The Widow's Secret

by Sara Mitchell

  “I’m not a wilting wallflower,” she mumbled as she attempted to lean forward. Her hands fumbled to pull her skirt higher. “Oh…my skirt. It’s torn, isn’t it? I vaguely remember yanking at it because it caught on something. But I don’t remember hurting my leg.”

  She sucked in her breath when Micah clasped her ankle in one firm hand, while with the other he peeled back the blood-soaked petticoat to expose a long, dangerously deep gash that had sliced her calf from ankle to knee.

  The shrill bleat of a police whistle rent the air.

  Jocelyn flinched, but Micah tightened his hold on her ankle while he turned his head to swiftly survey their surroundings. “Likely they’ve discovered we’re not inside the warehouse. They’ll be spreading out now, to search.”

  “We need to—”

  “Yes. But not until I bind this, try to slow the bleeding.” Releasing her ankle, he retrieved the knife from the scabbard he’d helped himself to when he tied up its owner. “Your petticoat will have to do for bandages. Don’t try to help me. Stay as still as you can. I’ll try not to hurt you, but I’m going to have to…to handle you, with some familiarity.”

  “Do what you have to.” He heard her swallow, and for an instant he debated whether turning themselves in would be the more prudent course. The gash was nasty, needed cleaning, possibly even stitching. She needed the skilled hands of a doctor, and another woman to offer consolation.

  God…? I don’t know what to do.

  Jocelyn’s fingers, cold and frail, brushed against his beard-roughened cheek. “You’re a good man, Micah MacKenzie,” she said, her voice pale as the moonbeams. “I…believe…in you.”

  With a choked sound, Micah covered the hand on his cheek with his own. “Then I guess I can’t let you down.” He planted a kiss on her palm, then gently felt her pulse and without comment curled her fingers into a ball. “Hold my kiss, hold it tight.”

  Somewhere a voice shouted, and the dog set to viciously barking again.

  Micah worked with reckless speed, tamping down the ingrained notion to protect a woman’s modesty as he used the knife to slash the front of the blood-soaked petticoat free of Jocelyn’s trembling form. Full of tucks and frills and six inches of scalloped embroidery for the hem, the sodden fabric was useless. He tossed it aside, forcing himself to slow down, to treat her with gentleness because she was above all things a lady, not a seasoned warrior on the field of battle. Matter-of-factly he slid his hands beneath the skirt, behind her back, and somehow managed to untie the ribbons so he could wrest the remainder of the petticoat free. Rigid as the tree trunk she leaned against, with her breath emerging in little pants, Jocelyn neither moved nor flinched away from their enforced intimacy.

  When it was done, Micah’s hands were full of close to two yards of the softest lawn fabric he’d ever felt. Ruthlessly, he cut everything into strips, and laid the narrow ribbon ties aside. After putting the knife away, he plowed a hand through his sweat-matted hair. “Only another minute or two, and I’ll be done. All right?” She nodded. “This will hurt,” he warned her next. “Bite your fist if you need to, but don’t make a sound.”

  “Won’t…”

  He folded two of the strips into a narrow but thick pad, took a deep breath, then pressed it over the gaping wound. Though her body jerked, then trembled uncontrollably, Jocelyn did not utter a sound. Micah had never loved her more. He applied pressure and counted, but knew every second they remained here increased the danger. Muscles knotted with tension, he used two more strips to bind the wound, then tied everything in place with the ribbons and stuffed the rest of the fabric inside his waistband. Lastly, he snatched up a dented pail without a handle, stuffed the bloodied remnant of petticoat inside and thrust the pail beneath a jumble of garbage inside the shed.

  He would have given his left arm for that pail to have been full of water. Instead, he wiped his sticky hands in the dirt, then rubbed them together to rid them of as much of the blood as he could before turning to Jocelyn.

  “I’m going to help you up, then I want to see if you’re able to walk.”

  “I can walk.” She was already trying to shove herself away from the tree, but her movements were uncoordinated, clumsy.

  More voices yelled out, and another whistle shrieked into the night. From the corner of his eye Micah saw a yellow circle dip and bob like a butterfly, moving into the open field.

