Chapter Fifteen

“Madam, the child is at the door. Shall I let her in?” Dax wheezed and clacked the words like a defective teakettle. The boys had not yet had time to overhaul him, beyond giving his battered exterior a quick polish.

Clara, still at the breakfast table, paused with her teacup balanced between her hands and turned her gaze on her husband. Nearly a week had passed since Cassie was up on her feet and out of Dr. Rogers’ care, her right arm swaddled in plaster. Each day she had haunted the doorstep, a moth to flame.

Liam treated Clara to a forbidding scowl and grumbled, “Again? I swear by all the saints, I barely have you to myself anymore.”

How could he say that, when they had only just finished a bout of morning loving before coming down to the table? Indeed, Clara still tingled from his touch.

She lifted both eyebrows at him and turned back to Dax. “Let her in, please. Her mother will not want her out in the street.”

Dax trundled off, and Clara shot her husband an apologetic look. Since they were late coming down, all the other children were off about their business. They’d been enjoying a few precious minutes on their own—now ruined. No wonder Liam looked like a thundercloud.

“Can the child’s mother not keep her to home?” he complained.

“Cassie’s mother is away at work fifteen hours a day, and Cassie is still confused and in need of company.”

He said nothing but did not look appeased. Didn’t he understand the responsibility inherent in bringing someone back to life?

Cassie slid into the room and sidled up to Clara’s chair. The child, so thin and pale as to look almost transparent, fixed Clara with a wide, blue stare. “Morning, miss.”

“And how are you today, Cassie?” Clara returned. “Any ache in that arm?”

They had already established during previous visits that Cassie remembered nothing of the accident nor what had happened before. She claimed not to know her mother, either, and called her “the kind woman.” But she certainly knew how to find her way to Clara’s door.

And, could Clara turn her away when she was Cassie’s one touchstone?

“Have you had any breakfast, Cassie?”

“The kind lady gave me some porridge.”

“Are you hungry still?”

Cassie shook her head and quietly, determinedly, crawled up into Clara’s lap, where she pressed her face against Clara’s shoulder and clutched the front of her gown. Clara knew from experience how difficult it would be to pry the girl’s little fingers off again.

Liam muttered disagreeably beneath his breath.

“What’s that you say?” Clara asked him.

“Child’s like a damned limpet. Why do you put up with it?”

“I know what she’s feeling—as should you.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to let her climb all over you.” A sudden thought seemed to strike Liam; he stared at Clara with a new expression in his eyes. “’Tisn’t how you feel about me, is it, when I want to touch you?”

How could he even ask, with the memory of the intimacies that had passed between them, not half an hour since, still fresh in both their minds? True, when she married him she had not expected that kind of marriage or, in truth, any intimacies at all. Now she wasn’t sure she could give him up if she tried.

“Don’t be foolish,” she told him, but he did not look satisfied.

He parted his lips to reply but never had the chance. The dining room door opened once more. Ruella marched in.

“Still at your breakfast, are you?” she inquired, sweeping Liam with an appreciative stare. Clara didn’t know how she felt about the way Ruella looked at her husband, as if she wanted to eat him alive. Of course, Ruella had seen Liam naked, a sight difficult for any woman to forget. “Slug-a-beds this morning, were you?”

“It is barely eight o’clock,” Clara replied. She and Liam had been awake at dawn. He had moved above her, and…

He looked at her and his eyes gleamed, almost as if he heard her thoughts.

“And why aren’t you at the jail?” Clara asked Ruella quickly.

“Finished with serving breakfast there, didn’t I, and came as fast as I could. I have news.”

Ruella edged a chair out from the table and sat down facing them. Her gaze settled on Cassie. “What’s this, then? A new sprog?”

“This is Cassie.” Clara spoke above the child’s head. “She had an accident a while ago.”

“Ah! I did hear tell of a girl miraculously surviving a crash up this way.” Ruella’s slightly protruding eyes studied Clara with interest. “Did you—?”

“Hush!” Clara gathered Cassie closer. Liam grumbled again.

“So,” Ruella asked, “she lives here now?”

“She lives with her mother, who works very hard at a steam laundry. She just needs to be here from time to time.”

“I see. Well!” Ruella shot a look at Liam. “Appears, Irishman, you’ve some competition for her attention. Bet that puts your nose out of joint.”

“What’s your news?” he returned disagreeably.

Recalled to her mission, Ruella leaned across the table and widened her eyes. “Only that it’s happened again.”

“Eh?”

“At the jail—they hanged another man last night.”

