She coughed, wiped her mouth, turned her face away. “Please.” A rasp. “I do not wish whatever ails me to infect you too.”
“You cannot think me so selfish.”
“Please—”
“Let me help you to bed. I shall call for Nellie, and she shall send one of the manservants out for the doctor—”
“No.” Agnes scrambled to her feet, the hem of her dress swishing into the vomit. She backed into the wall and framed her face. “I do not wish to see anyone. If you truly care to assist me, leave me alone.”
“I will not leave you like this.”
“You must.”
“Where were you in that dress?”
Nothing.
“Agnes, answer me. It has been night for hours—”
“You already own every piece of my life, Georgina. Is one small request too much to grant?”
Chest deflating, Georgina forced down a wave of confusion. Mayhap anger too. She glanced at the vomit smeared across the floral rug, to the soiled silk, then back to the stricken face. “Very well. I shall leave you alone.” Blinking fast, she padded back to the door in her bare feet, but leaned back inside before pulling it shut. “Agnes?”
Her cousin’s rigid stance flinched. She lifted dull eyes in waiting.
“You can still tell me everything, you know.” The whisper scraped Georgina’s throat. “Just as before, when we were children. We are not so very changed, are we?”
Agnes turned to face the window. She swiped a hand across her eyes, as if rubbing away tears, but said nothing at all.
For once, something was going right for him.
Simon pulled Mercy between his legs, the carriage creaking and bouncing with every dip. “Hold still.” He ran his fingers through the tangles of her curls. Why her hair always appeared a matted nest after every night’s sleep, he would never know.
Ruth had always handled such matters before.
“Papa, John no let me draw. Me turn.”
Across the carriage, sprawled out on a seat of his own, John moved the pencil in concentration, his tongue stuck out from his lips. “I can’t stop till I’m done, Mercy.”
“What is it?” She tried to move, but Simon pinned her back. “Me see, John.”
“Not till I’m done.”
“Then me turn?”
John nodded, then groaned when another street bump disrupted his drawing.
Ten minutes later, the carriage rolled to the front of a four-story brick building with a sign readingTHEKELL-BELLhanging above the door.
“Where are we, sir?”
“Stay here, John. I must speak with someone inside for a moment. Then we’ll find one of those confectioner’s shops I was telling you of.” Leaving the children inside, Simon started for the coffeehouse.
He had expected anything but this.
When he had visited Sir Walter in his office yesterday morning, Simon had little hopes the barrister had heard the name Friedrich Neale—let alone represented him. As it was, with the snap of his fingers to the lanky clerk and the rustling of several papers in several cabinets, Sir Walter was able to present Simon an address.
The only living relative of Neale lived here.
