The images flashed too fast, dizzying. Her bedroom, her drawing room, a table in the library. Under her bed, wrapped in her shawl. Blood. Barbara. The hospital.
Faces, too many faces. Bearded, clean-shaven, leering. Nodding, smiling politely. Hands held out for money. Street corners. Her house. The fence.
There, by the soldier’s cot. Pushed underneath.
A paint bucket. A brush in this man’s hand.
“Where be it? Ye ain’t got no fancy bag, but sure an a fine lass like you don’t never go out withou’ ye quid.”
The images flew too fast, spun and bobbed and wavered. A painter. Where was his name? Somewhere, but she couldn’t…
“Hidden on ye, is it?”
“Stop!” The feel of his hands was too much to bear as they slid up her side. Or perhaps just the impetus she needed to replace shock with rage. She spat out the blood and knocked away the roaming hand, at least, though the one with the knife still hovered at her neck. “Please, I–I don’t have it. I dropped my bag at the hospital and fled too quickly to remember it. Please.”
He sputtered, curses flying from his lips along with the spittle that spattered her face.
She winced and turned her face to the wall again, though that made the pain at her temple and cheekbone throb. “Please. Tell them I sent you to fetch it for me and keep whatever was in there. I believe I had five dollars, perhaps a—”
“Ye think me a fool?”
Doyle. The name materialized in her mind, though she couldn’t discern if it was his first or last. And hardly cared. “Doyle. Doyle, stop. Please.”
Stop he did, for half a beat before he pressed the blade to her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut. Bad idea, letting him know she knew him. And now that she had the name to put to the face, the rest came flooding in, pushing aside the irrelevant images. She knew where he lived—or had four years ago, when she had hired him to paint her fence and outbuildings the summer after she wed Lucien. She knew he had a sickly wife, and eight children all under the age of ten, at the time.
And when she heard the tap of wood on paving stone, the sick ball dropped lower in her stomach. Risking a glance only proved what the sound had told her. Doyle had only a peg where his foot had been.
“Know me, do ye?” He stroked the blade over her skin. “Then I know ye too. And I might as well kill ye and then rob yer whole house.”
Never before had she stared down death—were waves of sorrow supposed to slam her? She was doomed to die the same death her husband had, a victim to a violent town and starving men, and she could think only that she had done nothing with her life. A waste of twenty-three years, with nothing to show for them but a fledgling faith too young to take wing.
Lord…be with Barbara and my family. With Walker and Cora and their children. Slade, be with Slade. Help him in his task when I’m gone. And…at least help me die with the honor with which I failed to live.
She lifted her chin and did her best to calm her frantic breathing. “Make it quick then, I beg of you.”
He hissed out a breath. Had he been…bluffing? Dare she hope? Her hand gripped her skirt, detecting something hard within her pocket—the fob. And she still wore Grandmama’s necklace too, under her high collar. Either, both may appease this man, but was her life worth the trade of a legacy?
“You there! Unhand her!” Granddad Thad’s voice pummeled the shadows, and the deliberate click of a cocking gun sent them fleeing.
Doyle muttered and backed away a step. When she opened her eyes, he was edging toward the cover of a large crate. Bracing against the wall to keep herself upright, Marietta turned her face toward her grandfather.
What a menacing picture he made, a giant silhouette at the end of the alley, his pistol extended and trained on her assailant. No shaking in his limbs, no uncertainty, no sorrow. “Drop your knife,” he commanded, voice low as a threat, “and stay where you are.”
Did he mean to haul the man to the authorities himself? Probably, knowing him. And he would do it, too, despite his eight decades.
The ruffian took off toward the opposite end of the alley, his peg tapping furiously with every other step.
Granddad gave chase, but he stopped first at Marietta and cupped her chin. “Are you hurt, Mari?”
She gripped his arm and clung. “Let him go.”
“I could catch him.”
“I know.” The ghost of a smile felt strange on her lips and made blood ooze into her mouth again. “But that man has eight children and no way to feed them. Please. Let him go.”
His gentle fingers turned her face this way and that. “Did he crack you in the nob, sweetheart?” He clucked his tongue. But he stayed where he was.
Relief made her legs go boneless, and she sagged against his familiar chest. “What are you doing here, Granddad?”
“I had a feeling.” Of course he did. “I didn’t realize it would be you, here like this. And I don’t much like seeing you with blood on your face.”