enough to be sure she wouldn’t slip free.
“Grace . . . ,” Mrs. Clay said, fingers brushing Grace’s skirt as she was led from the room.
“Knew there was fight in you,” Croomes said as she propelled Grace to the laundry, her feet giving out underneath her as another wave of pain racked her torso. “No point tussling with us, missy. You done wrong and you’re gonna pay.
“You,” Croomes snapped at the young girl working at the mangler. “We need us some sheets for a wrapping.”
The girl bobbed her head automatically. “Will you be wanting hot or cold, mum?”
“Oh, I think this one here is a rather hot little dish herself. Why not treat like with like? You’ve got some fresh on the steamer, I see. Let’s put them to good use.”
The girl’s eyes went wide. “Oh no, mum. Those just now went through, they’re almost too hot to touch, let alone wrap a body in.”
“Nonsense,” Croomes spat. “Is it a punishment, or ain’t it?” She tore the sheet from the steamer, hardly able to hold it for more than a second before it fluttered to the ground. “It’ll do nicely. Hand me a pair of gloves, girl. Marie, strip the patient and hold her arms down. I imagine she’ll kick up a bit of a fuss once I start the job.”
Grace’s new dress was yanked over her head, the undergarments she’d been allowed for the evening rudely pulled off. Her hands snaked after them into the air, modesty still a convention she clung to. Instead, her hands met Marie’s midgrab.
“I’m sorry, girl. Truly, I am. But I have a job, and it’s the job I do.” Then Grace’s wrists were pinned to the cold floor above her head and an envelope of heat closed around her feet.
She kicked out instinctively, her heel hooking the sheet and sending it arcing over Croomes’s face before the woman could react. The nurse snagged her foot and turned her ankle inward until Grace quieted and the wrapping began.
Croomes spared her not an inch, and her practiced hands bound Grace’s legs together so tightly that her kneecaps dug against each other while the heat pressed in. Steam rose from the sheet as Croomes worked, covering Grace up to her belly before calling for another sheet, hot from the steamer.
Sweat sprang from every pore, rolling down her face as her body tried desperately to shed heat anywhere it could. A fresh sheet, even hotter than the one before, draped over her belly and was pulled ruthlessly tight against the flushed skin. Marie moved Grace’s arms to her sides, and they too were pinned to her ribs. Croomes worked toward her neck, wrapping Grace’s hair, now wet with sweat, into the sheet. Fingers worked between the folds near her mouth, pulling apart an opening for her to breathe through.
“It’s a fine mess you’ve got yourself in, little lady,” Croomes said. “You’ve had better treatment than most up till now, but stabbing a man will rouse his temper.”
The gas lamps were extinguished, one by one, the pale haloes of light disappearing from her shrouded eyes as the women’s voices receded. The darkness was complete when the first contraction came. The shock of it squeezed the first word she’d uttered in a long while past her lips as the excruciating wave rippled through her.
“No.”
I’m going to die.
She had denied language for so long, shutting down not only her tongue but her mind as well so that no thoughts could form. Her life had become a fog, one that would end soon if she found a way, yet as she writhed on the edge of true madness, her brain rejected the safety she’d made for herself, patching together a sentence to shock her into action.
I’m going to die.
The voice of her own thought was oddly familiar, like seeing an old friend on the street after some time apart. Grace stilled, listening to her consciousness, and found herself rebelling against the conclusion it had come to.
I’m going to die, and my baby with me.
Grace screamed in agony, against fate and futility, against the life she should have lived versus the one she’d been delivered into. Her cries rolled down the darkened hallways, only to dissipate before reaching anyone’s ears.
SIX
When they pulled the sheets from her, the shock of the cool air was almost painful. Grace heard Mrs. Clay saying her name, but she could only moan. Her hands fell away from her sides and her fingers went instinctively to her belly,