Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
“Have any of the bedrooms been cleaned?” Kendrick asked as he came through the door, the injured boy rousing enough to twist in his hold. Genevieve hovered at his elbow, the puppy squirming unhappily in its swaddle, much like the boy.
Joseph looked up from conferring with one of the maids. His brows snapped down. “Only the master.”
“That will do.” Kendrick started for the stairs.
“What’s toward?” Joseph met him at the base of the steps.
“L’go,” the boy muttered, but then he coughed, the low, thick sound of his lungs fighting the sickness in them. “Le’go!”
“It’s all right, Fletcher,” Genevieve said, setting her hand on his head. “I’m here.”
“The boy is sick and injured.”
Joseph’s eyes snapped to Kendrick’s. “You won’t—”
“No.” Blood wouldn’t do any good at this point. Vampire blood was not intended for true healing. It fixed at its own fixed rate and purpose—and sometimes the fix happened after death.
Joseph relaxed infinitesimally. “Would you like my help? I was a doctor—once.”
Kendrick felt Genevieve still beside him. “Come, and welcome,” he said, ascending the stairs.
In the cleaned and refreshed master bedroom, Kendrick set the boy on the bed and stepped back, taking the dog from Genevieve so she and Joseph could assess the patient.
He held the quivering puppy under his arm as he set coal in the fireplace and lit the tinder.
They’d need it warm in here to sweat the sickness out of him.
“I’ll ask someone to heat water, shall I?” he said. “I doubt he’s ever seen a tub.”
“Please,” Joseph said, rolling up his sleeves.
“What else will you need?”
Joseph hesitated and then rattled off a list of things. “For fever, for plasters, for disinfecting these cuts. An apothecary—pharmacist,” he corrected himself, “will have them. Do you want me to write them down?”
“I’ll remember.” If he didn’t, he’d wake up a doctor and ask him.
Before Kendrick left, he acquired a box and rags from Robbie and set the puppy in it close to the room’s fire.
It would need a good wash, too, before reuniting with the boy.
Then he relayed the request for hot water to the kitchens.
They had plenty on hand because they had been scouring surfaces this eve.
Acquiring the rest of the items in the dead of night, short of breaking into shops and finding the right supplies in the dark, took some doing.
Kendrick had to knock on the doors of a few shops before he found one where the proprietor lived in a flat above.
Then he had to make the man agreeable to his will—not hard, but taking a little time if he didn’t want to sublimate the man entirely.
Then the pharmacist had to find all the items, and a few things he didn’t have.
But he was able to direct Kendrick to another shop that might, and then Kendrick had to ensure he wouldn’t remember any of this before sending him back to bed.
And then he repeated the process all over again at the next shop.
And while he was out, he might as well get food for the boy as well, since they certainly didn’t have any of that, and then he must stop a milkman and get milk for the boy and the dog.
By the time he was returning to Carmine House, the earliest wave of knocker-uppers had just taken to the streets with their long sticks and their peashooters, rousing factory workers and others who needed to rise before the sun.
Kendrick passed them with a nod and kept on until the streets broadened and the thoroughfares became cleaner, though more carriages passed carrying the members of the haute ton, or whatever they called the London upper-class nowadays, home from parties and social events.
A group of drunken gentlemen passed him singing a rousing chorus of “Here We Come A-wassailing.”
“Sheason’s greetingsh to you, shir,” one of them called, doffing his hat in splendid flourish and nearly falling on his face before one of his friends hauled him back up.
Kendrick smiled as he went around the house to the kitchen door. How many days was it until Christmas? He had lost track.
Robbie met him at the door and relieved him of half his burden. “Joseph’s been a regular martinet. Did you know he was a doctor?”
“No, but it doesn’t surprise me that he is proficient in leechcraft.” The look in his eyes—a man who had healing hands forced to dark deeds.
“He wants some of this boiled and steeped and whatnot, but he wants the rest of it on the double. Oh, food.” He blinked in mild surprise. “Smart.”
“The boy?”
Robbie shrugged. “Still breathing.”
Kendrick found the boy tucked up into the bed—smelling much better, along with the dog. His eyes were bright and glassy, but he was lucid, based on the baleful glare he shot at Kendrick over Genevieve’s shoulder.
“Wonderful, wonderful,” Joseph said, taking Kendrick’s burden from him before muttering to himself about dosages.
“How long, exactly, has it been since you were a doctor?” Kendrick asked in an undertone.
