Lady Be Good (2 page)

London, March 1882

She was stuck between two buildings and she was going to die.

It took Lily a minute to reach this conclusion. How quickly a night went downhill! She’d not been prepared to do a job tonight. Uncle had assigned it to Fiona days ago. But then Fee had taken sick.
Don’t worry
, Lily had told her.
I’ll do the job
. Sisters looked out for each other, didn’t they?
You just rest now
.

But overnight, Fee had grown feverish and weak. Barely able to explain the job.
Look in the drawer under the till
, she’d said.
He never keeps it locked
.

Lily had found the deed just where Fiona had told her, beneath the till in the unlocked drawer. But Fee hadn’t warned her of the guards. They’d come barreling out of the back room and fired without a warning. Pigs! Decent men offered a girl the chance to surrender before they shot her.

You’re all right. Just a flesh wound
. So Uncle Nick would say. But the gunshot had deafened her, and it burned like the dickens. Disoriented, in pain, Lily had taken off running. No chance of sticking to the plan. She’d ducked down an alley she’d never used before.

Turned out this alley wasn’t an alley, after all—only the space between two buildings that had pulled apart over time. The passage had kept narrowing, damp walls hugging tighter and tighter . . . until they pinned her.

She took a deep breath and tried to jam herself forward.

No luck.

This couldn’t be happening. Tonight of all nights, she had to get free. Fee was bad off. Surgeon said it was an organ gone rotten. He meant to operate. Lily needed to be there, holding her sister’s hand, not stuck in this bloody alley!

God, why was it so dark? The eaves above blocked out the stars. The cold damp air reeked of rot.

Fee didn’t like doctors. She needed Lily there when the surgeon made his cut.

On a great agonizing effort, Lily pressed forward. The ringing in her ears was fading now. She heard her own wheeze, and voices from the street she’d fled. One of the guards. “I tell you, I saw her go in there,” he said.

“Between the bleeding buildings? Ain’t space enough for a rat.”

“She squeezed in.”

“Then she’ll rot in there.”

No, no, no
. If only there were a bit of light! These buildings pressed tighter than a coffin—

Stay calm
. She focused on the pain, her arm burning like live coal.

Fee felt worse, though. She’d looked so bad, earlier. Yellow-faced, muttering nonsense. Lily had tried to calm her. She’d recited that poem Fee loved, about the war hero. It chanted through her mind now, singsong:

She could do this. Clenching her jaw, she fought for another step. Like stone jaws, the walls clamped around her.

Oh, God. She swallowed the taste of blood.
Fee, forgive me
. She couldn’t go farther.

“Lily.”

She was so tired. If only she could lie down. But the press of the buildings wouldn’t let her sit.

“Damn it, you stupid girl! Make a noise!”

“Uncle . . .?”

“Yes. That’s it. Follow my voice, now.”

She squinted into the blackness. Uncle Nick’s voice came from ahead, the far side. But the passage narrowed to a pin’s width, first. She would never fit through. “I’m stuck.”

“Then unstick yourself.”

“Can’t!”

“I say you can.”

He was always bossing her. It was his fault she was stuck, didn’t he see that? Fiona had told him they were done with thieving. Fee had grand plans; had found them both places at a typing school, with ambitions to
go higher. They could be decent ladies, she’d told Lily. Earn a living as honest girls did.

But Nick wouldn’t permit that.
You’ve got a duty to your family
, he’d said.
Do what you like, but as long as you’re under my roof, you’ll earn your keep here
.

“Come on, then, Lily.” Nick crooned the words, like she was a stubborn baby. “Only another few steps.”

This was
his
fault. “You happy now?” She panted the words. “Got your . . . deed. You’ll have to . . . pull it out . . . with a hook.” Along with her. “I’m done for.”

“Move.” His voice got hard. “Make yourself.
Push
.”

The crush of the walls—she couldn’t bear it. In the dark, seeing nothing, not even stars . . . only rats died this way.

We deserve better
, Fee had said.
An honest life, free of fear
.

“The surgery’s done, Lily. But Fee’s bad off still. She needs you now.”

God above! Tears salted her mouth. “I
can’t
!” Her voice sounded strange. Shrill and wheezy. “Help me!”

She heard a grunt. Nick was coming for her. Hope revived. Her uncle was bossy, sometimes cruel—but he’d never leave her to die here. She was family, after all. He’d get her out. She reached out a hand, praying fervently—only let his hand reach her; only let her feel his grip—

Her fist closed on empty air.

He spoke calmly. “All right, it’s tight.” She heard her death in those words. “But you’re small. What’s stopping you?”

What wasn’t? “My shoulders—”

“Shoulders come out of their sockets,” he said flatly. “Push forward. We’ll set it after.”

For a moment she didn’t understand.

“Break your fucking shoulder,” he bit out. “Do it, Lily! Or I
will
haul you out with a hook. Is that what you’d prefer?”

“I hate you,” she whispered. If it weren’t for him, for the job
he’d
wanted done tonight, she never would have run into those guards.

“Fiona’s going to die.” His voice seemed to come from far away. “Unless she sees you tonight. She needs her little sister.”

A gasp slipped from her. To fail Fee now, the only time she’d ever needed Lily’s help—

Her lungs wouldn’t fill. No room for it. But Lily shoved herself forward. Ah, God, the passage was so tight. She made an inch of headway. Then another.

A horrible pressure bore down on her shoulder. A fist of stone and steel, it would snap her spine.

She drove into it.

A
cracking
, God in heaven, the worst agony, she could not hold back her cry. The walls fell away and she was on her knees in the dirt, her arm . . . Ah, it
hurt
.

