The Wild Rose (67 page)

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIFTEEN

Willa guided her motorbike down the long, trailing drive that led to Seamie’s cottage. At least, she hoped it did. If the directions Mr. Peters at the pub had given her were any good, it would.

It was dark now, and the drive was rutted and muddy from the rain. It took all the strength Willa had left to keep the bike from skidding and going over. She was soaked, cold, and exhausted. Most of all she was frightened—frightened that she was too late, that Billy Madden had somehow got here before her.

“He can’t have,” she told herself yet again. “He doesn’t know Jennie’s name. He doesn’t have the address of her cottage.”

After a few minutes, a small stone house came into view. Willa rode up to it and cut the engine. As she was getting off the bike, the door to the cottage opened. Seamie came out. He held a lantern in one hand. He held his other hand over his eyes, as a block against the rain. He squinted into the darkness, unable to see her yet.

Willa’s heart clenched at the sight of him—with love, so much love. Still. Always. She took her goggles off, wiped as much mud off her face as she could.

“Hello, Willa,” he shouted into the rain. “Come inside.”

Willa, who’d been walking toward the cottage, stopped short.

“Seamie . . . how . . . how did you know it was me?”

“Albie rang me.”

Relief flooded through her. “Oh, thank God!” she said, walking up to him. “Then you know—”

“I do. He told me everything,” Seamie said.

He pulled her to him and held her tightly, pressing his lips to her cheek. She melted into his embrace, craving the feel of him, his warmth and his scent, this man whom she’d loved her whole life, who’d come back from the dead.

“I thought you were gone,” she said, fighting back tears. “I thought I’d never see you again.” She pulled his face to hers and kissed him deeply. She wanted to stay like this, folded in his arms. She wanted it so much, but she knew she couldn’t, not when Billy Madden could be close.

“Seamie, we have to—” she started to say.

“I know. We will. Come inside now,” he said, “before you catch your death.”

Was it her imagination or did his voice sound sad? Alarmed is what he should be right now, she thought. Not sad.

“I don’t need to come inside. Is James with you?” Willa asked. “Is he all right?”

“What? Yes. Yes, he’s fine. He just went to bed.”

“He went to
bed
? Seamie, you have to get him up. You have to leave. Right now,” Willa said. “Albie told you some of what’s happened, but there’s more to tell you. I’ll explain everything later, when we’re on our way, but right now, you have to pack a few things and go to Cambridge. To my aunt Eddie’s house. You’ll be safe there and—”

“Willa, come inside. You can get out of those wet clothes. I’ll get you a glass of brandy.”

Willa shook her head. Something wasn’t right. This wasn’t how Seamie should be acting. She wondered, for a second, if there was something wrong with him. Did he not understand the danger he and James were in?

“There’s no time for brandy, Seamie,” she said tersely. “Have you got a car?”

“Yes, but—”

“Where is it? I’ll start it up.”

Seamie stared at her. His eyes traveled from her gaunt, mud-splattered face, to her thin body, to her hands, blue with cold. His eyes, already filled with sorrow, suddenly filled with tears.

“Oh, Willa, what’s happened to you?” he asked her. “Come inside. Please. You need to rest.”

“Seamie, for God’s sake! You and James are in danger. Very great danger.”

“Willa . . . I know,” Seamie said.

“You do?”

“I know about the morphine and your addiction,” Seamie said. “Albie rang up the pub earlier tonight while James and I were having our supper. He told me about you, and Paris. About Oscar Carlyle and how you almost killed yourself one night. He told me everything.”

Willa realized why Seamie looked so sad. Why James was asleep. Why no bags were packed. She realized what her brother had done. He’d told Seamie nothing about Madden, even though she’d begged him to. Instead he’d told Seamie that she was a morphine addict, out of her mind and raving about imaginary villains.

“Albie told you everything, did he?” she said now, angrily. “What did he tell you? That I’m a drug fiend? Well, sod him. And sod you, too! I survived Mawenzi, and Everest, and Damascus. I survived losing you. Over and over again. But now, apparently, I’m such a fragile thing that a bit of morphine’s addled my brain and I’m making up stories about villains and switched children and I’m traveling from Paris to Binsey in the rain, in record time, for the sheer bloody hell of it.”

