The Winter Rose (75 page)

"Well, stop. Stop trying to protect me. I've told you this a hundred
times, but you never listen. I'm not a boy, I'm a grown man."

"Then bloody act like one," Charlie said. "Fiona's got a husband in
the hospital, a fugitive in her house, and a baby on the way. Last thing
she needs is gyp from you."

"All those years," Seamie said. "All those years without you. It would have been nice to have had a brother."

"I'm sorry for that. Sorrier than you'll ever know. But I'm here now."

"Yeah. Gee. Maybe we can go to a ball game," Seamie said bitterly. He
picked up the loaf of bread Foster had put out, tore off a piece, and
dunked it in his soup.

Charlie took a bite of his sandwich. No one spoke further. Fiona's heart sank.

She had longed for them to be a family again for ages, longed for a
reunion. Now she'd gotten one, and it wasn't what she'd imagined. Not at
all.

She looked at Charlie, then at Seamie. They were the spitting image
of each other. Red-haired, green-eyed. Restless, heedless, impossible to
control. Each kept his head down now, eyes on his soup. Seamie looked
furious still; Charlie guilt-ridden.

Fiona wished they would talk again, try again. It wasn't an ideal
reunion, far from it, but it was better than nothing. Couldn't they see
that? She had no idea how long their time together would last. She had
no idea what tomorrow would bring. Not for Charlie or for Seamie. Not
for Joe or for herself. But for tonight at least, the three of them were
sitting in her kitchen. Drinking wine. Eating. Talking. Together again.
A family.

Seamie suddenly stopped eating. He cleared his throat. "Charlie?" he said.

"Aye, lad?" Charlie replied.

Fiona took her brothers' hands. She watched them with bated breath,
hoping for words of reconciliation and forgiveness, words to bridge the
sorrowful gulf of years, words to make them brothers again.

"Pass the salt, Charlie, will you?"

Ella looked at her friend, who was lying on her bed in the attic, and
frowned with worry. "Indy, I really think you should eat some
breakfast.

Couldn't you try a little milk? Some toast?"

"I couldn't. I'm too nauseous. I'm going to be sick any minute."

"But how? You haven't eaten anything."

"Excuse me, Ella."

India rose and ran downstairs to the one and only loo in the
Moskowitzes' flat. When she came back to the bedroom, Ella was still
there. She walked across the room on unsteady legs, lay back down on her
bed, and groaned.

"You're scaring me, Indy."

"It's nerves, Ella, that's all. Nerves always make me heave."

"He'll be all right, you know," Ella said, taking her hand.

"I'm so frightened for him. What if he's suffering, Ella? What if
he's sick, with no one to care for him? It's been two days. What if he's
dead?" she said, her voice catching.

"Shh! You stop that right now. He's not dead."

"You don't know that."

"I do. He can weather a fall and a bullet, too. He's come through
worse. And if he was dead, there'd be a body found and we'd have heard
about it. Every newsboy in London would be hollerin' his head off. Sid's
all right, Indy. He is."

"Then why haven't I heard from him?"

"He's no fool, is he? He knows you're being watched. The police
aren't exactly subtle, are they? One's in here eyeing every customer who
comes in. Another's going through the post, poking in every delivery.
And two more are hanging about outside."

"Ella, do you think... do you think he's had second thoughts?"

"About you? No, you stupid girl. He'll turn up. He'll get a note to
you. Something. I know he will. You just have to wait, to be patient.
Hard as that is."

Ella continued speaking, but India barely heard her. The greasy, roiling surge in her stomach was back. "Oh, God," she moaned.

"Again?" Ella said as she ran out of the room. "India, I'm going to send for Harriet."

When she returned to the bedroom for the second time, Ella's eyes nar-rowed. "You know, you look thinner," she said.

"Yes, well, heaving everything you eat will do that to you."

"How long have you been feeling poorly? How long exactly?"

"I don't know. A week, I suppose. Maybe two. I don't need Harriet,
Ella. I really don't think it's flu or anything like that. I've no aches
and pains. No bronchial symptoms. It's nerves, I'm sure of it."

Ella shook her head. "Crikey, India, it's not nerves, you great bloody fool! Call yourself a doctor, do you?"

