Winter Rose, The Read online

  Bloody hell, Sid, where are you? she wondered desperately.

  She twined her arms around his neck. Bit his ear. Whispered dirty things to him. Did anything and everything she could think of to play for time. But he was getting impatient.

  "Lift your skirts, girl," he said. "Quick, or I'll have my money back."

  Lily did as he asked. There were only four people she cared for on this earth, only four people she'd do anything for, anything--her three children and Sid Malone.

  And then, just as Bennett had dropped his trousers, a match flared behind him. He spun around. Lily looked past him and saw Sid and Frankie. They were standing at the bottom of the stone steps. Frankie was lighting a lantern.

  "That'll do, Lily," Sid said.

  Lily spat the man's taste from her mouth, then ran back into the Bark's basement to fix her clothing. The door was half off its hinges. She peered around it as she buttoned her blouse. If Sid was in trouble, she wanted to know.

  "Michael Bennett, is it?" she heard him say.

  Bennett, holding his trousers up with both hands, stared, but made no reply.

  "My guv asked you a question," Frankie said.

  "Are you...are you Malone?" he stammered, buttoning his fly.

  "What do you want?" Frankie growled. "Who sent you?"

  "I'm not looking for any trouble," he said. "I only came to pass on a mes-sage, that's all. A woman I know wants to see Sid Malone. She'll meet him anytime, anywhere, but she's got to see him."

  "You a cop?" Frankie asked. "Did Lytton send you?"

  Bennett shook his head. "It's nothing to do with Lytton. I'm a private de-tective. That's the truth."

  Malone cocked his head, appraising Bennett.

  "You've got to give me an answer," Bennett said to him. "You don't know this woman. She won't stop. She'll come herself."

  Malone still hadn't said anything, but he was listening. Bennett seemed to take encouragement from this. He grew bolder.

  "Never takes no for an answer, that one. Can't tell you her name. She don't want it known. She's a right pushy bitch, though, that's something I can tell you," he added, venturing a laugh.

  Later, Lily would remember that Sid's mouth had twitched at the word bitch. She would remember how he had walked up to Bennett, slowly, easily, as if he were going to shake his hand, grateful for the information. Instead he grabbed the man's forearm, and in one quick, fluid motion, broke it with a cosh. The pain dropped Bennett to his knees, but it was the sight of his bones protruding from his skin that made him shriek.

  Sid grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked his head back, choking off his noise. "That's me answer. Loud and clear," he said. "You tell Fiona Finnegan the man she's after is dead. Dead as you'll be if I ever see you again."

  Sid released him, and he crumpled into the mud. He turned and walked away. Frankie followed.

  "Who is this girl, guv?" Frankie asked. "She up the duff?"

  Sid made no response.

  "She a relation, then?"

  In the darkness, Lily could only hear Sid's voice; she couldn't see his face. If she had, she'd have seen the pain there, deep and abiding, as he said, "She's nobody, Frankie. No relation. She's nothing to me at all."

  Chapter 1

  "Jones!"

  India Selwyn Jones turned at the sound of her name. She had to squint to see who'd shouted it. Maud had taken her eyeglasses.

  "Professor Fenwick!" she finally shouted back, beaming at the bald and bearded man hurtling toward her through a sea of bobbing mortarboards.

  "Jones, you clever little cat! A Walker grant, a Lister, and the Dennis Prize! Is there anything you didn't win?"

  "Hatcher got the Beaton."

  "The Beaton's a humbug. Any fool can memorize anatomy. A doctor needs more than knowledge, she needs to be able to apply it. Hatcher can barely apply a tourniquet."

  "Shh, Professor! She's right behind you!" India whispered, scandalized. The graduation ceremony was over. The students had exited the audito-rium's small stage to the strains of an inspiring march and were now posing for photographs or chatting with well-wishers.

  Fenwick flapped a hand at her. Nothing scandalized him. He was a man who spoke freely, pointedly, and usually at the top of his lungs. India had firsthand experience of his scorching invectives. They'd been directed at her often enough. She remembered her first week in his classroom. She'd been assigned to question a patient with pleurisy. Afterward Fenwick had called on her to open her case book and describe her findings. She could still hear him roaring at her for starting with the words "I feel..."

  "You what? You feel? You are not in my classroom to feel, Jones. This is not Early Romantic Poets. This is diagnosis, the taking of cases. You are here only to observe, for you are far too ignorant to do anything else. Feelings cloud judgment. What do they do, Jones?"

  "They cloud judgment, sir," India had replied, her cheeks blazing.

  "Very good. Feel for your patient and you harm him with foolish precon-ceptions. See him, Jones ...see the oedematosis of heart disease and

  know it from kidney failure ...see the olic of gallstones and know it from lead poisoning ...only see him, Jones, with clarity and with dispassion, and you will cure him."

  "Well, come on, come on, let's have a look," Fenwick said now, motioning impatiently to the leather folder tucked under India's arm.

