Page 83 of The Lady's Last Mistake
It was a simple room, with a single bed, a washstand, and a dresser. A low table dressed in prayer candles and a statue of Mary in a penitent pose was the only other ornamentation. Several more candles lit the room, and the wavering light showed healing bruises under Isabel’s eye and on her cheek.
Cassie handed the baby basket to Sister Nan and went to the bed, where Isabel was already laying down again. After pulling the blanket up over her, she peeled off a glove and pressed a palm to her forehead. It was scorching. She turned to the nun, recalling what Grant had said about keeping others away. “Take the baby, sister. He shouldn’t be in here.”
Sister Nan nodded and left, closing the door behind her.
“Your fever is high,” Cassie told Isabel. “But Doctor Brown is coming. He’s going to help you.”
She shook her head on the pillow, her hair damp with sweat. “I have nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. I can’t do this.”
Cassie went to the small table with a basin and pitcherand poured out some water. She wet a cloth and then folded it over Isabel’s forehead.
“Yes, you can. You will. I promise, Isabel, you’re not alone.”
In the corridor, footsteps scuffed lightly along the tiled floor. How had Grant already arrived? Cassie stood to meet him, but as the door opened, her body went rigid.
Mr. Youngdale entered, his cloak and hat as black as his menacing grin, puckering the scabbing gashes on his cheek.
“No!” Isabel yelped, jerking upright in the bed.
“Thank you for leading me to my wife.” His voice, though smooth and modulated, ran with an uncurrent of hostility. So did his expression as he looked between Isabel on the bed, and then Cassie, who stood between them.
“You were still following me,” she whispered, cursing herself for her stupidity. He’d left Grosvenor Square after trailing her from Duke’s, and she’d presumed that had been the end of it. But it hadn’t been. He’d been watching her ever since, and she’d naively led him straight to his quarry.
“I am not your wife,” Isabel said through gritted teeth. She shook, her forehead glistening with sweat, and her coloring had paled. She was ill and in no state to fight.
“You will be, if only to give me my rightful property when it is born.” A long blade dropped into Mr. Youngdale’s palm, and he made a low, swiping gesture with it toward Cassie. “Move aside.”
Her pulse throbbed as her mind jumped to Sister Nan and the baby and if they were safe. Then to Grant and Tris and when they might be here. But she couldn’t depend on their arrival. She had to defend Isabel herself somehow.
“No,” she replied to Mr. Youngdale. “She is not your property, and neither is her child. Leave here, now.”
He wouldn’t. Cassie knew that even as she said it. He stepped forward.
“You may be the sister of a duke, but when people learn you’ve been secretly operating a home for pregnant whores, I doubt they will be surprised that you met your end in a Whitechapel alley, which is exactly where you’ll be found.”
He lunged. Isabel screamed as Cassie barely escaped the slicing path of the blade. In her dive to the side, her toe snagged on the foot of the bed, and she lost her balance. Landing hard on the floor, Cassie twisted to see Mr. Youngdale latched his hand around Isabel’s arm and hauled her from the bed. She fought, thrashing and screaming. Cassie needed a weapon, but the room was utterly spare—except for the prayer table near her shoulder.
She grabbed the first thing she could think of—the statue of Mary. It was surprisingly heavy, made of stone or marble, rather than hollow ceramic as she’d imagined it would be. As Mr. Youngdale struggled to drag Isabel toward the door, Cassie rolled into a kneeling position and swung the statue, bashing it into his knees. A sickening crunch preceded his animal like howl. He lashed out at her with the knife, but she’d fallen back to the floor, out of reach. Isabel shoved him and kicked, and keeping her hands on the statue, Cassie staggered to her feet, prepared to swing again, this time, for his head.
The door to the room crashed open, and then Grant was barreling inside. He slammed into Mr. Youngdale, his momentum driving them both into the washstand andknocking it over. The basin and pitcher shattered onto the floor.
“He has a knife!” Cassie screamed, terrified that he would plunge the blade into Grant as they smashed into another wall.
Cassie gathered a sobbing Isabel to her feet and urged her toward the door. But she couldn’t leave Grant, who now pinned Mr. Youngdale to the wall. He thumped his arm repeatedly until the knife dropped from his grip and clattered onto the floor. Cassie kicked it further away.
“Go! Fetch a constable!” Grant shouted.
Isabel darted from the room just as Tris was rushing through the door. They caught each other’s arms, but only briefly basked in seeing each other again.
“The sister is shouting for help, go!” he told her, and Isabel left with the task.
Together, Grant and Tris shoved Mr. Youngdale to his stomach and pinioned him to the floor. The man howled some more, and when Grant knelt on his legs to keep him still, he screamed.
“My knee!” he sobbed. “The bitch shattered it.”
Heaving for breath, his hat lost in the scuffle, Grant peered between the discarded statue on the floor and Cassie. He grinned. “That is the sort of divine fury I wholly support.”
He got up, leaving Tris to stay with Mr. Youngdale. He wouldn’t be going anywhere. He lay flat and moaning, utterly whipped. Grant took Cassie by the shoulders and inspected her.
