“My life is in danger without you,” she insisted.
“No, it is not,” Marshall told her firmly. He was highly aware that Armstrong and an increasing number of other guests were watching him. “Stand aside, Winnie. We have to—”
His words were cut short as Winnie drew a long, glinting knife from the pocket of her coat. “I love you, Dr. Pycroft. We belong together.”
“Winnie, put that down,” Marshall ordered her.
“Good Lord,” Armstrong exclaimed. “We really do need the police.”
“No police,” Jason snapped, coming out of the office with a revolver in each hand, looking like a vigilante.
“I told you I’d die without you,” Winnie went on, seemingly oblivious to anyone else in the room. “I love you and we were meant to be together.”
“And I told you I love my wife and no one else,” Marshall said, bristling with frustration. They didn’t have time for this, not with Matty’s life in serious danger.
“She doesn’t really love you,” Winnie insisted, waving her knife carelessly. “I do. I love you.”
“I don’t love you and I don’t have time for this,” Marshall said, reaching for her knife. “Stop this foolishness now.”
“But we belong together.” Winnie burst into tears, jerking away from Marshall’s attempt to take her knife. “No one else will look at me now, but you’re so kind to me.”
“I’m a doctor,” Marshall insisted. “It’s my job to be kind.”
“You sent me away,” Winnie wailed, her mood shifting. “You sent me away like I was trash, like I was nothing.”
“It was for your own good,” Marshall insisted. “Now hand me the knife and—”
“No,” Winnie shouted, gripping the knife harder. “I love you, and if I can’t have you, I want to die.”
“You don’t want to—”
Before Marshall could finish his sentence, Winnie slashed the knife across her wrist, switched hands, then sliced her other wrist. Her movements were so fast that Marshall didn’t think it was possible she could have cut herself deeply, until the blood began to flow.
Winnie screamed and dropped the knife as blood bloomed from both wrists. If soaked the hem of her sleeves in no time and spilled onto the lobby’s floor. Winnie screamed again as she held her arms out, as if horrified at what she’d done.
Marshall hissed a curse and leapt into action. “Help me get her coat off,” he shouted as he caught Winnie and worked the buttons of her coat.
Flossie rushed forward to help as Jason retrieved the knife and handed it to Daniel. Marshall dispensed with Winnie’s thin coat, but instantly felt as though he’d wasted precious time. Winnie’s self-inflicted cuts were far deeper than he’d imagined they would be. She’d hit an artery on her left wrist, and blood pulsed out in time to her slowing heart.
“I need bandages,” he shouted. “Anything to stop the bleeding.”
Flossie jumped up and dashed behind the desk as Marshall used Winnie’s coat to apply pressure to her left wrist. The right one bled freely, though.
“Jason, help,” Marshall ordered.
Jason rushed into action, kneeling by Winnie’s side and copying Marshall’s actions to stop the bleeding. Moments later, Flossie returned with what looked like pillowcases. They would have to do.
He wrapped her left wrist as tightly as he could, but it did little to stop the bleeding. Jason wrapped Winnie’s right wrist, but the result wasn’t much better.
“We’ll have to get her to the hospital immediately,” he said. “She’s damaged herself badly.”
“Tell me what to do,” Jason said, his voice strangely calm.
“We have to move her carefully so she doesn’t lose more blood.”
“Right.” Jason nodded.
Together, the two of them lifted Winnie. Since Jason was stronger, Marshall piled her into his arms, watching her wrists carefully to be sure she didn’t do more damage.
“Are you certain I can’t fetch the police?” Armstrong asked as they headed out the front door.
“You can help me, Mr. Armstrong,” Flossie said.
It was the last thing Marshall heard from the hotel. He and Jason rushed as fast as they could while keeping Winnie stable, out to the street and down to the hospital.
The hospital was relatively quiet, as business hours were over and only emergencies would be accepted in the evening, so they were able to burst through the door and carry Winnie straight into one of the surgeries.
