Page 11

“ I t simply isn’t proper. You should not be here,” Mrs. Welling declared, planting herself in the doorway of Beacon House’s cramped dispensary.

Abigail didn’t look up from the mortar where she ground dried willow bark with methodical precision. The bitter, medicinal scent rose with each circular motion of the pestle. Pain shot through her ribs with every twist, but she kept her expression neutral.

“Good morning to you as well, Mrs. Welling,” she replied in a raspy whisper.

Mrs. Welling’s weathered face creased with exasperation. She stepped into the small room, her skirts brushing against the shelves lined with brown glass bottles and earthenware jars.

“Your sister sent a note round first thing saying you’d had a misadventure and would be staying home to rest today,” Mrs. Welling said, her tone softening slightly. “Yet here you are, sounding like you’ve been gargling gravel.”

Abigail tightened her grip on the pestle, continuing her work as if she hadn’t heard the objection. “Timothy’s fever spiked during the night. The willow bark supply has dwindled considerably, and he isn’t the only one with fever.”

“Don’t change the subject.” Mrs. Welling crossed her arms across her ample bosom. “You ought to be resting, not grinding powders when you can barely stand straight.”

“I assure you, I am perfectly?—”

“If you say ‘fine’ I shall box your ears, lady or no.” Mrs. Welling gave her a furious frown. “I’ve eyes in me head. You’re favoring your right leg something fierce, and that high collar in this heat tells its own tale.”

Abigail set down the pestle with careful deliberation and fiddled with the scales that refused to balance. “Marjory worries excessively. She needn’t have troubled you.”

“Troubled me? Girl, half the women here know what it is to be set upon by some brute.” Mrs. Welling took the small brass scale from Abigail’s hands with surprising gentleness. “Doesn’t do to pretend it leaves no mark on the soul.”

Abigail’s throat tightened, and not just from the bruising. The dispensary suddenly felt too small, too close. She busied herself with adjusting the sleeves of her dress to cover the marks on her wrists.

“It was merely an unfortunate incident,” she said. “I refuse to let it disrupt the work that needs doing.”

If I stop, I’ll think. If I think, I’ll feel. And if I feel ? —

Mrs. Welling sighed. “At least let me send Alice to help with the heaviest tasks. The girl’s got strong arms and a quick mind.”

“Very well.” Abigail conceded this small point, knowing it would gain her the freedom to continue her work. “But please, there’s no need to mention yesterday’s... events to anyone else. The women here have burdens enough without adding mine.”

Mrs. Welling gave her a long, searching look. “As you wish. Though hiding wounds never helped them heal faster in my experience.”

The sharp clatter of the front door saved Abigail from having to respond. Quick footsteps crossed the entry hall, accompanied by the swish of silk against wood. Abigail knew that brisk pace without needing to see its owner.

“Abigail Eleanora Finch!” Marjory’s voice rang through the corridor with the clarity of a church bell. “You impossible, stubborn?—”

Mrs. Welling raised an eyebrow. “I’ll just fetch Alice, shall I?” she murmured, slipping out past Marjory with a nod.

Marjory stood in the doorway, a vision in sea-green muslin with a matching parasol clutched in her gloved hand.

Younger by five years, she possessed all the beauty Abigail had once had, coupled with fierce intelligence that intimidated most of London society.

Marriage to the Duke of Sherton had only made her more formidable.

“You were meant to be resting,” Marjory said, lowering her voice as she closed the dispensary door. “Mother sent word that you were attacked. I specifically replied that you weren’t to leave your bed for at least two days.”

Abigail sighed, abandoning the pretense of work. “Since when do you dictate my movements?”

“Since you apparently lost all sense of self-preservation!” Marjory’s eyes narrowed as she examined her sister more closely. “Show me.”

“Show you what?”

“Whatever you’re hiding beneath that ridiculous collar. It’s hot as July, for heaven’s sake.”

Abigail didn’t move. “This is hardly the place?—”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Marjory stepped forward and gently unfastened the top buttons of Abigail’s dress before she could retreat.

Her sharp intake of breath was followed by a muttered curse that would have scandalized their mother.