“What? Willa, what are you saying? What villains? What children? Albie didn’t mention anything like that.”

Willa opened the crate on the back of her motorbike and grabbed her satchel. She walked past Seamie into the cottage. It was small inside. There was no foyer. They were standing in an open room that served as both sitting room and kitchen.

“I wanted this to be kinder, Seamie, I really did,” she said. “I wanted you to hear it from Albie or from me. But since I’m totally bloody crackers, you’ll have to find it out for yourself now.”

She dug the letters out of the satchel and handed them to him. “Read fast,” she said. “As soon as you finish, we’re leaving.”

Then she pulled a chair out from the kitchen table. “Take a seat,” she added. “You’re going to need it.”

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN

Seamie was dimly aware that Willa had found the brandy he’d mentioned. She opened it, poured two glasses, and placed them on the table. Then she sat down and waited for him to finish reading.

About twenty minutes later, he looked up at her uncertainly. “Willa, I don’t understand,” he said. “Who is Josie Meadows? How did Jennie know her? How do you?”

“I met Josie in Paris a few months ago. We became friends. She was raised in East London. She told me that she went to Jennie’s school. That’s how they knew each other. When Josie got older, she performed in the East End music halls. That’s how she met Billy Madden.”

“But what do these letters mean?” Seamie asked, though deep inside himself he knew.

Willa took a slug of her brandy. “They mean that James is not your son,” she said.

“But how . . . Jennie had a baby . . . at Binsey . . . she—” he said, feeling as if someone had taken his legs out from under him.

“Jennie lost the baby. Early on in the pregnancy. She couldn’t have children, Josie told me. There was some reason. An—”

“An accident,” Seamie said dully. “She was hit by a carriage when she was a child. She was badly injured.”

It was all making sickening sense to him now. All of it—Jennie’s unwillingness to sleep with him while she was pregnant, to even let him touch her. Her constant trips to Binsey. The telegram from her saying that she’d had the baby there and not to be alarmed, she was fine. They were both fine. God, how could he have been so blind? So stupid?

“Josie said that Jennie only pretended she was still pregnant. Josie, who really was pregnant, had the child—had James—in Binsey. She told the doctor she was Jennie, so the right names would be on the birth certificate. Then she gave James to Jennie. He wasn’t Jennie’s and your son.” She shook her head. “No, I don’t mean to say that. He
is
your son. But not your flesh and blood. He was Josie Meadows’s—Josie’s and Billy Madden’s.”

Seamie recognized that name. He knew Billy Madden was a villain and that he’d tried to kill Sid. “Did Madden know about James?” he asked Willa.

“He didn’t know James had been born. Josie said he wanted her to get rid of the baby, and she didn’t want to, so she fled London. She went to Binsey and stayed here in the cottage until she’d had the baby. Then she left for Paris.”

“But he knows now,” Seamie said.

“Yes, he does. Somehow he’s found out that he fathered James. And he wants him back. Josie said that he’s gone mad. That he told her he lost his sons in the war and now he wants his other son—James.”

Willa paused here. In a weary, broken voice she said, “He beat her almost to death, Seamie. I saw what he’d done. He beat her to get information on James, but she wouldn’t give it to him.”

“So he doesn’t know who Josie gave James to. He doesn’t know about Binsey, doesn’t know that I have him now.”

“I don’t know what Madden knows. Someone told him about James. I don’t know who. Josie didn’t know either. I’m worried that the same someone who told Madden about James knows about Jennie and Binsey and you as well. I’m worried that Madden went back to this person and got more information out of her. Or him. I’m worried—no, actually I’m scared to death—that he’ll find out where you both are. That’s why I want you both to leave the cottage. Right now.”

“Willa, James is asleep. It’s late. I can’t just pile him into the car and show up on Eddie and Albie’s doorstep. Surely, Madden couldn’t find out any more information so fast. And even if he did, he wouldn’t come out here and just snatch James—”

Willa stood up so quickly, so violently, that the chair she’d been sitting in went over. “For God’s sake, Seamie, that’s
exactly
what he would do! You didn’t see Josie. I did! I saw what he’d done to her. She’ll never be the same. She’ll never be on stage again,” she shouted. “
That’s
why I traveled all the way here from Paris. Not because I’m mad. Not because I’m drug-addled. Because I’ve seen what Billy Madden is capable of. You have to leave. I don’t care if it’s late. You have to go to Cambridge and you have to go now. Until Madden is found and stopped, you have to hide James.”

