by Selina Kray
“Whatever for?” Callie committed to her innocent act, excited by the prospect of going somewhere, anywhere.
“An examination. You’re long overdue.”
Callie swallowed her gasp but couldn’t force down her fear. Here was the only test she might not be able to pass. And she’d be taking it in minutes.
Sister Nora clapped her hands, but they failed to rise. She sighed. “You’ll follow me.”
“Might she not be convinced to accommodate us here?” Callie almost choked on the words, but she knew her decision to be the right one. Another Hiero adage: keep control of your environment. Any chance she had of convincing Sister Zanna she was with child hinged on remaining in their room.
Sister Nora shot her a petulant stare, wanting, Callie recognized, to refuse. But some internal scolding—in Sister Juliet’s voice, no doubt—prompted a curt nod.
“Very well. I’ll have her assemble all her equipment”—Callie could hear the eye-roll in her tone—“and tonics and files and bring them here. Is there anything else you require?”
Hands clasped in her lap in such a way as to emphasize her “burgeoning” belly, Callie met her scowl with a sunny smile. “Not for myself. Miss Kala?”
“Chamber pots ain’t gonna empty themselves.”
Callie didn’t think the dark stain on Sister Nora’s cheeks was a blush.
“Of course.”
After she’d called one of the novitiates in to tend to that chore, which she supervised, Sister Nora locked them back in with an exuberant clank.
“What the bloody hell were you thinking?” Miss Kala demanded in a harsh whisper once Sister Nora’s footsteps retreated down the hall. “Air! We could be breathing slightly less stale air!”
Callie worried her hands as she searched the room for some form—any form—of inspiration. But the same vomit-yellow wallpaper glared back at her, unrepentant.
“That she won’t bother with more than a medical bag and whatever hocus pocus the Daughters employ. If she can’t perform a full examination, she might...”
Miss Kala blinked, twice. “Might?”
“Conclude that all is well.”
“How would she come around to that idea?”
“In the normal fashion.”
“The normal...” A smirk twisted Miss Kala’s lips in a way that had Callie shrinking in her seat. “You’ve not got the first notion about midwives, have you?”
Callie scoffed weakly. “They help usher babes into the world. What else is there to know?”
“What she’s about to do to you, for a start.”
“She’s to examine me to determine my general health and whether I’m with child.”
“’Cept you’re not.”
“Yes, I am aware. Hence the problem.” Callie gripped her arms so tight she tore into her sleeve. “If she’s separated from her instruments, she won’t be able to perform a proper test. She might retreat to an older method, which I could more easily pass.”
“Instruments? Test? Pass? Rubbish. Ain’t no science to this, miss.” Miss Kala bit her lip, Callie suspected, to keep from laughing. “What comes of being raised by gentlemen, I tell you.”
Callie glared at her. “If you mean to scold, you can begin with my absent mother.”
“Fair deal,” Miss Kala conceded. “Not likely she’d have known enough to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
The click of the lock silenced them. Callie mashed her tongue with her teeth, desperate to scream. Everything they had learned, everything they might have learned, dashed by a deception too far. She wanted to hurl herself out the window.
Two Daughters in nurse aprons carried in two long metal posts with weighted bases, which they planted on either side of the bed. They strung a sheet width-ways across, curtaining off the pillows and most of the top. Two elephant-trunk sleeves jutted out of the lower middle of the sheet, flanking an oval-shaped retractable flap...
She pressed her fist to her mouth, catching the shriek in time. Gulping back shuddery breaths, Callie grabbed a bread knife and stabbed it into her palm.
Two warm hands enveloped hers. Miss Kala knelt before her, her gaze consoling, her round face soft, calm. Once the Daughters disappeared, she eased the knife out of Callie’s grasp.
“You weren’t joking about...” Callie couldn’t bring herself to say it.
“No.” Miss Kala sighed. “I’m not sure how this happens. I just heard it does. I got lucky in my auntie is a wise woman.” As she spoke, she dabbed a napkin on Callie’s cut. “Are you still a maid?”