Marjory only swore when emotion got the better of her, which meant she was well and truly incensed.

“It’s not as bad as it appears,” Abigail said, refastening the buttons with trembling fingers.

“It looks like someone nearly succeeded in strangling you.” Marjory’s voice shook as her expression shifted from fury to fear, before settling into the worst of all—pity. “And you’re sorting herbs? Have you lost your mind?”

“I’ve lost nothing but a day’s work,” Abigail replied, turning back to the scales to measure out the willow bark into individual doses. “Timothy’s fever won’t wait for my bruises to fade.”

“Timothy has Mrs. Welling and half a dozen other capable women to tend him.” Marjory took Abigail’s hands, stilling them. “You don’t have to carry everyone’s burdens to prove your worth, Abby.”

The use of her childhood name almost undid her. Abigail pulled away, busying herself with measuring the powdered bark onto a square of paper.

“This isn’t about proving anything,” she said, though the lie tasted bitter on her tongue. “It’s about doing what needs to be done.”

“Is it?” Marjory’s voice gentled. “Or is it about not allowing yourself a moment to breathe, to feel?”

“What good would that do?” Abigail demanded, raising her voice and instantly regretting it. She swallowed painfully and continued in a low whisper. “Shall I sit at home and weep? Perhaps I should faint dramatically onto a chaise lounge like some delicate flower in a gothic novel?”

Marjory didn’t flinch. “Perhaps you should acknowledge that something terrible happened to you. That you were hurt. That you were frightened.”

“I acknowledged it. Now I’m moving forward.”

“No, you’re running. There’s a difference.” Marjory leaned against the worktable. “I know something about this.”

Abigail’s hands stilled. Of course Marjory understood. Her sister had endured her own ordeal—kidnapped by the Marquess of Westfield. She’d escaped, but not without scars both visible and hidden.

“This wasn’t the same,” Abigail said quietly.

“No, it wasn’t,” Marjory agreed. “But the aftermath—the feeling that if you stop moving, it might consume you—that’s familiar enough.”

Abigail pressed her palms flat against the table, suddenly needing its solid support. “I can’t afford to be weak.”

“Being human isn’t the same as being weak.” Marjory touched her arm lightly. “Feeling the pain will not break you—I promise.”

The observation cut deep. A knot formed in her throat, threatening to undo her careful composure.

“I have my own way of coping,” she said, pulling her arm away from her sister’s touch.

“Yes, by running yourself into the bloody ground until someone has to carry you.” Marjory exhaled through her teeth. “God, Abby.”

After a beat, her sister sighed and shook her head. “At least promise me you’ll sit down while working. And no carrying anything heavier than this mortar.”

Before Abigail could answer, a sharp rap at the door preceded Alice’s round face appearing in the gap.

“Begging your pardon,” the young woman said, a hint of urgency in her voice. “It’s Timothy. His fever’s taken a bad turn, and he’s asking for you.”

Abigail was limping from the room before Alice finished speaking. She tucked a packet of willow bark powder in her pocket. Marjory caught her arm.

“Slowly,” she cautioned. “You’ll do him no good if you fall down the stairs.”

In the end, Marjory needn’t have worried.

Her body refused to be hurried, and the laborious climb up the stairs to Timothy’s room took far longer than she liked.

The small sickroom at the end of the corridor.

The small window was open, letting in a fickle breeze, and spotted shadows where the sun streamed through the leaves of a towering oak tree.

Timothy lay on the narrow bed, his thin face flushed with fever.

His chest rising and falling in shallow labored breaths.

I’ll add in Abigail giving Timothy the willow bark for his fever, replacing some of the sponging sequence as requested.

“Miss Abby?” The boy smiled through cracked lips and reached toward her. “They said you wasn’t coming today.”

Abigail sat carefully on the edge of the bed, taking his hot hand in hers. “And miss seeing the bravest boy this side of the Thames? Never.”

“Not brave,” he mumbled, turning his face away. “Scared. Can’t breathe good.”

“Brave people get scared too.” She smoothed his hair back off his burning forehead. “It’s what they do despite the fear that makes them brave.”

