Where Cowards Tread

by Sabrina Flynn

  Riot looked up at her. “How old is ‘it’?”

  Isobel stared, at a loss. “It’s small. And bald.”

  “Babies can’t hold their heads up, Bel. You have to support them.”

  “Good God, are you serious?” Had she ever been so helpless?

  Riot handed Bertie the washcloth he had been using to clean the child. The boy promptly put it on his head and resumed splashing.

  “Haven’t you ever held one of your nieces or nephews?” Riot asked.

  “I never paid them much attention.”

  Riot gave a small shake of his head, and removed his spectacles to dry on a handkerchief. “I’ll telephone Doctor Wise.”

  Relief washed over her. “It needs changing too.”

  Riot showed his teeth. “You put me in charge of Bertie, here.” The child waved the washcloth around, sending spirals of droplets around the room. “Phurdy!” He looked very proud of himself.

  “I’ve only been here five minutes and I already want to run away,” Isobel admitted.

  Riot plucked Bertie out of the pot and wrapped him in a towel. “I’ll see what I can do about the infant. In the meantime…”

  An idea sparked in her mind. “I’ll call the cavalry.”

  Isobel left Riot to look for a telephone. She plucked up the earpiece and ordered the connection.

  “Ravenwood Manor,” a cheerful voice answered.

  “Miss Lily?” Isobel asked.

  “No, this is Maddie, Miss Bel. Ma is out. Is that a baby in the background?”

  It was. The baby had begun wailing again. Isobel slumped. “We’re on a case and the mother is in a bad way. She claims the baby has colic. It also has a dirty diaper. Do you know anyone who…” Isobel searched for the correct term, but discovered that child-rearing was not in her realm of knowledge.

  “Knows a thing or two about babies?” Maddie asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, they’re easy, Miss Bel,” Maddie claimed. She went on to list a number of remedies for colic.

  “How do you know so much?” Isobel interrupted her.

  “Ma was sick as a dog after Tobias. Of course, with all that happened—” Maddie cut herself short. “Anyway, me and Grimm were left to care for Tobias. That boy had colic something awful. Or so we thought. I think he was just loud, because he still won’t be quiet.”

  Isobel wondered what Maddie had been about to say. What happened to the White family? It wasn’t the time for that sort of question, though. Instead she asked, “How would you like to work for Ravenwood Agency?”

  Maddie didn’t hesitate. “What’s the address? I’ll come and get things sorted.”

  “You will?” Isobel nearly fainted with relief. “What about your schooling?”

  “I’ll make it up. Miss Dupree will understand. Will the ailing woman have negroes in her home?”

  Isobel clenched her jaw. Not over the inquiry, but that it had to be asked at all. “I don’t know, Maddie. I doubt she’s in a state to notice. But if she won’t, I’ll brain her.”

  Isobel relayed the address and hung up. She stared at the telephone for a moment, marveling at the confidence that Maddie had displayed over the telephone. The girl had been so shy during the events leading up to Isobel’s arrest, but had blossomed while she was incarcerated. Was it Miss Dupree’s influence? Or was Maddie in her element here?

  Riot walked in with Bertie in his arms. The boy wore a dish towel as a diaper.

  “Maddie is on her way.”

  Riot looked relieved as he set Bertie down. “Excellent. I’ll see what I can do about the baby.”

  Isobel glanced at the boy’s makeshift diaper. “Where did you learn that?”

  Riot paused on the stairs. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing a faint dragon tattoo curling along his muscled forearm. Riot had other tattoos, but only she was privy to those. And he still wore his shoulder holster with his No. 3 tucked securely inside. Hardly the picture of someone familiar with domestic duties. “The sensible thing for me to tell my wife would be that I had charge of an infant during a case, and Ravenwood was absolutely no help at all.”

  “And the foolish thing?” she asked.

  “Where there’s women, there’s generally children about.”

  “Ah.”

  Riot left it there. And so did she. She hadn’t asked Riot about other women. She knew of one who’d died years earlier. But she suspected there were quite a few more in his past. Not that she bore any jealously. Riot was double her age, after all. Still, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, so she left it at that.

