My Favorite Countess (30 page)
Read My Favorite Countess Online
Authors: Vanessa Kelly
The girl prattled on, happy to talk about the flower stalls in Covent Garden, and her customers and friends in the market. Her sister remained by her side, her silence broken only by her alarmingly regular fits of coughing. Every time the poor little girl started to hack, Bathsheba had to resist the urge to turn tail and flee.
Mrs. Butler finally broke in on her daughter's monologue.
“My girls are like to support us, these days,” she said proudly. “Best little sellers in the market. God knows we wouldn't have a roof over our heads without them.”
Bathsheba cast a glance toward Mr. Butler. He never looked up, ignoring his wife and children as he kept his attention grimly focused on the work in his lap.
“Not that my Henry doesn't do his best to feed us,” added Mrs. Butler in a soft voice. “But work these days is scarce. Seems a body can't afford a pair of shoes, much less pay to get them repaired.”
The woman smiled apologetically at John, which confirmed Bathsheba's suspicion that no money would change hands for his services.
John rested his hand briefly on Mrs. Butler's head before pulling the blanket up to cover her chest. With a quiet murmur he plucked the baby from her arms, gently opening the swaddling to listen to its scrawny little chest. Bathsheba's heart ached with an emotion she couldn't name, but which seemed closer to sorrow than anything else.
After carefully examining the baby, John smiled down at the anxious-looking mother.
“Samuel is doing much better. If he is well fed, he should be fine. That means that you, Mrs. Butler,” he added on a stern note, “must be sure to eat as much as you can. No more doing without, do you hear me?”
Mr. Butler finally spoke, not looking up from his work.
“You leave that to me, doctor. I'll see that she eats,” he said in a gruff voice.
John nodded his approval and handed the infant to his mother. She took him eagerly and set him to her breast.
“I have plenty of milk for little Samuel, Dr. Blackmore. It's my strength I can't seem to get back.”
John gave her arm a soothing pat. “Once you recover from your cough, you'll feel more like yourself. I'll give you and Amy,” he smiled at the little girl, “a powder to help. Make sure the girls get fresh air, and keep them out of these damp rooms as much as possible.”
Mr. Butler snorted in derision. “They gets all the fresh air they needs down in the market,” he said in a sour voice.
“I'm sure they do,” John replied, not taking offense. As he packed up his bag, he gave a few more instructions to Mrs. Butler. After waving away her effusive thanks, he took Bathsheba's arm and headed for the door.
“Wait, miss,” cried Bess. “I want to give you some violets.”
Bathsheba swallowed a groan. All she wanted was to escape. If she had to spend another moment in this roomâmuch less have to take away a reminder of this family's poverty and illnessâshe just might scream.
“That . . . that won't be necessary,” she stammered.
“Oh, do take them, miss,” exclaimed Mrs. Butler. “Since we can't pay the doctor, it's the least we can do.”
She was about to refuse again when John gave her elbow a warning squeeze.
“Oh, thank you,” she managed.
Bess elbowed Amy, who scurried to a ratty-looking basket tucked away in the corner. She flung back the cloth that covered it and extracted a small but vibrant bunch of flowers. But before she could hand them over, she broke into another set of hacking coughsâdirectly over the violets.
Once she recovered, she came to Bathsheba and held out the bouquet in her grubby little fist. Bathsheba couldn't seem to move her arm, couldn't bear the thought of touching anything that had come in contact with the sick child.
After a long moment, John nudged her.
“Um, thank you,” she said, flushing with shame. She took the flowers as gingerly as she could. “They're lovely.”
Amy beamed with pleasure, waving cheerfully at her as John pulled her out of the room.
“You needn't worry, you know,” he said in an exasperated voice as he steered her down the hall to the stairs. “Mrs. Butler and Amy are no longer contagious. Their coughs have become chronic because of the damp and the soot.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, hating herself for even voicing the question.
“Yes. I wouldn't have brought you here if I thought you could catch any kind of fever. You do realize that, don't you?”
She wanted to believe him, but all she could think about was the dirt and the stench, and how sick everyone looked. Sweat broke out on the back of her neck and her body flared with heat. With it came the memory of her recent illness, and how close she had come to dying. In this horrible place death lurked everywhere, waiting like a predator to leap on her again.
As they turned the corner of the stairwell, Bathsheba opened her hand, dropping the violets on the landing. Yes, she was the worst kind of coward, but she simply couldn't stand to touch them a moment longer.
