Finally, she lifted her good hand to her face, but stopped short of poking her fingers into the new mechanical eye that helped her see so well in the dark.
The door opened. The man who entered was dressed in shadows, a dark jacket over dark trousers, with only a little of the light from outside to show his face—scruffy with an over-long beard. He stepped closer to the bed, and she instinctively pulled away, deeper into the pillow.
“Ah, I’m glad to see that you’re awake again,” he said. “I hope we won’t have any more trouble from you.”
“Who…who are you?” Her voice came out as a raspy croak that was hard on her throat.
“You don’t remember? Well, then I’m Dr. Helmholtz, of course.” The gaze he drew over her body was impersonal, assessing, clinical.
Yes, she had some recollection…some memory of him. This was the man who had refused her desperate pleas to let her die. She recalled his voice, his confident assurances that he would fix her, make her better. If this was better…
She started to remember other things too, things she would have chosen to keep forgetting if given the chance. “Why have you—?”
The doctor approached the bed and she noticed the long-needled syringe in one hand.
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t want any more drugs.” It must be the drugs fogging up her brain, making her confused.
“Not drugs, not exactly.”
She fought, surprised by her own strength. He yelled over his shoulder for help and three male orderlies rushed in. They held her down like an animal as the doctor straightened. He depressed the needle’s trigger until a fine line of liquid splashed out of it. She looked over his shoulder and noticed a fourth man had entered the room. He remained in the shadows just inside the doorway and watched.
“Don’t strain yourself now, madam,” the doctor said, the effort to hold her down coming through in his husky voice. “We wouldn’t want the War Office’s expensive new commodity to be damaged before they’ve gotten their money’s worth out of it.”
What did that mean? What was this hospital? Why had they done this to her?
The needle penetrated her neck and she let out a deep groan. She peered closer at the man in the shadows. She thought she should know him too, but the drugs were quick and it was soon hard to focus.
Until he stepped forward. He pushed the doctor out of the way and loomed over the side of her bed. She gasped at the sight of the scar bisecting his face and the black patch over his left eye.
He took her chin in his hand and turned her head from side to side. She almost expected him to pull her bottom lip out and check her teeth. She jerked back, but her body was growing weaker, too weak to wield her heavy, iron limbs against him. Too weak to think or protest the fog rushing back up to claim her.
No. Please, no.
Jasper.
Where was Jasper?
Chapter Two
The snow fell hard and fast, a wall of fluffy white obscuring the world through the frosty window until Jasper could almost believe there was no world at all beyond the train. That the steam pushed it along on rails into nothingness, taking him nowhere.
He snorted and shook his head. Ridiculous. He was definitely going somewhere.
After four months, he was finally going to retrieve his wife.
A sharp rap on the cabin door saved him from an examination of the uncomfortable, heavy sensation in his chest. He looked up through the thick square of glass inset into the door, and waved Murphy inside. The door slid open on a heavy rush of processed air.
“Colonel, we’ll be in Manchester within the hour. I’ve already wired the clinic to expect us before evening’s end and Mrs. Campbell has responded with confirmation that she will arrange for a carriage to pick us up.”
“Thank you.”
“Will you be needing anything more before we stop, then?”
“No, I don’t think so.” The only thing he needed was at the end of this long overdue journey.
“I’ll see to the luggage, and as soon as this iron death trap pulls to a stop we’ll be ready to roll.” Jasper resisted a smile at his lieutenant’s expense. Murphy had made his discomfort with their choice of transportation more than plain, but had refused to stay behind.
With a short bow, the man left him alone again and Jasper turned back to the window. His hand went to the inside pocket of his vest and closed around the pocket watch, but he didn’t remove it to check the time. There was no need. The train had started to slow already in anticipation of moving into the station. He felt the gentle drag pulling him deeper into the plush velvet seat.
Soon now. Soon he would be with Callie again.
It would be the first time he’d see her since leaving the clinic four months ago. He’d been ordered back into the field to hunt down the men responsible for her attack. It was believed that the same group was also behind the torture and death of a number of other British intelligence officers, including Colonel Wyndham—a friend of Jasper’s.
He had intended to defy those orders, needing to stay with Callie at the clinic. But when she’d finally awakened and her screams had only subsided when he was no longer in the room, it was decided his presence would hamper her physical progress, and the doctor had suggested he give her time to adjust. Callie’s health was, of course, far more important than his wishes, and so he’d gone.
Yes, he’d gone, but insisted on being sent a weekly wire with the details of each and every one of her operations, the drugs she’d taken and every facet of her difficult rehabilitation. The procedures undertaken for her recovery had been extreme, depending upon radical notions and the availability of sophisticated equipment.
He knew she’d refused to walk for a long time, still rarely spoke, and that she continued to experience terrible nightmares, although the doctor postulated that she didn’t remember much if anything of the actual attack. That the trauma of it had proven too much for her conscious mind, forcing her to lock it all away. He said he’d seen it in patients often enough. Since Jasper himself had witnessed what horrible trauma could do to even experienced, deadly soldiers, he almost approved of his hardheaded Callie pushing the bad memories out of her head rather than letting them consume her and take her sanity.