  Somewhere beyond the cluster of trees and shanties, he heard the clatter of hooves and the grating rumble of iron wheels on cobblestone. If they could reach the street…

  “Hold on.” He captured Jocelyn’s straining arms and hauled her up. For a dangerous moment, he held her trembling body close.

  Her hands moved restlessly up and down his arms. “Why, your coat—it’s gone. They took your coat. You’re…freezing. Take my cloak.”

  “I’m fine. Later, we’ll share your cloak.” He shifted her to his side, one of his arms wrapped firmly around her shoulders. “We’re almost on the opposite side from where the policemen gathered. There’s a street at the end of these buildings, I believe. If we can cross it to the other side, we should be safe.” He doubted it; the New York police were among the most efficient in the world, but he wasn’t going to share that disquieting knowledge with Jocelyn.

  They set off down a rutted path littered with trash and clumps of hardened clay. Within half a dozen paces, Micah knew Jocelyn’s strength was gone. Another swift glance around kicked his pulse into a drumroll of urgency. He counted four of those menacing yellow circles merging—they were coming closer. As he lifted Jocelyn into his arms, from the street in front of them he heard a voice bellow out an order; off to the left he heard a responding shout, followed by two short blasts of the whistle.

  His worst fears had been confirmed. They were slowly and inevitably being surrounded.

  A dark shape sprang out from behind one of the trees. Desperately, Micah slid Jocelyn to the ground, hoarsely ordered her to hold on to his waist while with one hand he grabbed the knife.

  “Psst. Hey, mister! Over here…” The dark shape materialized into a small boy, hovering at the corner of an old house with all its windows knocked out. “I can help,” he whispered, stepping around a twisted coil of thick cables. An oblong of moonlight revealed a thin dirt-smeared face, and a wiry body poised to flee. A flat stockinged cap half covered his head. “Ya’s gots to hurry. The coppers, they’s everywhere.”

  “How much did they pay you to lead us straight into their laps?” Keeping his gaze locked on the boy, Micah adjusted his grip on Jocelyn’s waist, and held the knife so the moonlight glinted on its flat blade.

  The boy glared back, then spat on the ground. “I hain’t no stoolie. ’Sides, if I wanted to, could’ve led them straight to youse.”

  Micah fractionally relaxed. “Good point. What’s your name, son?”

  “I’m not your son,” he shot back fiercely. “And my name’s Heinrich, but I’m American, now.”

  “Heinrich. I’m Micah, and this lady is Mrs.—” he hesitated “—Mrs. Tremayne. She’s injured.”

  “They say she stole from some rich hoity-toities up on Fifth Avenue.”

  “She’s a fine lady, and never stole anything from anyone. The people who said that, or told that tale to the police…they’re lying, Heinrich.”

  The boy made a far-too-contemptuous sound for a lad younger than twelve. “Don’t I know it.” He twisted to look over a bony shoulder. “I’ll hide you. Got no use for politieagenten. But we gotta to hurry.”

  Without warning, Jocelyn uttered a soft moan, her head flopped sideways, and she would have toppled to the ground if Micah hadn’t been holding her up. She had fainted. He didn’t even know if she’d been aware that their survival now rested in the hands of a young boy. And a little child shall lead them, he thought, the irony twisting his stomach.

  “I’ll follow you, but I have to carry Mrs. Tremayne, so don’t move too fast.” He hefted Jocelyn’s dead weight back into his arms, tremblin
g from exertion and exhaustion. “Hopefully it’s not too far.”

  “It’s not.” Without another word Heinrich set off down a narrow alleyway between two buildings. Through the trees the bobbing police lanterns spread out in an ominous line stretching out on either side of the warehouse. Micah calculated that they had several moments left before one of those globs of light cut across their trail.

  “Here. Over here, mister!”

  Almost wheezing now, Micah plunged into the inkblot of darkness. Once he stumbled and almost fell, then staggered forward, toward the high-pitched whisper. When he reached Heinrich, he lowered Jocelyn to the ground, breath heaving from his lungs, and glanced at the wrecked skeleton of a wood-frame building in front of him. Only two walls remained upright; the rest had collapsed inward, leaving a jumbled heap of boards, tin and stones. He passed his tongue over his cracked lips, watching dumbfounded as Heinrich carefully lifted a square tabletop minus its legs and set it to one side. Then he removed several jagged-edged planks to reveal what looked like the entrance to an underground tomb.