She glanced up as he led her past the still-lounging men in the front doorway. He looked as he always didâcalm and in control, as if they had just spent a pleasant afternoon in Hyde Park and not in some disease-ridden slum. How in God's name did he manage to keep his sanity?
“I'm sorry you found this so distressing an experience,” he said as they left the gloomy lodging house behind. “It's perfectly understandable, but I did tell you that you needn't come. You have nothing to prove to me, Bathsheba.”
She winced, fully aware of how shabby her behavior must appear to him. For all intents and purposes, she had turned this little expedition into a testâof what, she wasn't yet sure. But somehow it now seemed as if it were she who had been tested, and who had been found wanting.
“Iâ”
John abruptly halted, and she skidded as her feet slipped in the thick muck covering the alley. Righting herself, she was about to launch into a frustrated scold when he grabbed her by the arm and shoved her behind him.
“John, what in the world is going on?”
“Stay behind me, Bathsheba,” he warned in a low, tight voice.
She peered around his shoulder to see a man standing directly in their path. The big brute's hands curled into fists, and his lips peeled back into a nasty snarl.
“Well, fancy that,” he said, his voice thick with an Irish brogue. “It be the doctor. Come down to St. Giles to kill more patients.” He took a menacing step forward. “My wife and son weren't enough, I reckon. You and your masters won't be satisfied till you kill off as many of us as you can.”
Bathsheba gasped, and the burly man's gaze switched to her. His bloodshot eyes widened as they raked down her body.
“Now, who be this fancy little piece?” His blunt features took on a sly cast. “Your doxy?”
Bathsheba curled her fingers around John's bicep. The hard muscle flexed under her grip.
“John,” she whispered. “Who is this man?”
“It's O'Neill.” His voice was so calm he could have been discussing the weather, and nothing more. “The man I told you about yesterday.”
O'Neill's face split into a savage grin. “Aye. That's me. I'm the one whose wife and son you murdered, you bastard. And I'm the one who's going to make you pay.”
Chapter 22
Bathsheba clutched at John's arm, fighting back the panic surging through her blood. Underneath her fingers his bicep flexed, then grew as hard as iron. Tension radiated from his body as he shifted his stance to keep her behind him.
She peered around his shoulder at the man blocking their path. O'Neill was huge, with meaty fists that looked powerful enough to crush a rock into dust. While John could probably hold his own in a fight with the manâat least for a whileâshe doubted he could prevail against so great a brute.
John took a cautious step forward, coming within reach of the other man's fists. She gasped and clutched his arm, trying to hold him back.
“Mr. O'Neill,” he said, “you have my deepest sympathies. I share your sorrow over the death of your wife and son. I assure you that I did everything in my power to save them.”
O'Neill glared at John with a killing hatred. A muscle jumped in his jaw and his throat worked, as if he had to force the words from his mouth.
“You killed them,” he rasped. “My Mary was fine until you put her filthy hands on her.”
The muscles in John's arms bunched under Bathsheba's fingers, but he gave no other outward indication that he was alarmed by the accusation.
“Mr. O'Neill, your wife was beyond help.” John's voice seemed infused with sorrow for the mother's untimely death, and pity for the man who had been left alone with his grief. “Mary's deformed pelvis was too small to allow for the baby's passage. There was nothing anyone could do to change that circumstance.”
“So you cut her open, you bastard,” snarled the Irishman. “Gutted her like a fish.”
Bathsheba had to swallow hard as the bile rose in her throat, not only at O'Neill's sickening description, but at the fury that gave his eyes a glassy, almost insane cast. Dread crawled up her spine, and she had to resist the urge to flee blindly down the nearest alley. But she couldn't do that. She wouldn't abandon John, although heaven only knew what she could do to help him.
A growling kind of murmur penetrated the fear that had kept her attention focused on the menace blocking their escape from the stews. Glancing around, she had to bite back a groan as she took in the rough-looking crowd that drifted over from what appeared to be a gin house. Several women passing in the laneway also stopped, peering at John with expressions of concern on their careworn faces. But most of the spectators displayed an avid curiosity, as if waiting for some kind of spectacle to begin. And from the greedy expressions on their faces as they eyed her, Bathsheba doubted they could be relied on to lend them any help.
She tugged on John's arm. “Look around,” she whispered.
He turned his head, making a quick but thorough sweep of the laneway. Then his attention shifted back to his adversary. Bathsheba followed his gaze.
