Page 7 of The King of Whitechapel (Victorian Outcasts #7)

seven

E LIZABETH DIDN’T WANT to shut the door.

She had to watch Christopher for as long as possible. Maybe she was too pessimistic, but leaving at that moment was wrong. Lethally so.

Every instinct inside her screamed for him to stay. As much as she was desperate to send word to her parents, she didn’t believe that was the right moment.

He took a side path that seemed clearer from the snow compared to the others, but something bothered her. She didn’t know the area around the cottage as well as the moorland around Spencer Hall, but the small lake lay in that direction. Christopher was going to walk right over its frozen surface. Was it safe? How deep was the lake?

She first calculated the value of the “fifteen freezing days” constant. The thickness of the ice increased at a rate of one inch for every “fifteen freezing degree days” in a twenty-four-hour period. Approximating the value of the temperature, the result wasn’t encouraging. Merely a couple of inches. And Christopher weighed around one hundred and eighty pounds plus the clothes. Not good. And Miss Martin said maths was useless.

The temperature was low enough to have frozen the surface of the lake almost completely, granted the lake wasn’t too deep. Surely the ice wouldn’t crack, would it?

She had barely time to think about that before he vanished from view as if sucked into the ground.

“Christopher!”

She darted out of the cottage as fast as she could. The blanket impeded her movements, so she dropped it. Her breath came out in harsh pants through the freezing air as she pushed her legs to their limit. The oversized clothes didn’t help trek forwards.

Snow filled her large boots while she tried to follow his deep footprints in the snow. She snatched a thick stick likely from a broken tree branch.

At the edge of the pond, she crawled over the ice on her belly, wincing at the contact with the cold snow.

He was down to his shoulders in the icy water. No shout came out of him. The cold must have shocked him into silence.

She shuddered, almost losing her grip on the stick. “Grab this.”

She stretched out the stick towards him, aware that unless he crept out of the hole himself, there was little she could do. But she had to try something.

Teeth chattering, he grabbed the stick with both hands, and she pulled as much as she could, inching backwards. His face was ashen, and his lips were the same colour as his eyes.

“You need to help me,” she said. “I can’t pull you out on my own. You must get to a horizontal position and kick your legs towards the edge.”

He did as told, and between her pulling and his kicking, he crawled out of the icy hole.

“Don’t stand up.” She took his arm and tugged him towards her. “Roll with me until we are on the path.”

A roar like thunder shattered the eerie silence. The gale resumed howling with a vengeance, like a monster just woken up from its sleep. The cold gusts froze the water on her clothes, her muscles contracted to the point of spasming, and pain slashed through her like blades. He couldn’t have been faring better. He shivered so hard his hands moved out of control.

“Quick.” Holding him up as best as she could, she slogged through the snow towards the house.

The wind pushed her from behind, lifting the fresh snow on the ground and carrying new flakes. She could barely see through the thick sheets of angry snowflakes. Christopher leant against her too heavily. Her knees buckled.

“So-sorry,” he stammered.

They scrambled up to their feet and went on, half-dragging each other.

Shutting the door took her a few attempts, both because her hands were stiff with cold and because the wind was too strong. Christopher’s silence worried her.

“We must be quick,” she said, blinking the snow away from her eyes.

She half-shoved and half-pulled him towards the fire while starting to strip him of his wet clothes.

He helped, but his movements were slow and clumsy. She yanked his coat and jacket off, muttering under her breath as the scarf got in her way. His boots didn’t cooperate. Their soaked, frozen laces couldn’t be untied.

From the kitchen, she snatched a pair of scissors and cut the darned laces. Then it was a matter of ripping the drenched shirt, trousers, and … everything else. Goosebumps swelled on his naked skin as his teeth chattered so hard she feared he might bite his tongue off.

As he turned around, his back was exposed to her, and the shock made her forget about the cold for a moment. Scars marred his skin, thick and ugly as if an animal had clawed him. She couldn’t hold back a gasp. Someone must have whipped him hard, and the bruises from the recent beating were still vivid.

But it wasn’t the moment for questions. If he died, she wouldn’t be able to ask him anything.

“On the sofa.” She helped him lie down and covered him with a few dry quilts.

Her wet clothes froze her body, so she added a log to the fire before stripping as well.

