in the crowd ahead of him and he pressed through. A phaeton had overturned in the middle of the road. Its red-faced owner worked to free his struggling horse from its traces while Joe tried to calm the animal, barely missing flailing hooves. The two nags attached to a nearby cart, St. William’s Benevolence Society emblazoned on its side, shuffled and snorted their agitation. The policeman began shouting for everyone to clear the street, adding to the din.
A clutch of people was gathered just beyond the phaeton. Mrs. Mainprice disappeared into their midst.
“Let me through,” James called out, stepping over a broken earthenware pitcher he recognized as once having belonged to him. He thought he saw the top of Miss Dunne’s head, the bright blaze of her hair, low to the ground. Was she injured? His heartbeat ratcheted up. “I’m a physician; let me through.”
Mrs. Mainprice heard his voice and waved to him. “Oh, sir, thank goodness you’re here! You’ve got to help.”
One of his neighbors, the banker’s wife with her silverish hair and curiously coordinating day dress, sidestepped to make room, taking her parlor-maid with her.
“It’s a girl, Dr. Edmunds. One of those street sellers who are always coming around. She’s been run over,” she said without any particular compassion.
The last of the crowd parted. Mrs. Mainprice had draped the blue blanket over the huddled pile on the street. The girl’s basket lay not far away, apples cascading onto the road, shiny globes of pink lodged in the dung and the filth. Miss Dunne was seated in the disgusting mess, the child’s head cradled on her lap, snarled strands of hair the shade of dead grass splayed across her apron. Spots of color rode high on the girl’s cheeks—was she more than five years of age?—and she pinched her eyes shut against the pain.
James dropped to his knees next to Miss Dunne. “What happened?”
She glanced over. “I dropped the box. She was in the road when the carriage veered around it. He ran into her. It was my fault.”
Impulsively James pressed a hand to her elbow, the thick twill of her gown rough beneath his fingers. “Don’t blame yourself. Please.”
She looked away from his face, down at the girl quietly moaning in her lap.
James dropped his hand. “Has she been moved at all?”
“No. I made certain she was not seriously injured before letting anyone lift her off the road.”
“Very good, Miss Dunne. That was precisely the right thing to do. Poor creature.” He brushed the child’s hair back from her face, scratched from scraping against the ground, a smear of dirt along her jaw She whimpered and squirmed. “Shh, little one. Hush now.”
His fingertips lingered, shaking as he drew them down the side of her face. Cleaned up, the girl might resemble Amelia, with her daintily pointed chin. He blinked away the image. In truth, she looked nothing like his daughter, but he saw Amelia’s face everywhere these days.
James peeled back the blanket. A crosshatching of cuts bled scarlet onto her threadbare dress. Her left arm dangled awkwardly from above the elbow, bending in a direction no arm was meant to go.
“I think only her arm is broken,” Miss Dunne said, her voice abruptly gone faint, as if coming from a distance. “I checked her ribs and . . . legs and . . . and . . .”
He looked up from his examination of the girl, saw Miss Dunne go pale, and caught her just before her head hit the ground.
Rachel sputtered awake, the acrid stench of ammonia making her eyes water. Voices buzzed all around her, like a hundred flies circling her head. She blinked up at Dr. Edmunds’s face, hovering very close above hers.
He smiled then looked over his shoulder. “As you see, Mrs. Mainprice, quick-lime and muriate of ammonia works every time.”
Mrs. Mainprice took the bottle he held out and tucked it into the pocket hidden deep within her voluminous skirts. “Glad to see you awake, miss. Was worried about you for a moment there.” She nodded and moved out of Rachel’s view.
“What is going on?” Rachel’s head felt strange, empty and loose as if she had left a portion of her brain on the cobblestones. She tried to focus on his face.
“You fainted, Miss Dunne.”
Oh, yes. The little apple seller and her broken arm . . . A fresh wave of lightheadedness swept over Rachel.
Dr. Edmunds shimmied his arms beneath her legs and her shoulders. “Hang on tight. Unless you want me to drop