  India opened it, eager herself to look again at what it contained--a buff-colored document with her name written in copperplate, the date--26 May 1900--the seal of the London School of Medicine for Women, and the proclamation there for all the world to see. She had earned her degree in medicine. She was now a doctor.

  "Doctor India Selwyn Jones. Has a nice ring, doesn't it?" Fenwick said.

  "It does, and if I hear it a few more times I might actually start to believe it."

  "Nonsense. There are some here who need a piece of paper to tell them that they're doctors, but you're not one of them."

  "Professor Fenwick! Professor, over here... ," a woman's voice shrilled.

  "Ye gads," Fenwick said. "The dean. Looks like she's got the head of Broadmoor with her, the poor devil. Wants me to convince him to hire some of you lot. You're damned lucky you got Gifford's job, you know."

  "I do, sir. I'm very eager to start."

  Fenwick snorted. "Really? Do you know Whitechapel?"

  "I did a bit of clinical work at London Hospital."

  "Any house calls?"

  "No, sir."

  "Hmm, I take it back then. Gifford's the lucky one."

  India smiled. "How bad can it be? I've done house calls in other poor areas. Camden, Paddington, Southwark..."

  "Whitechapel's like nowhere else in London, Jones. Be prepared for that.

  You'll learn a lot there, that's for certain, but with your mind, your skills, you should have a nice research fellowship at a teaching hospital. And your own surgery. Like Hatcher. Private practice. That's where you belong."

  "I can't afford to open my own surgery, sir."

  Fenwick gave her a long look. "Even if you could, I doubt you would. One could hand you the keys to a fully furnished Harley Street office and you'd hand them right back and scuttle off to the slums."

  India laughed. "I'd like to think I'd walk, sir."

  "Still dreaming your pipe dreams, eh?"

  "I prefer to think of them as goals, sir."

  "A clinic, is it?"

  "Yes."

  "For women and children."

  "That's right."

  Fenwick sighed. "I remember you and Hatcher talking about it, but I never thought you were serious."

  "Harriet isn't. I am."

  "Jones, have you any idea what's involved in that sort of thing?"

  "Some."

  "The raising of monies...the hunt for a suitable location... why, the administration alone simply boggles the mind. You need time to get a clinic off the ground, oceans of it, and you won't have a spare minute. You'll be worked off your feet at Gifford's practic
e. How will you manage it all?"

  "I'll find a way, sir. One must try to make a difference," India said resolutely.

  Fenwick cocked his head. "Do you know you said the same thing to me six years ago? When you first came here. What I've never understood is why."

  "Why?"

  "Why an aristocratic young woman from one of Britain's wealthiest families feels she needs to make a difference."

  India colored. "Sir, I'm not ...I don't ..."

  "Professor! Professor Fenwick!" It was the dean again.

  "I must go," Fenwick said. He was quiet for a few seconds, seeming to study his shoes, then added, "I don't mind telling you that I'll miss you, Jones. You're the best student I've ever had. Rational, logical, unemotional. A shining example to my current crop of ninnies. I also wish I could tell you that the hard part is over, but it's only beginning. You want to make a difference, to change the world, but the world might have other ideas. You know that, don't you?"

  "I do, sir."

  "Good. Then know this--no matter what happens out there, remember that you are a doctor. A very good one. No one can take that from you. And not because it's in here"--he tapped on the diploma--"but because it's in here." He tapped India's forehead. "Never forget that."

  It was India's turn to study her shoes. "I won't, sir," she whispered.

  She wanted to thank him for all that he'd done, for taking a know-nothing girl of eighteen and making her into a doctor, but she didn't know how. Six years it had taken. Six long years of hardship, struggle, and doubt. She'd made it only because of him. How could she thank him for that? Where would she even begin?

  "Professor Fenwick..." she said, but when she looked up he was gone.

  Feelings of loss and loneliness swept over her. Around her, fellow grad-uates laughed and chattered, surrounded by friends and family, but she was alone. Except for Maud. Freddie was away on government business. Wish was in America. Her parents were at Blackwood, hundreds of miles away, but even if they'd lived next door to the school they wouldn't have come. She knew that.

  For an instant, she thought of the one person who would have come if he could--a boy who would have walked all the way from Wales to be with her today. Hugh. She saw him in her mind's eye. He was running up Owen's Hill, laughing. Standing on Dyffyd's Rock, head thrown back, arms outstretched to the wild Welsh skies. She tried to push the images from her mind, but failed. Tears burned behind her eyes. She hastily blinked them away, knowing Maud would be looking for her, to take her to tea. Knowing, too, that Maud had little patience for tangled emotions.

  "Stop it, Jones. Right now," she hissed at herself. "Feelings cloud judgment."

  "So does champagne, old girl, but that's why we like it!" a male voice boomed, startling her.

  India whirled around, astonished. "Wish?" she exclaimed, as her cousin kissed her cheek. "What are you doing here? I thought you were in the States!"

  "Just got back. Ship docked yesterday. Got the car off it and drove hell for leather all night. Wouldn't have missed this for the world, Indy. Didn't you see me in the back? I was clapping like a lunatic. Bingham, too."