She almost choked. O'Neill's face was mottled with red blotches of rage, and the veins bulged in his neck. She peered into his muddy-colored eyes to see a dark void as deadly as a lunatic with a knife.
John's steady voice broke the rising tension. “I tried to save your baby, Mr. O'Neill. That's why I performed surgery. It was the only chance I had, and your wife was already gone. You know that. Why would I want to hurt either Mary or your child?”
O'Neill lowered his head, like a bull about to go on a rampage. “Because you're a bleedin' English bastard, that's why. You want to get rid of us Irish, like your kind have been doing for bleedin' centuries. We're dirt to youâfouling your streets. You'd rather see us dead than let us live in peace.”
A low rumble of disgruntled agreement rose from the men from the gin house. With a sickening jolt, Bathsheba realized most of them must be Irishâprobably recent immigrants who lived in the boarding houses and tenements of St. Giles. If that was the case, they would be overwhelmed in moments.
She sucked in a deep, trembling breath, pulled her shoulders straight, and stepped up to John's side. He looked down at her with shock writ large on his face.
“What are you doing, you little fool,” he hissed. “Get behind me and stay there.”
She glared back. “I most certainly will not.”
Lifting her chin defiantly, she gave the crowd a stern warning glareâthe look she leveled at impertinent young bucks and snooty dowagers of the ton. It was madness to think it would work in this particular situation, but she had to do something to help John and help extricate them from this desperate fix.
O'Neill switched his feral gaze to her. She swallowed, tasting acid, as she mentally grabbed for the tattered threads of her ephemeral courage.
“Oh, aye,” he snarled. “Let your doxy come to your aid, because no one else will. Not down here in St. Giles. I knows what they call you, Blackmore. Angel of Death. Every time you show up a woman dies. That ain't no coincidence. You kill 'em, and that's a fact.”
A stout-looking woman pushed her way to the front of the crowd.
“That's a lie,” she cried, waving a battered red parasol for emphasis. “Dr. Blackmore saved my daughter and her baby. 'E's the only doctor who'll step foot in St. Giles. There's many a woman down 'ere that has him to thank for her life.”
Several other peopleâmostly womenâchimed in with a chorus of support. O'Neill cursed at them before turning back to John.
“What would you do if it was your woman here who died, Blackmore? What if somebody killed her?” His lunatic gaze flickered to Bathsheba. She grew cold under the harrowing intensity of that stare.
John made a low, growling noise deep in his throat. She glanced up, startled to see a sudden fury darken his countenance.
An ugly grin fractured O'Neill's face. His muddy eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “So . . . that's what you need, Doc, ain't it? A taste of your own medicine.”
Bathsheba couldn't hold back a squeak as the Irishman took a menacing step forward. John shook free of her clutching hand and moved forward to block him.
“Stop right there, O'Neill,” he said in a lethally cold voice. “I understand the depth of your loss, but my patience has its limits. Come any closer, and you'll pay the price.”
A guttural laugh rose from O'Neill's throat and he took another step, reaching out with those horrible massive hands as if to grab her.
John thrust her behind him. As she clutched his waist, trying to pull him back with her, she caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. A child darted past, skidding to a halt directly in O'Neill's path. She recognized the little flower girl, Bess.
“Don't you touch her, you big ox,” the child yelled, shoving O'Neill in the stomach.
The man halted in his tracks, staring down at the furious little obstacle in his way. His face went blank, dumbfounded by his challenger's behavior, as was everyone else in the crowd.
But only for a moment.
“Get out of my way, girl,” he growled.
O'Neill pushed her aside, but she spun and danced back into his path. Bathsheba couldn't hold back a cry as the girl put herself back in harm's way.
“Bess! Get back!” John tried to reach for her while keeping Bathsheba well behind him.
Bess ignored him, glaring at the hulking brute in front of her. “You leave Dr. Blackmore alone,” she shouted, “or you'll be sorry.”
O'Neill gave a frustrated snarl and swung his arm, sweeping the girl off her feet. Bess yelped and tumbled to the broken paving stones, while voices in the crowd gasped in outrage.
“You bloody Irish bastard,” screeched the woman with the parasol. She slammed it into O'Neill's head just as he lunged for John.
His balance thrown off by the woman's attack, O'Neill's punch went wide. He staggered, then spun clumsily around to face his attacker. Undaunted by O'Neill's size or his angry roars, the woman continued to rain blows on his head and shoulders with her parasol.
