“Mr. Braddock, if you don’t wake up, I shall kill you myself.”
“It will be all right,” Mr. Kent reassured me as we tugged Mr. Braddock up, pulling his arms around our shoulders. “God, he is much heavier than he looks, isn’t he? Must be that large head.”
We laid Mr. Braddock down in Mr. Kent’s carriage, then squeezed ourselves in. “The closest hospital!” Mr. Kent called out to his driver.
“No!” I shouted, shaking my head fervently. The hospital would contact the police, and the police would contact Dr. Beck. We needed a quiet, safe place to treat him. With no other choice, I provided the driver with the Lodges’ address. Mr. Braddock had to live. Then we could worry about the rest.
“How did you find me?” The words slipped out of me. I needed a distraction as I pulled Mr. Braddock onto my lap, cradling him as if my arms were the only things keeping him in one piece.
Mr. Kent’s jaw set, but he answered civilly enough. “I saw a strange woman in the dress your sister was wearing earlier. Curious business, that. But she told me where you were—after enough money changed hands, of course.”
“Yes, of course, I will explain . . .” But I couldn’t. My words drifted away, leaving me unable to think on anything besides Mr. Braddock. Blood still seeped out of the cut on his back, soaking my hands, my dress, my thoughts. He had said I was a miraculous healer. He said I restored Miss Lodge to full health. I’d seen my hands heal. It was true. And I wanted it to be true. As we rolled down the bumpy streets, I closed my eyes, willing my body to access my power, whatever part it was that would make him better.
Please. I believed. Damn it all, I believed.
THE ENTIRELY HEALTHY Miss Lodge greeted us at her front door and let out a soft gasp, taking in the entirely bloody Mr. Braddock. With the quiet, incurious assistance of Cushing, we hauled Mr. Braddock’s body up the stairs and into a dark-paneled guest room. My arms trembled with exertion, and my eyes itched with tears I would not allow to fall. As we set him on the bed, I held Miss Lodge’s disbelieving gaze, unnaturally shiny over the candle.
It was true. She really had recovered. And now I burdened her with this.
“I’m terribly sorry for troubling you,” I whispered. “We just needed to treat him quickly.”
At that, she snapped into action, swiftly rearranging the bedsheets around Mr. Braddock with an agitated energy. “No, no, please. Thank you for bringing him,” she said with a rushed imitation of a smile. Her eyes finally landed on my dress and widened. “You’re—you’re covered in blood, Miss Wyndham. Are you hurt? We will call for a doctor.”
“It’s all—it’s his blood,” I croaked. “Please, let me help him . . . I must, he saved me.”
Miss Lodge looked hesitant but gave in before I did, asking Cushing to fetch me the supplies I needed. In a flash, he returned with a cart of bandages, gauze, towels, laudanum, a sewing kit, and a bowl of warm water. Even if I couldn’t magically heal him, I could still do this.
Whereas Miss Lodge’s illness had baffled me, Mr. Braddock’s treatment came naturally, recalling the countless farming accidents that Rose and I tended to in Bramhurst. First came the knife wound, which required peeling off the blood-drenched jacket and shirt with Cushing’s help and trying to ignore the fact that Mr. Kent and Miss Lodge were waiting and watching in the corner. The cut ran six inches across his back, but fortunately it ran fairly shallow—Dr. Beck had not hit anything too serious. Silence fell upon the room, and I fell into a trance with my ministrations, carefully cleaning up the cut with the towels, stitching it closed with the sewing kit, wrapping it with the bandages, and then repeating the process for the cut on his forehead. The whole time, the faint sensation from Mr. Braddock tied us together like a delicate thread, and I did everything in my power to keep it from snapping.
Only when I stood up to fetch the laudanum to help Mr. Braddock with the pain did the exhaustion of the night hit me in full force. The dizzying room lurched like a boat, and my feet struggled to find stable ground.
In an instant, Mr. Kent was by my side, supporting me on his shoulder. “Miss Wyndham, you need rest, and I doubt this floor is the best place for that.”
I let go of him and grabbed the bottle from the cart. “He still needs some laudanum. And some ice for his bruises.”
Miss Lodge gently took it from me. “You’ve done all the difficult work. We can manage some simple nursing. Please, you’ve given me my health back, and I am truly thankful that I can do this for him.” She looked past me. “Would you be able to escort her home, Mr. Kent?”