“Fetch Alex for me,” Marshall ordered as he settled Winnie—who had passed out—on the surgery table. He rushed around the room gathering supplies without looking at Jason. “Tell her what’s happened and that I need her immediately.”
“Right,” Jason said, sprinting out of the room.
Marshall trusted him to do what was needed as fast as possible. He had a job to do as well, and he was fighting against time.
Matty
Panic closed Matty’s throat as Hoag dragged her down the darkened alley. Every part of her wanted to scream for help, but like Elsie, no sound would push its way to her throat.
“You think you can get away with betraying me?” Hoag growled against her ear as he lugged her into his arms, moving faster in the growing dark. “You think you can turn on me and land me in the hangman’s noose? Think again, missy.”
Matty opened her mouth, but her throat was too dry for words. More than that, pain coursed through her, radiating from her middle. She assumed it was from the strength of Hoag’s grip and the way he forced her to move—half walking, half being dragged—from the respectable rows of middle-class houses down toward the lake. But as Hoag pushed and battered her as they descended a long incline, the pain radiated in a fierce contraction once more.
“Oh God,” she managed to wheeze, her panic doubling. She’d gone into labor. Whether it was the shock of Hoag or whether it had started at the Pycroft’s house she wasn’t sure, but it was there now.
“Shut up,” Hoag snapped, grabbing her arm at the bottom of the hill and yanking her in a different direction. “Not a word out of you.”
Hoag tugged her onto a narrow walk that ringed the lake at the bottom of a steep hill. The path was only big enough for one person, and after a few steps, Hoag shoved her in front of him. Heart pounding in her throat, Matty saw her chance and rushed forward. Pregnant and awkward as she was, there was only a small chance she’d be able to run away, but she had to take it.
A distinct, metallic click behind her froze her in her tracks. Hoag had a gun, and he’d just cocked it. “You do as you’re told, missy,” he warned her in a sinister growl. “Or you won’t see the light of day again. You might not as it is.”
Shaking almost too much to walk, Matty turned to Hoag. Sure enough, he had a small, dull revolver aimed at her. “Please don’t shoot me,” she begged, her voice little more than a whisper.
“Now why would I shoot you?” Hoag asked, his misshapen mouth distorting into what must have been a smile. “Or why would I shoot you here, where no one would see?”
Matty swallowed, deep foreboding growing within her at the odd words. Hoag jerked his gun, indicating for her to move, so she turned and continued forward. The path was rough and icy, and night was setting in more and more with each step she took. She prayed to every god and goddess she could think of to keep her and her baby safe as Hoag drove her forward.
Toward the end of the path, another twinge in her belly nearly stopped her in her tracks. It was worse than before and had come far too soon after the last one. She cringed and kept going, but a new sort of panic gripped her. Babies took hours and hours to be born. Except when they didn’t. She knew of at least one mother who had surprised everyone by birthing her first child within two hours. Any other day, she would have longed to deliver that fast, but under the circumstances, it would be a disaster.
“In there,” Hoag ordered when they reached an old, abandoned fishing shack in a slight inlet. “Keep your mouth shut.”
&
nbsp; Matty reached for the door, finding the handle in the near darkness and turning it. She shook so hard it took her several attempts. And as soon as she pulled the door open, there was a yelp and a skittering of movement.
“In,” Hoag demanded.
Matty stepped into the darkness, no idea what else was inside, tears streaming down her face. Someone else was there, and whoever it was, they were also crying.
Another click sounded as Hoag uncocked the gun and reached for something just inside the shack’s door. A moment later, with a scrape and a sputter, he lit a match, then used it to light a lantern. Matty winced as the light and another contraction hit her.
“Matty!”
A moment later, Matty was nearly knocked off her feet as someone surged toward her and threw their arms around her. Connie.
“I’m so scared, Matty,” her sister wept, both of them trembling with terror and cold. “I’m so scared.”
“Shut up,” Hoag ordered them. He shut the shack’s door and glared at them.
His glare alone was enough to back Matty to the far end of the shack, Connie with her. “What do you want?” she managed to whisper through her fear and pain.
