Chapter Thirty-Seven #2
A gaslight piercing the gloom exposed his face as he regained his footing and came at Emerson again, this time with a knife, slashing wildly, catching Emerson’s well-fitted coat, rib-level.
“Damn you, Billy. Now I have to buy a new coat, wasting my time,” he growled at the low-life buster.
“Ye stole me best bloody doxy.” He raised the knife again, but Emerson kicked out and nailed him square in the groin, felling him to the muddy streets in an unconscious heap.
Emerson swooped up the dagger and jumped in the carriage. “Leave him be.” He pounded on the ceiling, wincing. “Let’s go.”
Amir jerked the carriage into motion.
“Hellfire!” Ben said, clutching the edges of the walls as the open door of the carriage slammed shut. “What the devil just happened?” Ben gasped, falling back against his seat.
Of course, Stockton slept through the entire ordeal.
Inside, silence settled heavy, broken by Ben’s ragged breath. “That—” He gulped air. “That was no random mischief. You knew him.”
Emerson sank back into the squabs, his jaw tight. “Yes. Lady Stanford confronted him—” He straightened his torn coat as if the matter were settled.
“Lady Stanford—” Ben couldn’t seem to grasp a breath. “Confronted…that!” His hand flew to the smashed-out window. “She saved a doxy?”
A small smile touched Emerson at the memory. “Indeed.”
Neither spoke again until the carriage drew up before Manchester Square.
Emerson started to climb down first, his hand braced on the frame.
The cool night air hit him—and with it, the warm trickle beneath his coat.
He glanced down, frowning. “Well, hell,” he muttered.
The coat sagged where the knife had dealt a near precision slice.
He moved quickly to the portico and inside, pressing his hand against the fabric.
When he pulled it away, slick, crimson stained his fingers.
Ben entered on his heels and froze, the color draining from his face. “Emerson, you’re bleeding—”
“It’s nothing,” Emerson said briskly.
But Ben’s gaze was fixed on the spreading stain, his breath shallow. “Good God—” His knees buckled, and Emerson lurched, catching his brother before he bashed his brains on the marble entry.
Pain flared sharp along his ribs as he dragged his brother against him.
Amir entered with the passed out Stockton over one shoulder, casting a look over the scene. His white teeth flashed in his dark face with a quick grin. “Ah, I’d forgotten the child fainted at the sight of a little blood.”
Emerson shifted his grip, teeth clenched against the sting of his wound, and barked for Yates.
“I doubt we have to worry over Billy any longer,” he told Amir.
Yates appeared out of the gloom. “Sir?”
“Where the devil are the footmen?” Emerson demanded. “As you can see, we’re in dire need.”
Yates glanced at Emerson’s bloodied hand gripping his brother with nary a flinch. “Ah, yes. So, I see, sir.” He took hold of Ben, dragging him to the parlor, and gently deposited him into a chair near the fire in the library.
Seconds later, Amir relieved himself of Stockton, dumping him unceremoniously onto a large settee.
“How bad is it?” Amir asked Emerson.
“I suspect I’ll live,” he answered, speaking of the cut along his ribs. “Though it burns like the devil.” He discarded his coat and waistcoat, then peeled the fine lawn shirt from his skin carefully, wincing.
“I’ll retrieve the box,” Amir said, heading for the door.
Less than a minute later, the door reopened, and Rose stormed in.
He stood muted at the unexpected sight of her. She appeared as windblown as he felt. “Rose?” His voice filled the room, looking to have startled her.
“The door was standing open—” She shook her head. “Where…where are your clothes?”
Emerson glanced down at his bared chest, the smeared blood he’d momentarily forgotten. The burning sensation tore through his side, reminding him of the attention he required.
“What happened?” Her squeak hit the plastered ceiling. She swayed, but he didn’t have the energy to catch her with his own vision blurring. The blood loss—he had to sit. Now. He gripped the back of the chair Ben still resided in.
Amir entered the room, clutching the tin box that housed the needle, the thread, scissors, bandages, and whatnot.
“Astaghfirullah, you English are all fools—you must sit before you crumple in a heap and do yourself more damage!” He thrust the box into Rose’s hands and shot to Emerson’s side, taking him by the arm and hauling him to another settee, smaller and less fitting to his form.
“Get Ben out of here before he wakes and passes out again,” Emerson panted out. “Stockton too, for God’s sake. But set a footman at his door. He’s not leaving until I set my terms.”
“If you live that long,” Amir retorted. He turned to Rose. “How are you with a needle and thread, ma’am?”
Emerson groaned.