  “Down here,” he whispered. “There’s steps. They’re brick. You want I should help you with the lady?”

  “Thanks, but I can manage. I’ll leave you to cover our tracks.” With a bemused prayer of gratitude, Micah somehow managed to descend into the bowels of the collapsed building without falling.

  In the absolute darkness he could hear Heinrich’s quick puffs of breath, sense the boy’s movements, but he had no sense of space. He was, once again, blind. Helpless.

  But not quite.

  Heinrich slipped by him with the nimbleness of a cat. “I’ll light a match so’s you can see, but then I’ll have to blow it out. Long as we stay quiet, they won’t find us, mister.”

  Micah smelled the acrid sulphur as the resourceful youngster struck the match. The small flame gathered strength and supplied sufficient light for Micah to assess their hideaway. They were in a cellar, surprisingly dry, with narrow shelves still lining one of the stone walls. Heinrich lit the stump of a candle and stood in the opposite corner, holding the candle to allow Micah to see a lumpy mattress on the floor, covered with what looked like several moth-eaten horse blankets.

  “She can rest better here. Is clean. My moeder told me clean is better.” His accent was more pronounced now, and Micah realized with a pang that the boy was nervous, almost afraid.

  “Thank you, Heinrich,” he said, then laid Jocelyn’s still-unconscious form on the pallet. He lifted a fragile wrist and counted the pulse, then carefully covered her with one of the blankets. “You’ve probably saved our lives.”

  “Shh!” He blew out the match. “I hear them. We stay still, jah?”

  When Jocelyn forced her heavy eyelids open, at first she thought she’d died or been buried alive, so complete was the darkness. Despite the vague memory that she must remain absolutely quiet, a tiny whimper of panic escaped.

  “It’s all right.” Micah’s low voice flowed over her, reassuring and calm. “You’re not alone. I’m right here, beside you.” She felt his hand slide up her arm, to rest against her cheek. “We’re in a safe place. Soon we’ll be taking you to an even safer place, with a bit of light included in the relocation. You’ve been out for a while. How do you feel?”

  She had to think about it. When she tried to talk, her tongue felt thick, swollen and unmanageable. “Stiff. Strange. What…Are we—are we in jail?”

  “No. No, dear one, we’re not in jail. But for a little while longer we have to stay in darkness. Here.” She heard rustling, and a sound like milk bottles clinking? Then Micah’s arm slowly lifted her to a sitting position. “Heinrich’s the most resourceful fellow I’ve ever met. I’m thinking of hiring him. He’s only ten, but perhaps Chief Hazen would make allowances.” As he talked in his soothing bass rumble he held, amazingly, a bottle of water to her lips. “Easy, just a sip at the time. This is spring water all the way from France, courtesy of a hotel chef who’s equally smitten with Heinrich. When you’re up for it, I have beef broth for you, from said chef.”

  Jocelyn could almost feel life flowing back into her limbs as the liquid soothed her parched throat. After her initial thirst was quenched, Micah bathed her face and hands with surprising skill, considering that their chamber was devoid of light, as black as the inside of a cast-iron skillet.

  “Can we talk?” she ventured hesitantly. “The police—”

  “Heinrich’s last report, about an hour ago, I believe, is that they’ve ceased searching the area, but have posted policemen on every corner, and every fifth streetlight, on all the surrounding streets. As long as we keep our voices low we can talk, but we’ll have to remain in the dark.”

  “Heinrich…he’s the boy who saved us? I remember when he sprang out, from behind a tree.” A lingering shudder of fear rippled along her nerves. “I don’t remember much else.”

  “Heinrich lives with his mother and sister in what I gather is a pieced-together shack over on Riverside Drive, about half a dozen blocks from here. His father is dead, but Heinrich won’t talk about it. They lost everything in the Panic last year, including the home his papa built twenty years ago, in the Kleindeutschland district, near Tomkins Square. Heinrich has spent the past year pilfering this old shantytown, trying to be the man of the family. Poignant story.”

  “How strange…he found us. He happened to be here…” She didn’t know how to phrase the words, because it had been too long since she was willing to believe God would intervene.