“I want what’s mine,” Hoag growled, stalking forward, eyes narrowed. “I want what’s been rightfully mine all along.”
He reached for his belt and started to unbuckle it, but before he could do more than loosen it, he stopped and stared at Matty’s stomach. It didn’t seem possible that Hoag would have missed the fact that she was so vastly pregnant, but in the dark and considering he was very clearly mad, anything was possible.
“He did this to you, didn’t he?” Hoag hissed. “That blacksmith.”
Matty made a sound before she could stop herself from answering in any way. It would do no good to bring Lawrence into things. Hoag would likely go after him and kill him. If she and Connie were lucky, perhaps there was a chance they could do something with Hoag before he had a chance to hurt anyone else.
That thought was cut short by a fierce pain that doubled Matty over.
“What’s wrong?” Connie gasped, shifting from clinging to Matty out of terror to supporting her. “Is it the baby? Is the baby coming?”
The answer came in the form of a burst of wet warmth soaking Matty’s drawers and stockings. She turned to Connie, her eyes wide with terror, and nodded.
“Isn’t this an interesting turn,” Hoag laughed, stroking the burned flesh of his chin. He marched forward, grabbing Matty by the shoulders and wrenching her out of Connie’s arms.
“You leave her alone,” Connie shouted, though the moment Hoag turned his evil gaze on her, she backed away with a whimper. “Leave her alone,” she repeated with a sob.
Hoag did no such thing. With pitiful ease, he wrestled Matty to the ground and onto her back. Fight as she did, she was no match for Hoag’s strength. He held her legs apart, foiling her attempt to kick him, and pushed her skirt up. Matty tried to scream or call for help, but her shouts came out as weak, breathy wails.
It wasn’t until Hoag ripped her drawers off without making any attempt to undress himself that Matty realized he wasn’t attempting to rape her. He shoved her legs apart and squinted at her in the darkness, but it was almost as though he were attempting to see how quickly the baby was coming. The bizarreness of the moment stopped her struggles, particularly as her womb contracted yet again. Hoag didn’t actually mean to help her give birth, did he?
“What a treat for me,” Hoag laughed, rocking back on his haunches. Any hope Matty had for a miraculous turnaround died as he went on to say, “I’ll pull that babe out of you and snap its neck before it takes a single breath.”
Matty was able to scream then. She screamed louder than she ever had in her life as she scrambled, crab-like to the far side of the shack. Connie leapt after her, dropping to the floor and pulling Matty into her arms as though she could protect her somehow.
“Shut up,” Hoag demanded, leaping to his feet, drawing the revolver from the small table by the door that also held the lamp. “Not a word out of either of you.” He glanced over his shoulder at the door.
Matty clamped her mouth shut, forcing herself to be as quiet as possible as tears streamed down her face and her body shook and contracted. She grabbed Connie’s arm as it wrapped around her and held it as tightly as she could until the contraction passed.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as the pain subsided. Hoag might threaten them again, but she had to do something to take her mind off the horror that was about to happen.
“I should have listened to you,” Connie sobbed, sniffling and clinging to her. “I should have stayed at Morningside Landing. But a man said he’d pay me a whole sovereign if I went with him.”
The anger Matty felt at Connie’s admission she would go with a man who offered her money was drowned by the certainty she had that Hoag was responsible for that man. He grinned as Connie confessed.
“You always were a little tart,” Hoag rumbled, rubbing his mouth. “A tasty little tart. But I want a bite out of the sweets I haven’t had yet.” He glanced to Matty.
The sickening suspicion Matty had lived with since Connie and the others returned to her was confirmed, but there was no time to weep over it. “It’s all right,” she told Connie, panting as pain wracked through her again, far too soon after her last contraction. “It’s all right,” she repeated, for herself as much as for Connie.
“It’s not all right,” Connie wailed, burying her head against Matty’s shoulder. “No one knows we’re here. Lord Waltham will think I ran away. Papa is going to kill us.” She dissolved into tears with her last statement and curled into a ball at Matty’s side.