“Excellent.” Her voice strengthened in her confidence. “But…”
“It’s like embroidering a sampler,” Amir told her.
“You know what a sampler is? Wait—” She looked down at the box then, raising her eyes, first to Amir then Emerson.
“You’ll be fine.” Amir’s dark form was but a shadow as he dashed across the room and threw Ben over his shoulder.
“Hey,” Ben stuttered.
“Keep your eyes shut before you pass out again,” Amir growled.
Emerson nearly smiled at Ben’s indignant huff. They stepped outside the library, and Ben’s voice could likely be heard clear to Hyde Park Corner.
Amir reentered immediately without Ben, and that did draw a grin. But Stockton stirred, erasing his humor.
He shouldn’t have concerned himself, because Amir, despite his wiry appearance, again tossed Stockton over his shoulder as carelessly as a sack of onions.
“You best hope Stockton doesn’t cast up his accounts being thrown about such. I cannot guarantee my own reaction,” Rose said, looking at the box she still held. “What do I do with this?”
Weariness hit him with a punch. “Clean the wound,” Emerson told her, shutting his eyes.
“All right,” she said, sounding as if her confidence were slipping. “I’ll, er, ring for water.”
“Use the whiskey. It’s in the cabinet near the windows.
” Even lying down, the lightheadedness seeped over him.
“Clean the needle with it as well.” She’d changed, and her skirts hardly sounded as she moved.
Glass chinked, then clunked on a wood-top table.
The sound of the whiskey being poured in the glass drew another grin.
“You think you can disinfect me before I perish?”
The swish of her skirts teased his ears as she moved. “Certainly,” she said pertly, dumping the whiskey on his ribs without warning.
“Jesus,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I require a towel.”
But a second later, he heard the distinct sound of muslin ripping. Pressure against his side had him letting out a low hiss.
“Now what?”
“Clean the needle and thread it.” He attempted to catch his breath. “Then pinch my skin together and stitch away.” He prayed she hadn’t fabricated her embroidery skills.
Silence reigned for an indeterminant number of minutes. Where the devil had Amir disappeared to?
“This is revolting. It keeps bleeding. How am I supposed to hold y-your skin together?” She sounded on the verge of tears.
Gripping every ounce of stamina he possessed nearly did him in. “Are there bandages in the box?”
“Oh, yes. Brilliant idea,” she said, swallowing. There was a gentle dabbing and the sound of her drawing a deep breath. Then cool fingers whispered over his skin, easing the burning sensation, but his gut tightened in grim anticipation as she pinched the wound together then stabbed with the needle.
Emerson managed to stem the string of curses threatening to erupt as she developed a rhythm.
“Why are you here?” he asked her, certain the sound of her voice would sooth him through some of the pain.
Again, she was quiet for a time. Then she said, “I told Miss Lockhart she must leave in the morning.”
“And the guilt is eating at you,” he finished for her. He felt her shrug rather than saw it.
“I blundered horribly bringing her to Hope House. It was a terrible mistake. She’s pretentious, self-serving. She lied about stealing Inez’s gloves. That is unforgivable.” Her anger with the girl seemed to bolster her confidence in an odd fashion of sorts.
“I see. But you knew all of that, my dear. What is the real reason?”
“I—” Her stitching paused momentarily, and he risked a hooded glance to look at her, needle in one hand.
She leaned forward and swiped her eyes on her sleeve.
With another breath, she continued her task.
“She’s an awful girl. Yet…she reminds me of…
me,” she whispered. Her fingers moved with methodical precision, and he suspected he wouldn’t even harbor a scar when all was said and done.
“Rose, darling, listen to me. You risked your life to save the girl. If, if, you are anything like Miss Lockhart, you may put it down to youthful selfishness. I suppose the question now is, what are you going to do about her?”
She sniffed back more tears, though discreetly.
“I didn’t want to turn her out, you know.
But I gave her every opportunity to confess to taking the gloves, and she was defiant to the end.
I can’t allow her to ruin everything Gabriella and Rebecca have worked so hard on for Hope House. I-I just can’t.”
He was at a loss for words, and it drove him mad being unable to take her in his arms.
“I-I require advice on what to do about her aunt, Lady Lockhart. The woman cannot be allowed to get away with selling her niece to a brothel. Who did this to you?” she demanded suddenly without pausing.
Something he had no intention of answering, saying instead, “Do you know for sure that was the case? That her aunt sold her? The girl has lied regarding how she obtained Miss Macy’s gloves. Could she also be issuing a falsehood on how she ended up in Whitefriars as well?”