Read Online Still Life With Murder by P. B. Ryan - Free Book Online Page B

instinct was like a wolf; if he sensed your weakness, you were done for. It was a hard lesson, but one she’d learned well. She was out of practice, that was it; too much soft living among civilized people.
    He gestured toward the blanket wadded up in her arms. “I was just reaching for the—”
    “Of course. I…Here.” Swallowing her trepidation, she stepped just close enough to push the blanket through the bars. The unbuttoned cuffs of his sleeves, which should have been white, were stiff and brown, as if encrusted with mud; but of course it wasn’t mud.
    He took the blanket, shook it out and draped it over his shoulders, chafing his arms through it—curious, since it was quite warm in here, thanks to a wood stove out in the hall. “Good day, Miss Chapel.” He turned his back to her in brusque dismissal.
    Retrieving the Bible, she stammered, “I…I actually need to—”
    “Trust me when I assure you that any time spent praying over me would be quite wasted.” He crossed with a slight limp to the cot he’d been sitting on before, one of two against opposite walls of the windowless cell. Both mattresses were sunken and lumpy,their ticking soiled with a constellation of stains that didn’t bear thinking about. There was no pillow, no furniture—just an empty stone-China chamber pot in one corner and a tin bowl of gruel studded with cigarette butts in the other.
    He flung his cigarette into the gruel and sat again, stiffly. Tucking the blanket around him, he leaned back against the wall, yawned and closed his eyes.
    “I didn’t come here to pray over you, Dr. Hewitt,” Nell said.
    If he had any reaction to her use of his real name, he kept it to himself.
    “Your mother sent me,” she said.
    He opened his eyes, but didn’t look at her.
    “She’s brokenhearted over what’s—”
    “Go away, Miss Chapel.” He shut his eyes again.
    “It’s Miss Sweeney, actually.”
    “Go away, Miss…” He looked at her, interest lighting his eyes for the first time since she’d arrived. It was the Irish surname, she knew. He glanced again at her fine dress, her kid gloves and chic hat—and for the first time, he really looked at her face. “Who are you?”
    “My name is Nell Sweeney. I work for your mother. I gave a false name because…well, she sent me here secretly. Your father doesn’t…he doesn’t want anyone to know who you really are.”
    It took a moment, but comprehension dawned. “He just wants William Toussaint to be quietly tried and hanged, thus solving forever the William Problem.” When Nell didn’t deny it, he chuckled weakly, but something dark shadowed his eyes, just for a moment. “So you work for my mother, eh? As what, some sort of companion? Or are you a new nurse? Did she finally oust Mrs. Bouchard for having a backbone?”
    “No, I was trained as a nurse, but it’s not what I do—Mrs. Bouchard is still there. And although I do believe your motherhas come to regard me as a sort of companion, officially I’m a governess. Your parents hired me to help Nurse Parrish care for a child they adopted.”
    “Adopted?”
He sat up, staring at her. A bitter gust of laughter degenerated into a coughing fit. “Haven’t they ruined enough sons?” he managed as he fumbled inside his coat.
    “It’s a little girl, actually. Gracie—she’s three.”
    “I pity her.” Dr. Hewitt produced a small, decorative tin labeled
Bull Durham
, which contained pre-rolled cigarettes, and put one between his lips. “I mean, I’m sure you’re a capable governess,” he said as he lit it. In the corona of light from the match, his face had a damp, candle-wax pallor. “You strike me as a sensible woman, in spite of the knocking over of the bench. But it is my opinion that people should recognize when they’re hopeless at something, and give it up—and if there were ever two people utterly hopeless at parenting, it’s Viola and August Hewitt.”
    He bundled himself in the blanket again and leaned