Tears sprang into her eyes, and a sob clawed at her throat.
As Zaira pulled her close again, Alannah fell against the young woman and buried her face, letting the sorrow rise up and spill over. Although she wanted to rail and cry out, she let the cloak and Zaira’s shoulder muffle her sobs.
It hadn’t mattered how much she’d prayed or pleaded with God. He hadn’t answered her and had taken the last of her family from her anyway.
26
The wagon rumbled to a stop at the rear of the Shanahans’ St. Louis mansion. Kiernan was already bounding down from the seat before it came to a complete halt. He hurried to the back and climbed into the wagon bed.
His pulse thundered with dread as he tossed aside the few boards and tools Donahue and Dustin had placed over Torin’s body. The brothers had used the few minutes of darkness to take him out of the casket while Kiernan had been searching for a grave site. Then they’d carried the empty casket to the grave.
If anyone had been watching, they would have seen Torin’s casket being lowered into the ground and buried. And if anyone had followed them into the city, they would have seen an empty wagon bed, save for the shovels and an assortment of boards in a pile next to Dustin. Hopefully, they hadn’t seen the body underneath that pile.
They’d halted two blocks from the doctor’s house, and Dustin had set out on foot to secretly ask the doctor to come to the Shanahan home with all haste. Now Kiernan hoped they weren’t too late to save Torin after so much time had elapsed.
He yanked back the cover to find Torin’s pale face. His eyes were closed and his body motionless.
Was he dead?
Kiernan lifted a hand to Torin’s mouth, and a soft exhale warmed his fingers.
Kiernan’s shoulders deflated in relief. “He’s alive.”
Donahue was waiting at the end of the wagon bed. “Praise be.”
“Grab his feet, and I’ll hold his head.” Kiernan was already lifting Torin’s head as gently as he could.
As Kiernan crawled forward holding Torin’s upper body, and Donahue moved slowly with Torin’s legs, a light sprang to life in a window in the house.
Several moments later, Winston, their butler, opened the back door. The tall silver-haired man was attired in his usual black trousers and white dress shirt, which was untucked and only half buttoned. He wore his slippers and not his shoes. While he’d somehow managed to hastily don his clothing, he’d forgotten to take off his nightcap.
Winston hurried to the wagon and positioned himself at Torin’s midsection, slipping his arms underneath and holding the body steady while Kiernan descended.
Silently they made their way through the house, up the main stairway, and down the hallway to the family bedchambers, to Kiernan’s room.
The chamber was dark, and the mustiness of the room, having been closed off, greeted him along with the familiar waft of lemon oil used on the walnut furniture.
They carried Torin to the bed and laid him down. Winston lit the globe lantern on the bedside table, then moved to the lantern on the reading table near the hearth, flanked on both sides with wingback chairs.
Everything about the room was masculine and tasteful—thelight blue wallpaper patterned with gray and white vines and leaves, the large chest of drawers, and the elaborately carved headboard.
Kiernan didn’t like knickknacks and had only one picture on the wall, a cityscape with the glass factory in the center. He’d had the portrait commissioned to remember his first step in what was to have been his long list of accomplishments. But now, with the damage and losses he’d incurred at the brickyard, maybe the glass factory would be his only accomplishment.
“How is he?” Donahue was watching Torin, his droopy face sagging more than usual.
Kiernan again tested Torin’s mouth and nose. “Still breathing.”
Winston started toward the door. “I’ll heat some water, find some fresh bandages and ointment, and then we’ll care for his wounds until the doctor arrives.”
Kiernan wasn’t an emotional man. But his chest constricted with gratitude for this old butler who’d served the Shanahan family so faithfully and was doing so again without any questions asked.
Donahue didn’t linger for long. Kiernan sent him on his way so they didn’t draw attention to a lone wagon parked at the house. Then Kiernan helped Winston with cleaning the wounds, and they were tending them when the doctor arrived.
The doctor set to work on Torin’s deepest cuts, cauterizing some of the smaller ones and then using ligatures to close off two more serious spots of bleeding that had slowed but not stopped.
All the while he reassured Kiernan that none of Torin’s internal organs had been hit—at least that he could assess.The doctor also was confident Torin would live as long as none of the injuries became gangrenous.
Kiernan didn’t have to explain much about the nature of the gang fight for the doctor to easily agree not to mention anything about Torin to anyone. The fellow likely guessed that if word got out that he’d helped save Torin, he would be putting his own life at risk.