The only thing he didn’t know was how she would react when he arrived. If they could get past this. If they would ever be happy again.
His hand clenched into a fist in his lap as he remembered the sound of her laughter. He somehow doubted he’d hear that sound again soon, but he would do whatever it took to make it happen. For her, he’d try anything, give anything. Risk anything.
Just as she had risked all for him.
What should have been a short carriage ride to the clinic took longer because of the unexpected strength of the snowstorm. If not for the motorized ski carriage made available to them by Mrs. Campbell, Jasper and Murphy would have been stranded overnight…and Jasper could not have borne another moment away from Callie after coming so far to claim her.
They drove through the working class districts of Manchester, skirting the slums of Old Town where the airships flew in slow circles overhead, their bright spotlights constantly moving over the surface of the streets. They were equipped with far-seeing night-vision telescopes that patrolled the area in the evening and at night when it was too dangerous to send officers into the neighborhood.
Here, the city was teeming with life, all of it dirty and hungry, working ceaselessly for a pittance. In Old Town lay a never-ending maze of narrow cobblestone streets. The rundown tenements of Long Millgate and Todd Street boasted worse than deplorable conditions. The houses had been packed together in haphazard confusion, so close that two people could not have walked down the alleys side-by-side. Twenty to thirty thousand people lived packed together in that filth and decay.
Looking out the small carriage window, Jasper noticed there was less snow on the streets here. It couldn’t pass through the thick layer of black smoke that hung like a ceiling above th
e rooftops, rooftops that stretched like spikes into the sky as chimneys belched more smoke for the masses to breathe into their lungs.
Finally, they arrived at the clinic and waited patiently at the foot of the long drive until the wrought iron gates swung open remotely to let them pass. As the ski carriage continued forward, the main building rose before them. It towered over every other, a black sentinel whose oddly shaped turrets somehow tricked the eye into thinking that it was made of more than just bricks and mortar. The ramparts surrounding the property both kept the rabble out and its residents in. The forbidding façade never failed to intimidate, and Jasper was always surprised by how much it differed in atmosphere from the inside of the private hospital.
The carriage pulled to a stop and Jasper practically leapt out of it and strode quickly up the steps. The large twin bronze doors had been decorated for Christmas with holly vines and other greenery. When they creaked open he was met by a dour-faced footman. Murphy went off with the bags while Jasper was shown into the velvet drawing room—as far from a hospital setting as was likely to get.
A rich oak Yule log crackled in the hearth, its scent reminding Jasper of Christmases past. God, how he wanted to be home with Callie in time for the holidays.
The clinic’s grande dame, Mrs. Bernice Campbell, stood with a flourish of her wide silk skirts and approached him. “Good evening, Colonel. And best of the holiday season to you. Had a bit of a trip, I take it?”
Jasper lifted her hand, feeling the strength in her iron fingers beneath the black leather of her glove. He leaned low to drop a polite kiss to her knuckles before they each took a seat.
He felt restless and impatient to see Callie, barely restraining the urge to tap his foot. The last thing he wanted was to take tea and indulge in banal conversation, but he understood the importance of appearances. “A minor delay, but we made it all in one piece.”
Mrs. Campbell smiled and reached for the teapot on the low table between them. “Such an inconvenience, this weather. Is it not? When will the brilliant minds of our time put their genius to good use building a contraption that can give me sunshine instead of rain, and sweet breezes instead of snow?”
“I rather think that we shall never have such an ability, Mrs. Campbell. Which is perhaps for the best. Already, our species trifles with and manipulates too many things which nature never contemplated.” His gaze strayed to the door. Suddenly, he was not so eager to make his way to the stairwell that would take him up to the patients’ rooms.
“Ah, well. If not for our ‘trifling with nature,’ your wife might not be with us today.”
His head jerked back to the formidable woman who funded this clinic and the doctor’s work out of her own pockets. She watched him, seeming to see into the very heart of his worry and fear. “You’re very correct, Mrs. Campbell. I apologize if my comment sounded…intolerant.” He coughed. “I assure you, I’m very grateful for everything you and Dr. Helmholtz have done for my wife.”
She took a small sip of tea before placing the delicate willowware back on the small table. “Not to worry, Colonel. It is a sad truth that society will disapprove of what it does not comprehend, and our dear doctor’s advancements are still received with great wariness by most. We are only grateful that the fine men and women who serve Britain’s greater interests are helped by Dr. Helmholtz’s skill.”
“That is very true.” Helmholtz had been working strictly for the War Office for the last year, and it was lucky for Jasper that it had offered the doctor’s help after Callie’s attack. He got to his feet. “I apologize for my rudeness, madam, but if you will be so good as to excuse me, I would see Calliandra now.”
“Yes, of course. When you’re ready to turn in for the night, we’ve made up a room for your use. Your man can show you which one, and hopefully you will be able to entice Lady Carlisle to the breakfast table in the morning.”
