. .”
Thaddeus’s glass halted in midair. James heard the ruckus that had captured his friend’s attention. He craned his neck to see over a man blocking his view.
“Can’t a man eat a meal in peace anymore?” grumbled Thaddeus, shifting in his seat to catch a look. “We have to have waiters scuffling with patrons now?”
Then James heard it, the whisper leaping like fleas scattering before a fumigant of burning sulfur. “Cholera,” it chattered. Cholera.
James jumped up, threw his napkin on the table, and pushed his way through to the front. Thaddeus was close on his heels.
“What’s going on?” James asked of the waiter who’d locked arms with the man.
The waiter was a burly fellow and easily subdued the other. “It’s nothing, sir. You can go back to eating. This fellow’s just a mite upset over something he saw out on the street.”
The man, a tradesman by the look of his breeches and heavy dark coat, was sweating. His eyes were wide as a copper penny. “There’s a woman outside on the pavement. She’s perished from the cholera. Right before my eyes, she did!”
“I’m a physician. Show me where she is.”
The waiter relinquished his grasp, and the fellow sprung free. “Out here, doctor.” He shoved back out through the door and pointed down the street a short way. A crowd huddled nearby, hands over noses and mouths, staring aghast. Someone had thought to send for a policeman, for a man in the familiar blue uniform and helmet was running their direction.
Thaddeus joined James as he crouched next to the woman. She was someone’s servant or charwoman, dressed in a simple dark gown, hair graying beneath her mobcap. The items she had been carrying in a basket were scattered on the ground nearby. A skein of twine. A shattered bottle of oily boot blacking.
James felt for a pulse along her neck, the skin already gone blue. “There’s no heartbeat.” The front of her gown was soiled from where she had vomited, the stench sour and pervasive.
Thaddeus finished his own quick assessment as the policeman arrived to drive back the onlookers and send for an ambulance. “I say, it just might be the cholera,” he whispered. “Blessed Lord in heaven, they’re dropping in the streets now.”
James rocked back on his heels. “Dreadful business.” He cocked his head and looked at the woman’s face, twisted in agony. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t place her. Why would he know this woman? He was probably mistaken.
He pulled out his handkerchief and draped it over her face, heard the distant clang of the ambulance wagon’s bell as it came to take the woman’s lifeless body away.
“Cor, miss, what a mess in here!” Joe complained, picking his way through the library, past the crates and stacks of books waiting to be packed.
The house was buzzing with activity, every room swarming like ants on a hill. Soon the household would be moving to Finchingfield.
“The packing is taking longer than I expected,” Rachel answered. “Will you be able to help me today?”
“I can ’elp once I’m done dancin’ like a cat on ’ot coals.” He gave an apologetic grimace. “I’m havin’ to clear out the stable, then I ’ave to ’elp Mrs. M down in the kitchen. And Moll thinks I’m ’er messenger boy, sendin’ me up ’ere to tell you she wants a talk.”
Rachel’s throat knotted. She had not only avoided Dr. Edmunds these past few days, but she hadn’t crossed paths with Molly either. She could have predicted her good fortune would not last forever. “Did she say what she needed to talk to me about?”
“’Course not, miss. Moll don’ care to share that sor’ of information with me.”
“Where is she then?” Rachel asked, stripping off her apron.
“Out in the garden.”
Rachel found the girl staring at the green-tinged pool of water surrounding the unused fountain. She glanced at Molly’s middle. The maid’s frock hung loose enough to conceal any increase in girth. She might not be far enough along to obviously show she was with child.
Molly heard the crunch of Rachel’s approaching footsteps and looked over. “You have to help me. I need a potion. To start my monthlies again.”
Abrupt and clear, leaving no doubt as to her condition.
Rachel’s heart pounded hard, her feet begging to flee back to the house. “I cannot help you in that way.”
Even while she denied Molly, ingredients whispered in Rachel’s head.
“I cannot,” she repeated.
Eyes wild, Molly rushed up to her and grabbed hold of her arm. Her fingers pinched. “You have