“The household is unconventional, but we’re not improper.”
“Course. Just that makes it a bit tougher to explain. There’s a part of you, deep inside, that holds the baby in while it’s growing. And when you’re knapped, it gets darker. If Sister Zanna’s a midwife, that’s what she’ll be looking for.”
“And this happens every time?”
Miss Kala shrugged. “Can’t say, really.”
Callie’s breaths quickened, eyes prickled. Fear would solve nothing, would give the game away, but this... She never could have prepared for this. She needed a miracle.
“I... I don’t want...” She couldn’t even look in the direction of the bed.
“Don’t I know it.” Miss Kala’s chuckles somehow helped her to breathe. “No question, if you’re a maid. But don’t worry. I’ll sort you.”
“What? How?”
And then the blasted door swung open.
“Blessed morning to all.”
Sister Zanna flew in with two Daughters on her heels. She dropped her black bag and a file folder into a chair and moved to examine their work on the curtain. One of the pair wheeled a half table that extended over the bottom edge of the bed into place, then set about lining medical instruments up along its surface. The size and suggestiveness of these gave Callie heart palpitations. Miss Kala shoved a teacup into her shaking hands—also to cover up her still-bleeding wound—and stood.
“Mightn’t there be somewhere more private for milady to disrobe?”
“Has she dressed for the day?” Sister Zanna looked to them and sighed. “I warned Sister Nora, but... well. Not everyone cares to speak of such things.”
“As I only know too well.”
“Ah.” Sister Zanna appeared to have received some unspoken message from Miss Kala. Unable to decipher it and irritated at her disadvantage, Callie returned her focus to the wallpaper. “We’ll start slowly then. Shall we?”
Callie pretended to be in one of her altered states as Miss Kala led her over to the bed. She slumped onto the bottom edge, ever conscious of the curtain behind her. When Sister Zanna ordered all of the shutters opened, she shrank back from the light that exploded into the room. Even the weather was against her, with London experiencing an abnormally sunny day. All the better to shine a light on her most intimate parts, expose her for a fraud while these kidnappers luxuriated in the shade of their garden. The injustice of it made her want to spit.
Particularly at Sister Zanna, who snapped her fingers to wake Callie from her feigned reverie.
“Mrs. Sandringham, hello. I wonder if I could learn more of your history?” She began by taking Callie’s pulse, cool, firm fingers on the soft of her wrist. “Has a doctor examined you since the miracle occurred?”
“In Assisi.”
“And he counseled...?”
“Rest. Not to overtax myself.”
“And how thorough was this examination?”
Digging deep within herself, Callie located the spirit of her character and smiled.
“He needed no intrusions or impropriety to heed the Mother’s call. He believed.”
Sister Zanna pressed her tongue-tip pressed to her teeth, but she saved herself from tisking.
“I wager he has not lost as we have lost. Mother Rebecca’s child perished with her. We want to assure ourselves that this time the way is clear for Her return.”
“What shall be is as She wills it.” Call
ie fisted the sheet on her far side to keep from lunging at her. “I am at your disposal.”
Sister Zanna nodded. “May I begin?”
The gentleness of her touch surprised Callie. Sister Zanna concentrated on her abdomen, feeling around for devil knew what and pressing in at certain spots. Her face remained impassive throughout, not a hint of intrigue or disapproval coloring her features. Every so often she paused to scribble a note into Callie’s file. Another snap of her fingers sent the other Daughters out of the room, and she rose as if to follow them.
Callie didn’t dare hope her ordeal was over.
“Combination or chemise and drawers?” Sister Zanna asked Miss Kala.
“Drawers.”
“Good.” She turned back to Callie. “You need only remove those, along with any underskirts. If your corset is tight, you might care to loosen it. Lay back and fit your legs through the sleeves. I promise it will be quick.”
“I’ll sit with her,” Miss Kala said.
“Yes, do.” Sister Zanna stared at Callie for a long moment, as if daring her to refuse. “I’ll fetch a lantern. Be ready when I return.”
