by Nerys Leigh
She tried to get Mary out first, but the little girl shook her head vehemently, clinging onto Millie’s skirt. With no time to try to convince her to let go, Millie instead beckoned another girl over to the window.
With a strength born of fear and determination, she lifted the girl up to where Ira was reaching through the narrow window to take her. He pulled her out and leaned in for the next child. Having seen that they were indeed being rescued, the rest of the children crowded forward and, one by one, Millie passed them to Ira.
After the third child, a little boy, was out, a gunshot startled them all. It was followed by several more.
Her heart in her throat, Millie looked at the door leading to the rest of the house. “George.”
It took all her willpower to not run to find him. Instead, she resumed her task of getting the children out, silently praying all the while for God to protect him, her stomach clenching each time another gunshot sounded.
Finally, just Henry and Mary were left.
“You go next,” Henry said to his sister.
She shook her head, clinging onto Millie’s skirt even harder. She hadn’t let go the entire time she’d been lifting the children out.
“You go,” Millie said to Henry. “Mary and I will come together.”
He glanced at his little sister, his face resolute despite his obvious fear. “I can’t leave her. It’s my job to look after her. I promised Mama.”
Millie held out her hand, wrapping her arm around his thin shoulders when he came to her. “You’ve done an excellent job and she’ll be so proud when we get back to her. But Mary won’t go without me and I won’t go without you, so you need to go first. I promise, we’ll be right behind you.”
Looking at Mary, he pressed his lips together and nodded.
Millie breathed out in relief. “Good. You…” Her heart lurched at the sound of running footsteps from outside the door. “Hurry, get on the…”
The door crashed open and the man who had been guarding the children rushed in. He stumbled to a halt at the sight of Millie, his eyes darting between her and the window.
Millie grabbed Henry and Mary and pushed them behind her. “Just let us go.”
The man raised his revolver. “Get out of my way.”
“The police are coming,” Ira said from the window. “If you leave now, you won’t get caught.”
“I’m not leaving with nothing to show for my trouble. I can get good money for those two.”
“Please, don’t do this,” Millie pleaded. “They’re only children.”
“I said, get out of the way!”
She flinched at his shout. Behind her, Mary whimpered and pressed against her back.
Millie raised her chin, trying not to tremble as she stared death in the face. “You’ll have to go through me first.”
The gun moved to aim at her head. “Not a problem.”
“No!” Ira yelled.
With nothing else to do, Millie prayed that somehow Henry and Mary would get to safety after her death.
The man’s finger tightened on the trigger.
A roar sounded from outside the door and George burst into the room, slamming into the man. They crashed to the floor together, struggling in a tangle of limbs.
The air cracked with the sound of a gunshot.
Millie screamed. “George!”
The man staggered to his feet, the gun still in his hand.
On the floor, George’s shirt was stained crimson.
All the breath left Millie’s body. Terror and fury replaced it.
Grasping the chair beneath the window, she rushed at the man and swung it with all the strength remaining to her. It struck his shoulders and head, cracking apart with the impact.
He fell to the floor and didn’t move.
Casting aside the remains of the flimsy chair, she threw herself down beside George. “Where are you shot? Is it bad? Can you move? Can you breathe? Speak to me!”
The corners of his lips tugged up in a pain-tinged smile. “Well I reckon I would if you let me get a word in edgewise.”
She gasped in what felt like the first air her lungs had felt in forever. He was alive, and he was talking. That had to be a good thing.
He pushed himself to a seated position with a grimace. “I don’t think it’s bad. Bullet just grazed my side.”
Overcome with emotion, she threw her arms around him.
“Ouch.”
She jerked back. “I’m so sorry.” She touched her fingertips to the hand he had clamped over his wound. “Does it hurt very much?”
“I’ve felt worse, but yes.”
She glanced at the still unconscious man on the floor. “Why didn’t you just shoot him?”
He gave her a rueful smile and patted the gun in its holster at his waist. “Ran out of bullets.”
Her chest jolted at the sound of footsteps pounding down the stairs beyond the door. She cast around for something to defend them. Seeing the man’s revolver on the floor, she grabbed it and aimed the trembling barrel at the door.
She breathed out when Ira appeared. In all the excitement, she hadn’t even seen him leave the window.
He crouched beside her. “Are you all right, Miss Ravensworth?”
“I’m fine, but George has been shot. He needs a doctor.” In actuality, she was feeling a little light-headed, but she suspected that would pass when her heart stopped trying to pound its way out of her chest.
“I left three men upstairs,” George said, grunting in pain when he moved to rise.
“They’re not a danger,” Ira replied. “I made sure of it.”
George nodded and sank back to the floor.
The man Millie had hit with the chair groaned, lifting his head and looking around blearily.
Ira rose to his feet. “I’ll make sure everything’s secure then I’ll go and fetch the police and a doctor. I’ll be back soon.”