In an instant, the street exploded into a violent melee. Bathsheba shrieked as someone jostled against her, then pulled her away from John. Jerked around, she found herself staring into the leering, pock-marked face of a man almost twice her size. He yanked her toward his body, reaching to paw at her breasts. His breath, heavy with gin fumes, rolled over her and she almost retched as he began to drag her across the broken pavement.
Clenching her jaw against the rising nausea, Bathsheba kicked him in the shin as hard as she could. With a howl, he loosened his grip. As she struggled to break free, a big set of hands curled around her arms and lifted her out of the other man's grasp. She gasped and looked up into John's face, his features carved with a savage anger. He shouldered her safely behind him, then drove his fist into the face of the gin-sodden lout who had seized her. The man's eyes rolled to the back of his head and he collapsed onto the muck-covered stones.
“We have to get out of here,” John shouted above the din. He yanked her out of the way as two grappling combatants crashed by them.
She gaped at him. “Tell me something I don't know,” she finally managed to yell back.
Unbelievably, his lips twitched into a sardonic smile, and she had to fight the sudden urge to box his ears. How could he be so cavalier at a time like this? When this foolish expedition into the stews had placed both of them in such danger? Even worse, he obviously didn't realize just how bad things could get, since he risked his life by coming down here on a regular basis. Didn't he understand that someday he could be injured or even killed?
Before she could say anything else, he tucked her under his arm and retreated to the doorway of an old lodging house. They huddled against a scarred wooden door as he scanned the laneway, searching for a path through the mayhem.
She repressed a groan. It didn't look promising. The fight was getting worse, and threatened to escalate into a full-out riot at any moment. The street was filling up fast as tenements and public houses disgorged their human contents. It would soon become impassable as men, and even some women, eagerly launched themselves into the fray. It no longer mattered what the fight was about. Violence had been unleashed and whirled like a vortex, sucking in all the anger, frustration, and drunken despair that stalked like death through this part of London.
Bathsheba stood on her tiptoes and tried to spot O'Neill. She couldn't. Tugging on John's sleeve, she pulled him close to speak into his ear.
“Where's O'Neill? I don't see him.”
He pointed. “Over there. By that public house.”
She followed his gaze, breathing a sigh of relief when she caught sight of him on the other side of the street, hammering away at two men. With any luck, that would keep him occupied while they slipped away.
John grabbed her hand. “We should make a run for it before it gets worse.”
She gulped, terrified to leave the uncertain shelter of the doorway but knowing he was right. They began to edge their way along the rough brick wall of the building when a familiar face popped up out of the mass of bodies in front of them.
Bess. Coming to their rescue, once again.
She tugged on John's sleeve. “Here, sir. I'll get you and the lady out. This way.”
With a backward glance to make certain they followed, the child slipped around the side of the lodging house.
John gave Bathsheba a grim look. “Ready?”
She reached up to straighten her bonnet and realized it had been knocked off her head, probably in her struggle with the drunkard. Repressing a curseâshe didn't have enough hats anymore to go losing them in riotsâshe nodded and squeezed his hand. He pulled her behind him as they hurried after Bess.
The scurrying girl guided them into what appeared to be a blind alley. But as they followed her to the end, Bathsheba spied a small gate set into a brick wall. Bess ran to it and pulled. Rusty hinges protested, but when John gave it a hard yank it came free.
They all three stepped through into the quiet of an almost-deserted court. Only a few children, watched over by an old woman, played in the dirt. From there, Bess led them through another alley and small court, and finally into a paved street with shops and some respectable-looking houses. The noise from the riot had faded to a dull rumble, barely audible over the bustle of the street.
Bathsheba heaved a sigh of relief and collapsed against John's side as her legs began to tremble. His arm came around her waist, holding her securely upright.
Bess tipped her head up, her narrow face splitting into an engaging, gap-toothed grin. “We're safe now, sir. Drury Lane is just ahead. Right at the end of this here street.”
John gave the child's shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Thank you, Bess. You shouldn't have put yourself in harm's way, but you have my gratitude just the same. It's a lucky thing you happened to come upon us when you did.”
Her eyes widened. “T'weren't luck, sir. I followed you. Ma sent me on an errand just after you left, and I saw the pretty lady had accidentally dropped her flowers. I was comin' after you to give them back.”
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