Callie didn’t hear her leave, couldn’t hear anything at all over the clamor of her inner wails. She woke up when Miss Kala hitched up her skirt and yanked down her petticoat. She then thrust her buttocks at Callie, who nearly reached for her revolver.
“Corset laces, if you please.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No time. Just do it.”
Callie plucked the knot loose and pulled open the corset’s binds. She gaped as Miss Kala fussed with the crotch seam of her drawers, then disappeared behind the curtain.
“Well, come on!”
By the time Callie rounded behind one of the metal poles, Miss Kala had slotted her legs in the elephant trunks and her maidenhead straddled the flap. Or so Callie assumed since she’d covered herself with her skirt.
“What... You can’t...”
“Hush yourself and get back here. She’s supposed to think it’s you.”
“But...” Choked by a mixture of anxiousness and gratitude, Callie crawled onto the bed. And didn’t hesitate to take Miss Kala’s hand.
“Now, now, don’t fret. Not my first time in this position, let me tell you.”
“What if she looks back here?”
“Haven’t the foggiest. You’re the actress. Get ready to improvise.”
Callie squeezed her hand harder as Sister Zanna entered the room. Her lantern illuminated a shadowplay of action on the other side of the curtain, with more detail than Callie cared for. Callie held her breath as the seconds ticked by.
“Ready?” Sister Zanna asked after an eternity.
She glanced at Miss Kala, then replied, “Aye.”
Sister Zanna peeled the flap open, but no part of her could be seen through the hole. Miss Kala let out a long, slow breath, spared Callie a smile. Though a part of her remained horrified by this intrusive process, Callie had to admit she also wanted to sneak around to the other side and peer over Sister Zanna’s shoulder. When else would she have a chance to observe firsthand the workings of the female anatomy? Then her brain supplied the answer Hiero would likely give, and she scowled.
“There. All done.”
The flap closed. Callie heard a pen scritch as Sister Zanna completed her notes. Miss Kala wriggled out of the elephant trunks, and they hurried to switch places on the bed, muffling their nervous giggles. Belatedly Callie shimmied out of her petticoat and messed her skirt. She affected a serene look as Miss Kala slung the curtain back to receive their verdict.
Sister Zanna, for her part, beamed. “All is as it should be. Nearer to five months along, I’d say, Mrs. Sandringham. Or should I call you the new Mother Rebecca? Time will tell.”
Callie concentrated on hiding her relief so totally it wasn’t till Sister Zanna was gone and the lock clanked back in place that the truth occurred to her. And she remembered the scene in the back staircase at Berkeley Square: Miss Kala despairing, Han consoling...
She whipped her head around to confront Miss Kala but found her anger smote by the sight of her tears.
“Please don’t tell Mr. Bash. Not until we find Lil.”
“I won’t,” Callie said, stunned by her words. “Of course I won’t.”
She staggered off the bed and over to the street-side window, her mind aflame. As she pressed her throbbing brow to the pane, Callie wished for the cool of evening, for the cover of night, for a means of escape. Not just from the Daughters’ clutches, but from herself. From a body that longed for Han’s steadying presence seconds after learning he could never be hers. From a brain too scorched by betrayal to reason their way out, a heart that kindled empathy for the woman who had acted on desires Callie couldn’t admit to having.
She flexed her fist open and closed, wanting to hurl something, to punch through the window. Instead she shoved a finger in her mouth and chomped down on a knuckle. She glared at the wallpaper, the floral pattern resembling more and more the links of a chain. Yellow, the color of apathy. If only.
Once the fires within burned through her last reserves of contempt, she cast about for something, anything to occupy her time till nightfall. And spied a slip of paper on the chair. Callie lunged. To no avail—nothing but a few numbers and some bland observations about weight and coloring. Until lightning struck.
“Her files.”
“What?” Miss Kala blew her nose loudly.
“Sister Zanna keeps private medical files on all of the novitiates. She evaluates everyone who enters here.”
Miss Kala gasped. “She’d have one on Lil.”
