“She can be unpleasant in a temper.” A mastery of understatement. “You must think me a poor thing to be frightened of a mere woman.”
“No. I of all people understand how a bully strips away every bit of courage and leaves you trembling before the fear of pain and death.”
She thought about that. “I thought you said they didn’t hurt you.”
“A dungeon is a disagreeable place to pass two years of your life.”
She suspected that he, also, was a master of understatement.
They rounded the corner, passed through the medieval gate and into the city, crammed with gaming establishments, hotels of all sizes, and spas that bragged of their natural springwater and its healing properties. Emma’s heart drummed faster as they approached the inn where she had lodged with Lady Lettice. To face her again, after all the abuse and the humiliation of the other night . . . Emma could scarcely breathe.
Durant stepped from the cart, handed the reins to the doorman, and set the step. She put her hand in his and climbed down; then, at his slight bow, she walked ahead of him into the lobby. With the assurance of a man who knew himself to be welcomed anywhere, Durant walked to the front desk and introduced himself to Bernhard, the desk clerk, then said, “I’ve come to fetch Miss Emma Chegwidden’s belongings from Lady Lettice. Is she in?”
“Yes, my lord, but she has decided to vacate her room and is now in the process of packing for her return to England.” Bernhard was a German immigrant, with a pronounced accent and the militant attitude necessary to run a large hotel.
He scared Emma to death, yet with Durant at her side, she found herself asking incredulously, “She’s packing for herself?”
Bernhard recognized her, and met her gaze with exasperation he clearly expected her to share. “Ha. No. She has four of our chambermaids collecting her belongings, and has kept them working for more than five and three-quarter hours. She doesn’t seem to realize that the girls are not for her sole use, that the other guests have need of services, and that we need to clean that room for our arrivals tonight!”
“Lady Lettice is not a woman of large understanding,” Emma said.
“No. She is not!” Bernhard was fuming. “She complained so vociferously of the fireplace smoking, we brought in a chimney sweep and kept him waiting for three hours this morning. I finally sent him up in the hopes the soot will drive her out.”
“So since Lady Lettice is packing and we need Miss Chegwidden’s possessions, we should go up.” With a decisive nod, Durant turned to Emma. “Which room is hers?”
“She took the whole second floor,” Emma said faintly.
“Of course.” He offered his arm.
Bernhard drew himself up, offended. “My lord, I can’t allow you to visit an unmarried lady’s room.”
“I suspect you had no idea where I intended to visit when I came into the lobby,” Durant suggested.
Bernhard considered that. Heard a pounding from above like someone was stomping on the floor. And said, “You are right. I didn’t.”
The climb up the stairs took hours, yet was over too soon, and Emma led him to the lioness’s den. Louvers at the top and bottom of the door allowed for ventilation in the summer heat, and from inside, they heard a repetitious rasping noise.
They exchanged puzzled glances.
Durant raised his hand to knock—and they heard a thump, a scream of agony, and Lady Lettice’s voice shout, “Get that filthy beast out of here before he does any more damage!”
Chapter Eleven
A
second scream pierced the air, and before Michael’s gaze, Emma transformed from a timid, proper English girl into a steely-eyed Amazon. Turning the doorknob, she strode into the luxurious suite of rooms.
There, in the sitting room, holding his arm and rolling in agony on a soot-covered sheet placed before the fireplace, was a young boy no more than seven.
Lady Lettice was in her nightclothes and cap, wrapped in a white velvet robe now spotted with black, dancing up and down and shouting at the boy and the chimney sweep, who in his turn stood shouting at the boy.
The four maids crowded into the doorway of the bedchamber, watching with wide, dark eyes and exclaiming in the Moricadian language.
Emma paced into the middle of the chaos, pushed the chimney sweep aside, pulled off her gloves, and tossed them on the side table. “Get me my medical bag,” she told Lady Lettice.
“Get you your medical bag? What medical bag? Nothing here is yours. Nothing!” Lady Lettice shrieked at a decibel so high Michael knew dogs howled for miles.
