The doctor’s tone proved she didn’t expect an answer to her question. Her hands set to work on Stella’s back once again.
As the doctor’s fingers wreaked havoc on her tender skin, Stella gripped the padded cot, channeling the pain through her fingertips and trying to imagine her times on the beach with Jane. Why hadn’t inhaling sea air as Dr. Wagner prescribed eased her headaches? If only something so simple would have produced the desired results.
The blows to Stella’s back and head grew more violent. Dr. Hazzard began her tribal cry. “Eliminate! Eliminate!”
With eyes squinched shut, Stella begged her mind to take her away from reality to someplace filled with pleasant memories. To Henry. But the recollection her brain resurrected included the harsh words she’d spat the last time they were together. Not that memory. Tears escaped through closed eyelids. Next, her mind replayed the moment she’d pulled rank and insisted he bring her to this godforsaken place. The cruelty and condescension in her words smote her afresh. He’d deserved none of her ugliness, yet she’d rained it on him like a storm cloud. She swallowed a sob as the end of their argument played out. It had left her with a blinding headache.
Her breathing slowed. He had helped her inside with the same tenderness he’d always shown despite her shameful treatment of him. The grace he had heaped upon her snatched her away from the agony of Dr. Hazzard’s fists. Henry truly was the best kind of man. And he had been right all along. She shouldn’t have come here. Of all the treatments on earth, why had she fixed her heart on Dr. Hazzard’s barbaric methods?
If she ever saw Henry again, if he forgave her selfishness and arrogance, she would abandon Jane’s counsel to avoid him. Though Uncle Weston would disagree, love held much more weight than alliances and wealth. Truth spilled its light, as if her eyes had been opened after a long spell of darkness. Uncle Weston’s interest in her marriage had nothing to do with her comfort or happiness. The men to whom he had introduced her were spineless, spoiled prigs. Just the type he could manipulate. Papa had left Uncle Weston a handful of shares in the company, so even when Stella took possession of her fifty-one shares, her uncle would have a seat on the board. If she wedded a man whom Uncle Weston could control, he’d have more sway than ever.
She gripped the cot tighter, and tears trailed hot down her cheeks. She’d been foolish and blind to believe his matchmaking attempts were born out of concern for her happiness. Her happiness was the furthest thing from his mind.
Despite Jane’s advice, Stella ought to marry for love. And she loved Henry. Really loved him, though her haughty treatment of him showed how little she deserved the reciprocation of such feelings. He’d even saved her life once when they were young, though she hadn’t thought about that day in ages. Her chest warmed.
Yes, families depended on her wise choices for their living, but why should loving Henry change that? If her plans to expand the business succeeded, they would benefit more than herself. The boon would trickle like a fountain, filling the cups of her employees too.
Her heart lightened in spite of the fists hammering her back. She’d make notes. Think of ways to expand the business, provide for her employees, and evade the need to marry a wealthy man as opposed to one she admired.
She’d have to let down her mystery correspondent gently. He’d been a faithful friend at the lowest time in her life, and she’d always appreciate his care and concern, but she didn’t love him, and forcing feelings to sprout between them wouldn’t do either of them any good. After all, didn’t everyone deserve to find a partner who loved them wholly and completely? Someone with a heart for only them? They might still partner together for the good of the children, but their relationship must remain businesslike, because her heart belonged to Henry. Perhaps it always had.
Dr. Hazzard dealt a fierce blow to her shoulder, and Stella gritted her teeth against the pain.
If only Henry would hurry. The longing to tell him everything in her heart swelled like a balloon, but the pin of truth jabbed her happy daydream, deflating it. What if she told him and he didn’t feel the same? All her life her wishes had been granted, but this was different. Henry had free will, and he might exercise it to reject her. In this situation she may not get what she wanted. Her gut roiled, but this time it had nothing to do with the internal bath.
“All done, Miss Burke.” Dr. Hazzard covered her with a sheet. The fabric skimmed Stella’s skin, antagonizing the bruises. “Lie still for a minute then get dressed.”
“Is it helping?” Stella slowly opened her eyes. “Are the toxins leaving my body?”