An icy wind raked over her. Hands closed over her waist, pulling her up. She gaped helplessly into the dark shadow looming over her.
Never again
. The words rang through her brain. “We’re done,” she gasped. She and Fiona were
done
.

The hands held her roughly in place. Searched her body, pausing only briefly at the evidence of blood. She felt her uncle locate the deed. He tucked it away with one hand, holding her up with the other.

“Come on,” he said roughly, turning her toward the road. “We’ll take you to Malloy, get you stitched up.”

Malloy? No. There was a real doctor waiting. The surgeon with her sister. “Fee,” she managed.

A hesitation. “I’m sorry, Lily.”

She blinked and tried to bring him into focus. But with the streetlamps guttering and the clouds blocking the moon, his face was lost in shadow. “What?”

His grip tightened around her waist. “He gave his best. I made sure of it. But Fiona passed. She’s gone.”

Northwest Frontier Province, India

“The Hero of Bekhole. How many more will die at your hands?”

The sneering words came to Christian through a haze of agony. Every inch of his body burned. He remembered the explosion, fire billowing toward him like a sheet.
I am going to die
, he had thought. And then . . . what?

He forced his eyes open. It felt as though a hot poker had been jammed into his leg in place of the bone. The darkness resolved into a low stone ceiling above him, rough rock. A cave?

Somehow he was alive.

Groaning, he pushed himself upright. He lay on a rudimentary cot. His vision focused on the flames of a candelabrum sitting on the earthen floor.

He was hallucinating. The candelabrum was ornately molded from gem-encrusted gold, marred by a single dent. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds reflected the shimmering light.

“I asked you a question, Major Stratton.”

The voice was male. Heavily accented.
Russian
. Christian would have flinched had he had the strength. Instead he squinted into the depths of the cave. “I
am an officer of Her Majesty’s Army. By the rights accorded . . .”

Something was wrong with his throat. His voice sounded threadbare, ragged. It felt like a razor in his throat.

The silence extended so long that he began to wonder if he’d dreamed the voice.
Turn, look around you, get up. Get moving
. His men would be searching for him—if any had survived.

He waited for the strength to do it. So dizzy. He wanted only to lie back again. To lie still and surrender to the mercy of unconsciousness.

“What rights,” said the voice, “did you accord to the woman and children you murdered?”

“What?” He paused to catch his breath. His lungs were shot. “I don’t . . .”

Memory flickered, like lightning in a far-off field. It drew closer. It broke over him, showing what he’d forgotten. The moments after the explosion.

A man leaning over him, white-bearded, wild eyes reflecting the flames around him. He had raved in a language that Christian did not speak. And then he had spoken in English:
My seed. My seed! You have murdered my seed!

“Bolkhov,” he whispered. The mad Russian general. That was who had him.

Bolkhov was infamous. A lunatic who had refused to accept the end of the war. Repudiated by their own army, his rogue troops had wreaked havoc across the southern territories of Afghanistan, moving at last into the Northwest Frontier of India. They obeyed no codes of decency. They slaughtered entire villages, framing the British for their atrocities. They slit throats like butchers on market day.

He waited to be afraid. But the pain left no room for other feelings. What could Bolkhov do to him? Slit his throat, too. End this misery. It would be a mercy.

The cowardice of that thought registered. It goaded him to try to sit up again. To stand.

But his leg was a red-hot blade. Sparks hazed his vision as he collapsed onto the cot.

The laughter began sharply, then faded into a dream. Christian dreamed of green fields, Susseby, his family embracing him . . .

Bolkhov’s voice called him back. “What business has God with you? You, the murderer of innocents.”

There had been no innocents in that fortress.

“You have slaughtered his children. You have murdered his handmaidens.”

The fortress should not have exploded. The battery of cannons should have destroyed the ramparts to enable a direct assault.

“You mined them,” Christian realized. “The . . . fort walls.”

“You will place this sin on me?” The enraged roar came very close now. From the darkness emerged Bolkhov, his face a mask of soot, his white beard stained with blood. “You are the murderer of my seed. My line is dead!” His eyes filled with the dancing light of candle flame. “Women and children. God’s lambs.”

Insanity’s own face loomed over Christian. There had been no children in that fortress. It stood in the deep, cold reaches of the Hindu Kush. No one had occupied it for centuries—until Bolkhov’s men had seized it for their base of operations. “What children?”

Bolkhov leaned low, baring teeth stained pink. The
teeth of some wild predator who had drunk blood. “
My
children.”

A cold clarity briefly muted the pain. There had been rumors . . . bizarre rumors, that Bolkhov stole women from the nearby villages. That he also carried with him three Afghan women, abducted at the start of the late war, all of whom he called wives.

But those were only rumors. Christian and his men had reconnoitered the fortress for weeks. They had never seen any sign of civilians.

“My line is dead,” Bolkhov said. “And in return, I will end yours. Everyone whom you love.”

Something glittered—a blade. Bolkhov laid it against Christian’s cheek, pressing until the blade bit. Christian did not move. Did not allow himself to blink. He would meet his death with eyes open.

A thousand memories rushed through him: the green rolling parkland of Susseby; the softness of his mother’s palm on his brow; the joy in his sister’s face every time he returned home; his father’s gruff nods. His brother’s grin.

Everything in the world that mattered to him.
Home
.

“I would take out your eyes,” Bolkhov said softly. “But they are my gift to you, so you may watch. Watch as I slaughter your beloveds, as you have slaughtered mine.” He lifted something. A ring. Christian’s ring, which his father had given him.
Go with my blessing. Never forget that I am proud of you
. “I will start by returning this to them.”