Emma knelt, her knee in the powdery black soot, caught the boy by the shoulders, and spoke softly in his ear. Somehow she made him focus his gaze on hers, and when she had his attention, she took his forearm in her hands. Carefully, she slid her fingers over his skin, shook her head, and murmured, “Broken.”
Michael couldn’t take his eyes off her. How did she know? When had she learned so much? Turning to Lady Lettice, he intended to demand Emma’s medical bag.
Before he could move, Emma bounded to her feet and turned on the woman like a virago. “Give me my medical bag. Now.”
Lady Lettice’s bosom and chins quivered with indignation. “I will not. You made a fool of me. You made me a laughingstock.”
The words spilled forth from Emma like water from a broken a dam. “Lady Lettice, you need no help to be a laughingstock. You are an older woman courting younger men. You are of low morals and without gentility. Society laughs because you deserve to be laughed at. So, madam, give me my bag and I’ll let you leave Moricadia without telling everyone of your disreputable peccadilloes.”
Lady Lettice reared back, lifted her hand, and prepared to swing.
Michael caught her arm. “No.” A simple word, spoken forcefully.
Lady Lettice looked at him, looked at Emma’s blazing aquamarine eyes, and crumpled. “Your medical bag? I lost it. I gave it away. I threw it in the garbage on the street of this lousy stink hole.”
Emma walked around her, pushed past the maids, and entered the bedroom.
Michael held on to Lady Lettice’s wrist while she turned her pleading gaze on him. “You have to understand. I was good to her, and she was nothing but an ungrateful slut who went behind my back and frolicked with the gentlemen who might have wanted me for their wife. It is her fault I am held in disrespect.”
Emma came out of the bedroom with a carpetbag clutched in her hands.
Lady Lettice had apparently convinced herself she spoke the truth about Emma, for she had tears in her eyes.
Emma didn’t care. All her attention was on the child. “Michael, I’m going to need help,” she said, and he thought she would be shocked to realize she used his Christian name and a command tone.
Certainly Lady Lettice was shocked when he obeyed the unspoken summons, going to kneel beside her in the soot and wrap his arm around the boy’s shoulders.
“What’s your name?” Emma asked the child.
The boy didn’t answer, and the chimney sweep flushed with anger. “Answer the lady, you miserable churl!”
Emma lifted her head and looked at the man. “Get out.” She was using that voice again.
But the chimney sweep was the type of man who equated obeying a woman with weakness, and he snarled, “I paid for that kid and I’m not leaving her alone with some madwoman who wants to coddle her because she fell and got herself hurt.”
Emma looked at the sweep, and the gold in her eyes had vanished. They were now as hard and cold as green crystal. “This is a
girl
?”
“They’re thinner, smaller, and they’re always worried about the little ones at home, so they work harder. They’re motivated, you might say.” His voice rang with pride at his perceived intelligence, and he laughed. He didn’t even see the danger until Michael’s fist was an inch from his face.
Then it was too late to duck.
Lady Lettice screamed.
The sweep stumbled back, smashing into the wall, leaving a black mark that looked like a giant mosquito had been swatted there. His flailing arms brought down the Chippendale side table, the Chinese vase, the fresh flowers, and the lace scarf. The reverberation made the painting in its gilded frame swing wildly, then fall off and smack the sweep on the head. He slumped, unconscious, to the floor.
The girl under Emma’s hands chuckled hoarsely; then in rough, accented English, she whispered, “Elixabete. My name is Elixabete.”
“Elixabete, did you fall from the chimney?” Emma made eye contact again.
The child nodded.
“Your arm is broken. I’m going to wash it off; then this gentleman and I will straighten it. I won’t lie to you: It’s going to hurt very badly, but afterward it will feel much better, I promise. All right?”
Elixabete nodded, her eyes shockingly blue in her blackened face, her hopeful gaze fixed onto Emma’s.
Emma pointed at one of the maids. “Bring me water and a towel. Michael, hands here on her shoulders.” Emma laid out a clean cloth, then removed from her bag a corked jar, two sticks, and cloth torn into strips.
Elixabete didn’t stir, but she watched all the movements in the room.