  “I think God sent him along,” Micah finished for her, and she had never heard that tone from him. Halting. Almost…tentative.

  The darkness between them seemed to throb with uncertainty.

  “I think you’re right,” Jocelyn finally agreed.

  Restoration did not burst over her in a Damascus Road experience, yet Jocelyn’s heart expanded until in a shimmering wash of wonder she embraced the truth of it. “Micah, what would you say if I told you that I…that I believe I’ve…forgiven God, for not being Who I thought He ought to be?” She sniffed, finishing in a ragged whisper, “And I’m trying to believe that He’ll forgive me, for not being faithful, like you and Katya.”

  His fingers brushed against her face once more, then traced a tender path down her nose, to her chin. “I’d say you’re in a better place than I am.”

  “I thought so, earlier.” The blackness inside her for so long was fading to the gray wash of the early-morning sky in the moments before sunrise.

  She stirred, searching with her fingers until they bumped into a forearm hard as the post to which he had been tied. “It’s worse, to suffer alone, Micah. You never know when your mind is your friend, or your worst enemy.”

  He took hold of her fingers, a crushing grip born, Jocelyn knew, of memories he would grapple with the rest of his life. She lay quietly, wishing she were stronger, wishing she could see, but grateful she couldn’t. Ever sensitive to atmosphere, she knew some secrets that needed to be brought into the light could only be shared under the merciful cover of darkness.

  Chadwick had never spoken to her of the tortures he suffered, except at night. He would drift into her bedroom, sprawl into the boudoir chair and tell her things she had promised never to reveal.

  Perhaps if she had encouraged him, if she had reached out to hold his hand as she was now holding Micah’s, perhaps Chadwick would still be alive.

  The internal sunrise coalesced into gold-rimmed determination: it was time, time to rid her soul of secrets that had kept her in bondage for ten long years. And in revealing those secrets at last, perhaps she could help Micah find the courage to rid his own soul of nightmares.

  “What happened to you in that awful warehouse?” she asked him as simply as she could. “Will you tell me?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “I’ll try,” Micah said, his voice hoarse. “I think it would be easier if I were doing something while I talked. Do you think you’re ready to try a little broth? It’s probably cold by now, but
you need the nourishment.”

  Jocelyn heard the undertone of fear. “I have the constitution of a pair of draft horses. I’ll be fine, Micah. My leg scarcely hurts at all.”

  “Little liar. Heinrich fetched a bar of carbolic soap from his mother. While you were unconscious, he stood watch so I could light a candle. I cleaned the gash, and bound it with the last of your petticoats. I know what I saw. Don’t think you can fool a Secret Service operative.”

  “Perhaps you should have been a physician. It aches some, Micah. But truly, I feel much better. Some broth would be wonderful.” She’d eat snake soup if it would help ease his worry. If only wounded souls could be washed out with carbolic soap to keep them from festering. If only…

  Her internal struggle against inadequacy stirred. But despite her physical enervation, Jocelyn flung the self-flagellant’s whip aside, astonished when it disappeared without a flick of protest.

  Micah had taught her how it felt to be loved, to be cherished regardless of glaring personal flaws. He thought she was beautiful—inside and out. All he needed was for her to reciprocate in kind. So she waited, giving him the gift of restful silence while he sorted through his thoughts.

  After he rummaged about, then held an uncorked bottle filled with lukewarm but surprisingly tasty beef broth to her lips, he began to talk. “…and I reached the bottom, far beyond the grief of losing my wife and son. I felt helpless when they died, but not stripped of everything that I believed made me a man. A…man of faith. The last couple of nights…down in the belly of that stinking basement, I finally…” In the darkness he emitted a huff of a laugh. “Let’s just say I finally knew how you felt all these years, why you were so angry at God. At me.” He sighed heavily. “Will you forgive me, for being such a sanctimonious prig?”

  “Even when I was angry I never thought you were—well, I won’t even say the words, because they do not describe the Micah MacKenzie I know. You’re too hard on yourself. You were never a hypocrite, Micah. I wouldn’t have admitted it, but I could see you believed everything you said, believed with all your heart. You were doing the best you knew how to live by faith. At the time I didn’t want to hear it. What I did want—” She stopped dead, stricken all of a sudden with shyness.