Matty wanted to tell her Hoag wouldn’t kill them, that they would make it out of the terrible situation and everything would be all right. But Connie was right. No one knew where they were. Everyone at the Pycroft house thought she’d gone on to the hotel. Lawrence thought she was visiting Mary. And even if Elsie had been able to see Hoag take her in the dark, she couldn’t tell anyone.
“It’s going to be all right,” Matty repeated desperately. She rested her back against the wall and gripped her stomach, willing her baby to stay where it was with all her might.
Jason
Jason shot out of the hospital onto Lake Street so fast that he nearly knocked a passing man over.
“Watch where you’re going,” the man shouted after him.
Jason ignored him, speeding on. The revolvers in his pockets slapped against his sides like weights. It hardly seemed real that two dire emergencies should happen at the same time. He could only hope that Lawrence and Barsali had found Matty, or at least some trace of her. They were nowhere in sight as Jason paused to let a carriage pass before crossing the dangerous intersection and starting down the hill toward Church Street and the train station. He could only hope that Marshall would be able to save Winnie as well.
Jason’s sympathies rested with Winnie in the strangest of ways, in spite of the trouble he knew the young woman had caused Marshall. Only a madwoman would slit her wrists in front of an audience to gain attention, just as only a madman would break down to the point of hiding in a closet until his lover came to rescue him. How long would it be before he attempted to kill himself the way Winnie had? If things became too bleak and Flossie wasn’t there to pick him up and dust him off, would he take drastic action too?
His thoughts spurred him on. The need to fetch Alexandra consumed all else. But as narrowed as his focus was, it didn’t stop him from noticing a lone, female figure in a fur-trimmed coat huddled under the stairs leading up to the train platform. The sight was incongruous enough to make him skid to a stop on the icy pavement.
“Lady Arabella?” he asked as a pair of frightened eyes peeked up at him from the midst of the fur. The streetlights near the train platform shed enough light to leave no doubt in Jason’s mind of Arabella’s identity. “What are you doing here?”
“Nothing,” Arabella said, her voice shaking,
as she stepped away from the shelter of the stairs and started down the street. She wasn’t fast enough to hide the dark, ugly bruises on one side of her face. Fresh bruises. And a cut that oozed onto her cheek.
“Lady Arabella, what’s happened to you?” Jason marched toward her, pushing the danger Winnie was in to the back of his mind. The need to help, to step forward and be a hero, swelled within him.
“I’m fine,” Lady Arabella said. “I just came out for a breath of fresh air.” She did her best to keep her face turned away from Jason, but it was clear that she had nowhere to go. She took a few steps in one direction, then in the other, then doubled back aimlessly.
“You did no such thing,” Jason said, brooking no argument. “You’ve been injured.”
“I’m fine, really.” She weaved and dodged to stay out of Jason’s line of sight, but he caught her and held her still. As soon as Jason tilted her face toward the light, she burst into tears.
“I know how bruises like this happen,” Jason said, his voice as dark as the night closing in around them. He had no patience at all for men who abused women, and there was little doubt who would have had the ability to leave marks like that on Lady Arabella’s face.
“Leave me alone,” Arabella wept pitifully. “I just want to…I just want to….”
Clearly, she had no real answer. Jason made up his mind then and there what needed to be done.
“Right,” he said, offering his arm as though to escort her into dinner. “I’m on my way to fetch Alexandra Pycroft, as she’s needed at the hospital. I think you should come with me.”
Lady Arabella glanced up at him with the faintest glimpse of hope in her eyes. “Yes, Alexandra can help.”
“We need to hurry, though,” Jason added, breaking into a swift walk as soon as Lady Arabella took his arm.
As it turned out, Lady Arabella’s face might have been bruised, but there was nothing wrong with her legs. She kept pace with Jason, even when he pushed her to move faster. They crossed the street and jogged toward the Pycroft house, making good time. Once they reached the front door, Jason pounded on it.
The Brynthwaite Boys: Season Two - Part Two Page 20
