Chapter 14 #3
Amelia went still, then turned and looked at him. “Are you referring to Dr. Hart?”
He gave her a drunken leer. “You’re the person who decided my wife was dead?”
“Your wife passed away in the middle of the night after asphyxiating in her sleep from phlegm coughed halfway out of her lungs.” Amelia glared at him. “If someone had been there to slap her back and get her upright, she’d probably have survived.”
He reared back at the thinly veiled accusation.
“Or it could’ve been the pneumonia, really. But who’s to say?” Amelia gave an exaggerated shrug. “Maybe we could blame the empty coal scuttle or the man who’d drunk away his wages instead of paying a tuppence to refill the scuttle!”
His face went red. “Why, you bitch.” He loomed over the counter, eyes fixed on Amelia.
Ellen surged into action. “No, you’re the problem here, Mr. O’Malley!
” Her temper poured forth. She didn’t even check to see if the O’Malley children were still upstairs eating a snack with the Daugherty children.
Ellen jumped to Amelia’s side. “You shall not blame the doctor for speaking the truth. You caused her death.”
O’Malley swung his head to look at Ellen, murder in his eyes.
“You whittled away at her health, night after night. Her life drained away each time you ignored the midwives’ prescriptions and she suffered the consequences. By the time winter came, she didn’t have enough life to sustain herself, let alone the new babe in her belly.”
“Ah, Mrs. Glenfall.” He sneered at her, looking her up and down. “The high society lady who likes to slum it with us undesirables.”
Ellen bristled.
“See here,” a man put in from the crowd. “She saved my wee one from wasting away four years ago. Taught us about glass bottles and rubber nipples. She does good charity work.”
“I am the reason your Opal is still alive,” she told him. “Tina reached out to me for help—were you even aware your infant was starving?”
He stuck a finger in her face. “You watch yourself, little lady. We aren’t so genteel as Mayfair, and you’ll not go casting aspersions on my character without consequence.”
Ellen drew herself up to her full height and looked at him.
“Aspersions on your character? Such as drinking most of the day when you should be sweeping chimneys? Pulling your son out of school even though we all know Tina wanted him to stay another year? And now you slink in here, not even asking how to arrange a burial? Not facing her body? You coward. You are the reason four children are motherless. I’ll shout it from the rooftops, I will. ”
His face went from red to purple. “I ain’t ever hit a woman before, but you’re a good one to start with.” He made a fist and swung.
Before Ellen had time to flinch, a hand grabbed his fist, and in one smooth movement, O’Malley’s arm twisted behind him in a vise-like grip. She gasped, and Amelia threw an arm around her shoulders.
“You will not speak to my wife that way,” Mark said in low, unmistakable tones.
“You will walk out this door and never bother the dispensary staff again. You will either sober up and become the best father in London, or you will find a safe and loving home for your children.” He pressed O’Malley’s arm tighter, pushing the man up to his tiptoes.
He used a voice Ellen had never heard before.
It was cold, commanding, and brooked no room for argument.
O’Malley winced, alarm finally cutting through the drunken glaze in his eyes. “Get off me! You have no right.”
Mark leaned in close enough to murmur in his ear. “I think you’ll find no one in this room is sympathetic to you. You killed your wife because you were too selfish to use your hand for pleasure or keep the coal scuttle full. And everyone knows it.”
Ellen shivered at the dangerous edge to Mark’s voice. She hadn’t known he could sound like that. Amelia gripped her tighter in response.
O’Malley glanced around the room, suddenly aware of the silent audience. Roughly ten adults and a handful of children all stood, watching. None of them looked ready to step in on O’Malley’s behalf. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Let me go,” he growled.
Mark merely took his other hand and gripped O’Malley’s shoulder, pinching a nerve by the way O’Malley jerked. “Do you understand you will never, ever approach these women again? You will not look at them, or I will track you down and throw you in the Thames.”
Rage festered in O’Malley’s eyes, but he knew he was overpowered.
“Now get out.” Mark released O’Malley so quickly he lost his balance and slammed his hip against the counter.
Ellen flinched.
Mark flicked his gaze to hers in concern, then focused his attention back on O’Malley.
The man snarled at Mark. “You motherfecking bastard.”
A woman gasped in the small crowd.