“Time will tell.” Dr. Hazzard planted her hands on her hips. “You expect results too quickly. This is only the first day of your total fast, and I’ll remind you again how sick you were last night. Don’t get overeager.” She stepped toward the door and gripped the knob. “Once you’re dressed, walk the trails. We’ll get those toxins out of you one way or another.” She stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her.
Stella gingerly touched her fingers to a spot on her neck. The raised flesh felt hot, and pain radiated down her back and legs.
She moved to sit, but the welts that lined her legs screamed in protest. As she pushed up on her hands and knees, pain rocketed through her body, blurring her vision. Why? What good would adding bruises to bruises do? She remained motionless, waves of anguish threatening to topple her, but she willed her limbs to hold her upright.
With the slow movements of an elderly woman, she stood and braced against the massage table. She pulled the robe over her shoulders but stiffened when she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. Deep purple and greenish welts speckled her arms. Grey smudges nestled beneath her eyes, and her cheeks looked hollow. She ran a hand over her face. How awful she looked. Henry usually despised such self-deprecating comments, but surely he’d agree if he saw her.
Shouting from somewhere in the house postponed her perusal of her haggard features. She padded to the door, cinched the robe at her waist, and stepped into the corridor. The voices grew louder.
“I’m Margaret Conway, and I’ve come to take Dora Williamson home before you kill her too,” said a voice with an Australian accent and no humor. “I spoke with your husband on the way to this death trap. He told me Claire was dead.”
Chapter Sixteen
Stella knelt in the darkness, her ear pressed to her bedroom door. Margaret Conway had insisted upon seeing Dora, but she’d returned for a war of words with Dr. Hazzard. A scrap of moonlight cast lacy shadows through the curtain, and an owl hooted from somewhere in the tree branches outside her window.
Voices filtered from downstairs. The Australian woman raised hers enough for Stella to catch her words. “That was not my darling Claire I saw at the funeral parlor. The mortician said it was, but I’ve cared for her for so many years, I know her as if she were my own flesh and blood. Her hair has never been that color. And the shape of her face—” The poor woman’s voice cracked. “That wasn’t her. I’d swear to it.”
Dr. Hazzard’s reply didn’t carry up the stairs.
Stella let Margaret Conway’s words sink in. If the woman at the funeral home wasn’t Claire, who was it? Her stomach growled, but she ignored the gaping hole in her middle. Why would the man at the mortuary claim the woman’s body was Claire’s if it wasn’t?
Stella chewed the inside of her cheek. The bruises on the woman’s neck. If she’d been murdered as Stella suspected, Dr. Hazzard might wish to hide the truth. Cleanse herself from legal implications that were sure to follow a murder on her property. But if the undertaker showed Ms. Conway a body he claimed belonged to Claire Williamson, didn’t that mean he was involved in the cover-up too?
Margaret Conway seemed to believe Dr. Hazzard was involved in something sinister at Wilderness Heights. Would she have her way and take Dora home?
The two women continued talking, but Stella couldn’t pick out anything of substance.
A chilly breeze blew through the open window, and sh
e wrapped her arms around herself. When her fingers pressed the welts on her arms, she loosened her grip to stave off the ache that Dr. Hazzard had assured her would subside. Then she slipped into bed. With her back crying in pain, she lay on her stomach. Not her favorite position, but it took pressure off her aching muscles.
Her fingers trailed to her rib cage. Through the thin fabric of her nightgown, she felt her chest. Though not as pronounced as Sue’s, her ribs formed a ripple beneath her skin. As Stella traced the hills and valleys, her throat tightened. Would she end up like Sue? A walking skeleton. What if she too dropped dead as a result of medications she’d had no choice but to take as a child?
She pulled the covers to her chin. No. Sue had been older, probably sicker. Stella would fight and return home healed.
Perfect health.
Why did the mantra fall flat this time instead of bolstering her sagging hopes? Perfect health.
Still nothing but the waxing dread in her chest.
