“She was soaked through from the rain. At least, I was able to remove her jacket before she went out like a light.” Elizabeth explained. “I put the blanket over her, poor thing.”
Lily was curled on her side, legs drawn up under the blanket and against the cold.
Munro lifted her into his arms and stood. “She has a room?”
“Just there.” Elizabeth indicated the room off the parlour.
He carried her into the room, then laid her on the bed. She had not moved.
He had seen it before, the ague that set in with those out and about in the cold. He removed her boots and stockings
“Stand aside Mr. Munro, I’ll see to the rest of her clothes. Ye need to tend the fire. It will need more coal from the parlour.”
He brought coal, set it in the firebox, then struck a match. The flame sputtered then grew, light from the flames spread across the wood floor.
“Oh, merciful heaven,” Elizabeth Cheney whispered.
He glanced over at the bed where she had been able to remove Lily’s skirt and shirtwaist.
She stood with a hand clasped over her mouth.
“Who would do such a thing?”
Munro crossed the small room. Even in the flickering light from the fireplace, he saw the dull gleam of the white marks across Lily’s back.
She had been beaten, badly enough that it had left scars. They were old. He knew the look of such things.
Mrs. Cheney looked up at him. There were tears in her eyes.
“I will stay with her,” he told her. It was not a question.
The woman made no objection, nor did she lecture him about the proprieties of such things. She simply nodded.
“It gets cold in the night. There are more blankets in the chest under the window.”
He thanked her as she left, then pulled a chair beside the bed.
If she wakened with him there, it would be an argument fer certain.
Much later, the sound wakened him from dozing at the chair. A whimper of sadness, something whispered, a sound he knew well from old things.
He glimpsed the scar on her shoulder, just there at the edge of her camisole. It was all but dry now and the inspector’s sister had not removed it.
Lily looked incredibly small and fragile on the bed.
Fragile.
It was not a word that he was familiar with in those he knew. Yet it was there, along with strength that she had acquired from other things she'd experienced.
She had lost the blanket as she stirred without waking. He pulled it back up over her shoulders. Then lightly touched her bruised cheek.
“Tha mi an seo.I am here.”
Lily
My friend, Abby! She was here! We stood together once more, shivering in that alcove at the Foundling Hospital, terrified of being discovered, yet daring to hope...
“We need to go!” I whispered.
