Read Online A Flaw in the Blood by Stephanie Barron - Free Book Online

unintelligible. The merest ravings. Question me as you choose, Mama, you shall never divine his meaning.”
    She stepped deliberately around me and moved off without haste, unrepentant and unassailable, in the direction of her private apartments.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    T HE TENEMENT STAIRS LED UP to the garrets, and Fitzgerald took them two at a time, Georgie's medical bag in his right hand. She followed, her skirts bunched in her fists, her breathing audible and rapid. She would, of course, be fighting the iron grip of stays around her rib cage; it was a small mercy, Fitzgerald reflected, that she hadn't worn a crinoline that morning. She kept a kind of work uniform—of which the French twilled silk was one—of neat walking dresses designed to be worn over petticoats rather than the swaying bell of whalebone and stiffening; but all those layers were a treacherous impediment to haste. How would she navigate the roof ? And was she in slippers or boots?
    The staircase ended abruptly in a landing.
    Three doors gave off the hallway beyond—and the farthest one was ajar.
    Somewhere below them, a shout went up—a curse of pure rage. The man with the cosh had found Button Nance—and from the squeal that followed, he hadn't liked how the whore answered his questions.
    “Patrick—”
    “You're not to go back.” He gripped Georgie's hand, ignored her frown of protest, and pulled her through the doorway.
    There were at least a dozen people in the shadowy room. A few women, a clutch of children, an elderly couple huddled by a smoking fire. Barely a stick of furniture, and the single dormer window had rags stuffed where glass should be. These were sodden with sleet and the air was cold enough to see your breath.
    “Oi!” a woman shrieked. “Whaddya think yer about, then? This ain't a flophouse; you can't bring yer fancy-piece 'ere!”
    The idea of Georgiana Armistead as prostitute would normally have fired Fitzgerald's tongue, but he merely brushed his way past the woman's upraised fist, and made for the dormer window. He threw wide the casement.
    “Can we get out?” Georgie asked.
    “It's good and steep, but we've no choice. We'll have to slide.” He scanned the tiles; they were slick with slush and treacherously cracked. Where the downslope of the garret met the upslope of the neighbouring hovel, a guttered roof joint ran between. Georgie would find safer footing there; he just hoped it did not lead to a sheer drop—he had no way of knowing, and no time to reconnoiter.
    “Didn' you hear me?
Get out!
” the woman shrieked in his ear.
    “Aye, and we're just going.” He reached for his purse and found her a shilling—enough to cover her share of the rent for a month. “Take this for your trouble. Now, up you get, Georgie!”
    He put his hands together and she stepped into them, hoisting herself onto the sill. Then she swung her heavy skirt through the window, while all the children in the place ran up to Fitzgerald to tug on his arm and beg for coppers. He scattered coins at his feet and told the largest boy, “Close the door and bolt it, there's a good lad.” Then he followed Georgie out onto the tiles, sliding toward the roof joint.
    She was already at the bottom, picking herself up and brushing at the back of her fine dress with a quarrelsome expression. The silk was in a fair way to being ruined. She glared at his heels as they slid into the gutter, spraying her boots with filth.
    “Was this
really
necessary, Patrick?”
    Before he could answer, a cosh shattered the frame of the window above their heads and fragments of wood rained down on the icy tiles. Georgie turned without another word and began to inch along the gutter, toward the edge of the roof and whatever lay below it.
    Fitzgerald thrust himself to his feet. He stumbled after her, waiting for the impact of another body behind him—when it came, he looked back and saw the ruffian with the cosh.
    The garret room was at the very end of the hallway; there were