“All right, Willa, I—” Seamie started to say. He was interrupted by a little voice.

“Daddy? Daddy, are you all right? I heard voices.”

A sleepy-eyed, pajama-clad James stumbled into the kitchen.

“Hello, lad,” Seamie said. “I’m sorry we woke you. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. I was just having a chat with my friend. James, I would like you meet Miss Alden. Willa, this is my son, James.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Alden,” James said. “Are you my father’s friend from the desert? The one who rode with Major Lawrence?”

“I am, James. And I’m very pleased to meet you, too. Please pardon my appearance. I’ve been riding on a motorbike in the rain. Got myself rather soaked,” Willa said, smiling.

Seamie looked at Willa as she spoke. She looked so haggard, so tired. She was soaking wet and trembling, from fear, or exhaustion, or the cold—he didn’t know. She was scared and sorrowing for her friend and in shock, and yet she had raced here. She had got herself to Calais and Dover and had somehow got hold of a motorbike and ridden for hours through the rain and the mud to get here. For him and for James. Now she looked like she was going to collapse any second, and yet she was smiling, speaking in a gentle voice, trying her best not to upset a small child.

“James,” he suddenly said, “we’re going to take a ride together. You and I and Miss Alden. Can you be a good lad, go back into your room, and put some warm clothes on?”

“Isn’t it a bit late to go motoring?” James asked.

“It is, but I’ll make you a nice bed on the backseat and we’ll pack some biscuits and make an adventure out of it. Would you like that?”

James nodded. He padded back to his bedroom.

“Make sure you put a jumper on!” Seamie shouted after him.

“He’s the spitting image of her, of Josie,” Willa said softly, as soon as the boy was out of earshot.

“He’s my son, Willa. I don’t give a damn who fathered him, who carried him, who gave him up to whom. He’s
my
son.”

“I know he is, Seamie. I know. That’s why I came,” Willa said, turning to him. “We need to go. Do you want to pack some things?”

“Yes,” Seamie said. “I will.” He turned and walked stiffly down the hall.

“What happened?” Willa asked, following him.

“Burns. All down my right side. I got them when my ship was torpedoed.”

“We make quite a pair, don’t we? Stitch us together and there might be enough working parts to make one good human being,” she said wryly.

As Seamie packed his things, Willa went into James’s room, found a suitcase, and put clothes into it for him. When she was finished, she carried the suitcase to the front door.

James and Seamie were already there. James was holding his stuffed bear. “Can Wellie come?” he asked.

“Of course, he can,” Seamie said. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving Wellie behind.”

“Don’t forget the biscuits.”

“I won’t. We’ll take the whole tin.”

“And tea? Can we have tea in a flask, Daddy? With lots of milk?”

“We haven’t time to make it, James, but we’ll take some—”

Seamie’s words were cut off by a small, scraping sound. They all heard it at the same time and they all turned toward its source—the front door. As Seamie watched, he saw the doorknob turn—first to the right, then to the left. Then whoever was standing on the other side, rattled it. He knew the door would not open; he had locked it after he and Willa came inside. He knew, too, that the door was old, and the hinges rusty, and that he probably had only seconds.

Seamie grabbed James’s hand and pulled him down the short hallway into his bedroom. He quickly opened his window. “Listen to me, James, and do exactly as I say. Lock your door, crawl out the window, and run to the village. To the King’s Head. Tell Mr. Peters that your father needs help. That he’s to send the constable.”

“But Daddy . . .”

“Pretend I’m Major Lawrence. And you’re Auda and that you’re going to get help from Khalaf al Mor. The Turks are all around the fort. Don’t let them see you.”

James’s little face brightened. He saluted.

Seamie saluted back. “Hurry, James. Lock the door behind me!” he said. “Go now!”

He closed the door, then listened as James shot the bolt. There was an old saber over the fireplace, if he could just get it down in time. He ran back to the sitting room and saw Willa desperately trying to lug the settee to the door, to block it. He lunged at the mantel and pulled the saber down off the wall. He was just raising it, his fingers tightening on the handle, when the door was kicked in.