  Isobel stared down at the toddler in a dishtowel. She could hear Riot’s voice, calm and sure, drifting from upstairs. Bertie stared back up at her, apparently struck with awe. Either that or he was plotting how to best claw her eyes out. She wasn’t entirely sure.

  “Show me Ella’s room,” she ordered the boy.

  The child threw his arms up in the air. “Alleee!” He ran towards the stairwell at break-neck speed. Isobel hurried after as he climbed the stairs, agile as a monkey. At the top, he shoved his head between the railing slats along with half his body, and dangled over empty air from the waist while cackling madly.

  Isobel’s heart leapt in her throat, but before she could catch him, Bertie pulled away, and stomped down the hallway. A tall gate had been placed in a bedroom doorway, and there were toys scattered about a small bed. Clearly Bertie had a future as an escape artist.

  The slapping feet paused long enough to ensure that Isobel was keeping up. Bertie gave her the maniacal grin of a jack-in-the-box, and darted into a room at the end of the hallway.

  Mrs. Spencer’s voice drifted through an open door. Isobel slowed to listen.

  “…he left us. Took all our savings. Abandoned us in worse straights than we were already in. There’s no money left for a doctor.”

  Riot was bent over the infant, deftly changing the flailing pink thing. “Dr. Wise is employed by my agency, Mrs. Spencer. It’s already included in your fee.”

  Dr. Wise was not employed as such, nor were his services part of the agency’s fees. Love swelled in her heart for Riot, even more than before. Something she didn’t think possible. How much love could a heart bear?

  Swallowing down her emotions, she walked past Mrs. Spencer’s room to where Bertie had disappeared. The boy was spinning around on a carpet. Inevitably, he got dizzy and fell to the floor squealing with laughter.

  Ella’s room was clean and well-ordered. A white iron bedstead with a dainty pink quilt. Postcards of far-off places and dream landscapes, and a calendar of flowers. A beautifully bound bible sat on the girl’s nightstand along with a handwritten piece of paper. Isobel read the flowery script.

  I’ll be your sweetheart/If you will be mine/All my life/I’ll be your valentine/Bluebells I’ll gather/Keep them and be true/When I’m a man, my plan/Will be to marry you.

  Isobel could not go on. The rest was equally as stomach churning. It had the sound of a song or poem.

  She thumbed through the bible. It was little used, the marker stuck somewhere in Psalms. An inscription on the inside read, May this help you achieve your dreams. Love Mother.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Isobel saw Bertie crawl under the bed. If he expected her to play ‘hide and seek,’ he’d be hiding there a very long time.

  Isobel shrugged out of her short coat, and laid it over a chair. Starting in one corner, she began carefully taking the tacks out of each postcard and reading the back. Most were blank. But one was from Port Arthur, China. ‘As promised. Yours truly, M.A. Serebrenek.’

  As Isobel opened the wardrobe, Bertie crawled out from under the bed clutching a stocking. He took one look at Isobel and bolted from the room. She watched him clamber over the gate to his own room. That child needed a locked cage.

  A dress that was out of fashion hung in the wardrobe, along with two older skirts and three blouses. A pair of battered leather shoes. The underthings were cheap, as were the blouses. No books.
No letters in the desk, just blank sheets of paper. She took the bottom sheet and laid it over the top sheet, then used a pencil to rub the page. Faint words took shape. The words to the nauseating song or poem on the nightstand.

  Isobel sighed. She turned to the girl’s bed, unscrewing the tops of the bed posts, then searching under the mattress and in the bedsheets. Finally, she tapped the floor for loose floorboards, but turned up nothing. There was nothing of substance in the room. It had the feel of a facade. Was it a result of Bertie’s tendency to get into trouble or was it due to an overzealous older brother?

  Where did Ella Spencer live her life?

  “Anything?” a soft voice asked from the doorway.

  “Nothing stands out.” Isobel said as she scooted from under the bed. Riot offered a hand. His sleeves were still rolled up, and the muscles along his forearm flexed as he pulled her to her feet. Isobel dusted off her split skirt, and drew his attention to the postcard from China and the sheet of words. “Do you recognize this poem?”

