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Grace’s new dress was yanked over her head, the undergarments she’d been allowed for the evening rudely pulled off. Her hands snaked after them into the air, modesty still a convention she clung to. Instead, her hands met Marie’s midgrab.

“I’m sorry, girl. Truly, I am. But I have a job, and it’s the job I do.” Then Grace’s wrists were pinned to the cold floor above her head and an envelope of heat closed around her feet.

She kicked out instinctively, her heel hooking the sheet and sending it arcing over Croomes’s face before the woman could react. The nurse snagged her foot and turned her ankle inward until Grace quieted and the wrapping began.

Croomes spared her not an inch, and her practiced hands bound Grace’s legs together so tightly that her kneecaps dug against each other while the heat pressed in. Steam rose from the sheet as Croomes worked, covering Grace up to her belly before calling for another sheet, hot from the steamer.

Sweat sprang from every pore, rolling down her face as her body tried desperately to shed heat anywhere it could. A fresh sheet, even hotter than the one before, draped over her belly and was pulled ruthlessly tight against the flushed skin. Marie moved Grace’s arms to her sides, and they too were pinned to her ribs. Croomes worked toward her neck, wrapping Grace’s hair, now wet with sweat, into the sheet. Fingers worked between the folds near her mouth, pulling apart an opening for her to breathe through.

“It’s a fine mess you’ve got yourself in, little lady,” Croomes said. “You’ve had better treatment than most up till now, but stabbing a man will rouse his temper.”

The gas lamps were extinguished, one by one, the pale haloes of light disappearing from her shrouded eyes as the women’s voices receded. The darkness was complete when the first contraction came. The shock of it squeezed the first word she’d uttered in a long while past her lips as the excruciating wave rippled through her.

“No.”

I’m going to die.

She had denied language for so long, shutting down not only her tongue but her mind as well so that no thoughts could form. Her life had become a fog, one that would end soon if she found a way, yet as she writhed on the edge of true madness, her brain rejected the safety she’d made for herself, patching together a sentence to shock her into action.

I’m going to die.

The voice of her own thought was oddly familiar, like seeing an old friend on the street after some time apart. Grace stilled, listening to her consciousness, and found herself rebelling against the conclusion it had come to.

I’m going to die, and my baby with me.

Grace screamed in agony, against fate and futility, against the life she should have lived versus the one she’d been delivered into. Her cries rolled down the darkened hallways, only to dissipate before reaching anyone’s ears.

SIX

When they pulled the sheets from her, the shock of the cool air was almost painful. Grace heard Mrs. Clay saying her name, but she could only moan. Her hands fell away from her sides and her fingers went instinctively to her belly, digging into the loose skin that hung there.

“Grace,” Mrs. Clay said. “Can you hear me?”

She nodded, fingertips still buried deeply in her malleable belly. “B-b—” She tried to speak, but the word she needed most wouldn’t come.

Mrs. Clay pulled her hands into her own. “The baby’s lost, dear, I’m so sorry. Listen to me—listen!” she said, clamping Grace’s fingers together as the girl’s mouth contorted into a soundless cry. “Heedson has to make sure you’re going to be all right after losing the baby. I’ve seen a few women on the farms get sick after, and I can tell you it’s not the way you want to go.”

Grace barely nodded, her dilated pupils fixed firmly on Mrs. Clay’s. “I . . .”

“You’re doing brilliantly, dear,” Mrs. Clay encouraged her, wiping cold sweat from her brow. “To hear your voice is a lovely thing. Keep trying. You what?”

Heedson came through the door, rolling his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. Grace cried out, whatever hard-earned word she’d been trying to form lost entirely as she scraped the sheets into a pile to cover her nakedness.

“Spare me, girl,” he said. “My only interest in you now is seeing that you don’t die on my watch. Your father would have my head.”

“A fine thought,” Mrs. Clay said through clenched teeth. “After what she’s been through on your orders.”

Croomes and Marie filed into the room behind him. Marie’s eyes were swollen from crying, and she wiped them with her apron as she set instruments on the table next to the bed, their metal edges banging against each other.

“What—” Grace’s panicked eyes shot toward the noise.

“Ah, talking now, are you?” Croomes asked. She pulled Grace’s wrists above her head and pinned her arms back in a meaty grip. “You’d best sit quiet while the doctor looks after your welfare. I’m happy to put you back in the sheets.”

Mrs. Clay cradled Grace’s face in her hands. “Listen to me, Grace. This needs to happen. You can die if you’re not looked after properly.”

“Enough,” Heedson said. “Grace, the less you squirm, the quicker I can be,” he said as he worked a hand between her knees. She lashed out instinctively, the sheet sailing with her movements as she kicked. Marie yelped and slipped sideways, sending the instrument tray to the ground amid a clattering of metal. Croomes’s grip bit down on her wrists, and Grace’s hands tingled as the nerves sang, but she didn’t stop fighting. Her blood-smeared feet scissored in the air, striking the doctor’s hands and knocking Mrs. Clay aside.

“God damn it,” Heedson yelled. “Have it your way, then, idiot girl. Let her go, Croomes. Let her rot from the inside out if that’s what she wants.”