She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. Henry would come for her tomorrow and find her pride lying like shards of broken glass at her feet. She’d leave and never look back. Maybe Dr. Wagner would—
A faint rap at the door halted her thoughts. Was someone really knocking? She strained for another sound, and a knock, this time a bit stronger, sounded. Stella threw off the coverlet and padded to the door. She cracked it open, and her jaw slacked.
“Wendell? What on earth?” Fear sharpened his eyes, and his face had thinned since they’d last met. The hall lay silent as a tomb. No more voices rose from below. Margaret Conway and Dr. Hazzard must have gone to bed. But what brought Wendell so late?
He pushed past her into her bedroom, and she reached for a blanket to cover her shoulders.
“I must speak with you.” The urgency in his voice sent a tremor down her spine.
She hastened to the bed table, lit a match, and touched it to the lamp wick, bathing the room in a jaundiced glow. The light magnified Wendell’s altered features. His face had grown gaunt and pale, and his dark blue robe hung limp off his shoulders. “Are you ill?” She motioned for him to sit on the desk chair, and she eased onto the bed, pulling the blanket tighter around herself.
He shook his head. “Something’s not right with Dr. Hazzard.”
Stella lowered her brows and tilted her head. “Why do you say that? What happened?” She rested a hand on her chest, though it did little to quell the fluttering. Did Wendell know about Claire? About Margaret Conway’s attempts to take Dora Williamson away from Wilderness Heights?
“She asked me the strangest questions.” He scrubbed a hand across his stubbled jaw as he slumped into the chair.
“What sort of questions?” Stella clasped her throat. How could this night get any stranger? First Margaret claimed the undertaker had shown her a body that didn’t belong to Claire, and now Wendell spoke of strange questions.
“She wanted to know details about my fortune. Asked if I had any valuables she could keep in her safe for me. I told her no.” He shook his head, forehead puckered. “Why would she ask such a thing?”
“I couldn’t say.” It did seem odd. What business of Dr. Hazzard’s were Wendell’s money and belongings?
“Her queries made me uneasy.”
“That’s understandable.”
“I asked to be discharged.” He massaged the back of his neck. “She flatly refused. Said I’m not finished with my treatment, and she can’t allow it.” He leaned forward. “The look in her eye, Stella. Not many things have frightened me since I fought in the Battle of San Juan Hill. But the way she looked at me—like I was fruit ripe for plucking. I’m leaving. And I want to take you with me.” His earnest gaze met Stella’s, and she bit her lip.
Perhaps Wendell was reading too much into the situation. Dr. Hazzard wouldn’t keep any of her patients against their will. No doubt she’d reminded him that his regime wasn’t complete, that he hadn’t attained perfect health as yet. But she couldn’t keep him here. All of them were free to come and go as they pleased.
Besides, it would be foolhardy to leave tonight. Where would she go, and how would she get there? And Henry was coming for her. He’d arrive tomorrow, her knight in shining armor.
While Dr. Hazzard’s medical practices didn’t suit Stella, she wasn’t a dangerous woman. She was a businesswoman, and no doubt knew that the future of her clinic rested on positive word-of-mouth recommendations. She’d never act in a way to jeopardize Wilderness Heights. Which also explained her secrecy in matters of Claire Williamson. And poor Margaret, overwrought at the news of Claire’s death, imagined seeing the body of a stranger. It was the only logical explanation.
Dr. Hazzard had said both Claire and Sue arrived at the sanatorium ill beyond the reach of fasting.
Dread wriggled like a living thing in Stella’s chest. Did she believe her own justifications? She planted her hands on her knees and drew a weighted breath. If she didn’t cling to the doctor’s assertions, there was only one other conclusion to draw. Dr. Hazzard was a monster.
It couldn’t be true.
“Thank you for thinking of me.” Stella rested her hand on his bony one and gave it a squeeze. He’d grown so thin over the last three days. It seemed almost impossible he’d lost so much weight so quickly.
“Come away with me while you can. I’ll see you returned safely home.” He placed his other hand atop hers and held it in a death grip. “Please.”