Grabbing the back of the man’s collar, he hauled him roughly to his feet and dragged him from the room. They heard the man’s protest cut short by what sounded like a fist hitting flesh.
“Is it safe?”
Millie looked at where Henry was pressed into the far corner, arms wrapped protectively around his sister.
She raised her hand towards them. “Yes, it’s safe. It’s all over.”
The two children ran to them. Mary fell into Millie’s arms and Henry threw himself onto George’s lap with a sob. He winced but held the young boy tight against him.
Millie reached out to George and he took her hand. And she thanked God from the bottom of her heart for saving them.
Chapter 12
The police arrived quickly, followed by Ira with Millie’s father and mother and Mrs. Sullivan.
Henry and Mary hadn’t let go of George and Millie for even a moment since Ira had left, but the instant they saw their mother they ran into her arms. Watching the little family so overjoyed to be back together set George’s eyes burning, although that was no doubt due to the pain from the bullet wound.
It wasn’t that he was getting sentimental or anything.
It had all been worth it, including getting shot. Although George imagined it was going to be a while before he recovered from the sheer terror of seeing Millie with a gun pointed at her as she courageously protected the children.
The men Ira had securely tied up in the house were brought out and taken away. All four were still alive, although the two George had shot looked like they’d take a while to recover. He’d got one in the thigh and the other in the shoulder. He’d have liked to say it was intentional, but the gunfight in the house had been frantic and messy and his aim had been more to hit the men anywhere, rather than any specific part of them. He thanked God that he hadn’t killed anyone. The taking of a life wasn’t something he wanted to have to live with, however justified it would have been.
After the police had heard George and Millie’s account, they set out to search for whoever was coming to pick up the children. As it tu
rned out, they didn’t have to go far, with the covered wagon and three men just a couple of blocks away when they were caught.
Judge Ravensworth went with the police to make sure everything was done properly, announcing that he’d be personally overseeing the apprehension, investigation and prosecution of everyone involved with the gang of kidnappers. He swore to find every one of the children they’d taken, however long it took him.
George hated to admit it, but he could tell from the deference the police showed him that Millie’s father was a well-respected man, and probably rightly so. Although he still threw George a look that said he’d have been not at all bothered if his gunshot wound had been fatal.
With everything in hand, Ira and Millie’s mother took George, Millie, and Mrs. Sullivan and her children back to the Ravensworths’ house. With the police on their way to arrest the man who had sold Henry and Mary to the kidnappers, it was decided they should stay away from their home for the time being, and Ann offered them a room in their home for as long as they needed it.
From the way the wide-eyed children looked around when they got inside the Ravensworths’ home, it was clear they were going to enjoy the experience. And then Mini bounded up to them in a ball of excitement and they were soon playing happily with the little dog, the trauma of the kidnapping forgotten, at least for now.
Millie took George up to his room and he sank gratefully into the comfort of the bed, wincing at the pain in his side. He’d been bandaged up back at the house, but the wound was still raw.
“Doctor White will be here soon,” she said, taking his hand.
“Good,” was George’s only response. Stoicism was one thing, but being shot hurt a lot.
The doctor, a man a little older than George, arrived five minutes later and ordered him to remove his shirt, following it with, “You may wait outside if you like, Miss Ravensworth.”
“I’ll stay right here,” she said firmly, although George noticed a hint of color flush her cheeks when he pulled off his shirt.
She didn’t look away though, which was an effective distraction from the pain.
The doctor cleaned the wound, pronounced it small enough to not need stitches if George wasn’t worried about a scar, applied some kind of ointment, and wrapped him in a fresh bandage. He left with orders to keep it clean and offered some laudanum for the pain. George refused, despite the wound now hurting even more, thanks to the doctor’s ministrations.
He’d never liked the stuff. It made him feel too good.
After Doctor White had left, Millie sat on the edge of the bed and reached out to push a strand of hair from George’s forehead. He caught hold of her hand and pressed a kiss to her fingers.
He’d started out the day determined to leave, convinced it would be the best thing for both of them. But having seen her risk her own life to save Henry and Mary, and having experienced such raw fear at the prospect that he could lose her, he knew now that leaving her behind wasn’t a choice.
There was no avoiding the fact that he was deeply in love with Millicent Ravensworth. And it had taken almost losing her to make him realize that nothing else mattered but that.
“Marry me.”
She gasped, her eyes widening. “Are you serious?”
“Yup.”
“But this morning you were going to leave.”
“It’s been a long morning, and a life or death situation tends to make a man take stock of what’s important in his life. And what’s important to me is you. I love you, Millie, and I don’t want to leave without you. I want you to be my wife. I know I’m asking a lot. I can’t give you a big, fancy house like this, and you’ll be moving across the country away from your family and friends, and your life will change completely, and…” He came to a halt, suddenly realizing his little speech was more likely to convince her to say no than yes.
She was silent for a few moments, staring at the bedcover between them. And then she raised her eyes to his. “Say it again.”
“Say what again?”
“Say you love me.”