There was no time to think about her modesty or propriety, about right and wrong. He needed to get warm fast. Fully naked, she lay next to him, shivering at the contact with his cold skin.

She covered his arms and shoulders. “Why didn’t you listen? When this is over, I’m going to give you a piece of my mind.”

His breathing came shallow when he tried to speak, and he seemed to have trouble keeping his eyes open.

“Shush. Any excuses you’re thinking of, they aren’t worth it. It was a stupid idea. Save your energy.”

The more she rubbed him, the warmer she got. The exercise thawed her limbs, but his temperature didn’t rise, and he kept shuddering. He hadn’t stayed in the water for long. His chances of recovering were good. They had to be. Dash it, she didn’t know the probability of surviving after a full immersion in the freezing water, but he was well-built and healthy. There was hope.

“I’ll make some tea.”

She wrapped a blanket around herself and brewed a fresh pot of tea, casting glances at him. His strong quivers made him look as if he suffered from convulsions.

She had to help him drink it, but after the second cup, he stopped shivering and his lips regained their pink colour.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “I’ve never been so cold in all my life.”

“I told you not to go. Did you listen? No.” Now that the scare had passed, a flare of anger threatened to come out. “When the wind calms down, we must wait to see if the weather is turning again. The colour of the sky needs to change from grey to blue before we venture out. We’re safe here for now.”

He nodded. “I know. I wanted to get help for you.”

“I’m fine.” Her voice cracked with the fear of having almost lost him. “Don’t scare me like that again.”

She hugged him. He rested his head on her chest, and they remained like that until she fell asleep.

The sun lowered by the time she woke up. She touched him, worried he might have died while she was sleeping, but he was warm again. Sighing in relief, she crushed him into a hug that woke him up.

“Elizabeth.” His voice came muffled as his mouth was squashed against her shoulder. “… need to breathe.”

“Better?” she asked when she released him.

“Much better.” His voice sounded strong again.

Oddly enough, not an ounce of embarrassment bothered her. They were naked, holding each other with only a blanket separating them. Yet a sense of trust and safety spread through her.

She stroked his back, feeling the bumps of the scars on the skin. Heavens, the whipping must have been incredibly painful. She traced every ridge, wondering how old the scars were.

His breathing quickened as she explored his past with her fingers.

“What did they do to you?” she whispered.

She didn’t expect an answer, but he spoke, his face buried in the crook of her neck as if seeking comfort.

“A group of Eton students attacked me in an alley with a whip one afternoon when we were in Windsor. They didn’t want a bastard in their school.” His words were hesitant, but their meaning wasn’t. “Officially, I was a distant relative of the Duke of Grafton, a cousin who was recently orphaned, but some students didn’t believe the tale, and my mother was a famous prostitute among the lords before retiring to become Father’s mistress.”

“Those students knew who your mother was?”

“Their fathers mostly. Or worse, their mothers. They resented women like my mother, considering them the cause of problems between their parents. Or they simply find the idea of the son of a prostitute repulsive. If anything, I was glad they’d taken their resentment out on me rather than on my mother.”

A sob remained trapped in her throat. She held him more tightly.

“So I was attacked.”

“Even by Pearce?”

“No. That was the only time he defended me. The only time he took care of me.” He swallowed. “He intervened, stopping the beating and taking a few blows himself. Then he helped me go to the physician. He didn’t argue with me until I recovered.”

“That was decent of him.” She kept caressing the scars. “Did those students cause your expulsion?”

“No. It was Pearce. He got angry when he learnt that Father wanted to take me to Paris with him for a few weeks and leave Pearce in London. He accused me of poisoning Father’s mind against him. I told him I had nothing to do with Father’s decision. It was a surprise for me as well. The argument became heated, and we almost punched each other. He complained to the headmaster, saying I stole his pocket watch. The headmaster didn’t even ask me if the accusation was true.”

She squeezed him. Only the blanket around her separated their bodies, but their souls were fully in contact. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” His voice cracked with so much pain she felt a pang in her chest.

He wrapped his arms around her, and she held him closer as the storm pounded against the cottage. His breathing came out in a slow rhythm, and his muscles loosened.

They fell asleep again on the sofa, hugging each other against the world.