevolence that it was almost unrecognizable.
“She’s mine. You’ve held ont’ her all these years, groomin’ her t’ give me when the time was right. Well, that time is right, now, and I’m ready, now. Make up whatever story you wanna tell her as t’ what’s goin’ on. But I want that girl at my house soon, hot and pantin’ and ready for use.”
Another pause, and then the final threat:
“It’s either that, or it’s int’ the streets and flat on her back.”
In the few seconds it took for Holcomb to grind his way across the floor and throw open the door, Ben had disappeared.
VII
After dealing with a few minor complaints at his office—a child with an earache, another whose bee-stung hand had swollen to a size even his lackadaisical mother considered unsafe, an elderly store clerk troubled by boils—Ben had managed to sneak in a couple of hours of restless slumber on the chesterfield. Guarded, during naptime, by two watchdogs: Adam and Jake.
Rising afterward, feeling half-drunk on lack of sleep and emotional turmoil, he had immersed himself in cold water, put on fresh clothing, and returned to the orphanage to find Mrs. Bellini keeping watch in the infirmary. Jessamine was, she informed the doctor, finally asleep in her room, and she would thank him to leave her there.
“Sure enough,” said Ben agreeably. Now that he had at least taken the first step in laying down a proprietary claim, he could wait a while to see her again. And to hell with Charles Holcomb, and all his claptrap of taking her away. Just because Ben practiced medicine didn’t mean he couldn’t handle a gun. And damned well, at that.
Matilda Jamison still lay unconscious, deep in an untroubled sleep that no one would disturb. However, a faint show of color had washed up into her cheekbones, and the chill was slowly seeping away from her bones.
“Full recovery, do you think?” asked Mrs. Bellini quietly.
“Dunno for sure,” said Ben after his cautious examination. “No more bleedin’. No crampin’. And no fever, which means there shouldn’t be any infection. We’ll just go on hopin’, Madonna, and takin’ things one day at a time.”
She curved a gentle hand across the girl’s brow, as if sending good thoughts and blessings her way. “Sleep well, little one,” she whispered. “And come back to us soon, so we can make this right.”
Packing away what few instruments he had used, Ben picked up his satchel and motioned the director to the door. “Any other casualties I need t’ see while I’m here?” he asked whimsically.
Drawing in a deep breath, she shook her head. “Amazingly, not at the moment.”
“Nicholas doin’ better?”
“Much, thank you. Per your instructions, we removed the bandages once he felt more comfortable, and he’s moving around more freely now. Oh, yes, yes—” anticipating his question,
“—he’s still on bed rest most of the day. An excellent chance to enhance his reading skills.”
Ben did admire courage in a woman, and this one had it, in spades. Not one word about her earlier probably frightening confrontation with Charles Holcomb, not one word asking for aid or advice. She shouldered her own burdens, this one.
His next visit, early the following afternoon, found Mattie semi-awake, though still as groggy as if she had swallowed chloroform. The three of them sat down with her, Ben, Madonna, and Jessamine, to speak with her, try to garner information, and most of all to give reassurance.
“I’m—sorry…” the girl breathed. “I’m so—sorry…I worried you so—”
“It isn’t the worry, Mattie, dear,” Madonna assured her from a chair beside the bed. She had taken one of Mattie’s cool, limp hands into both of hers, as if to return energy and function. “I only wish I’d known—what was happening with you, so I could have helped.”
“We wouldn’t have let you go through this alone, Mattie,” added Jess. “We would have worked it out, somehow. All this—you could have—” her throat worked to produce the words, “—you could have died.”
Their patient turned her face away, into the pillow. “Wish I had.”
“No. It’s over no
w, and you’ll get better. Life will go on.”
“But the one who hurt you will still be around,” Ben interjected bluntly. “Unless you speak up, so he can be charged and put on trial.”
“Charged? Trial?” Her eyes blurred with tears. “In public? In front of everybody?”
“Mattie, can you tell us who—”
“No,” she moaned. “No, no, no. He’ll kill me, he said he’d—kill me, if I told…”
Near-hysteria is not recommended for anyone recovering from grave injury. Ben exchanged a look with the two women and shook his head. Not now; not for a while. The girl needed time, and they must see that she was given it.
Ben was standing in the office, clearing up a few details with the women, when Joe Kincaid, the helpful Holcomb employee from early days, hastened up the steps of the orphanage and inside the door.