  Riot took the sheet from her and read the words. Aloud. “I’ll be your sweetheart. If you will be mine. All my life.” It was close to a whisper. Passionate. Deep. As he looked into her eyes, the words didn’t seem half as silly. But then Riot’s voice often stirred her baser instincts. She realized her lips were slightly parted.

  “We already swore to that in front of a one-eyed judge and a motley crew,” she said lightly, hoping her voice was steadier than it sounded to her own ears.

  “And I’ll swear it every day.”

  Isobel snatched the paper from him and replaced it. “I’m torn between laughing at you and kissing you. Though the jam smeared on your beard is a deterrent.”

  “I had hoped I got it all,” he said, rubbing a hand over his trim beard. He took out a handkerchief, and Isobel took it to dab at a missed spot. “It’s a song,” he said. “Musicians aboard the steamer kept singing it on my Pacific crossing last year.”

  Isobel gave an inward groan. “Children and music. The list of subjects I’m ignorant of is growing.” Though she did have a fondness for Vivaldi and Beethoven.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so terrified.”

  “I’d rather face a revolver than a baby,” Isobel agreed.

  “Didn’t you ever have a puppy or a kitten as a child?”

  “A what?” she asked.

  “A puppy?” Riot asked.

  “What does a puppy have to do with this?”

  “Puppies and children are essentially the same, Bel.”

  Isobel stared at her husband as if he’d gone mad. Which he had. He’d married her after all. “You’ve put diapers on puppies?”

  Riot tucked away his handkerchief. “Their temperaments and their needs. Same principle.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” She placed a light kiss on his jam-free beard. “Did you question Mrs. Spencer?”

  Riot shook his head. “Not overly much. I mostly let her talk. Her first husband, Lewis and Ella’s father, reportedly died a few years ago. A James Fletcher. He was an engineer on the steamer Tal Wo along the China Coast. He disappeared one evening on the upper deck. He was never found, and he was declared dead. Supposedly drowned.”

  “And the second?”

  “A charming man.”

  “I’m always wary of those,” she said.

  “And yet you married me.” Riot flashed a smile of his own. He was charming.

  “Small wonder I’m suspicious of you. Tell me the rest of the story so I can learn from her mistakes.”

  “Timothy Spencer wooed her. Got her with child, and they married. Bertie was born four months later. She didn’t admit that last part, but it wasn’t difficult to put together based on Bertie’s age.”

  “I wonder what Lewis thought of that,” Isobel mused.

  “Mrs. Spencer said Lewis never got along with his stepfather. He had a right not to. Timothy started beating Lewis’s mother, and he spent what little savings they had. She finally managed to divorce him this year, but she was already pregnant with James.”

  “Wait, she named her ex-husband’s child after her first husband?”

  “James is a common name,” Riot said.

  “So is Alex. But I’m sure you’d take note if I named our son Alex.”

  Riot raised his brows. “Did you forget to share some happy news with me, Bel?”

  She gave him a look. “Careful, Riot. I may start bringing a bat to bed. That creature—”

  “His name is James,” he said.

  “…is a stark reminder of consequences. And a strong deterrent, even against your charms.”

  “Too late for that, Bel.” That voice. Those eyes. All the nights, afternoons, and mornings spent in his arms—on top of him, under him—rushed through her veins, heating her body. Isobel tried to say something. Anything, but her mind was muddled. She closed her eyes, and took a deliberate step backwards.

  It took her a moment to find her train of thought. Maybe they should have stayed on the Pagan Lady another week.

  Isobel steeled herself to meet his gaze. Riot was staring at her lips.

  “Riot.”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re distracting.”

  “I was thinking the same of you.”

  “Where were we?”

  “Consequences of carnal bliss.”

  Isobel paused long enough to slap her mind into action. “Where is the ex-husband now?” There, she’d put a coherent thought together, and silently applauded herself.

  “Currently unknown.”

  “Could he have something to do with this? Maybe the man outside Menke’s?”