He lifted one hand to touch her cheek. “I never figured on falling in love again. I never even thought it was possible. But you’ve changed everything for me, Millie. I love you, from the bottom of my old, foolish heart.”
Leaning towards him, she murmured, “Glad to hear it,” and pressed her lips to his.
He figured that was an acceptance to his proposal, but when the kiss came to an end he thought he should ask anyway. “So is that a yes?”
“Yes, it’s a yes. It is most assuredly a yes.”
To his surprise, she pushed off her shoes and lay on the bed beside him, snuggling against his uninjured side and resting her head on his shoulder. Given that they weren’t yet husband and wife, it was thoroughly scandalous. Not that he was of a mind to care about that in the least.
He wrapped his arm around her and she smiled, closing her eyes.
“Just one thing though,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“I think you’ll have to convince your father I’m not the worst man on earth, or I reckon he’s liable to shoot me himself once he finds out.”
Chapter 13
Since she wasn’t currently angry with him, Millie knocked on the door to her father’s study and waited respectfully.
It was after seven and he’d only returned home ten minutes earlier from spending all day working with the police, so it had been somewhat unexpected when Harris had found her in the garden room with George to relay her father’s request that she come to see him. He hadn’t even had supper yet.
“Come in,” he called from inside.
She entered, closing the door behind her.
Some of her earliest memories were of being in her father’s study with him as he worked, playing with her toys on the floor or sitting in his lap while he wrote or read around her at the desk. Not this study. They’d lived in a smaller house back then. Not tiny — her family had always been wealthy — but smaller than this one. But she remembered her father, and this desk, and the love she’d always been surrounded by in his presence. He’d always made time for her, even when busy. She was his only daughter. His little girl, even now.
He looked up with a tired smile and she went to sit beside him.
“How did everything go?”
He released a long breath and sat back in the big, worn leather chair he’d had ever since she could remember. “The men who had the children at that house gave up everyone. The police rounded up most of the wider organization and they’ll have the rest in custody by tomorrow. Fifteen men and two women. They were working all over the city, taking children and selling them. We got the manager of Mrs. Sullivan’s building, and his wife. Both of them were involved, although just in finding children, not in the wider network. Of course, it’s not over yet. We have to find all the children they took, there’ll be more arrests of the people who bought them, places where they’ve been working shut down. It’s going to take months to sort it all out. I’m going to be very busy for the foreseeable future.”
A smile grew on her face as she watched him. “You’re loving this, aren’t you?”
He snorted a laugh. “I admit, I’ve missed working. Since I retired, I’ve felt somewhat aimless. This whole case is terrible, but being useful again feels good. When they asked for my help, I gladly said yes.”
She reached out to take his hand. “You’ve always been useful, working or not, but I’m glad you have something to do.”
“I think your mother will be happy to get me out of the house for a while too. She’s been trying to get me to take up a hobby since I stopped working.”
Millie laughed. “Trust you to find a hobby that involves stopping criminals.”
“What can I say? It’s who I am.” He gazed into her face, his thumb gently rubbing the back of her hand. “We need to talk about Parsons.”
“His name’s George, Daddy. You can call him George.”
He released her hand, his for
ehead creasing in a frown. “No, I don’t think I can. What he did today, taking you with him into a dangerous situation like that where you could have been hurt, was unacceptable. He…”
“He didn’t want to take me. I gave him no choice. He did everything he could to stop me.”
Her father huffed out a breath. “Millie…”
“I’m not lying. You can ask Ira if you like. I forced George to take me.”
She watched frustration play across his face. Finally he said, “Be that as it may, he behaved irresponsibly.”
“He was shot saving me and the children. He risked his life to save mine.”
He threw his hands into the air. “Why do you insist on making this so hard for me?”
“Why do you insist on hating him when he’s done nothing to deserve it? He’s a good man, Daddy. He’d be a good husband.”
Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on the desk and his forehead in his hands and groaned. “I know.”
Wait… what? “You know?”
He heaved a sigh, not lifting his head. “I’ve known it since you brought him in here to meet me the day he arrived. I saw the way he looked at you and I knew right then and there. I’d been so sure he was just after your money and I wanted to keep believing that. But deep down, I knew it wasn’t true.”
She couldn’t remember ever being so mystified by her father. He’d always seemed such a logical man. “Then why have you been doing everything in your power to make him leave?”
He raised his head to gaze at her, his eyes soft. “Because he’ll take you away from us. He’ll take my little girl away from me.”
Pain shuddered through her chest at his admission. “Oh, Daddy.”
She moved her chair closer and leaned her head on his shoulder and he wrapped an arm around her.
“I know you’re old enough to have your own life,” he said softly, “and be out on your own…”
“I’ve been old enough to do that for almost thirty years.”
His shoulder shook with his chuckle. “I know, but I’m still not used to it. Why do you think I bought you and Courtney that house when you married? I did it so you’d always be close by and he couldn’t take you away.”
