Page 28 of The Premonition at Withers Farm

“And you don’t?” Sid rose to her feet as well.

Molly ducked her head. She watched a tear fall, dropping onto the wood floor, staining it. Yes. She knew. She knew, deep in her heart, she had to move on. To be healthy again. To find healing. To find ... meaning. But when an earthly hell came to visit you, it didn’t just go away. It dogged your feet until—Molly glanced at the attic window—until maybe you actually started to see physical ramifications of it. Evil. Abandonment. Loss. It haunted you until it enveloped you entirely.

10

Perliett

George dabbed at the blood that ran down her cheek. Perliett eyed him cautiously. She’d never had George Wasziak offer her any personal ministrations, but now she could hardly argue against it. It was difficult enough to begin the removal of glass shards from human skin, let alone on one’s own face.

His eyes narrowed. Whether in concentration or sheer repulsion from the evening’s events, Perliett did not know. She was, however, very aware that Mr. Bridgers—Jasper, as he’d insisted after the mayhem that she dispense with formalities—sat quite close to her. Possessively almost. His own hands were bloodied, though he’d made George tend to her first.

“You’ve a shard of glass just below your eye,” George muttered. He dropped the cloth into a bowl of water, not taking his eyes off the glass shard lodged in her skin. “Miss Petra?” He directed his words to his nurse, who was in her fifties and unmarried. The town of Kilbourn knew Petra Adams as the proverbial spinster who was happy to be such and independent enough to be helpful to Dr. Wasziak.

“Yes, Doctor?”

“I need my tweezers.”

“Of course.”

Perliett had nothing to say. She could feel George’s breath on her skin, his eyes concentrated on the glass in her cheek. He’d yet to ask what had occurred. Ascertaining the injuries, George had hustled into the Van Hilton study, took a quick inventory of the shattered window, the glass strewn across the floor, and the gaslights around the room, now lit, which revealed the evidence of the thwarted séance.

“Can you remove it without scarring?” Jasper’s words split the tenuous silence between George and Perliett.

Perliett lifted her eyes to George but saw mostly his hand as he prepared to eradicate glass from her face.

George grunted.

“Ah, well then, do your dandiest.”

Perliett heard the goading in Jasper’s voice. She was well aware there was some sort of competition growing between the men. If George had anything other than sheer abhorrence toward her, Perliett would have suspectedshemight be the cause. So, knowing it wasn’t her, she was clueless as to why the two men would circle each other in verbal fisticuffs.

“Ow!” Perliett sucked in a breath as George closed the tweezers on the shard.

Miss Petra rested a stabilizing hand on Perliett’s shoulder.

“At least it’s small.” George’s breath whispered across her face. “Hold steady, Perliett.”

There was a familiarity in his tone, and a bit of warmth she wasn’t accustomed to.

“I’m going to extract it now.” And without hesitation, George did just that.

Perliett sucked in a breath as she felt the glass slide from her skin just above her cheekbone. Blood left a trickling path down her cheek, but George was fast to exchange tweezers and glass for cotton gauze, which he pressed there to absorb the blood.

His eyes met Perliett’s, and she swore the rest of the room drifted away until it was just the two of them, alone. There was a spark in his gaze. Something she couldn’t interpret. He was both bothered and worried and ... uneasy about something?

“There will be a small scar,” George said, although the dark abyss of his eyes didn’t flicker. “I can do nothing about that.”

“I understand.” And she did, only she wished it wasn’t so.

“I’m sorry.”

Perliett stilled.

George stilled.

“You’re sorry?” she squeaked.

He nodded almost imperceptibly.