“I look forward to it. Thank you.”
She clasped her hands together crisply. “Now, go on. Don’t let me keep you any longer. Lady Carlisle has been informed of your arrival and awaits you upstairs. You know the way, I believe.”
He nodded. Apprehension and elation warred within him. At the doorway of the drawing room he stopped to look back over his shoulder. “Does she… Will she…?”
“Your lady wife is Calliandra, the most celebrated danseuse of the age, is she not?”
He nodded.
“A woman who could achieve the level of celebrity on the stage that she did from such humble beginnings and in such a short time has already proven she has the kind of strength and determination that will get her through something like this. Give her a chance.” The formidable woman’s tone was surprisingly gentle, although that was the only soft thing about her.
He knew she’d been the victim of a railway accident eight years ago that resulted in the loss of her hand. Thanks to Dr. Helmholtz and what must be an inner core of steel, she’d not only survived, but now lived with a fully functioning mechanical appendage. To thank the doctor properly, she had put her not inconsequential inheritance to good use giving him a place to practice his not inconsequential skill on others.
In fact, Jasper had heard of the clinic last year when his own sergeant had lost a leg to infection and been sent here to have an artificial limb fitted. The man had apparently recovered well, although he’d subsequently been reassigned to another unit. Jasper had thought then that a doctor who could accomplish such miracles might be both a magician and a devil.
He had thought it again when the lieutenant from the War Office had offered Dr. Helmholtz’s expertise to save Callie’s life, but by that time he’d been desperate and would have tried anything—even surrendering his own freedom to the War Office.
“Physically, Dr. Helmholtz says she has completely recovered.”
“Will she be able to dance?” Jasper knew how important that would be to her.
“For that, you would be better to ask the doctor.” The woman pressed her lips together and frowned. “Lady Carlisle may experience some restrictions of movement, but in many ways the new limbs should perform even better—” She paused at Jasper’s look and sighed. “I don’t know to what extent she might be able to dance again, but I think the likelihood would be low. In any case, although her recovery has been very quick…this is only my own untrained opinion, you understand…but there is still much healing for her to do.”
Yes, there was likely to be quite a bit of healing for the both of them to do. But he swore that from this moment forward, they would at least do it together. He wouldn’t leave her again.
Jasper bowed politely before he took his leave and returned to the large entrance hall.
At the top of the stairs, he automatically turned left. One of the things he liked about Mrs. Campbell’s clinic was that it was her home. As forbidding as it looked from the outside, inside ancestral portraits graced the walls, threadbare rugs covered highly polished oak floors that released the comforting smell of lemon oils into the air, and tea was served in the salon. Granted, specific areas had been stripped of such things and equipped with the doctor’s necessary surgical instruments, but otherwise it felt much like his own home. Formal, but lived-in. Intimate, and welcoming. Distinctly un-hospital-like in decoration.
He hadn’t wanted to leave Callie in one of those monstrosities with echoing caverns for hallways and hopeless, impersonal rooms that made a person want to bleed just to get some color on the walls. He shivered at the thought.
He walked slowly down the hall. It was easy enough to remember where everything was even though he’d stayed at Callie’s side almost exclusively until the moment they had forced him to leave. It still hurt to think of. The pain and desolation in her eyes had almost broken him. They’d had to drug her to get her settled down again, and then the doctor had come out and explained what needed to be done. Jasper’s horror had escalated with every new procedure proposed, but then he’d pictured Callie’s still, white face, her broken body hovering on th
e edge of death, and he’d said yes.
He’d said yes to everything.
Chapter Three
A uniformed man stood at attention in front of the door to Callie’s room. He lifted a hand in formal salute at Jasper’s approach. “Colonel, I’m glad to see that you made it through the storm without undue delay.”
Malcolm and Murphy were his most trusted men. He’d taken bullets meant for each of them, and they’d done the same for him in the line of duty. Things like that forged bonds that were about more than duty, and over the years the three of them had become very good friends.
He approached and clapped Malcolm on the shoulder, giving his other hand up for a firm shake. “How has she been?”
Just as Jasper would have expected, the captain got right to business and didn’t reveal his true feelings either by expression or deed. “All the physical components of Lady Carlisle’s rehabilitation are complete. The doctor has cleared her to leave the clinic whenever you’re ready to return home.”
Jasper’s gaze strayed to the door. It was the only thing that remained between him and his wife. “And what of her…psychological recovery?”
Malcolm paused. When he spoke, his tone hadn’t changed, was still completely professional, but Jasper knew the man well enough to be able to tell when something was bothering him. “Since my arrival two weeks ago, I don’t believe she’s spoken to anyone, and certainly not to me. I can’t be sure she even knows who I am.”
It was through Malcolm that Jasper and Callie had been introduced. They were childhood friends who had kept in touch after Callie started her dancing career and Malcolm left to serve his first tour under Colonel Wyndham. Before long she was renowned far and wide as a beautiful and talented prima ballerina, and Malcolm had eventually come under Jasper’s command.
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