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“I’ll be waiting right out there,” Mad told her, with a nod to the hallway. June understood that he meant “I’ll be waiting right out there for you,” and it filled her with unexpected warmth . . . a feeling that brought fresh tears to her eyes. But before she had to come up with an excuse, Mad smiled slightly and said, “Fumes.”
As he left the kitchen, June stood there alone, feeling shaky in her bones. She stared at the table. It was covered in blinding-white fabric with strange equipment positioned around it . . . the place where they were about to cut Tuppence open.
Her hands clenched like the ball knots at the end of pulley ropes. She flexed them slowly. Open, closed. Open.
“Small steps,” the teacher had said. “One thing after another, and then it’s done.”
“Bugger me if I can’t do this,” she said under her breath. “I’m here, Tuppence. Right fuckin’ here for you and the baby.”
***
After John had gone to carry Tuppence to the kitchen, Reina stood uncertainly in the butler’s office. It was only now that she realized how tired she was. After the hours of negotiating with William, followed by the harrowing efforts to take care of Tuppence, the front part of her brain seemed to have closed up shop. The back part was still functioning, but it resisted direction, drifting in whither-wander pathways.
She went into the bedroom, saw the bloodied sheets and the oilcloth covering beneath them, and began to pull them from the bed.
John’s quiet, urgent voice interrupted her. “Ah, no . . . don’t do that. Leave them there and come with me.” He came into the room and tugged the edge of a sheet from her grasp.
“They need to be laundered,” Reina protested.
“That’s not your job.”
“What is my job?”
“To sit here,” he said, guiding her to the upholstered chair near the hearth, “and not interfere with my job.”
“Which is?” she asked, having no choice but to sit.
John smiled. “To take care of you, of course.” He offered her a steaming mug of sweetened tea, and she accepted it gratefully.
“Where did this come from?”
“Norman set a kettle over a spirit lamp in the servants’ hall.” John placed the wooden desk chair beside hers and sat. “Left hand,” he said.
Reina hesitated before extending her arm obediently.
Gently he wrapped an iced cloth around her hand and tucked the end beneath her palm. The coldness felt wonderful on the tender, sore joints. “How is that?” he asked.
“Much better.”
John went to rummage in a desk drawer, and returned with a rectangular brown glass bottle. Letting out a rough sigh, he sat and pulled the cork stopper. He lifted the bottle with a questioning glance, and Reina held out her mug in response.
After pouring a small quantity into her tea, John took a swig straight from the bottle.
As Reina sipped the hot liquid, it spread smooth fire down her throat and through her insides, blunting the sharp edges of anxiety. “Is this patent medicine?” she asked.
A low laugh broke from him. “No. Scotch whisky, it is.”
She drank again, a fragile peace stealing over her. He was so big and solid, his presence so assured, it seemed nothing bad could happen while he was there.
“What are the others doing?” she asked. The whisky had seared a little rasp into her voice.
John replied in a remarkably normal tone, as if it were any other evening, and death weren’t being waged on a knife’s edge only a few rooms away. “Maddock is waiting outside the kitchen door. I said he would be more comfortable in the servants’ hall, but he wants to stay near June. Enid is cleaning and disinfecting Tuppence’s room. Norman and Belinda have gone to fetch Alan from the carriage house. They’re taking him out to visit the back garden.”
“Oh, dear,” Reina said with a grimace. “I hope they’re not bickering.”
John shook his head. He took another swig of whisky and set the bottle aside. “Norman noticed that Belinda was shaking and asked her why. It turned out she knew nothing about chloroform, and thought Tuppence would be fully awake during the surgery.”
“Poor girl,” Reina exclaimed softly.