  “A possibility.” Everything was at this point in the investigation, his tone said. “Based on Bertie and James, I’d say Spencer was on the fair-haired side. Hair can be dyed, however.”

  Isobel had done that very thing.

  “And…” Riot paused for effect, waiting until he had her full attention. “Mrs. Spencer is convinced that her first husband is alive. And that he came to get Ella.”

  Isobel scrunched her brows together. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  She glanced at the postcard from China, from M.A. Serebrenek.

  “Mrs. Spencer commented how alike her late husband’s hair is to mine. She has his photograph in her bedroom. An older version of Lewis.”

  “It must have been a somewhat happy marriage if she keeps his photograph close?”

  “Distance makes the heart grow fonder.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind when I strike out for Shanghai on the Lady.”

  Riot didn’t even blink at her threat. “You’d still have your galley cook for those cold ocean nights.”

  Isobel dared not look at him. “Maybe the man in front of Menke’s was her long-lost father.” Stranger things had happened.

  “I hope so,” he said, but he sounded doubtful.

  “Can I question Mrs. Spencer?”

  “She’s in a fragile state, Bel. Go easy on her.”

  “I’m the epitome of tact.”

  Riot grunted. “That’s why I telephoned Dr. Wise.”

  Mrs. Spencer cradled her baby loosely in her arms. The infant was wrapped in a blanket and sleeping, and so was the mother. Isobel picked up a photograph of Ella from the dresser. The girl wore her hair down, the edges of a bow peeking from behind her head. She had an oval face, thick brows, small eyes and full lips. Photographs were always difficult to judge, but Ella Spencer looked like an intelligent girl. She had opted for a simple photograph rather than the insipid gaze that most young women favored.

  Beside the photograph was one of a handsome man who could only be Lewis’s father, the supposedly dead James Fletcher. There was no photograph of Timothy Spencer, the father of Bertie and James Jr.

  Mrs. Spencer stirred, her eyes fluttering open and slowly focusing. “Have you found Ella?” she asked. It was a threadbare whisper.

  Isobel pulled a chair beside the bed and sat, while Riot remained standing a
t the end. “We hope to, with your answers.” Isobel tried to keep her voice low and calm. “Did you draw attention to the advert or did Ella show it to you?”

  Tears welled in the woman’s eyes. “I know something horrible has happened to her. She would never leave me for so long.”

  “Did you show her the advert?” Isobel pressed.

  “I don’t recall.”

  Riot handed Mrs. Spencer a clean handkerchief from the nightstand. “The more information we have, the better chance we have of locating your daughter, Mrs. Spencer.” His voice lacked judgment or accusation. It was filled with warmth and kindness. And concern. Isobel could see it in his eyes.

  “Does Ella have any friends?” Isobel asked.

  “A few. She’s very active in the church. The Methodist Episcopal at California and Broderick. She wants to be a Sunday school teacher.” There was a proud glint in Mrs. Spencer’s sunken eyes. “There was—”

  “Yes?” Isobel asked.

  “A girl named Madge Ryan.”

  “A redhead?”

  “Yes, how did you know?” Mrs. Spencer asked in surprise. “Does that girl have something to do with this?”

  Isobel cocked her head at the woman’s tone. “It’s my business to know, Mrs. Spencer,” Isobel said, carefully. “You don’t care for Miss Ryan?”

  “That girl is trouble. She’s rude and rebellious, and she has a wild temper. I forbade Ella from seeing her.”

  “Where does Madge live?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did Ella meet her at school?”

  Mrs. Spencer shook her head. “I don’t know where they met. Ella hasn’t been in school since James was born. We needed her at home.”

  “Why did you forbid Ella from seeing Madge?”

  “A mother knows,” Mrs. Spencer said with the air of a mystic. “She’s Catholic. Red-haired. And Irish. I didn’t like how that girl talked to Lewis when she came over.”

  “How was that?”

  “She was flirting with him.”

  “I see,” said Isobel. “The day Ella went missing, she stopped at Menke’s grocery after she left the house. She met a small girl inside. As well as a man outside. Do you know who they might be?”