Timothy’s fever-bright eyes studied her face. “Your voice sounds funny.”

“I have a bit of a cold,” she lied, reaching into her pocket for the packet of willow bark powder. “Nothing that won’t mend.”

“Mrs. Foley said you got hurt.” His small hand touched her wrist where the sleeve had ridden up, revealing a dark bruise. “Like when my ma got hurt sometimes.”

Abigail’s heart constricted. Timothy’s mother had died at the hands of her husband, leaving the boy alone until Beacon House had taken him in. Of course he would recognize the marks of violence.

“Yes,” she admitted quietly, abandoning pretense as she mixed the willow bark into a cup of water from his bedside table. “Someone tried to hurt me yesterday. But a good man stopped him, and now I’m here with you. The world has both kinds of people in it—those who hurt and those who help.”

Timothy seemed to consider this. “Which one am I?”

“A helper, without question,” Abigail said firmly, helping him sit up enough to drink the bitter medicine. “The very best kind.”

A small smile flickered across his face before his eyes drifted closed. “Good,” he murmured. “Don’t want to be the other kind.”

His fingers curled around hers. Timothy’s eyes fluttered open again, studying her with that unnerving perception that children possessed.

“Were you scared, Miss Abby?” he whispered.

She paused, setting the empty cup aside.

Another lie sprang to her lips. She’d spent the morning armoring herself against Verity’s dramatics, Norman’s judgment, her mother’s concern, even Marjory’s well-intentioned probing.

But this simple inquiry from a child slipped beneath her defenses like water through a crack in stone.

“Yes,” she admitted as she reached for the basin of water. She met his earnest gaze and added, “I think I still am.”

Timothy nodded with his mouth set in a serious frown as he thought about this. “When I’m scared of the dark, you let me borrow your brave—remember? You tell me to hold on to it and nothing can hurt me.”

Something fragile within Abigail’s chest cracked, like an early frost that meets the sun. She nodded and gave him a watery smile.

He squeezed her hand. “You can borrow mine now, if you want. I don’t have much, but you can have some.”

A single tear slipped down Abigail’s cheek before she could catch it. She brushed it away quickly, but Timothy had already seen.

“Ma always said it’s all right to cry,” he said with the certainty of a child repeating something he’d been told and believed beyond doubt.

“You have a good memory, Master Timothy,” she said.

“I remember important things.” His small hand reached up to touch her cheek, wiping away a tear. “You can borrow my brave, and I’ll keep your tears safe. Nobody else has to know.”

The tenderness of the gesture—this child comforting her when it should have been the reverse—broke something loose inside her. A sob rose in her damaged throat, painful and raw. She caught it between her teeth, but it escaped nonetheless, followed by another.

Timothy simply held her hand as she cried and cried. Tears trekked unchecked as the boy’s eyes drifted closed. Abigail clutched the tiny hand in hers.

“I was so frightened,” she confessed in a broken whisper to the sleeping child. “I thought I might die there in that filthy alley, and no one would even know what had happened to me.”

The tears came faster now, spilling down her cheeks and onto their joined hands. She couldn’t stop them any more than she could stop the tide. All the fear she’d pushed down, all the panic she’d refused to acknowledge, rose within her like a wave.

For several minutes, Abigail wept for the woman she’d been, for the terror she’d felt, for the shame that still clung to her like a shadow. She wept because this child—this brave, perceptive boy who had survived so much—had given her permission to be broken when no one else could.

When the tears finally subsided, leaving her drained but somehow lighter, she gently tucked the blanket around Timothy’s small form.

“Thank you for the loan,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I shall endeavor to use it wisely.”

As she rose to leave, she caught sight of her reflection in the small window opposite—tear-stained cheeks, red-rimmed eyes, bruises visible where her collar had come loose. She looked nothing like the proper lady she’d fought so hard to become.

Perhaps Marjory was right. Feeling the pain didn’t break her. Tears weren’t a surrender. Perhaps they were simply the price of survival—the toll exacted by a heart determined to keep beating despite everything.