"What is it, then?"

"Are you having your periods?"

"Yes, of course. I'm due ...well, let me think ...I..." India paled.

"Oh, my God, Ella."

She was pregnant. With Sid Malone's baby. Of course she was. The
first few times--at her flat, and then at his--had hardly been planned
or prepared for. Pregnant. She could barely believe it. A feeling of
joy, shocking in its strength and unexpectedness, flooded her.

"Pregnant, Ella! I'm pregnant!" she whispered.

"Now, India, don't get upset."

"I'm not. Even though I think I should be. We'll be a family, Ella.
Sid, myself, and the baby. In America. In California. I can't wait to
tell him," she said in a gush of emotion. "I'll do it on the ship. As
soon as we're safely away from London. Or maybe in New York. Or maybe
I'll wait until we get to California. To Wish's land. Maybe that's the
right place to tell him something like that." Her smile faded. "Unless
he doesn't come," she said, her joy turning to a cold dread. "And then
I'll be an unmarried woman with a baby. I'll lose my medical license.
What will I do for an income? How will I provide for the baby? The poor
thing will be fatherless."

"Enough. Enough now! You're imagining terrible things that will never happen. Sid will come. You'll be together."

"You keep saying that, Ella, but how do you know?"

Ella smiled. "Because my mother said so. Beshert, that's what she
said. Fated to be together. And if there's one thing I know for certain,
it's that my mother is never wrong."

India managed a laugh. She squeezed her friend's hand. And tried to believe her.

In a bedroom at the top of 94 Grosvenor Square, Sid Malone tried yet again to sit up and get out of bed.

He'd had a raging fever for three days, had barely eaten, and now he
was as weak as a kitten. The bullet wound in his back had become
infected and the fever had swiftly overtaken him. He should have been
able to shake it off sooner, but he couldn't. He couldn't rally. He had
no fight left in him. Because there was nothing to fight for.

India had betrayed him. She'd given the police the Arden Street
address. She'd helped them set a trap for him, knowing he'd be arrested
and imprisoned. Knowing what prison had done to him.

A part of him didn't believe it. Couldn't believe it. India loved
him. She knew who he was, what he was, and yet she'd given up
everything--even her clinic--to be with him. Why would she suddenly turn
on him?

He knew the answer: because he'd shot Joe Bristow and murdered Gemma Dean.

That's what she would have seen in the papers. That's what the people
around her would have told her. And she'd believed them. Of course, she
had. How could she do otherwise? He was a criminal, after all.
Ruthless. Vicious. Capable of anything.

He remembered the last time they were together. They'd eaten a
hurried breakfast at the Moskowitzes' caf�He'd told her he had one
more thing to do, a bit of unfinished business to take care of. A few
hours later, Joe Bristow was in the hospital fighting for his life and
witnesses had told the police that he, Sid Malone, had put him there.

She'd probably gone straight to the police, horrifled by what he'd
done. Or maybe they'd come to her. Maybe they'd found something out
about the two of them and had threatened to arrest her. Either way,
she'd told them.

He'd thought of trying to get to India--on his own or through Fiona--
to tell her that he hadn't committed the crimes he was accused of, but
he'd decided against it. It was too risky. The police were likely still
watching her. And even if he could talk to her, what good would it do?
Whatever she'd felt for him was gone; it had to be. She now believed him
capable of murder.

He'd always known he'd be paid back some day for the crimes he'd
committed. Now he had been. He had loved, even though doing so had gone
against every instinct he possessed, and he had lost that love. And the
pain of it was terrible. Worse than the pain any whip or bullet could
ever inflict.

He knew he couldn't stay in London. He couldn't stay in England. He
would have to start again somewhere far away. He had a few friends,
still. Friends along the waterfront. People who had ships and contacts
in China, Ceylon, Africa. They would help him ...if he could get to
them.

"I've got to get out of this bloody bed," he said aloud, taking a stiff and shaky walk around the room. "Out of this house."

"Are you nuts?" Seamie said, from a chair near the fireplace. "There's a manhunt on for you. Or did you forget?"

He was sifting through the day's papers, looking for any news on the search for Sid Malone.