  "Bing, is that really you?" India asked, peering around her cousin.

  George Lytton, the twelfth Earl of Bingham, was standing behind Wish. He shyly raised a hand in greeting. "Hullo, Indy," he said. "Congrats."

  "This is such a lovely surprise! I didn't see either of you. Maud swiped my specs. Oh, look at you, Wish! So suntanned and handsome. Was your trip a success? Are you a billionaire?"

  "Not quite yet, old mole, but soon," Wish said, laughing.

  "Oh, for God's sake, darling, don't encourage him. His head's fat enough." The voice, her sister's, was heavy with boredom.

  "Maud! Give me back my glasses," India said.

  "Certainly not. They're beastly. They'll ruin the photographs."

  "But I can't see."

  Maud sighed. "If you insist," she said. "Really, though, India, if your specs get any thicker you'll be wearing binoculars." She wrinkled her nose. "Can we leave now? This place has the stinks."

  "Listen to your much older sister and get your things, Windy Indy," Wish said.

  "Very funny, Wish!" Maud said.

  "Don't call me that horrible name, Wish!" India scolded.

  Wish grinned. "It is horrible, isn't it? I gave it to you, remember? When you were ten and holding forth on the nesting habits of wrens. A proper boffin even then. And such a wordy old thing."

  "That nickname doesn't make her sound wordy, it makes her sound flatulent," Bing said, blinking owlishly.

  Wish and Maud roared. Bing cracked a smile and India tried not to. They'd all grown up together and tended to revert to old ways the minute they were reunited. She watched them--all three were nearly breathless with laughter now--half expecting Wish to thump Bingham with a serving spoon or Maud to pour ink in the teapot. Finally, unable to help her-self, she dissolved into giggles, too. Their sudden appearance had made her forget her earlier sadness and she was very happy they'd come. As chil-dren they'd all been inseparable, but now they were rarely in the same place at the same time. Maud tended to swan off to exotic destinations on a whim. Wish was forever starting up new ventures. A banker turned spec-ulator, he was known to make a fortune in a matter of days--and lose it again just as quickly. Bingham hardly ever left Longmarsh, preferring its quiet woods and meadows to the noisy streets of London. And Freddie-- India's fianc�nd Bingham's brother--practically lived at the House of Commons.

  "Look, we've got to shake a leg," Wish said impatiently, "so get your things, Lady Indy."

  "Don't call me that, either," India warned.

  "How about we call you late for lunch, then? We've a reservation for half one at the Coburg--a little party for you--but we'll never make it un-less we get started."

  "Wish, you mustn't--" India started to say.

  "No worries. I didn't. It's on Lytton."

  "Bing, you shouldn't--"

  "Not me, Indy," he said. "My brother."

  "Freddie's here?" India asked. "How? When? He said he'd been summoned to C-B's for the weekend."

  Wish shrugged. "Dunno. S'pose he got himself unsummoned. He was just trotting down the steps when I called at his flat so I gave him a ride."

  "Where is he now?"

  "Outside. Bringing the car round."

  "No, I'm not. I'm right here," a young blond man said. He was tall and slender, beautifully dressed in a cutaway coat and cheviot trousers. A dozen female heads turned to admire him. A few--a doddery aunt, a younger sister--might have asked who he was, but most recognized him. He was a Member of Parliament, a rising star whose bold defection from the Conservatives to the Liberals had his name constantly in the papers. He was Bing-ham's younger brother--only a second son--yet Bing, shy and retiring, faded beside him.

  "Freddie, what took you?" Wish asked. "You had me worried."

  "I'm touched, old man. Truly."

  "Not about you. About the car." Wish's motor car, a Daimler, was brand-new.

  "Mmmm. Yes. Had a spot of trouble with the car," Freddie said. "Couldn't get the damned thing in reverse. Or neutral. Couldn't shut it off, either."

  "Freddie..." Wish began, but Freddie didn't hear him. He was kissing India's cheek.

  "Well done, my darling," he said. "Congratulations."

  "Freddie, you ass!" Wish shouted. "What do you mean you can't shut it off? What's it doing? Driving itself?"

  "Of course not. I told the porter to drive it. Last I saw, he was headed for King's Cross."

  Wish swore, then dashed out of the auditorium. Bing followed.

  Freddie grinned. "Car's perfectly safe. Parked it out front. Did you see Wish's face?"

  "Freddie, that was awful! Poor Wish!" India said.

  "Poor Wish, my foot," Maud said, lighting a cigarette. "Serves him right. He's gone absolutely car mad. Now, can we please go, too? I can't bear the smell of this place. Really, Indy, it's awful. What is it?" she asked.

  India sniffed. "I
don't smell a thing."

  "Have you got a cold? How can you not?"

  She sniffed again. "Oh, that. Ca--" She was about to say cabbages. A nearby church ran a soup kitchen for the poor and cooking smells were always drifting over, but Freddie cut her off.