With calm efficiency, Emma washed the arm, murmuring to the child all the while, reassuring her. Then, eyes half-closed, she felt along the bone with careful movements. She gave Michael a warning glance, took a long breath; then in a smooth, assured movement, she adjusted the arm.
Elixabete screamed. Tears leaked from her eyes and ran in rivulets down her sooty face.
Lady Lettice drew in a sharp breath, and fainted in an ungraceful heap on the floor.
Bernhard strode into the room, with one glance took in the unconscious chimney sweep, his unconscious guest, and the coal dust and water that stained the rug and the wallpaper, and broke into excited German that condemned the morals of everyone’s parents in the room, most specifically Michael’s.
As far as Emma was concerned, Bernhard might not have been there. She again felt the broken bone, then, with a satisfied smile, plastered the arm with a grainy white material, splinted it, secured the splint with strips of cloth, and looked around. The long lace scarf that had draped the table caught her eye. She caught one end of it.
Bernhard grabbed the other and screamed like a girl. “No. No, you may not!”
They played tug-of-war over the scarf until she turned a cold look on him and asked, “Would you like to find yourself in the same position as those two?” She nodded at Lady Lettice and the sweep.
Michael rose.
Bernhard took one look at Michael’s clenched fists and let go of the scarf. “I will call the prince’s men now!”
“You should,” she said cordially. “But before you do, you have a guest who’s insensible on the floor. You should tend to her before she wakes and discovers you’ve been indifferent to her needs. I assure you, Lady Lettice would make her displeasure known.”
Bernhard wavered, then hurried to Lady Lettice’s side and knelt, slid his arms under her, and lifted her off the floor with an audible, “Oof!”
Lady Lettice groaned, stirred, and curled her arms around his neck.
At Bernhard’s horrified expression, Michael grinned.
Yes, my friend, you are in trouble now.
He spoke to one of the maids, still trapped in Lady Lettice’s bedroom, then leaned against the wall and watched Emma’s deft handling of the situation. Apparently he had misread Miss Chegwidden. She was not the limp biscuit he had first perceived—or she seemed to think.
Emma wrapped the scarf around Elixabete, immobilizing her arm.
When she was finished, Elixabete said in a tone of surprise, “It does feel better!”
“Good.” Emma smiled at the child, her face warm and kind. Then she looked up at Michael, and determination shone through the dust and sweat on her face. “We need to get her home.”
Michael sobered. “As you say.”
But he knew Emma was not prepared for the sights she would see.
Chapter Twelve
A
s the pony cart descended into the old town, the roads got narrower and narrower, the houses taller, the shadows darker. The old town stank of garbage, and sewage ran in open gutters. People, unwashed and hostile, stopped to watch Durant, Emma, and Elixabete as they drove by.
Emma clutched the child closer, murmuring reassurances, while she wondered if they would be attacked for their shoes or her medical kit or the cheerful ribbons woven in the pony’s mane.
Yet Durant seemed to know where he was going, driving with assurance through the twisted streets to a gray, empty courtyard surrounded by tall tenements. Jumping out of the cart, he called, “Damacia!”
At once the shutters on the fourth floor swung open, and a young woman with an old face looked out. At the sight of the child, she paled.
“Mama!” Elixabete called faintly.
Durant started to speak, but Emma called, “She’s going to be all right. Her arm is broken, but it set well.”
Damacia covered her eyes briefly, then disappeared into the room. In only a few minutes, she appeared in the doorway on the ground level and ran to the side of the cart.
Elixabete leaned forward, wordlessly begging to be held.
Carefully, with Durant’s support and Emma’s assistance, Damacia picked Elixabete up. “You foolish lass, I’ve told you to stay home or you’d come to trouble.” She scolded her and at the same time cradled her against her chest.
“The baby’s crying all the time. She’s hungry.” Big tears filled Elixabete’s eyes. “We need my wages, and now . . . now what?”
Emma had never heard such despair, and from such a small child.
“Shh.” Damacia lifted her chin. “We’ll make do.”
Durant met Emma’s eyes and shook his head briefly, urgently. He didn’t want her to offer . . . anything.
Pride. These Moricadians were too proud to accept help, yet how desperately they needed it!