Sid sighed, frustrated. If he couldn't get out, he could at least
work on himself, build himself back up a bit. He walked around the room
again, then he tried to move his left arm. He raised it as high as it
would go, stretched it behind him. Beads of sweat broke out on his
forehead. A low groan escaped him. It was painful to move it, but he did
it anyway. He had to regain the use of it. He was sure he'd broken it
in the fall at Arden Street, but Mr. Foster said he'd only dislocated
it. The man had also proved himself a dab hand at surgery, taking the
bullet out of his back with only a filleting knife and a pair of poultry
shears.

"You've a bit of mangled muscle," he'd said as he'd dropped the
bullet into a pudding basin. "But no broken bones. Whoever fired at you
is either a very good shot or a very poor one."

Sid had been grateful to him, but wary. How did he know the man wouldn't go to the police?

"Do you trust him, Fee?" he'd asked after Foster had left them.

"With my life," she'd said.

The rest of her staff, however, she was not so sure of. She'd
closeted him away with stern directions to the servants that a friend of
Seamie's who was very ill was staying with them and wasn't to be
disturbed. Only Foster was to take him his meals. Sid had now been in
the same room for three days, and the confinement was killing him.

"Find anything?" he asked Seamie now.

"Nope," Seamie answered, turning a page.

Sid looked at him and his heart felt so full that he had to look
away. Full of love and full of anger, too, for all the things he had
missed of his brother's life, all the things he would miss.

"Wait a minute ...there's something here on the funeral service for
Gemma Dean," Seamie said, reading him the details of the service.

Sid felt a deep sorrow at the mention of Gemma's name. He couldn't
shake the feeling that her death was his fault. He, Fiona, and Seamie
had talked about Joe and Gemma Dean his first night at Fiona's house. He
told them how he'd escaped arrest at the Bark, what had happened to him
in Richmond, and how he'd hidden in the sewers, only coming out at
night, until he could make his way to Grosvenor Square. He knew Fiona's
address. He'd kept tabs on her over the years.

"But why would Frankie Betts hurt Joe?" Fiona had asked. "Why would he kill Gemma Dean?"

"Because he's an angry young man," Sid had said.

"At Joe? Over his refusal to pay him money? At Gemma Dean?"

"No. At me. Because I left. This was his way of bringing me back."

"By getting you hanged?" Seamie asked.

"Frankie's not one for thinking through the consequences," Sid said.
"I'm sure he thought this would force me underground for a bit, but that
I'd eventually come back to the Firm."

As Seamie continued to search the newspapers, Fiona walked in. She'd just returned from the hospital.

"Shouldn't you be resting?" she asked, feeling Sid's forehead.
"You're not as warm as last night, that's something, but I wish you'd
get back into bed."

Sid did so. "How's Joe today?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No change. He just lies there breathing. He
doesn't move, doesn't speak. The nurses are feeding him through a tube.
Oats ground to powder and mixed with milk." She paused, then said, "I
went to the nursery before I came up here. To put Katie to bed. She
asked

when her daddy was coming home. I didn't ...I dn't know what to tell

di

her." Her voice broke.

Sid took his sister's hand. "Shh, Fee. He's healing, that's all. His body's shut down to save strength. He's going to make it."

She looked at him through her tears. "Do you promise?" she asked.

"I promise. Something like it happened to me. I was in the hospital.
Somebody was there for me. Pulled me through. You'll do the same for
Joe. I know you will."

Fiona nodded. Sid saw that she looked very tired. He moved over in
the big bed, and patted the pillow. Fiona took off her boots and rested
next to him, curling her feet underneath her. The bed creaked as she
settled.

"Watch out, the bed's going to break!" Seamie teased.

"Very funny," Fiona said, scowling.

"How is the baby?" Sid asked.

"Kicking up a storm," she said, then she winced.

"You all right?"

She nodded. "Thumped me good, just then."

"I've been thumped from the outside often enough," he said. "But I can't imagine what it feels like from the inside."

Fiona took his hand and placed it on her belly. He felt nothing for a
few seconds, then his hand jumped as the baby gave a hard, sharp kick.

"Blimey!" he said. "He's not half strong. Going to be a rugby player with legs like those."