“What have we here?” the doctor asked in a bass voice that seemed too large for his body.
“She’s burning with fever,” Silence said. She had to fight to keep a quaver out of her voice.
The doctor placed a hand on the baby’s chest and stilled.
Silence started to ask something, but the man held up his other hand.
After another moment he took his hand off Mary’s chest and turned to Silence. “Pardon my rudeness, ma’am, but I was feeling for the wee one’s heartbeat.”
“I understand.” Silence grasped her hands together at her waist to still their trembling. “Can you help her?”
“Of course I can,” the doctor said briskly. “Never you fear.”
He opened a black case, revealing a half dozen sharp lancets in different sizes. Silence rubbed her palms together nervously. She knew that the doctor meant to cut Mary.
Mr. O’Connor had been lounging by the fireplace, but he stirred at the sight of the lancets in their fitted pockets. “D’ye have to cut her?”
The doctor’s face was serious. “It’s the only way, sir, to let the evil drain from her body.”
Mickey O’Connor’s mouth tightened, but he nodded once before turning his face to the fireplace.
The doctor chose a delicately wicked looking tool and then fished out a little tin dish. He looked at Silence, his face grave. “Perhaps you can hold her upright upon your lap. If you can keep her from moving in any way, it’ll be for the best.”
Silence picked up Mary gently. She’d always hated bloodletting, ever since she was a little girl and had had to be bled three times for some childhood illness. If she could save Mary’s tender skin the sharp scalpel, she’d offer her own arm, but this must be done. She knew that.
The doctor had been watching her and now he nodded at her approvingly. “Can you hold the cup for me?” he asked Fionnula.
The maid stepped forward and took the cup.
“Easy,” the doctor murmured, and with quick efficiency, lifted Mary’s chemise and made a cut high on her thigh.
Mary flinched but made no sound.
Bright red blood flowed from the wound.
It seemed to take forever before the doctor murmured, “I think that will do it.”
He pressed a clean cloth to the wound and wound a strip of linen around Mary’s leg, tying it off neatly.
“Now then,” the doctor said as he wiped and put away his lancet. “A little broth will help enormously, I believe. Take a small piece of chicken and boil it with a sprig of parsley and two of thyme. Strain the broth and add a spoonful of white wine, the finest you can find. Serve this broth to the child thrice daily, making sure she drinks a full teacup if possible.” He glanced at Silence sharply. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said, stroking Mary’s hair.
“Good. Good. I also have this elixir.” He produced a small blue glass bottle. “My own concoction and I fancy a very effective one. A spoonful in a small cup of water before bedtime. Now”—he picked up his bag and stared severely at Silence and Fionnula—“should she come out in spots or vomit up bile, you are to call for me at once, yes?”
Silence nodded again, her lips trembling. “I will.”
The doctor laid his hand on Mary’s head and turned toward the door without another word. Mickey O’Connor turned and silently followed him, pausing before he exited. “Do ye have all that ye’ll be needing for her?”
Silence bit her lip to stop it trembling. “I believe so.”
His hesitated and for a moment she thought he was about to say something, but in the end he left without a word.
“WE’LL STORM HIS cursed palace and take her out by force if need be!” Concord Makepeace declared ferociously the next day. “Bad enough that she’s ruined her own reputation, but to sully the good name of the home is too much!”
Concord’s graying hair was coming down from his queue and he looked rather like an aging Samson.
A hotheaded, aging Samson who’d not fully thought through the consequences of an attack on an armed pirate stronghold.
Winter sighed to himself. He’d known the drawbacks to informing his brothers of Silence’s plight, but he couldn’t in all conscious let them remain in the dark.
Even if Concord’s undirected anger and worry were giving Winter a headache.
“The palace is a fortress,” Winter pointed out calmly. “And we are only two. If we—”
“Three,” came a voice in the doorway of the home’s kitchen.
Winter met the green eyes of his brother Asa, his own eyebrow slowly raising. Although he’d sent word to Asa’s rented rooms, he hadn’t expected him to actually show up. Asa hadn’t been heard from in nearly a year. For all Winter had known, his middle brother had sailed overseas.
Yet here he was, as brawny as ever. Asa had the shoulders of a bull and a mane of tawny hair like a young lion. The last year had given him a few differences, however. His scarlet coat was intricately embroidered at the cuffs and skirts, and his shirt, while plain, was of fine linen. Winter’s eyes narrowed. Interesting. However his brother made his living, he was apparently doing quite well for himself.
“What are you doing here?” Concord, never tactful, asked aggressively. “You don’t respond to letters, you don’t bother to make an appearance at Temperance’s wedding or the christening of my new daughter, or when Silence lost her husband at sea, and yet you think you can simply trot back home?”
Winter winced and murmured quietly, “We do need his help, Concord.”
“Ha!” Concord folded bulging arms across his chest. Like Winter, he dressed plainly in black and brown, his hat round and uncocked. “We’ve done just fine without him for the last year.”
“That was before Silence went to live in a pirate’s house,” Winter pointed out drily.
Asa, who’d propped one massive shoulder against the door frame, straightened now. “What pirate? You said in your letter to me that Silence was in dire danger. You never mentioned a pirate.”
Concord snorted.
“Mickey O’Connor,” Winter said quietly before Concord could go off on another tirade.
“Charming Mickey O’Connor?” Asa asked incredulously. “What is Silence doing with him? Did he kidnap her?”
“No.”
Asa pulled out a kitchen chair and sat, planting his elbows on the table. “Then why?”
“Last year a baby was left on Silence’s doorstep,” Winter explained. “Silence named the child Mary Darling and brought her here to the home. This was after Temperance married Lord Caire and was no longer managing the home with me. Silence took her position. She cared for all the children, of course, but she made Mary Darling her special pet.”
Concord stirred. “The baby was like her own. When William died, I think the child gave her comfort.”
Winter nodded. “I returned home from a trip to Oxford several days ago to find Silence gone. When I confronted her at O’Connor’s palace—”
“You went to Mickey O’Connor’s house by yourself?” Asa interrupted.
Winter met his eyes. “Yes.”
For a moment a startled look crossed Asa’s face, and then he slowly nodded. “Go on.”
Winter inclined his head. “She seemed quite as usual. She was dressed in her own clothes and frankly did not appear to be overly happy that I’d come to her rescue. She said that Mickey O’Connor was Mary Darling’s father—”
Asa swore and Concord glared at him.
“—and that O’Connor had brought her and the child to his home to protect them from his enemies. I could not persuade her to leave so I came away again. Now, however, there are questions being asked about where exactly Silence is. If the truth that she’s living with a notorious pirate becomes known…”
Winter shrugged. He didn’t need to tell his brothers what such information would do to the home’s good standing—and the money it needed from its patrons and donors. One whiff of impropriety and the fickle aristocrats would find some other charity to amuse themselves with.