His urgency whispered fear into her mind. Wendell was truly afraid. Something in the doctor’s eye, in her manner, had left the war hero fearing for his life. She swallowed past the thorny knot in her throat. She opened her mouth to consent, but Henry’s image stopped her. When he arrived, she must be here to greet him. “I won’t be here long.” She adjusted the blanket around herself. “Hen—a friend is coming to take me home. He’ll be here tomorrow.”
“And you’ll leave with him?”
Stella nodded.
“Promise me.” His knuckles whitened as his grip on her hand firmed.
Why was he so afraid? She’d read the paperwork before signing the dotted line and being admitted to the program. Patients were free to leave anytime they chose whether they’d finished the regime or not. This wasn’t a prison. “I promise.”
As his pressure on her fingers eased, he breathed a trembling sigh. “Very well, my dear. But mark my words, something is not right with that woman. She tried to get me to sign some paperwork, but when I asked to read it first, she snatched it away.” Sweat beaded on his brow and glittered in the lamplight. He swiped it away with the sleeve of his robe.
What could Dr. Hazzard have wished him to sign? “Do you have any idea what the papers were?”
He shook his head. “Didn’t see much. But they looked like legal documents of some kind.” He chewed the ends of his mustache then rose. “I’d hoped you’d come with me, but since I have your word you’ll not stay another night, I must be off.”
“How do you plan on leaving? It’s too dark now. Did you send for a motorcar?” Stella stood and peered out the window into the deserted yard. Light beamed from the window in Dora’s cabin. Was Margaret Conway packing her things? She’d seemed to sense a need to get off the grounds with her charge as soon as she was able. Could both Margaret and Wendell be overreacting? Or was Stella underreacting?
“I must leave while it’s still dark. Since the good doctor didn’t take kindly to my request for release, I don’t see another way.” He wrapped her in a fatherly embrace. Her bruised back protested the weight of his arms, and she sucked a sharp breath through clenched teeth. He let go. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Think nothing of it.” Stella stood still, allowing the pain to ease into an ache.
“We may not see each other again,” Wendell said as he stepped toward the door. “But I wish you all the best.”
“Thank you. And I hope to see you again one day … under better circumstances.” Stella held open the door, and he stepped into the hall,
making a sharp turn to the right. He paused at the head of the staircase and sent her a tight smile, then crept down the stairs with the prowess of a cat.
The poor man’s stressed and starving brain must be playing games with his reason. Dr. Hazzard would never hold a patient against their will. Why, the very idea was ludicrous. But Wendell had been so convinced. Doubt niggled at the corners of her mind. The terror in his countenance had curdled the blood in her veins. What if he wasn’t exaggerating? She shook the thought loose. He had to be seeing goblins where none existed. He’d read too much into Dr. Hazzard’s inquiries, and in his famished delirium had constructed a horror story in the midst of mundane sanatorium procedures.
Still, concern clamped its gnarled teeth into her brain. What if he was right to be afraid?
She crept to the open window as a gentle breeze filtered in and toyed with the curtains. Should she have left with him? The lamp’s flame flickered, sending her narrow shadow jumping across the wall. A door from somewhere down the hall creaked on its hinges. The clock gonged once. Who would be up at such an hour, and why?
Foolish question. She was awake, and sleep had fled her eyes altogether after her visit with Wendell. At least he’d picked a beautiful night to beat a retreat. Silence prevailed—even the crickets had ceased their chirping and gone to sleep.
Cupping her hands on the windowpane, Stella peered into the side yard. Wendell would have to sneak out through the back door. Since Rollie’s bedroom adjoined the foyer, he wouldn’t risk waking him with the front door’s rusty hinges. Why was it so dark? Hadn’t the moon been glowing earlier? She glanced at the sky. Clouds rimmed by a silver glow shrouded the moon. How would Wendell see his way into town, even to the road, with no moonlight to guide him?
He could be jumping from an imagined danger into one that put his life in jeopardy.
The clouds drifted, and the moon hovered overhead like a milky pearl. Movement near a rosebush drew Stella’s attention. Wendell. He dashed from behind the shrub to a tree on his way to the main road.
The Purple Nightgown Page 13