“I’m not going to bleed him, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Joseph said tartly. “I’ve kept up with the scientific journals published.”
“I am glad to hear it,” Kendrick said sincerely before moving to Genevieve’s side. “How is he?”
“Better. His fever’s gone down.” She sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed the hair back from the boy’s face. “Fletcher, I never knew you were so handsome under that layer of dirt.”
As small boys never find being handsome a virtue, he made a face. “Who’s the cove?” Deep suspicion laced the words.
Genevieve opened her mouth and then hesitated. “Well, I think…I’m going to marry him?”
The boy’s jaw dropped. “Coo!”
Kendrick was unprepared for the rush of delight and triumph that surged through him. Getting a hold of himself, Kendrick looked down at her and cocked an eyebrow. “Are you?”
She pressed her lips into a line. “I have stipulations, which we will get into later.”
Kendrick laughed. “I look forward to it, sweetheart.”
“I want you to drink this,” Joseph said, holding a cup of tea under the boy’s nose. “And have some every hour.”
“Don’t want none,” the boy said sulkily. Then he coughed hard enough to shake his whole body.
“Fletcher, you must if you want to get better. Joseph is a doctor,” Genevieve said, taking the cup and holding for him.
“No, he ain’t. I know a reaver when I see one.”
Illumination dawned for Kendrick.
“What is a reaver?” Genevieve said absently, her focus on the task at hand.
“We are,” Kendrick said. He exchanged a look with Joseph.
Genevieve looked at them both and then back at the boy. “Fletcher?”
“I thought you wasn’t for the longest, but you are. But you’re a good one.” The boy said, with some surprise, “I never saw a reaver who never went on a bender before.”
“You knew?” Genevieve said in a small voice. “That I was…” The cup in her hand rattled against the saucer before she controlled her reaction. “Fletcher, none of us will hurt you. I will not hurt you.”
“You won’t. But all us know to scarper when we see reavers. They’re barking; kill you soon as look at you.” The boy coughed again, explosively, his skin flushing with the force of his lungs’ exertion.
Kendrick slung the baldric from his shoulder and pulled the sword free of his sheath.
“In days long ago, men were bound by the guest right. That is the right of protection and sanctuary to a guest who comes into a house by the house holder. In this case, this is my house, and you are the guest.” He laid the sword on the bed and put his hand on the blade.
“And I will swear to you that no harm will come to you under my roof. May my blade turn against me should I fail in this.”
No doubt suitably impressed by the large weapon, the boy blinked owlishly.
“To seal the bond, put your hand on the blade and say that you accept my hospitality.”
The boy extended a hand. One round of washing could not eradicate all the dirt under his nails. “Cor blimey,” he said. “Right you are, guv’nor.”
Good enough, Kendrick thought. “Now I am bound to protect you, Fletcher. No one will hurt you in my house.”
“Or you’ll stick them with that bleedin’ great sword?” Fletcher demanded around a raspy cough.
“That’s right. Now drink all of that tea Joseph has for you.”
Genevieve stood and put the sword against the wall. “Weaponry does not belong in bed.”
“I’ll remember that for later,” Kendrick said dryly.
She would ignore the double entendre for now in favor of larger matters. “Did you magic him?” she demanded under her breath. “Fletcher deserves to make decisions and feel safe as much as anybody.”
“Not actively. I think it was a small boy’s awe at weaponry more than anything.” When she shot Kendrick a narrow look, he said, “I will keep a hold on it. And I mean what I said. He will be safe in this house.”
“Good.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
“How did you meet the child?”
“A year and a half ago, I noticed him in the streets as I went out to feed and began to recognize him as a regular face in the crowds. More so later when I approached Sally and some other women about childminding. I think I spoke to him once when he was sweeping a corner and gave him a penny. One of the first I earned on my own. He began to greet me when I came across him and then walk me to and from the East End. He’s a very smart boy.
Very curious. Also very proud and resistant to help.
A few times, I suggested charitable organizations, places he could go, but he refused.
” She swallowed. “It was so hard to know he was alone on the streets, but he didn’t want what help I could give him. I should’ve seen he was getting sick—”
“This is not your fault,” Kendrick said firmly. “Has he told you what happened?”
“He developed a bad cough or cold. And then he came upon boys wanting to do mischief to the dog. He put himself between the dog and their knives and snatched it up, but he couldn’t outrun them. They kicked him,” she said. “Joseph had to wrap his ribs.”