Two men stepped forward, grabbing O’Malley’s arms and manhandling him backward. “You’re drunk, you oaf,” one reproached him. “Your wife might be dead, but you still have children to provide for.”
O’Malley jerked, but the men held fast.
One of the men, the father of a baby who’d lived for only six days under Ellen’s care, nodded to her as he backed the belligerent man out of the room.
The door slammed shut, O’Malley and the St. Giles men on the other side. Everyone heard raised voices, the men coaxing O’Malley away while he argued to go teach the toff a lesson about real men.
Ellen let out a breath.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Amelia said in a low voice. “You shouldn’t have taken his attention off me.”
Ellen patted her friend’s hand on her shoulder shakily. “I may have gotten carried away. But he deserved it.”
“He may have deserved it, but that was dangerous, Ellen.” Mark scowled at her, brown eyes hard and dark.
Ellen raised her chin. “He was drunk. He’ll not come back again, and if he does the neighborhood will protect me.” She looked past Mark around the room, to the patients awkwardly either watching them or pretending to make their own conversations.
“He was drunk and he tried to hit you, Ellen.” He didn’t move toward her, but Ellen felt his focus like an electric bolt to her body.
“He was drunk,” Ellen agreed. “He won’t try that sober.”
Amelia stepped away, giving Mark a long, searching look. Then she ordered the waiting room back into organization and took her next patient. “Show’s over. Step lively, now.”
Mrs. Daugherty stepped beside Ellen. “Thank goodness the children were upstairs for all of that.” She looked between Mark and Ellen. “I think it’s best Ellen goes home for today.”
Mark nodded. “Come on, Ellen.” He reached a hand out, and Ellen took it as she walked around the edge of the counter to join him.
It was hard to believe his hand, so warm and comforting, had threatened such violence to O’Malley just moments before.
He didn’t let go of her as they walked to the door.
Ellen reached for the knob, but Mark held her back. “Let me go first.”
Ellen was touched at his concern, but also impatient.
Still, she let him walk out the door, then gesture for her to follow.
Once in the cold winter air, Mark wrapped an arm around her shoulders, tucking her close.
They hurried up to New Oxford Street, and he hailed a cab.
Ellen didn’t even realize she was shaking until he had her sitting in the hansom and was wrapping her cloak more tightly around her.
“There, there,” he murmured. “I shan’t let him hurt you. I promise it.”
Ellen looked at him. “He doesn’t scare me. He’s a coward.” Her fingernails cut crescents into the palm of her hand despite her words.
“He should,” Mark growled. “Even cowards can injure people. While drunk he was angry enough to punch you in the presence of a dozen witnesses. What do you think he’ll be willing to do when he’s sober?”
Ellen went cold. “I didn’t think of it like that.” She leaned into Mark, and he put his arm around her, resting his chin on her cloak-covered hair. “I was thinking of the children.”
“And Tina,” Mark said, and she felt the rumble in his chest.
“How did you know about it?” Ellen asked.
“As soon as I sat on the bench I overheard what had happened. I recognized the name.”
Ellen shuddered in his arms. “She was dead, Mark. Just lying there, cold as ice.”
His arms tightened around her, and she listened to the steady thumping of his heart. “I’m so sorry.”
A tear trickled down her cheek and fell on his greatcoat.
“I’ve seen death before, far too often. Usually I see death come to a person surrounded by loved ones.
There is sorrow because there is also love.
But this...she died in the middle of the night while her children slept beside her.
And the children were too traumatized or numb to even react to her death. She was...stiff and cold.”
“What can I do for you?” Mark murmured into her hair.
“Hold me. Just hold me.” Another tear escaped, splashing on one of his buttons.
When the horse clopped to a stop in front of their home, Mark paid the driver and then carried Ellen out of the cab. She wasn’t sure how he managed it. He carried her up the steps slick with sleet and only set her down long enough for Gaye to take her outerwear.
“Tell Cook we’ll have a small tray in Mrs. Glenfall’s rooms,” he called over his shoulder as he swept her up again and made for the stairs.
Ellen’s heart squeezed in affection. She felt coddled and protected from the harshness of the world in that moment, and she clutched the lapel of his coat and buried her face into his waistcoat.
I think I love you, she thought. Please don’t break my heart again.