“Glad t’ see you’re here, Doc,” he blurted out. “Got someone hurt out here.”
Another patient for the infirmary. This was twelve-year-old Betsy Farrell, bravely trying to stifle sobs of pain from her scalded hand. Sitting the girl down, Ben examined the damage and began immediate triage. Clean cold water compresses, gentle wraps, laudanum for discomfort. Along with medical science, quiet reassurances and questions meant to distract.
“Somethin’ got tipped over on you, Betsy?” he asked, working away.
“Hot—h-h-hot water,” she burbled.
“And what was such a little thing as you doin’, messin’ around with hot water?”
Jessamine, holding the child’s free hand as some measure of comfort, looked troubled. “She works in the kitchen at Holcomb Mansion, Doctor.”
“Works at—Goddammit!” he muttered under his breath, so as not to sound any scarier for an already terrified adolescent. “Ah. There we go, Miss Farrell, all done. Startin’ t’ hurt less, is it?”
Wide-eyed, tear-stained, she managed a small nod.
“You’ve been a mighty brave patient, young lady. If you were in my office right now, I’d give you a peppermint stick. So how’s about if I just owe you one, and you can collect on it next time I come by?”
A faint and wobbly smile in return.
“Okay, I’m gonna leave now, b’cause pretty soon that nasty ole medicine will kick in, and you’ll start gettin’ tired,” Ben told her. “So I’d like Miss Jessie here t’ get you int’ a nightgown and let you sleep here in this bed, all by yourself. That sound okay?”
An apprehensive glance from Jessamine to Madonna and back to the doctor. “Okay.”
“Good girl. Jess?” He sent her a significant flash of the eye.
“Of course, Doctor. I’ll take care of her. Thank you, once again, for being here when we needed you.”
He essayed a slight bow. “Just doin’ my job, ma’am. I’ll come back later.”
While Jessamine stayed behind to help the little girl settle into bed, Mrs. Bellini walked with Ben to the door. “I fear the troubles of the orphanage have been monopolizing your time lately,” she told him, distressed. “Surely you must have other patients to see.”
“I do, indeed. But things seem t’ be balancin’ out okay.” In a sudden burst of sympathetic feeling, he reached out to pat her upper arm in its covering of plum-colored moiré. “Get some rest, Madonna. You can’t carry the world on your own shoulders.”
A vague but appreciative smile sent him on his way.
“Hell, you’re off and gone somewheres more’n you’re here anymore,” grumbled Adam as a greeting, when he finally returned home.
That reaction came as a surprise from the usually unflappable handyman. “And you’re soundin’ like a jealous wife,” pointed out Ben, splashing away at the kitchen sink over Mrs. Langley’s vociferous objections. “What put the burr under your tail?”
“Oh, man, I’m sorry, Doc. Damn leg’s been botherin’ me, and it’s made me a trifle testy.”
“A trifle? Whooee. Go on int’ the office, you ole ringtailed hooligan, and let’s have a look.”
“Naw, it ain’t that bad. You just got home, you prob’ly wanna eat and put your feet up, and I—”
“Adam,” said Ben sternly. “Git.”
The leg that he had kept from being sawed off by a colleague—and an incompetent one, at that—after Adam’s return from the War now felt feverish and swollen over the ropy muscles. With Adam naked from the waist down, plunked upon the examining table, Ben used touch and vision to find out what was going on.
Suddenly he burst into laughter. “Why, you damn fool, you.”
“Nothin’ like makin’ a patient feel comfortable,” complained Adam. “What?”
Hands on hips, Ben stepped back to survey his friend. “Did you dress up for that supper out with our housekeeper?”
“Well, natcherly I did,” he said crossly. “Whadja think, I’d take a lady somewheres in my overalls?”
“Then you must be missin’ somethin’.” Grinning like a baboon, Ben extended one palm, across which lay a black elastic band bordered in gray.
“My sock garter!”
“Damn straight. Somehow the thing worked its way up your leg, above the knee, tight as all getout, cuttin’ off your circulation.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Adam, awestruck. “Coulda cut off some other things, too.”
Ben gave him a curious look. “You didn’t even notice it was there?”
“Now, Doc, you know I ain’t got much feelin’ in that leg, as bad hurt as I was.”