“We’ll find out tonight.”
No sooner had Tim hopped off the omnibus at his usual stop than a pair of apple-cheeked girls accosted him. Fortunately he recognized them as the twin daughters and principal message-bearers of his new landlady, Mrs. Fitzgibbons.
“Mr. Stoker! Mr. Stoker!” they chirped in unison. They tended to ignore the fact he was a detective unless reporting a petty crime.
“Maisie, Molly,” he greeted in proper order. Not even their mother matched his success at telling them apart, much to their delight (and occasional disappointment). “What’s this clamor?”
“A gentleman’s come calling for you,” Maisie breathlessly explained.
“He’s caused ever so much fuss,” Molly elaborated.
Tim stilled. Unless a new client solicited his help—and none had ever done so here at his lodgings, preferring the luxury of Berkeley Square—Sir Hugh’s impatience had gotten the better of his reason.
“Has he now?” Tim offered them his arms out of courtliness but also to control their pace. He searched for signs of a carriage as they strolled down the block.
“Insisted on being let into your rooms,” Molly continued, no doubt parroting her mother.
“Turned up his nose at the parlor,” Maisie said.
“That’s just as well.” Tim stopped them again, his mind scrambling to prepare as he added, “Girls, those who come to visit me do so for very private, very sensitive reasons. Often when someone or something precious to them has been lost. So you must not think less of them if they don’t want a chat and a cuppa.”
The two of them bowed their heads, looking so serious Tim couldn’t help but chuckle. With a skip to his step, he led them on. They found their smiles.
“Is that why he wouldn’t take tea?” Maisie asked.
“Most likely. Though perhaps he didn’t want any.”
“And he brought in so many baskets?” Molly queried.
“He... what?”
“Mummy was quite beside herself,” Maisie, all of eight years, observed. “He asked so many questions her face grew hot.”
“Like when she used to help Simon with his maths,” Molly said.
Tim paused a third time, reevaluating.
“Questions, you say? Of what sort?”
“About everything!” Maisie stretched her arm wide to encompass the wo
rld. “The furniture and the blankets and the lights.”
“What we eat. How often you eat with us.”
“How many apartments are let. Who lives in ’em.”
“And about the walls.” Molly shook her head, still dismayed. “How thick they are. What’s on the other side.”
This prompted Tim to quicken his step, such that the girls had trouble keeping up.
An overgenerous reward from a previous client had permitted him to move from a clean but cramped lodging house in Pimlico to a larger, more respectable apartment in Kensington. As one of the first tenants to lease in the refurbished building, his comfort and contentment was of particular interest to the widowed Mrs. Fitzgibbons who, Tim soon realized, saw in him a potential second husband. That even someone as oblivious to the attentions of the fairer sex as Tim recognized her intentions spoke of how overzealous they were. Work, and a key to the back-alley exit, served him well.
Mrs. Fitzgibbons waited for him in a chair by the front door, hands clasped over her sternum and arms tucked under her bosom for emphasis. No sooner had he released the girls than she launched herself at him.
“Oh, DI Stoker, forgive me, forgive me! I told the gentleman you weren’t in, to leave his card, but he was so insistent!”
Tim patted her shoulder as he eased her back.
“Don’t trouble yourself, Mrs. Fitz. The gentleman is a client of mine. We have much business to discuss.”
“I hope no threat oppresses you, DI Stoker? Should I send word to your colleagues at the Yard, just in case?”
Tim forced a smile onto his lips, wishing he had misjudged her character.
“Nothing of the kind, I assure you.”
“It’s just he inquired so thoroughly after the security of the apartment.”
“A precaution only. He does not care for his business to be overheard.” He leaned in, pretending to take her into his confidence. “Foreign Office, you see. A matter of international secrecy.”
“Goodness! I had no idea you were involved in affairs at such a high level, DI Stoker.”
“I will no longer be, if word gets out about his visit.” Tim gave her shoulder a squeeze, gazing deep into her eyes. “I hope I can rely on your discretion?”