Clara felt Liam stiffen even though they were not physically touching. She glanced down at Cassie, but the child slept soundly, cheek against Clara’s breast.

“How do you know?” Liam asked.

“Well, I got wind of something last evening when I was finishing up in the kitchen. Old Tim came stumbling in—he’s the prison sexton—and more than half sober for once. He doesn’t show up unless they send for him, and they never send for him unless they’ve a job. I knew there hadn’t been any fights inside, and there was no one ill. So all my suspicions were aroused.”

She waggled her eyebrows. “I’d been keeping my eyes peeled so long on your behalf, mind, it’s become instinct. I gave Old Tim a meal and pumped him for news. Not difficult to persuade him to say too much. He told me Maynard—that’s the warden—had sent for him on the Q.T. Could only mean one thing.”

“Maynard,” Liam repeated viciously. “Can’t say I remember him.”

“I never would have thought him on the take,” Ruella admitted.

“Are you sure it’s him and not the commissioner who’s crooked?” Clara asked.

“The commissioner rarely sets foot in the place. He’s usually wining and dining with his old-boy cronies. And Old Tim definitely said it was Maynard sent for him on the quiet.”

“Bastard needs settling, then, doesn’t he?” Liam growled. “Needs to meet with some vengeance in the dark.”

Clara and Ruella both stared at him. Clara’s stomach tightened. “You will not go there,” she told him. “Promise me.”

He lifted his eyes to her, and she felt his emotions burgeoning like those of some wild, avenging angel.

“Promise,” she pressed.

He shook his head slightly; a dark lock of hair tumbled over his forehead. “I will not make you a promise I cannot keep.”

“You can keep it! You are out of all that and have established a new life for yourself.”

“Have I?” The smile that curved his lips looked bitter and rueful. “That man stole far more from me than my life. He stole my past, the memories of my mother and my father, all the grief and laughter ever I knew, my youth, and my home. He stole the man I was—for the sake of his greed! Now he’s done it again. And you expect me to sit on my arse and be comfortable here?”

The panic Clara felt licked up, sharp and bright. “You’ll have to. Don’t you see the danger?”

“Danger?” He jerked his shoulder and scoffed. Switching his gaze back to Ruella, he asked, “You sure about what happened last night?”

Looking grave, she nodded. “I hung around after the kitchen was dark, to see, just as I did the night you, er—”

“Died,” he supplied the word.

Ruella shot a look at Cassie, but the child clearly slept deeply.

“I heard it, when they hustled one of the men out from the cells and into the yard. I heard the sound when he—fell. There was no struggle. I think this one died clean. Then Old Tim’s cart trundled away. He headed to the waterfront. The body will be in the river by now.” She added, “You’ll not prove anything.”

“I don’t need to prove anything. ’Tis not as if I’m planning to take him in front of a magistrate.”

“You’re planning nothing,” Clara insisted.

He ignored her. “Where does this paragon of a warden live? Surely not at the jail.”

Ruella shook her head and looked at Clara, as if realizing belatedly what she’d done. “I shouldn’t have come here with this news. Truly, Irishman, it will do no good for you to hunt him down.”

“How can you say so? ’Twill be a balm to my soul, provided I still have one. There’s an ethical question for you, Mrs. McMahon.”

Upset beyond all reason, Clara snapped, “Of course you have a soul.”

“Sure about that? I didn’t lose it when I died and started over new, like that mite in your arms? What makes up a man’s soul, anyway? If it’s his memories and all the things he’s learned along the way, then mine’s surely gone.”

“Jesus,” Ruella murmured.

Clara covered Cassie’s ear with the palm of her hand, as if she could protect the child from the blasphemy and from the emotions now zinging about the room. “Liam, let Ruella handle this. You will handle it, won’t you, Ruella?”

Ruella’s eyes widened once more. “Me? How?”

“Report your suspicions to the authorities. You’re in the perfect position to do so.”

Ruella pushed back from the table. “And lose me job?”

“We will be coming into our allowance soon, once Theodore straightens out the legal tangle. You can come back here to live, and work for me.”

“You’ll barely have the brass, or the room, with all these sprogs,” Ruella jerked her head, “and him living off you.”

“I can make me own way,” Liam retorted. “I’m that sure I must have some skills and abilities.”

“And how would that look to my grandfather?” Clara could not imagine why she felt so upset, but her morning crumbled around her.

“Like I’m an honest man of good intentions.” Liam leaned toward her and nodded at Cassie almost viciously. “I’m not that wee lass, wife, whom you can keep gathered up safe in your arms for all time. I’m a man, and I’ll live as a man or not at all.”