“Hmmph. Well, reckon you owe me again, Mr. Zantner. I just saved your life.” As he turned away, so that his patient could pull on his clothes, he muttered, “Might be a good reason t’ take a bath more’n once a week, too.”
After a quick but satisfying supper—her talents in the kitchen being one of Mrs. Langley’s most endearing qualities—Ben took himself back to the orphanage. He wanted to follow up with Nicholas, he needed to follow up with Mattie, he absolutely had to follow up with Betsy. And, most of all, he planned to follow up with Jessamine. Maybe they could wedge in a few minutes of spooning in their moonlit flower garden.
After this many trips back and forth, Petronius could almost travel the road in his sleep, without any direction from a driver.
“Miss Jessamine is out seein’ to the garden,” reported the teenaged boy who answered his knock.
Ah! She must have read his mind, all across the miles.
“Her and Mrs. Bellini went there t’ sit and relax for a while.”
Damn. That wasn’t in the cards.
Leaving his satchel behind, Ben stepped out to the rear of the rambly building and cut across a swathe of lawn to where the scent of lavender and roses and creosote bush was pulling him. Not moonlit yet, just the last watercolor hues of a late summer dusk, with slanted rays of sunshine gilding whatever it touched.
“She was deliberately hurt,” came Jessamine’s voice up ahead, from the center of the cultivated area.
Ben stopped. An eavesdropper once again, destined to hear things he probably shouldn’t hear. Nevertheless, he slowed his breathing to listen.
A low murmur from her companion that evidently roused exasperation.
“No, you can’t tell me that. I spoke with Betsy. She’s terrified of being in that house, Madonna. She wants to run away and never go back.”
“I know it isn’t easy, but—”
“Easy!” Jessie burst out. “Charles Holcomb found her in the scullery. When he tried to—tried to touch her where he shouldn’t, she pushed him away. That’s when he tipped the boiling water over her hand. My God, Madonna, the man is a monster, an absolute monster!”
“I certainly can agree with that,” said the director in saddened tones. “So many wrongs, so many hurts, so much evil…”
Jessamine’s words were filled with bitterness. “He owns this town and everyone in it. Just knowing he’s around, to do whatever he wants to do, makes my skin crawl. Evidently all he needs is to spend money, and he can buy off any opposition. And the worst part is that no one will s
tand up to him.”
“Oh, Jessie, Jessie, I’m so sorry all this is happening.”
“Madonna.” She sounded curious and puzzled, all at once. “It’s hardly your fault. We’ve all let him get away with the very worst of crimes.”
“That’s because he has too much power. Anyone who tries to fight him simply—disappears.”
A rustle of fabric indicated movement from one, or from both. “I sometimes wish I had taken care of this myself, back when you first came to me. That would have prevented so much heartache and bloodshed.”
“What do you mean? Is there something from that time that you’re not telling me?”
“He wants you, Jess.” That sounded like a half-stifled sob. Surprising, from the quiet, capable Mrs. Bellini. “He told me it’s time you leave here, and he’ll take you to the Mansion, under his wing. But I can’t let that happen; I won’t let it happen!”
“Nor will it,” asserted the girl stoutly. “I’d shoot the man first. Damn his mangy hide! Look, Madonna, with all the horrible things that man has done, I’m taking precautions.”
Another rustle of fabric with movement, a creak of the bench, and a shocked “Ooooh—!” from Madonna. “Jessie, my dear—a knife? You’ve actually strapped a knife to your ankle? But—that’s so dangerous! What if—what if—?”
“What if I were caught by him, unarmed and defenseless? At least this way I have some sort of protection! And it’s a beauty, isn’t it?” Jessamine said with a ring of pride. Possibly admiring her own foresight, as metal scraped against leather and buckle snapped over hasp. “I sent Walter to Fields Mercantile, with money to buy it for me. And, with Walter’s help, I’ve been practicing some moves. You’d be surprised at how good I’ve gotten.”
“That things could have come to this pass…” was her mournful, half-whispered demur.
“Not for much longer,” Jessamine declared. “Oh, Madonna, how did our lives get to be so complicated?”
“Evenin’, ladies,” said Ben, approaching with a deliberate crackling of leaves and grass underfoot to warn them.
A Western Romance: Benton Yancey: Taking the High Road (Book 7) (Taking The High Road Series) Page 8