Free The Lass Wore Black by Karen Ranney Page B

to chase away the cold, it pushed smoke into the space, which wasn’t good for Christel’s cough.
    As he walked deeper into the gloom, he could feel the rumble of the traffic in the stone beneath his feet. Not far away he heard high-pitched laughter and a drunk whining about losing his bottle.
    In the flickering shadows, he could see James sitting on the end of his sister’s cot. Edeen was nowhere to be seen.
    Some children had been cowed by Old Town with its army of prostitutes, thieves, and drunkards, growing wide-eyed and silent. James, however, hadn’t yet succumbed to hopelessness. He was curious and inventive, asked questions incessantly, and was a handful for Edeen, who was already worn down with Christel’s illness.
    Both children were too old for their years, their father’s abandonment affecting them more than their living conditions.
    When James saw him, he grinned, turned to Christel and shook her leg. The little girl roused with a moan and a cough.
    “Where’s your mother?” he asked, taking the ebony stethoscope from his pocket and kneeling to examine the little girl.
    “She said she’d be back soon and I was to see to Christel.”
    He bent and listened to her chest. Like her brother, she was small for her age. At six years old, she was too pale and thin, but he marveled at the strength of her frail body. Long after she should have succumbed to the asthma that made her life miserable, she rallied. A lesson to him that, while he might think he had some power over illness, the human will was sometimes stronger than disease.
    Catriona was going to have to eat her noon meal without supervision. No doubt he would hear about his dereliction of duty later, but he wasn’t going to leave the children alone.
    For the next hour he played a game in the dust with James until the boy, with the uncanny instinct of children, suddenly jumped off the end of the cot and headed for the shadows.
    “Mam, the doctor is here!” he said, his voice echoing through the vault.
    Edeen came into view, clutching her shawl around her shoulders. She looked tired. No, beaten down was a more apt description. He stood, giving up the only other place to sit, a small trunk that held their meager possessions.
    Even under these conditions, Edeen was a beautiful woman. Tall, willowy, with a striking grace, she had bright red hair and a complexion that rivaled any London beauty. Her eyes were a soft green, and the expression in them inspired his compassion more often than not.
    He waited until she greeted James, went to check on Christel, then moved to his side.
    “What happened to the lace making?” he asked.
    “They’ve no need for more work at the moment,” she said, her voice soft, because of James’s eternal curiosity. “We can’t wait on their needs to eat.”
    “So you sell yourself,” he said, biting back his anger.
    Her smile surprised him.
    “I’ve something of value, at least.”
    What she didn’t realize was that she could easily become diseased like any number of women he treated. What good would she be to her children if she was struggling for life herself?
    They’d already had that discussion too many times to count.
    He pulled out a few bank notes and reached for her hand. She stepped back, shaking her head.
    “Don’t be proud, Edeen,” he said, forcing the bills into her palm. “Take it for Christel and James.”
    “I don’t need your charity,” she said, her voice husky.
    “Get the children some food, and some warmer blankets.”
    He would have taken them to his own home, but he knew Edeen wouldn’t allow it.
    Edeen was as stubborn as the princess. She wouldn’t apply for poor relief, and she wouldn’t accept money from the churches that regularly ministered here. The only assistance she’d taken was when Mrs. MacTavish had recommended her for a job. Even here, in Hell’s foyer, she’d created lovely pieces of lace for which she earned some pennies, yet not enough to afford decent lodgings or as